Think I'll go with 'Too-a-many'
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I think there's some sense in this article, some stuff some of us have been saying all along:
www.standard.co.uk
An interesting counterfactual when assessing Daniel Levy’s Tottenham is to consider where the club would be if Abu Dhabi had not transformed the financial fortunes of Manchester City.
Since City were catapulted into the financial elite in 2008, they have finished above Spurs in nine of 13 seasons and, in three of those campaigns, effectively denied them Champions League football by being above the fifth-placed north London club.
Without a financially-boosted City, Spurs might well have finished in the top four in nine of the previous 13 seasons and quite possibly won a trophy or several.
Levy’s careful business plan would be far more celebrated today and the perception of Spurs and their embattled chairman would surely be very different.
The question feels relevant because yesterday’s opponents are the next club hoping to quickly leapfrog Spurs following their takeover by a consortium backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Even before considering the ethical questions of Saudi’s human rights record, you can understand why Levy would feel particularly aggrieved at another Premier League sportswashing project.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side burst Newcastle’s Saudi bubble with a 3-2 win at St James’ Park which underlined the scale of the task facing the Toon’s new owners, but as much as any club in the Premier League, Spurs stand to lose out from the changing of the guard on Tyneside.
Levy’s brand of fiscal prudence is now up against three projects backed by fabulous wealth, also including Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, as well as commercial behemoths in Manchester United and Liverpool. Spurs have their own trump card in their stadium, which successfully hosted the NFL yesterday, but competing at the top will be no easier if Newcastle’s hopes are realised.
Spurs comfortably bested Steve Bruce’s struggling side on an occasion when the football felt secondary following the collapse of a supporter, which held up play for 20 minutes.
The visitors responded to Callum Wilson’s second-minute header with three goals before the interval through Tanguy Ndombele, Harry Kane — his first in the League this season — and Heung-min Son to offer optimism about their own futures under Nuno.
Kane looked back to his old self, giving Spurs the lead with an expert arcing run and deft first-time flick, while Ndombele looked the part at No10. A late own-goal by Eric Dier after Newcastle substitute Jonjo Shelvey was sent off was more than the hosts deserved.
The win was another small step forward for Nuno’s side, but Newcastle have taken a giant leap this month and, in the longer term, Levy and managing director Fabio Paratici must consider how best to be competitive in a division boasting another club who can consistently outspend Spurs.
One approach is for Spurs to simply accept that they cannot compete in the same ways as their wealthier rivals and return to a business model for growth. As they have progressed, Spurs have arguably begun to behave like a richer club than they are, evidenced by their refusal to sell important players and by spending big on individuals.
The question of whether they should have been more open to offers for Kane in the summer is complicated, but Spurs could have sold Dele Alli, Dier and Danny Rose when they had the chance, and cashed in on Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembele sooner.
Borussia Dortmund and Leicester have remained competitive by selling star players for huge sums at the right times, but Spurs have become reluctant to accept that selling is not necessarily an admission of weakness, but rather a prudent way of raising funds to refresh the squad.
Of course, there is no use in selling players if they are not effectively replaced, and Spurs’s recent recruitment policy has also felt misguided. They have taken huge financial risks by agreeing to spend more than £50million on Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso and Cristian Romero.
While clubs backed by nation states and oligarchs can afford to quickly replace expensive disappointments, Spurs cannot. Most of their biggest successes in the transfer market have been young, affordable, high-potential players such as Gareth Bale, Dele and Kyle Walker, while almost all of their 10 most expensive transfers have underwhelmed.
As Spurs begin another rebuild, showing a willingness to sell and taking a less risky approach to buying could be part of their strategy to compete.
It bears repeating how much more successful Spurs would probably have been if other clubs had not been revolutionised by investment, and over the next decade you wonder if Newcastle’s windfall could impact their fortunes as much as City’s change in ownership.
The Magpies will surely pose greater threats to Spurs in future than they managed yesterday and it is up to the Londoners to be smart in order to be successful again.
I'm not sure Leicester deserve to placed in the same echelon as Dortmund, and we can argue about some of the devil in some of the detail, but the general gist of the piece I think makes a salient point.
