Wembley being a good example.
Read on another site the Liverpool V west Ham cup final was up until the January scheduled to take place at Wembley. It was in Cardiff
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Read on another site the Liverpool V west Ham cup final was up until the January scheduled to take place at Wembley. It was in Cardiff
It wasn't even ready for the League Cup final 9 months later.
I'd be interested in others opinions, particularly those who understand all this properly.
So we have Man City and formerly (or to some extent still?) Chelsea, who were bankrolled and didn't need to think about balancing the books or making a profit. Below that, Liverpool, United and the scum, whose owners want to use the clubs to make themselves richer, but who make more money than we do and who can therefore afford to spend more. The scum being somewhat contentious because they also had financial constraints before the loans for the new ground were paid off.
Then there's us, we are run to make a profit, and one benefit of the way the club is run is that we are not in any financial danger.
What about all the rest of the clubs in the prem? They are all run as a business/to make a profit, but they seem to gamble more in terms of spending more than we do (net spend). Are they run irresponsibly or is Levy/ENIC too afraid to take risks? Or are we also 'speculating to accumulate' just the same as they are, but in the form of the ground/wages rather than buying players?
I really don't understand the business side enough, but my sense is that Levy/ENIC are quite risk averse, even considering the new ground. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, balancing out the future prospects of the club (not doing a Leeds) with the need sometimes to take acceptable risks in order to improve the squad.
So we have Man City and formerly (or to some extent still?) Chelsea, who were bankrolled and didn't need to think about balancing the books or making a profit. Below that, Liverpool, United and the scum, whose owners want to use the clubs to make themselves richer, but who make more money than we do and who can therefore afford to spend more. The scum being somewhat contentious because they also had financial constraints before the loans for the new ground were paid off.
Then there's us, we are run to make a profit, and one benefit of the way the club is run is that we are not in any financial danger.
What about all the rest of the clubs in the prem? They are all run as a business/to make a profit, but they seem to gamble more in terms of spending more than we do (net spend). Are they run irresponsibly or is Levy/ENIC too afraid to take risks? Or are we also 'speculating to accumulate' just the same as they are, but in the form of the ground/wages rather than buying players?
I really don't understand the business side enough, but my sense is that Levy/ENIC are quite risk averse, even considering the new ground. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, balancing out the future prospects of the club (not doing a Leeds) with the need sometimes to take acceptable risks in order to improve the squad.
I don't think anyone can blame Levy for the delay, that's beyond the hands of the chairman who's hiring hundreds of contractors. but rather on the grim conduct around it (rushed on selling ST at high prices, only notified the fans after a leak in a tabloid ect.)
I'd say that's one of the things Levy has done very well on. He's bought and sold players, investing the majority of the proceeds in new players.
So the Spurs squad today is far far better than the one he inherited when ENIC bought the club, or indeed far better than the one Harry Redknapp managed, even though by that stage Spurs had Bale and Modric in the side.
Of course there have been poor decisions along the way, sometimes expensive ones. But overall the successes of buying a Dele Alli for £5m to turn him into a PL star or an Eriksen for £11m to become one of the best in his position in Europe far outweigh the flops like N'Koudou.
In general terms its been a constant improvement rather than a sudden improvement though buying big sums on stars - and that is why you seem to believe its being risk averse. Correct its a lower risk policy, but its more certain to succeed over time.
He's also invested in infrastructure - the training ground for example which will have a payback in better development of players and attracting good players to world class facilities. That's something only the ManCity and ManU have achieved - I don't think Chelsea (despite Abramovitch millions) or Liverpool or Woolwich have achieved. The stadium, once complete and in use, will within a year or two put us far closer to the other big 6 PL clubs - allowing us to better compete for the best players - and that's been a huge financial risk to take.
So 'risk averse' is not correct, he's assessed the risks and taken the ones he feels comfortable with.
Exactly. Delays happen, but forcing people to have to buy new tickets (if what I have read is accurate) to watch games that were originally scheduled to be a the new stadium is off. The owners should suck that up / have insurance covering any potential losses. heck, they should even reimburse fans who had made special arrangements to watch the first competitive games at the new stadium - there are reports of fans flying in especially for that occasion.
In retrospect, maybe they should have left in adequate contingency and maybe just agreed to use Wembley for another year while completing the stadium. But I suppose that clubs thinking carefully about how their actions impact the fans is a thing of the past.
Theres a massive amount of work that goes into managing and processing ST sales and planning other sales mechanisms around that, particularly in a brand new stadium bedding in every historic ST holder into a new seat. The idea that the club really should have just left this until later in the summer on the unforecast plan that a safety system would fail necessary tests on the cusp of the season is ludicrous. I get people feeling disappointed but the reality is that it couldn't have been left later, and the club was being assured the schedule would be met.
