Windy takes a look at expectations vs reality and discusses whether we as Spurs fans have we lost our way on defining what is success for our club?
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Article Dealing with the great expectations
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
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This.
Excellent article. Far too sensible.
First comment on the blog is someone genuinly asking for us to be sold to oil magnates ... i wonder if he even read the article
great stuff Windy, i fear the arguments that will follow this article though.
great stuff Windy, i fear the arguments that will follow this article though.
# Net Spend last 5 Years Purchased Gross Sold Nett Per Season
1 Manchester United £405,200,000 £124,200,000 £281,000,000 £56,200,000
2 Manchester City £385,700,000 £150,300,000 £235,400,000 £47,080,000
4 Chelsea £434,109,000 £246,450,000 £187,659,000 £37,531,800
3 Liverpool £349,000,000 £176,370,000 £172,630,000 £34,526,000
5 Woolwich £253,625,000 £154,600,000 £99,025,000 £19,805,000
6 West Ham £106,900,000 £16,500,000 £90,400,000 £18,080,000
7 Newcastle £124,000,000 £66,100,000 £57,900,000 £11,580,000
8 Crystal Palace £74,635,000 £18,900,000 £55,735,000 £11,147,000
9 Sunderland £108,430,000 £59,550,000 £48,880,000 £9,776,000
14 Stoke City £70,250,000 £24,100,000 £46,150,000 £9,230,000
10 West Bromwich Albion £66,750,000 £22,509,000 £44,241,000 £8,848,200
11 Norwich City £63,575,000 £19,650,000 £43,925,000 £8,785,000
15 Leicester £50,100,000 £8,650,000 £41,450,000 £8,290,000
12 Aston Villa £121,850,000 £90,200,000 £31,650,000 £6,330,000
15 Bournemouth £25,550,000 £3,200,000 £22,350,000 £4,470,000
16 Southampton £163,600,000 £142,850,000 £20,750,000 £4,150,000
17 Swansea £79,875,000 £66,160,000 £13,715,000 £2,743,000
18 Everton £91,300,000 £80,816,000 £10,484,000 £2,096,800
19 Watford £12,050,000 £12,300,000 -£250,000 -£50,000
20 Tottenham £232,650,000 £291,350,000 -£58,700,000 -£11,740,000
1 Manchester United £405,200,000 £124,200,000 £281,000,000 £56,200,000
2 Manchester City £385,700,000 £150,300,000 £235,400,000 £47,080,000
4 Chelsea £434,109,000 £246,450,000 £187,659,000 £37,531,800
3 Liverpool £349,000,000 £176,370,000 £172,630,000 £34,526,000
5 Woolwich £253,625,000 £154,600,000 £99,025,000 £19,805,000
6 West Ham £106,900,000 £16,500,000 £90,400,000 £18,080,000
7 Newcastle £124,000,000 £66,100,000 £57,900,000 £11,580,000
8 Crystal Palace £74,635,000 £18,900,000 £55,735,000 £11,147,000
9 Sunderland £108,430,000 £59,550,000 £48,880,000 £9,776,000
14 Stoke City £70,250,000 £24,100,000 £46,150,000 £9,230,000
10 West Bromwich Albion £66,750,000 £22,509,000 £44,241,000 £8,848,200
11 Norwich City £63,575,000 £19,650,000 £43,925,000 £8,785,000
15 Leicester £50,100,000 £8,650,000 £41,450,000 £8,290,000
12 Aston Villa £121,850,000 £90,200,000 £31,650,000 £6,330,000
15 Bournemouth £25,550,000 £3,200,000 £22,350,000 £4,470,000
16 Southampton £163,600,000 £142,850,000 £20,750,000 £4,150,000
17 Swansea £79,875,000 £66,160,000 £13,715,000 £2,743,000
18 Everton £91,300,000 £80,816,000 £10,484,000 £2,096,800
19 Watford £12,050,000 £12,300,000 -£250,000 -£50,000
20 Tottenham £232,650,000 £291,350,000 -£58,700,000 -£11,740,000
So, expectations may be too high based on the squad at the club, but the squad at the club was built with a voluntary handicap and is not commensurate with the financial strength of the club relative to its competitors.