The problem for me has never been the amount of money, or more relevantly, the percentage of revenue Levy has been prepared/allowed to re-invest - generally speaking, for most of the last 15 years what the club makes has gone back into the club. The fundamental self sustainable model is the same for most clubs. For a while we operated a similar model to the likes Dortmund and Liverpool.
The problem is Levy's decision, believing in Pochettino he'd found his "Wenger/Ferguson" to abandon that strategy (not exclusively but generally biased toward buy with potential and inherent value and develop) and opt for a different one (a more managerial controlled "now" strategy).
This wasn't the first time Levy had made this mistake, he did the same under Redknapp. So it's a serial error. For which Levy deserves huge criticism. Along with the appointments made within those strategies.
He had the chance in the summer to put things right, and again, IMO, made a dogs dinner of it. Paratici and Nuno were ill matched and ill suited to the kind of model we should be following - and once did very successfully.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
How Tottenham can compete with mega-rich clubs and be successful again
An interesting counterfactual when assessing Daniel Levy’s Tottenham is to consider where the club would be if Abu Dhabi had not transformed the financial fortunes of Manchester City.
www.standard.co.uk
An interesting counterfactual when assessing Daniel Levy’s Tottenham is to consider where the club would be if Abu Dhabi had not transformed the financial fortunes of Manchester City.
Since City were catapulted into the financial elite in 2008, they have finished above Spurs in nine of 13 seasons and, in three of those campaigns, effectively denied them Champions League football by being above the fifth-placed north London club.
Without a financially-boosted City, Spurs might well have finished in the top four in nine of the previous 13 seasons and quite possibly won a trophy or several.
Levy’s careful business plan would be far more celebrated today and the perception of Spurs and their embattled chairman would surely be very different.
The question feels relevant because yesterday’s opponents are the next club hoping to quickly leapfrog Spurs following their takeover by a consortium backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Even before considering the ethical questions of Saudi’s human rights record, you can understand why Levy would feel particularly aggrieved at another Premier League sportswashing project.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side burst Newcastle’s Saudi bubble with a 3-2 win at St James’ Park which underlined the scale of the task facing the Toon’s new owners, but as much as any club in the Premier League, Spurs stand to lose out from the changing of the guard on Tyneside.
Levy’s brand of fiscal prudence is now up against three projects backed by fabulous wealth, also including Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, as well as commercial behemoths in Manchester United and Liverpool. Spurs have their own trump card in their stadium, which successfully hosted the NFL yesterday, but competing at the top will be no easier if Newcastle’s hopes are realised.
Spurs comfortably bested Steve Bruce’s struggling side on an occasion when the football felt secondary following the collapse of a supporter, which held up play for 20 minutes.
The visitors responded to Callum Wilson’s second-minute header with three goals before the interval through Tanguy Ndombele, Harry Kane — his first in the League this season — and Heung-min Son to offer optimism about their own futures under Nuno.
Kane looked back to his old self, giving Spurs the lead with an expert arcing run and deft first-time flick, while Ndombele looked the part at No10. A late own-goal by Eric Dier after Newcastle substitute Jonjo Shelvey was sent off was more than the hosts deserved.
The win was another small step forward for Nuno’s side, but Newcastle have taken a giant leap this month and, in the longer term, Levy and managing director Fabio Paratici must consider how best to be competitive in a division boasting another club who can consistently outspend Spurs.
One approach is for Spurs to simply accept that they cannot compete in the same ways as their wealthier rivals and return to a business model for growth. As they have progressed, Spurs have arguably begun to behave like a richer club than they are, evidenced by their refusal to sell important players and by spending big on individuals.
The question of whether they should have been more open to offers for Kane in the summer is complicated, but Spurs could have sold Dele Alli, Dier and Danny Rose when they had the chance, and cashed in on Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembele sooner.
Borussia Dortmund and Leicester have remained competitive by selling star players for huge sums at the right times, but Spurs have become reluctant to accept that selling is not necessarily an admission of weakness, but rather a prudent way of raising funds to refresh the squad.