People have for far too long ascribed Levy far, far too much credit for "managing" the building project. The reality of the industry is that clients never really have a fucking clue what's going on. Theres a reason the people designing, managing, and constructing major projects like this dont have a night school MBA. Clients see finishes, and that's it. They pick out wallpaper and floor tiles and tell all their buddies they're managing a £500M build...they know fuck all about what's going on. They know exactly what they're told, and if the AEC tells them the schedule is on track they tuck into bed peacefully at night.
Everyone's a fucking building expert. Its fucking annoying.
Can you tell me more about concrete? It's strangely relaxing.
I just bought a new concrete text I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of this week for $300...
Concrete is probably my favourite material, but the one I actually work the least with. I love the flexibility it gives you in design because theres so many ways to address different design challenges. You can adjust the depth/width or your members, increase reinforcement, look at composite structural steel/concrete members, change your mix, use admixtures, fiber-reinforcing. Just lots of really cool shit. As an undergrad we had to design concrete mix test cylinders - we typically use 4,000 psi (compressive strength tested at 28-days) concrete most everywhere in design, I designed a mix that averaged 17,000 psi breaks at 14 days using a heavy dose of silica fume, a very low w/c ratio boosted by plasticizers.
When water is introduced to Portland cement, the resulting chemical reaction produces Calcium Silcate Hydrates (the strong crystallized particles) and Calcium Hydroxide (fucking useless Danny Baldwin stuff). Silica fume is an extremely fine industrial waste product pozzolan powder that reacts with the useless CH to create more CSH to produce much stronger mixes. And because it's so fine, it fills much more of the microscopic voids than even the cement can. The down side being that because of the fineness. Silica fume drives the water demand of the mix up by basically claiming "dibs" on a lot of the water before the cement can get a drink. So you have to up the water content, which is bad because excess water just takes up volume, bleeds out, then leaves voids behind to reduce strength. Instead of doing this you can use (expensive) chemical plasticizers which, for a time, increase the workability of the concrete so that you can vibrate/barrel mix your concrete more to sufficiently make sure your water can escape the pozzolans and make magic with your cement. What you end up with is a super dense, super strong, super expensive concrete mix. My 17,000 psi concrete weighed in at around 225 lb/ft^3 (150 for normal mixes) and probably would've cost around $900/yd^3 ($120 delivered around here).
I've also made concrete that floats using super lightweight recycled hollow glass beads as aggregate, but I'll save that story for when you're reeeeeeeeally bored.
When water is introduced to Portland cement, the resulting chemical reaction produces Calcium Silcate Hydrates (the strong crystallized particles) and Calcium Hydroxide (fucking useless Danny Baldwin stuff). Silica fume is an extremely fine industrial waste product pozzolan powder that reacts with the useless CH to create more CSH to produce much stronger mixes. And because it's so fine, it fills much more of the microscopic voids than even the cement can. The down side being that because of the fineness. Silica fume drives the water demand of the mix up by basically claiming "dibs" on a lot of the water before the cement can get a drink. So you have to up the water content, which is bad because excess water just takes up volume, bleeds out, then leaves voids behind to reduce strength. Instead of doing this you can use (expensive) chemical plasticizers which, for a time, increase the workability of the concrete so that you can vibrate/barrel mix your concrete more to sufficiently make sure your water can escape the pozzolans and make magic with your cement. What you end up with is a super dense, super strong, super expensive concrete mix. My 17,000 psi concrete weighed in at around 225 lb/ft^3 (150 for normal mixes) and probably would've cost around $900/yd^3 ($120 delivered around here).
I've also made concrete that floats using super lightweight recycled hollow glass beads as aggregate, but I'll save that story for when you're reeeeeeeeally bored.
Timber is probably the only other material you can get nearly as creative with. Masonry is pretty straightforward, while steel is a very calculation intense catalog slog in high seismic zones (but rather stupidly simple elsewhere).
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I wasn't making a judgment on Levy, I was more trying to see what people's opinions were whilst sitting on the fence (probably leaning more towards Levy than against him in actual fact, as long as we take Stratford out of the equation).
I find it to be a tricky one. I agree if you look at the long-term then he has done exceptionally well. We have continued to build and improve, and to get better and better. The ground and new contracts could be considered the equivalent of the investments other teams make in terms of net spend. Even if we lose Poch, if we are to be established as a top four team year after year, then another continued improvement will have successfully taken place under his realm. There's every chance of that happening.
On the other hand, it's frustrating because this might be a time when more ambition or bravery is required. We could lose Poch and/or some of our best players without winning a trophy. Whilst at the same time, Levy pays himself the highest wage in the league, and we have to pay some of the highest ticket prices.
