OK, well as the Exec Director I'd be at pains to avoid looking like I didn't have the foggiest idea of what happens in a football club. Each to their own!
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Ego > diligence?
I've looked back over the last 7 seasons.
Over that period, there were 24 major trophies won by English clubs.
Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Woolwich won TWENTY THREE of them.
Did you see anything in the documentary that made you think we could compete with them for trophies any time soon?
Over that period, there were 24 major trophies won by English clubs.
Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Woolwich won TWENTY THREE of them.
Did you see anything in the documentary that made you think we could compete with them for trophies any time soon?
Diligence would be "I want a detailed breakdown to the nearest £ of what our losses are going to be and how that will affect our finance repayments"
Not, and I paraphrase, "why do we need a stadium again?"
Let's just hope they're more clued up when not performing on camera.
It's a crisis meeting. I doubt that such detailed forcasts had been made at that point. Don't kid yourself for one second that such financial reports wont have been produced though.
Your paraphrasing is telling... The question was about fans being in attendance.... Not "why do we need a stadium again".
As I said to begin with; it's just someone checking whether there's anything besides the obvious she needed to consider.
No big deal.
I'm sure that, as fans, we'd all be more comforted by the impression that the club is top to bottom run by solid football geezers that carry out their day to day work with the exuberance of a competition winner and the charisma of Will Smith (see the digs at the head physio)... Not very likely tho.
A couple of observations, in no particular order, on Eps 7-9 and the series as a whole.
As starting principles, I've noted earlier in this thread (2 x posts linked) that as a documentary maker I'm clear that :
1) There is no such thing as a "fly on the wall" documentary. Everything broadcast on network TV is edited. Editing creates meaning, narratives, And when I say "creates", editing can quite literally change how a scene plays out by 180 degrees.
2) editorial control clauses would have been agreed between the three parties - the club, the production company, and Spurs - before filming began. Those clauses would have been exercised by Spurs primarily to exclude filming of certain key events, such as the sacking of Poch by Levy, and the crucial first November 2019 meeting between Mourinho and Eriksen at which the Dane told him he would not sign a new contract.
We were not shown these. Instead we were shown after-the-event set ups - such as the staged Eriksen on the sofa in Mourinho's office late January 2020 meeting. Here Levy states he would have matched any contract offer Christian received and insists that Eriksen confirms this on camera for the record.
With my knowledge of how such documentaries are made, I am almost certain that the production company would have been screaming at Spurs for being excluded from all the key discussions in the Eriksen saga, and Levy finally relented with this set up scene where he ensures he gets his version recorded for posterity. Fwiw I'm not certain we would have matched the net value of the contract Inter gave Eriksen, but who knows?
More generally, I think we all need to be cautious about over-interpreting what we've been shown by Amazon and the club. For instance, Dele is clearly immature, but the series deliberately portrays him as the club's resident idiot, not knowing how to brush his teeth and thrilled at microwaving baked beans for the first time. Yes, those things happened, but Reality TV is edited to "create" character and Amazon quite literally cast Dele as a bit of a twit. If he did say anything intelligent (unlikely, I know), it would have been left on the cutting room floor as it would have conflicted with the image of Dele we were being presented with.
The content that is most raw and real is contained in the team talks and the training sessions.
For instance, after the Sheff Utd clusterfuck, Mourinho decides to toughen us up by scheduling a behind-closed-doors intra-squad match during which Dier injures Sonny. It's not stated, but it's highly likely Mourinho instructed the players to tackle, and probably tackle as they would in a competitive match. Now this is a high risk decision by Mourinho. The last thing the club needed was a contact injury, and Sonny's leg is shown in glorious technicolour after Dier's challenge.
I would argue this entire sequence is the real stuff of the series for us Spurs fans, and it begs lots of interesting questions. Eg:
1) was Mourinho correct to schedule such a physical training match at that stage of our season?