Of course, there is no use in selling players if they are not effectively replaced, and Spurs’s recent recruitment policy has also felt misguided. They have taken huge financial risks by agreeing to spend more than £50million on Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso and Cristian Romero.
While clubs backed by nation states and oligarchs can afford to quickly replace expensive disappointments, Spurs cannot. Most of their biggest successes in the transfer market have been young, affordable, high-potential players such as Gareth Bale, Dele and Kyle Walker, while almost all of their 10 most expensive transfers have underwhelmed.
As Spurs begin another rebuild, showing a willingness to sell and taking a less risky approach to buying could be part of their strategy to compete.
It bears repeating how much more successful Spurs would probably have been if other clubs had not been revolutionised by investment, and over the next decade you wonder if Newcastle’s windfall could impact their fortunes as much as City’s change in ownership.
The Magpies will surely pose greater threats to Spurs in future than they managed yesterday and it is up to the Londoners to be smart in order to be successful again.
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I'm not sure Leicester deserve to placed in the same echelon as Dortmund, and we can argue about some of the devil in some of the detail, but the general gist of the piece I think makes a salient point.
The problem for me has never been the amount of money, or more relevantly, the percentage of revenue Levy has been prepared/allowed to re-invest - generally speaking, for most of the last 15 years what the club makes has gone back into the club. The fundamental self sustainable model is the same for most clubs. For a while we operated a similar model to the likes Dortmund and Liverpool.
The problem is Levy's decision, believing in Pochettino he'd found his "Wenger/Ferguson" to abandon that strategy (not exclusively but generally biased toward buy with potential and inherent value and develop) and opt for a different one (a more managerial controlled "now" strategy).
This wasn't the first time Levy had made this mistake, he did the same under Redknapp. So it's a serial error. For which Levy deserves huge criticism. Along with the appointments made within those strategies.
He had the chance in the summer to put things right, and again, IMO, made a dogs dinner of it. Paratici and Nuno were ill matched and ill suited to the kind of model we should be following - and once did very successfully.
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I think there's some sense in this article, some stuff some of us have been saying all along:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
How Tottenham can compete with mega-rich clubs and be successful again
An interesting counterfactual when assessing Daniel Levy’s Tottenham is to consider where the club would be if Abu Dhabi had not transformed the financial fortunes of Manchester City.
An interesting counterfactual when assessing Daniel Levy’s Tottenham is to consider where the club would be if Abu Dhabi had not transformed the financial fortunes of Manchester City.
Since City were catapulted into the financial elite in 2008, they have finished above Spurs in nine of 13 seasons and, in three of those campaigns, effectively denied them Champions League football by being above the fifth-placed north London club.
Without a financially-boosted City, Spurs might well have finished in the top four in nine of the previous 13 seasons and quite possibly won a trophy or several.
Levy’s careful business plan would be far more celebrated today and the perception of Spurs and their embattled chairman would surely be very different.
The question feels relevant because yesterday’s opponents are the next club hoping to quickly leapfrog Spurs following their takeover by a consortium backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Even before considering the ethical questions of Saudi’s human rights record, you can understand why Levy would feel particularly aggrieved at another Premier League sportswashing project.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side burst Newcastle’s Saudi bubble with a 3-2 win at St James’ Park which underlined the scale of the task facing the Toon’s new owners, but as much as any club in the Premier League, Spurs stand to lose out from the changing of the guard on Tyneside.
Levy’s brand of fiscal prudence is now up against three projects backed by fabulous wealth, also including Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, as well as commercial behemoths in Manchester United and Liverpool. Spurs have their own trump card in their stadium, which successfully hosted the NFL yesterday, but competing at the top will be no easier if Newcastle’s hopes are realised.
Spurs comfortably bested Steve Bruce’s struggling side on an occasion when the football felt secondary following the collapse of a supporter, which held up play for 20 minutes.
The visitors responded to Callum Wilson’s second-minute header with three goals before the interval through Tanguy Ndombele, Harry Kane — his first in the League this season — and Heung-min Son to offer optimism about their own futures under Nuno.