I believe Levy is a Spurs fan but is constrained by his main job and priority being to deliver a profit. It would be a shame if, ultimately, ENIC were to sell up (for a massive profit) without delivering us a major trophy. If they do, then I think Levy will go down in history, despite the fact that he nearly ended our history- in some of our eyes- by moving the club to East London.
Levy is a natural long term thinker and planner - and without spending lots of money that's the only possible approach,
The other way of course is spending lots of money and hoping - risking doing a Leeds.
So like it or not, under Levy we are likely to get a 'continuous improvement' and it may not be immediately obvious what the improvement has been on a day to day basis but if you look back a couple of years, and a couple of years before that, the improvements become more obvious
Tend to agree with this.
Which brings me to my other question. If we exclude the other top six clubs, and Burnley (who I believe have reasonable net spend levels), are all the other clubs in risk of doing a Leeds?
I'd suggest Chelsea and ManCity are the most likely to do a Leeds IF their current owners decide to walk away - and I thought Abramovitch might do that when he was denied a British visa.
Most of the other clubs are just spending tv money so not building up debt
So I guess we are doing the same, in terms of spending TV money, except we are spending it on a new ground rather than on players?
Re: chavs/Man City, it hardly seems fair on the club that an owner can come in and spend all that money, walk away, and then it is treated as the debt of the club rather than it being the individuals money which he has now chosen to spend. That's something I never understood about the financial side of the game, but which appears to be true. Having said that, few things would bring me more pleasure than seeing Chelsea in the shit like that...Man City would be nice too.
whats worse is the leveraged buy, like the Glazers at man u. Buy the club on credit, then transfer that debt to the club, so the club effectively pays for you to buy it.
In the last 3 years Spurs have spent approximately £186m to buy Sissoko, Janssen, Nkoudou, Wanyama, Foyth, Sanchez, Gazzaniga, Aurier, Llorente, and Lucas so its not true to say we don't spend money on players. But the quality of spending is certainly questionable as only Sanchez, Wanyama seem to be definitely good purchases although Foyth and Lucas may well come good but 6 of the 10 look poor to me - and maybe its that analysis as to why you overlook our recent spend on players ? (Other than this summer TW where I suspect we only intended to bring in a couple of players but Villa deciding not to sell Grealish at the end of the TW killed off one of the 2 or 3 purchases, and with Alderweireld and Dembele eventually not moving on that killed off the other purchases probably as we needed to reduce our overseas trained player numbers to bring in players)
Its certainly true that a good deal of money has been spent on infrastructure (training ground and starting the stadium - although most of the stadium has currently been funded by debt and will be repaid out of higher gate money and bigger sponsorship deals).
So I think we'll continue to see player purchases at Spurs, although given a strong first X1 and probably an 18 strong squad of good players we don't need to buy as many players as some of the others - although obviously we need to replace if some leave (eg Dembele). But I'm also hopeful Poch will do as he says and bring through some of our youth over the next few years.
Excellent point. If the clubs below us, spending more don't bear fruits of their risk it'll be interesting to see what happens to them.
The only leg the club has to stand on is the stadium build when it comes to money spent andnindo still think that was the right thing to do for the future stability & success of the club
A lot of the players we are buying though are in this market relatively cheap, only player we pushed the boat out was Sanchez. On a lower budget your more likely to get flops.
Type of players that would have improved us such as Bernardo Silva or Keita are out of our price range. Issue is our first team is very good so only top players can challenge for positions in our team but we need them to as we arguably have depth problems compared to some of our ‘top 6’ rivals.
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Sissoko and Aurier are relatively big budget players (although clearly not top price) - remembering of course that PSG had to sell for FFP reasons so we got a 'decent price' , although given his performances to date are riddled with errors, we probably over paid.
And Llorente given his pedigree, and he's not that old, should have been performing much better than he has - not sure if that's just his fault or that Poch is not playing the team in a way to get more out of him,
Janssen I thought was an astute buy - Dutch international scoring freely in Dutch league, But he's struggled to make an impact .
The likes of M'Koudou were clearly punts, but its a shame that one of them have not come off.
But by the way spending big is no guarantee of success - remember Liverpool buying Carroll (now at Wham) from Newcastle and many others who have flopped despite their reputations
Not to say we haven't spent money, we have and I'm not overlooking that, but it seems to have been funded by player sales rather than the TV money- we near enough break even on transfers going back quite a long way, which is where we differ from most other PL clubs, be they big or small. Though as you say it could be that the TV money goes into the new stadium/training ground, obviously needing loans for the stadium as well.