And furthermore, one could be forgiven for being a bit confused by the fact that 5th place is more than the fans should expect, yet less than what it will take to avoid the sack from our chairman.
There's no evidence of either point you make.
First, you chose the arbitrary 5 year window of net spend. Does the same hold true over 10 years? What time period actually matters? The actual relationship beween net spending levels and results, either by points per game, or finishing position is non-existent. The net spend of a club on transfers has no bearing on where a club will finish. Average spending on wages does. We spend the 6th most, on average over the last few years. And generally have out-performed that.
Arguing that we should spend more on transfers leads to the question of where the money would come from? We don't have owners who have saddled the club with large debts, nor do they take money from the club to a large extent. They have regularly invested money, just not City/Chelsea-esque sums. So there's no pile of unspent cash lying around, unless you want to argue that Levy, Lewis or whoever are duty-bound to spend significant sums of their own money to run the club at a loss, for entertainment's sake. If you are, on what basis do you have the right to expect them to agree to that? It's their money, and their club, not yours or mine.
Secondly, not every manager gets hired on the exclusive basis of delivering a finish in the top 4. If it was, AVB would have been sacked in his first year, and Redknapp sacked in 2010-2011. That is a goal, but it's pretty clear at this point that Levy accepts that it won't happen every year, and Pochettino wasn't hired on the basis of immediately delivering it.
It also has no relevance to your point that Spurs aren't spending enough. The club has spent considerable money, just not on transfers. The evidence would show that was the correct decision.
Excellent article, although somewhat avoids the issue that in simple footballing terms our performance on the pitch appears to be in a general downward trend. This, more than final 2014 and 2015 league position, is what is causing discontent on the terraces.
While avb's team was boring to watch due to lack of attacking flair, it generally exuded superiority in possession and, in his first season at least, goal difference. Under Redknapp we clearly played more attractive football and scored significantly more goals than the opposition. It felt like we deserved our 4th and 5th placed finishes.
Under Poch we either seem to dominate without penetration, or attack well while looking vulnerable in defence. The net result is narrow margins in victory and defeat, leaving us at the mercy of statistical deviation... we might finish 5th with a bit of luck but equally we might finish 7th or 8th with a few unlucky calls. Poch also has singularly failed to get the best out of some very talented players, and alienated others. Windy is absolutely right that objectively we should be delighted with any finish above 7th but my genuine fear is that our footballing trend is putting us back in the chasing pack rather than standing out from the Stokes and Swansea's of the league.
While avb's team was boring to watch due to lack of attacking flair, it generally exuded superiority in possession and, in his first season at least, goal difference. Under Redknapp we clearly played more attractive football and scored significantly more goals than the opposition. It felt like we deserved our 4th and 5th placed finishes.
Under Poch we either seem to dominate without penetration, or attack well while looking vulnerable in defence. The net result is narrow margins in victory and defeat, leaving us at the mercy of statistical deviation... we might finish 5th with a bit of luck but equally we might finish 7th or 8th with a few unlucky calls. Poch also has singularly failed to get the best out of some very talented players, and alienated others. Windy is absolutely right that objectively we should be delighted with any finish above 7th but my genuine fear is that our footballing trend is putting us back in the chasing pack rather than standing out from the Stokes and Swansea's of the league.
The two should be thought of together. In any given year the wage bill plus the transfer net spend represents the total investment in the playing squad. Divide that by the club's total revenues and compare that to the rest of the league over time. We don't always have accurate and reliable numbers to calculate that, but the looks we do get make Spurs' relationship to the rest of the league crystal clear.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...-guide-Premier-League-s-financial-health.html
Tottenham took the 3rd largest profit in the league last year, behind the United money behemoth and Newcastle who have a much-beloved chairman of their own. And both of those clubs are servicing nine-figure debts, unlike Spurs.
The claim that there isn't unspent money on the clubs books is a flat-out lie. If it's ticketed for stadium construction so be it, but it's there.
If Levy and Lewis expect to fill a 61,000 seat stadium, then they are certainly money-bound to be attuned to their customers. And they do not act in a vacuum. There is a baseline level of financial commitment being demonstrated by Spurs' peer clubs that is not being matched at White Hart Lane.