Kane looked back to his old self, giving Spurs the lead with an expert arcing run and deft first-time flick, while Ndombele looked the part at No10. A late own-goal by Eric Dier after Newcastle substitute Jonjo Shelvey was sent off was more than the hosts deserved.
The win was another small step forward for Nuno’s side, but Newcastle have taken a giant leap this month and, in the longer term, Levy and managing director Fabio Paratici must consider how best to be competitive in a division boasting another club who can consistently outspend Spurs.
One approach is for Spurs to simply accept that they cannot compete in the same ways as their wealthier rivals and return to a business model for growth. As they have progressed, Spurs have arguably begun to behave like a richer club than they are, evidenced by their refusal to sell important players and by spending big on individuals.
The question of whether they should have been more open to offers for Kane in the summer is complicated, but Spurs could have sold Dele Alli, Dier and Danny Rose when they had the chance, and cashed in on Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembele sooner.
Borussia Dortmund and Leicester have remained competitive by selling star players for huge sums at the right times, but Spurs have become reluctant to accept that selling is not necessarily an admission of weakness, but rather a prudent way of raising funds to refresh the squad.
Of course, there is no use in selling players if they are not effectively replaced, and Spurs’s recent recruitment policy has also felt misguided. They have taken huge financial risks by agreeing to spend more than £50million on Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso and Cristian Romero.
While clubs backed by nation states and oligarchs can afford to quickly replace expensive disappointments, Spurs cannot. Most of their biggest successes in the transfer market have been young, affordable, high-potential players such as Gareth Bale, Dele and Kyle Walker, while almost all of their 10 most expensive transfers have underwhelmed.
As Spurs begin another rebuild, showing a willingness to sell and taking a less risky approach to buying could be part of their strategy to compete.
It bears repeating how much more successful Spurs would probably have been if other clubs had not been revolutionised by investment, and over the next decade you wonder if Newcastle’s windfall could impact their fortunes as much as City’s change in ownership.
The Magpies will surely pose greater threats to Spurs in future than they managed yesterday and it is up to the Londoners to be smart in order to be successful again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure Leicester deserve to placed in the same echelon as Dortmund, and we can argue about some of the devil in some of the detail, but the general gist of the piece I think makes a salient point.
The problem for me has never been the amount of money, or more relevantly, the percentage of revenue Levy has been prepared/allowed to re-invest - generally speaking, for most of the last 15 years what the club makes has gone back into the club. The fundamental self sustainable model is the same for most clubs. For a while we operated a similar model to the likes Dortmund and Liverpool.
The problem is Levy's decision, believing in Pochettino he'd found his "Wenger/Ferguson" to abandon that strategy (not exclusively but generally biased toward buy with potential and inherent value and develop) and opt for a different one (a more managerial controlled "now" strategy).
This wasn't the first time Levy had made this mistake, he did the same under Redknapp. So it's a serial error. For which Levy deserves huge criticism. Along with the appointments made within those strategies.
He had the chance in the summer to put things right, and again, IMO, made a dogs dinner of it. Paratici and Nuno were ill matched and ill suited to the kind of model we should be following - and once did very successfully.
It’s a decent point the article makes. Chelsea finished above us when we came second, without the massive financial doping it is very unlikely they would have been anywhere near (infact they where about to declare bankruptcy before Abramovich showed up to save them) that so that’s one title money has taken off us. Also player such as Hazard would have been with us instead so Chelsea and City have screwed us big time.
One the other hand our decision making has often been poor. We never back properly managers on the way up like Poch or Redknapp but that is how you win things (see Klopp as a prime example) only on the way down but in football once you head in a direction it is hard to turn the ship around.
Finally our vision is missing. We go from manager to manager all with different styles without connection, it doesn’t speak of a club which knows what it wants to be. It shouldn’t be a surprise, Levy is a brilliant businessman almost visionary but poor to average on his understanding of the game of football. So that is what we are, an outstanding business and an average football team given our size.
Our hope lies in the business in term of the stadium that it is so successful that the additional cash enables us to match to some degree all of our rivals plus our scouting and management gets to an elite level like Liverpool.