2) was Mourinho deliberately trying to create a bit of needle and conflict in our squad as part of his mission to toughen us up mentally?
3) was Mourinho's decision inspired or counter-productive? Sonny seemed genuinely pissed off at Dier's challenge and suffering an unnecessary injury.
4) if Sonny had suffered a more serious injury, such as a fracture, how would Mourinho's decision have looked to the squad then? I suspect the answer is they would have thought it was a shit fucking decision, to quote the Special One himself.
I also believe that the series illuminates Mourinho's reaction to Sunday's Everton defeat. He clearly values mentality, defensive organisation, nullifying opposing threats, and running for the team, above almost everything else. He believed he had improved these elements of our team last season, but against Everton we were back to Square One in Mourinho terms.
So I'm not surprised he publicly stated he didn't like our team or our performance. The players can respond one of two ways:
a) by redoubling their determination
b) by calling Mourinho a cunt, and downing tools
It could go either way.
Now, having stated all of that, I'm not a Mourinho apologist. I think his decision to replace Dele with Sissoko was abysmal and craven, and did not work. The courageous decision would have been to replace Dele (or Winks) with Ndombele.
But the series has given me a better understanding of how Mourinho operates in practice. And the following rant, which is raw and real, and not created by editing, will surely be carved into Mourinho's tombstone.
“But, for 90 minutes, for 90 minutes, you cannot be nice. For 90 minutes, we have to be a bunch of cunts. Intelligent cunts, not stupid cunts.”
https://thefightingcock.co.uk/forum...entary-about-spurs.33346/page-83#post-2446219
As starting principles, I've noted earlier in this thread (2 x posts linked) that as a documentary maker I'm clear that :
1) There is no such thing as a "fly on the wall" documentary. Everything broadcast on network TV is edited. Editing creates meaning, narratives, And when I say "creates", editing can quite literally change how a scene plays out by 180 degrees.
2) editorial control clauses would have been agreed between the three parties - the club, the production company, and Spurs - before filming began. Those clauses would have been exercised by Spurs primarily to exclude filming of certain key events, such as the sacking of Poch by Levy, and the crucial first November 2019 meeting between Mourinho and Eriksen at which the Dane told him he would not sign a new contract.
We were not shown these. Instead we were shown after-the-event set ups - such as the staged Eriksen on the sofa in Mourinho's office late January 2020 meeting. Here Levy states he would have matched any contract offer Christian received and insists that Eriksen confirms this on camera for the record.
With my knowledge of how such documentaries are made, I am almost certain that the production company would have been screaming at Spurs for being excluded from all the key discussions in the Eriksen saga, and Levy finally relented with this set up scene where he ensures he gets his version recorded for posterity. Fwiw I'm not certain we would have matched the net value of the contract Inter gave Eriksen, but who knows?
More generally, I think we all need to be cautious about over-interpreting what we've been shown by Amazon and the club. For instance, Dele is clearly immature, but the series deliberately portrays him as the club's resident idiot, not knowing how to brush his teeth and thrilled at microwaving baked beans for the first time. Yes, those things happened, but Reality TV is edited to "create" character and Amazon quite literally cast Dele as a bit of a twit. If he did say anything intelligent (unlikely, I know), it would have been left on the cutting room floor as it would have conflicted with the image of Dele we were being presented with.
The content that is most raw and real is contained in the team talks and the training sessions.
For instance, after the Sheff Utd clusterfuck, Mourinho decides to toughen us up by scheduling a behind-closed-doors intra-squad match during which Dier injures Sonny. It's not stated, but it's highly likely Mourinho instructed the players to tackle, and probably tackle as they would in a competitive match. Now this is a high risk decision by Mourinho. The last thing the club needed was a contact injury, and Sonny's leg is shown in glorious technicolour after Dier's challenge.
I would argue this entire sequence is the real stuff of the series for us Spurs fans, and it begs lots of interesting questions. Eg:
1) was Mourinho correct to schedule such a physical training match at that stage of our season?