If you think you have cracked the code on Levy's demands on his managers, I'm all ears. It absolutely boggles the mind that the tut-tutting cognoscenti in Levy's lap demand patience from the fans when Levy himself has shown such absurd lack of patience with his managers, who have almost to a man exceeded any reasonable expectations.
And the reason I keep harping on this is because it is my firm belief that stability has a direct value in points in the Premier League. Stability and continuity in manager, squad, and playing style can allow a club to punch above its financial weight. And stability is free! But Daniel Levy, apparently not content with just wringing the squad dry has also decided to steal that from the club as well, for reasons that have never been adequately explained.
Tottenham Hotspur are a well managed sports marketing business operating a shambolically managed football club. The two are inextricably linked, and the latter is going to catch up with the former eventually.
Sorry, they shouldn't be. The net spend does not represent anything beyond the net of incoming and outgoing transfers. Based on the best guesses of the press about what the actual transfer values are. So, they're a made up number. The relationship to the rest of the league is that we pay the 6th most in wages. We generally finish above that in performance.
To get even more specific, the net spend doesn't matter as it does not represent investment. Selling one player for a world record price, and then reinvesting the fee in multiple players does not net to anything (we actually still wound up with a profit for that window), but bringing in 7 new players all assumed to be immediately ready for the first team is a considerable investment. That investment actually proved to be about 75% wasted subsequently, but that's a different matter.
So then, as I said in my previous post, we're spending it on stuff other than transfers, and so it actually is not unspent money lying around.
How? The clubs below are spending more money based on the new TV contract. That has sprinkled many players across many teams. But it doesn't increase the potential of the other players on those teams, nor does it mean they're actually more competitive. Also, we did bring in 3 players this year, all of whom are starting-XI worthy. We're still looking to bring in more as well. But with sales, that looks like a net zero spend. That doesn't mean investment isn't occurring, it just means there's demand for our cast-offs, unlike certain other clubs.
What lack of patience? Seriously, let's review:
He treated Jol very poorly in the end, but felt we needed someone else to actually deliver a more competitive performance. He'd had 3 years. Ramos came in, delivered a Cup, then collapsed to start the year. Should he have not been sacked? If not, then Levy was being impatient. If so, is that really a kneejerk move?
Redknapp was there for 4 years. He got canned after throwing away a 9 point gap to Woolwich over 3 months, while trying to waltz into another job. He then showed an enormous lack of respect in trying to negotiate through the press while Levy was going through a difficult personal moment. Harry showed that he was ready to ditch us, so after 4 years, why was Levy hasty to fire him for someone else?
AVB, by his own account, quit. He wasn't sacked. So if he quit, how was Levy impatient? Sherwood talked himself out of a job, and hasn't shown subsequently that we made a mistake there.
Pochettino hasn't been shown to be under any pressure of an imminent sacking, so where's this infamous quick trigger of Levy?
If we're shambolically run, then how the hell are we consistently finishing beyond our wage spend in a league flush with cash, while not running into massive debt? How are we selling players, yet not collapsing?
I am not denying we couldn't have been even better run, in hindsight. But no one else did a better job of using what they had in the past decade. So, if we're a shambles, what does that say about the rest of the league?
Dunno if posted elsewhere on the forum but...COYS
https://www.premier-league-moments.com/team/tottenham-hotspur/videos
https://www.premier-league-moments.com/team/tottenham-hotspur/videos
What on earth kind of voodoo math is that?
No disagreement there.
I kind of consider Ramos part of the whole Jol saga, and just generally feel that he should have never been approached the way that he was, but in terms of his longevity in the job, there's no doubt Levy gave him a quick hook and could have stood by the guy he went behind his existing manager's back to woo. I was glad to see the back of him personally, but Levy showed his faith to be worth nothing in that whole episode. He was willing to blow up a good situation to get this guy, and then sacked him 363 days later before a quarter of the league games had been played.
Grow up, be a professional, and understand that your feelings aren't as important as retaining the best manager the club has had since Terry Venables. Good managers are always a risk to leave for their native country's national team job. That's a fact of life. If we should overachieve, Poch will be in the frame for the Argentina job at some point, and that's a job he'd probably be keen to get. It goes with the territory.