I think there's some sense in this article, some stuff some of us have been saying all along:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
How Tottenham can compete with mega-rich clubs and be successful again
An interesting counterfactual when assessing Daniel Levy’s Tottenham is to consider where the club would be if Abu Dhabi had not transformed the financial fortunes of Manchester City.
An interesting counterfactual when assessing Daniel Levy’s Tottenham is to consider where the club would be if Abu Dhabi had not transformed the financial fortunes of Manchester City.
Since City were catapulted into the financial elite in 2008, they have finished above Spurs in nine of 13 seasons and, in three of those campaigns, effectively denied them Champions League football by being above the fifth-placed north London club.
Without a financially-boosted City, Spurs might well have finished in the top four in nine of the previous 13 seasons and quite possibly won a trophy or several.
Levy’s careful business plan would be far more celebrated today and the perception of Spurs and their embattled chairman would surely be very different.
The question feels relevant because yesterday’s opponents are the next club hoping to quickly leapfrog Spurs following their takeover by a consortium backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Even before considering the ethical questions of Saudi’s human rights record, you can understand why Levy would feel particularly aggrieved at another Premier League sportswashing project.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side burst Newcastle’s Saudi bubble with a 3-2 win at St James’ Park which underlined the scale of the task facing the Toon’s new owners, but as much as any club in the Premier League, Spurs stand to lose out from the changing of the guard on Tyneside.
Levy’s brand of fiscal prudence is now up against three projects backed by fabulous wealth, also including Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, as well as commercial behemoths in Manchester United and Liverpool. Spurs have their own trump card in their stadium, which successfully hosted the NFL yesterday, but competing at the top will be no easier if Newcastle’s hopes are realised.
Spurs comfortably bested Steve Bruce’s struggling side on an occasion when the football felt secondary following the collapse of a supporter, which held up play for 20 minutes.
The visitors responded to Callum Wilson’s second-minute header with three goals before the interval through Tanguy Ndombele, Harry Kane — his first in the League this season — and Heung-min Son to offer optimism about their own futures under Nuno.
Kane looked back to his old self, giving Spurs the lead with an expert arcing run and deft first-time flick, while Ndombele looked the part at No10. A late own-goal by Eric Dier after Newcastle substitute Jonjo Shelvey was sent off was more than the hosts deserved.
The win was another small step forward for Nuno’s side, but Newcastle have taken a giant leap this month and, in the longer term, Levy and managing director Fabio Paratici must consider how best to be competitive in a division boasting another club who can consistently outspend Spurs.
One approach is for Spurs to simply accept that they cannot compete in the same ways as their wealthier rivals and return to a business model for growth. As they have progressed, Spurs have arguably begun to behave like a richer club than they are, evidenced by their refusal to sell important players and by spending big on individuals.
The question of whether they should have been more open to offers for Kane in the summer is complicated, but Spurs could have sold Dele Alli, Dier and Danny Rose when they had the chance, and cashed in on Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembele sooner.
Borussia Dortmund and Leicester have remained competitive by selling star players for huge sums at the right times, but Spurs have become reluctant to accept that selling is not necessarily an admission of weakness, but rather a prudent way of raising funds to refresh the squad.
Of course, there is no use in selling players if they are not effectively replaced, and Spurs’s recent recruitment policy has also felt misguided. They have taken huge financial risks by agreeing to spend more than £50million on Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso and Cristian Romero.
While clubs backed by nation states and oligarchs can afford to quickly replace expensive disappointments, Spurs cannot. Most of their biggest successes in the transfer market have been young, affordable, high-potential players such as Gareth Bale, Dele and Kyle Walker, while almost all of their 10 most expensive transfers have underwhelmed.
As Spurs begin another rebuild, showing a willingness to sell and taking a less risky approach to buying could be part of their strategy to compete.
It bears repeating how much more successful Spurs would probably have been if other clubs had not been revolutionised by investment, and over the next decade you wonder if Newcastle’s windfall could impact their fortunes as much as City’s change in ownership.