2) was Mourinho deliberately trying to create a bit of needle and conflict in our squad as part of his mission to toughen us up mentally?
3) was Mourinho's decision inspired or counter-productive? Sonny seemed genuinely pissed off at Dier's challenge and suffering an unnecessary injury.
4) if Sonny had suffered a more serious injury, such as a fracture, how would Mourinho's decision have looked to the squad then? I suspect the answer is they would have thought it was a shit fucking decision, to quote the Special One himself.
I also believe that the series illuminates Mourinho's reaction to Sunday's Everton defeat. He clearly values mentality, defensive organisation, nullifying opposing threats, and running for the team, above almost everything else. He believed he had improved these elements of our team last season, but against Everton we were back to Square One in Mourinho terms.
So I'm not surprised he publicly stated he didn't like our team or our performance. The players can respond one of two ways:
a) by redoubling their determination
b) by calling Mourinho a cunt, and downing tools
It could go either way.
Now, having stated all of that, I'm not a Mourinho apologist. I think his decision to replace Dele with Sissoko was abysmal and craven, and did not work. The courageous decision would have been to replace Dele (or Winks) with Ndombele.
But the series has given me a better understanding of how Mourinho operates in practice. And the following rant, which is raw and real, and not created by editing, will surely be carved into Mourinho's tombstone.
“But, for 90 minutes, for 90 minutes, you cannot be nice. For 90 minutes, we have to be a bunch of cunts. Intelligent cunts, not stupid cunts.”
https://thefightingcock.co.uk/forum...entary-about-spurs.33346/page-83#post-2446219
Come off it, it was a dumb as shit question lol
Yeah wonder why Levy didn't want to lose millions of pounds in our first season in a billion dollar stadium....
If our fans can figure it out, our fucking board exec shouldnt have to.
So basically this is Dele Alli?
Precisely.
Fuck me, every scene with Levy feels so staged.
Especially the one with Hitchen and Cullen in episode 8 discussing the coronavirus shutdown.
Especially the one with Hitchen and Cullen in episode 8 discussing the coronavirus shutdown.
Yup. That's because those Levy scenes were staged.
Against that, the scene where Rose strides into Mourinho's office for a man-to-man talk was real, not staged. But it was edited.
So, I'm certain what we were shown is a significantly truncated version. I think it took longer than two and a half minutes for Rose to walk out, and the content we were not shown may tell a slightly more nuanced version of what really went down.
That said, the conclusion with Rose walking out to "go to Daniel" was real, and I'm sure Mourinho considered it the best possible outcome as he had already decided he didn't want Rose in his team.
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As expected I think? Daniel Levy is one of the biggest control freaks to walk the face of the earth.
Aye, and notice there isn't a camera permanently set up in Levy's office to catch candid footage. There would have been some very very interesting stuff were that the case, I'm sure.
Also, I'm not quite certain, but I think we spent 140m net on the team in the 2019 summer window. Levy might have mentioned it at some point but it must have been too subtle for me to pick up on properly.
Oh, I'm definitely not shocked. Ironically it makes him seem like even more of a fucking lizard person than the fans thought already.
I don't want to be too harsh about episodes 7-9. It's not Amazon's fault that they came out a few hours after the whole team made us sick of the fucking sight of them.
Does anyone still believe Levy had any editorial power over it? I mean, if he did, and THAT was the best light he could shine on himself...
Levy did not sit in the cutting room and edit the series. But that is not how editorial control works in practice.
I'm certain Levy negotiated the type of editorial control clauses that existed for previous All or Nothing series (for details, I've linked and analysed the effect of those clauses below).
I'm also certain that Levy exercised those clauses to prevent the filming of key moments in our season, such as the firing of Poch and the contract negotiations with Eriksen.
And that is how editorial control works in practice.
https://thefightingcock.co.uk/forum...entary-about-spurs.33346/page-89#post-2447857