Oh bullshit. So you're going to believe that classic face-saving line of managers who were sacked only when it suits you? If he quit, why did Tottenham pay him a severance for the remainder of his contract?
Sherwood was never anything more than a caretaker manager, which Levy rightly recognized. I don't know why he went through with the farce of signing him to a permanent contract, but it's not like that really affected the club financially in the end so I can't really have any huge complaints.
That wasn't what was in the papers last November, but for the moment I really want to believe this. Levy has shown the ability to learn from his mistakes this offseason by signing off on the sale of deadwood players his manager doesn't want, maybe he is going to turn over a new leaf in this regard as well. Here's hoping.
Not voodoo math. A perspective. If I can sell one thing for a lot of money and buy 7 things with that money to help my business grow, does that mean if it nets to zero money spent that I am not investing in my business?
To say it does assumes that I know the future value of those 7 things will be nothing, and that it would not help my business, but I am spending the money anyway.
So, if that's the case, then yes, our net spend being zero would show that be a sign of a lack of investment. If that's not the case, and we have actually invested (significant) money, with varying results on our investments, then the claim that the zero net spend represents a lack of investment is bunk.
We can debate about the quality of the investing done, and I think that there's a very reasonable case to be made that money was mis-spent, but that's not the same argument as the claim that money was not invested.
That's exactly what it means! Am I taking crazy pills here?
Well, yes, since that means you assume the future value of those investments to be 0.
Look at it in footballing terms:
Last year Soton sold Lallana, Lovren, Lambert, Shaw and Chambers. The total amount paid was 83.67 million. They then brought in Long, Mane, Forster, Tadic, and Pelle for 47.18 million.
So, that's a net spend of negative 36.49 million pounds. But, was this a lack of investment? That would assume that the replacements were no better than the people they replaced, and that their value would not increase in future. Was that the case? I think Mane, Forster, Tadic and Pelle all were upgrades on the previous players in those positions.
Arguing that the net spend matters makes the claim that all players sold will continue to perform the same in future, and that all players bought will be no better, and not rise in value.
Sometimes that is the case, sometimes it isn't. But since we're talking about football-playing human beings, who are expected to play football for the team and do things like winning games and scoring goals, the net spend measurement of investment doesn't really make sense.
We as a club have sold players, and bought players. The point is not that the numbers net out to zero, or any other number. The point is how well the players did on the pitch. We arguably bought poorly, with players failing to deliver on the pitch. That's a significant problem, and one that needs to be discussed. It's not the same thing as claiming there has been no investment in the club. That isn't the case, either in terms of the money spent, or the number of bodies which came in the door.
When a company 'invests', it means it buys an asset. In our case this would be players, training facilities, stadiums etc. So net spend on transfers is actually pretty irrelevant when it comes to investment, per se.
I think
Juicy Sushi
confuses things when he goes on to talk about asset appreciation though, as this is also irrelevant to investmentIn the vacuum of that window, absolutely. When you zoom out and realize their ascension to the Premier League involved consecutive seasons of 30+ million pound net spends, it looks quite different.
You make a very good point in focusing on wage bills, as those are the larger part of the overall squad budget for most teams in most seasons and do correlate much more strongly with success, but in general you can't appreciate one without the other.
If I could go back in time and spend the money that has been bled out of the club in the transfer market, I probably wouldn't invest it in incoming players at all. I'd make wage offers to Gareth Bale and Luka Modric that exceeded what Real Madrid were willing to pay. That would likely be worth more points than whatever that money could have brought in the transfer market.
But one way or another, every marginal extra pound you spend on your squad is a positive, and every marginal pound you don't spend is one that could have helped you.
If all of Tottenham's profits are being plunged into stadium financing, training facilities, and youth development, I think that's brilliant. I think those are exactly the type of competitive moves a club that isn't yet as rich as the clubs it wants to move ahead of should be making. But the proof is going to be in the pudding with those things. If we have a squad cost like Woolwich when our stadium starts producing matchday income like Woolwich, as well as the financial firepower to attract stars like Woolwich, then Levy will look like a genius.
I refuse to be called a melty cunt, however, for pointing out the myriad reasons for us to doubt that that's where we're actually headed.