The Magpies will surely pose greater threats to Spurs in future than they managed yesterday and it is up to the Londoners to be smart in order to be successful again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure Leicester deserve to placed in the same echelon as Dortmund, and we can argue about some of the devil in some of the detail, but the general gist of the piece I think makes a salient point.
The problem for me has never been the amount of money, or more relevantly, the percentage of revenue Levy has been prepared/allowed to re-invest - generally speaking, for most of the last 15 years what the club makes has gone back into the club. The fundamental self sustainable model is the same for most clubs. For a while we operated a similar model to the likes Dortmund and Liverpool.
The problem is Levy's decision, believing in Pochettino he'd found his "Wenger/Ferguson" to abandon that strategy (not exclusively but generally biased toward buy with potential and inherent value and develop) and opt for a different one (a more managerial controlled "now" strategy).
This wasn't the first time Levy had made this mistake, he did the same under Redknapp. So it's a serial error. For which Levy deserves huge criticism. Along with the appointments made within those strategies.
He had the chance in the summer to put things right, and again, IMO, made a dogs dinner of it. Paratici and Nuno were ill matched and ill suited to the kind of model we should be following - and once did very successfully.
Cheers for that Blakey!
"Since City were catapulted into the financial elite in 2008, they have finished above Spurs in nine of 13 seasons and, in three of those campaigns, effectively denied them Champions League football by being above the fifth-placed north London club.
Without a financially-boosted City, Spurs might well have finished in the top four in nine of the previous 13 seasons and quite possibly won a trophy or several."
Fucking amen!!!
...Ditto the Chavs during the Jol era.
"Spurs have arguably begun to behave like a richer club than they are, evidenced by their refusal to sell important players and by spending big on individuals..... Spurs could have sold Dele Alli, Dier and Danny Rose when they had the chance, and cashed in on Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembele sooner." [also see Jan, Kane, maybe even Sonny]
I'm sure this concept will be greeted with scorn in some quarters, but when you consider the fees NOT generated by not selling his prime talent; by allowing Poch to keep his squad togther (and giving them pay bumps to keep them sweet) to have a tilt at glory between 2017 & 2019 we backed him stronger than we could have afforded to do on a pure cash/player buying basis.... Similarly if we'd have had a big sell off during the same time period and started an earlier rebuild; there'd have likely been no CL final or 3rd or 4th place finish whilst trying to build a new team with Wembley as our shitty temporary home.
.......Shots incoming no doubt.
If my aunt was my uncle she'd have a dick
Maybe the money clubs have forced ENIC to try harder. Maybe if they hadn't come, we'd still be 7th or 8th every year with a more unsettled top 6 because the league from 2nd down is less competitive.
One thing is for sure, if Chelsea didn't win the lotto and City didn't with the Rollover and now Newcastle win the Euromillions, Man United would have won another 10 titles and would scoop up every good player from the league. The premier league would be more like the Bundesliga with no one being able to compete with them for more than a year.
In that regard, the money isn't all bad.
Maybe the money clubs have forced ENIC to try harder. Maybe if they hadn't come, we'd still be 7th or 8th every year with a more unsettled top 6 because the league from 2nd down is less competitive.
One thing is for sure, if Chelsea didn't win the lotto and City didn't with the Rollover and now Newcastle win the Euromillions, Man United would have won another 10 titles and would scoop up every good player from the league. The premier league would be more like the Bundesliga with no one being able to compete with them for more than a year.
In that regard, the money isn't all bad.
United didn't run away with the league every year pre-Roman; so it's not a forgone conclusion that they would have done in the following years if there was no oil money injected into the league.
Well done for missing the point of the article tho'.... Which was about STRATEGY and hindered growth.
In terms of net trf fee investment, the dippers spent nominally more than us during that similar time-frame.... The Coutinho money was the injection that got them over the line (see part of the article about selling).
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We do need to move players on whilst they have value.
The trouble as the article points out is on the buying side.
I wouldn't send Levy to the shops with a couple of quid to get a loaf. He'd come back with a Pannetone. Sounds great but fuck all use for making sandwiches.
The trouble as the article points out is on the buying side.
I wouldn't send Levy to the shops with a couple of quid to get a loaf. He'd come back with a Pannetone. Sounds great but fuck all use for making sandwiches.
Article is littered with ifs,buts and maybe all of which have resulted in this club still not winning anything, and now the excuses can extend to Newcastle I'm actually surprised you have fallen for this mate surely your better than that.Cheers for that Blakey!
"Since City were catapulted into the financial elite in 2008, they have finished above Spurs in nine of 13 seasons and, in three of those campaigns, effectively denied them Champions League football by being above the fifth-placed north London club.
Without a financially-boosted City, Spurs might well have finished in the top four in nine of the previous 13 seasons and quite possibly won a trophy or several."
Fucking amen!!!
...Ditto the Chavs during the Jol era.
"Spurs have arguably begun to behave like a richer club than they are, evidenced by their refusal to sell important players and by spending big on individuals..... Spurs could have sold Dele Alli, Dier and Danny Rose when they had the chance, and cashed in on Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembele sooner." [also see Jan, Kane, maybe even Sonny]
I'm sure this concept will be greeted with scorn in some quarters, but when you consider the fees NOT generated by not selling his prime talent; by allowing Poch to keep his squad togther (and giving them pay bumps to keep them sweet) to have a tilt at glory between 2017 & 2019 we backed him stronger than we could have afforded to do on a pure cash/player buying basis.... Similarly if we'd have had a big sell off during the same time period and started an earlier rebuild; there'd have likely been no CL final or 3rd or 4th place finish whilst trying to build a new team with Wembley as our shitty temporary home.
.......Shots incoming no doubt.
Not sure we'll be seriously in for him, but would not be surprised to see Vlahovic move in the summer. Getting lots of grief from fans since news broke of him not signing a new contract, when Fiorentina players gave their shirts to the crowd after a defeat last night apparently Vlahovic's was thrown back onto the field. Wouldn't be surprised to see a manager change there either, the way they play is infuriating to watch.
They are not kicking Italiano this early. They adore him and he has them playing some of their best football in forever. Their play has tanked once the Vlahovic news broke.
You're probably right, I've not liked the way they play tbh. Good vs Genoa and Torino (maybe?) earlier in the season, but I hate the way they use width and get the ball wide quickly only to slow play down and circulate the ball without purpose. Bonaventura kills so many opportunities, and Odriozola/Biraghi seem to have been warned against crossing when they get into dangerous positions.
Fiorentina have not had a consistently good playing style since Montella's first spell. And his coaching career died a death the moment he went to manage Milan. He was up there with Poch and Klopp as the up and coming top coaches of his generation and is now rehabbing his career in Turkey.
Here's brief summary from a recent Ali G piece on players who could leave in January, either on permanents or loans to make room for new blood.
Summary:
Summary:
- Harry Winks: Rise of Skipp & Hojbjerg as a nailed on starter makes him hard to fight for his spot. Also Sarr coming in next summer makes things harder for him.
- Rodon: While impressing at the euros, Nuno has only used him at one PL & 2 ECL games. Understood that he is frustrated, best move would be a loan as Nuno rates Romero, Dier & Sanchez above Rodon, and Tanganga wants to play as CB too.
- Doherty: Royal & Tanganga. Could see an exit or january loan
- Sessegnon: Injury ruined progress. Nuno is a big fan, but may go on loan to improve his confidence.
- Clarke: Non-starter. Unsucessful loans.
- Harvey White: Good loan spell, regular starter & scorer for U23. Could go on another loan for his development.
- Markanday: Needs first-team minutes for his development, promising talent. Abundance of wingers at Spurs make it harder for him to stand out.
Why would either of those players join us?
VDB Would at least get game time here. You would think.
Totally different player to PEH. I'd get rid of Tanguy for VDB, I'd definitely give Lo Celso PEH's place, but realistically, I'd like a no-nonsense proper midfielder in the team.
Van De Beek is apparently on the out list for the January window.
The question is if United would be willing to sell to us.