We're supposedly one of the ''big six'' so our owners should be looking to win the league if they want what's best for the club. I don't think that can be achieved when signing players such as Solanke or Richarlison.
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Management Levy / ENIC
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
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I don't "expect" to win trophies in any given year, and any Spurs fan that says differently is probably being unreasonable. Until we start faking our accounts like so many others in the sport now, "expecting" a trophy is too much.
But...I expect that being the 8th/9th richest club in the world we, and 4th/5th/6th richest in England, we should always play in the Europa League at minimum (and be in the SF/Final when we do), play in the CL more often than not, reach the QF of any cup competition we're in, and be in the position that when opportunity falls in our lap we can seize it.
That last bit is the key. I've previously gone to great lengths to show that the difference between the ENIC era and the golden era of the club (1960-1985), isn't as huge as many think and basically comes down to this:
1960-1985, when we reached the SF of a competition we won more often than not.
Under ENIC, we've gotten in those positions nearly as frequently as we did in the golden era but have nearly always faltered.
Levy gets a lot of stick he doesn't deserve, i.e. people calling him the worst chairman in the sport. But he has always come up that little bit short, and all the glory lives in that little bit.
I recall those barren transfer windows when we were dishing out wage hikes to all and sundry but signing nobody. It was all about transfer fees then. Nobody had a clue what our wage to turnover ratio was.
Now, we’re spending g hundreds of millions (not close to irrelevant in anyone’s language, surely?) on fees but not enough on wages.
I get that the ideal is spend big on both and I expected us to do so when the new ground opened. We haven’t. Not sure why, but I and all other Spurs fans, were lied to.
Wage bill has always been the clearest indicator of ambition. We’re the lowest in the league.
We haven’t done it because Levy’s entire approach to business is to remove any element of risk. A transfer fee is the cost of doing business. But a significant wage is a tangible risk that reduces your ability to move on a player (see Tanguy and someone like Rashford).
Levy won’t accept that risk.
We don’t have the lowest wage bill in the league. Far from it. We have the lowest ratio of total football related wages to total turnover.
Take Tanguy as your example. His fee was just under 60m? His salary for the five years was around that too. Equal risk in that case. Son? Around 20m fee. Would now make 50m over 5 years? So a 30m difference. Is that the risk you are talking about? If so, it’s only 30m. You previously said hundreds of millions in fees were irrelevant, but now a paltry 30m over 5 years is a risk?
Again, we aren’t doing things correctly, but it’s not all down to wages to turnover ratios. We never even knew that was a thing until recently. Doubt we ever knew even what our wage bill was until recent years, let alone considered any kind of ratio as a marker of success.
I doubt the great Liverpool teams of the eighties were highest paid, as I doubt the ManU of the nineties were. Players wanted to play for the clubs and their managers. All this started with Chelsea, continued with Man City and has now become the norm. Hasn’t always been the case.
We had to hijack his move to West Ham, didn't we?Sell Harry Kane for £100 million
Replace him as our No1....12 months later.....with England's 5th choice striker.
Yeah..Definitely the sign of a club with sporting ambition
Solanke is a West Ham level signing
Even he thought he was a West Ham level player.
To be honest I just don't have the energy, the counterpoints to your argument have been done to death. There's always shades of grey, of course, but we have to reach a conclusion. The club is richer than ever but worse on the pitch than we've been for about 20 years. Some of that on Ange but this is the ENIC end game. Assets soaring in value, team floundering. I feel we've all reached the conclusions we're going to.
But the wages to turnover ratio is the key. That’s the closest metric we have to demonstrate how much a club is prepared to invest in the sporting commodity, being the players.
Transfer fees are a different metric. The fee paid is often very little to do with the actual player, rather the length of contract they have remaining with their current club. You’re going to be paying a lot for anyone with more than two/three years left. Haaland’s transfer fee was 10 million less than Solanke. Hardly a genuine representation of their respective statuses.
It’s the wage that’s key.
The best players who are coveted by the best teams command the highest wages. This is the same in any walk of business. We, without fail, take every opportunity to not pay those wages.
We pay good wages. But we do not pay elite wages.
You might not have said that Solanke was a Kane replacement, but that's exactly what he is in practice. Cheaper and worse. The fact that they've spaffed money on at best OK players really does not help your argument. They spend money (not enough on wages) AND spend it badly. Yay.
Utd pay elite wages, as do Chelsea. They’re still struggling relatively. Liverpool have a lower wage to turnover ratio than all the other top clubs, they’re still winning the league.
It’s not that simplistic, pay more wages win more. You need to get the right players and our problem is we’re not very good at doing that. People not acknowledging that and just blindly just wanting us to pay more is a little bit naive.
But I get it wage to turnover is now the buzz phrase. It used to be net spend and eventually it’ll be something else.
Chelsea are the most decorated club of the last twenty five years. UTD have recruited poorly.
Paying high wages doesn’t inoculate you against shitty transfers. See Tanguy. But refusing to even entertain the idea narrows your opportunity to compete.
We don't even pay good wages for a club our size
250+ Elite
200-250 Good
150-200 Above Avg
100-150 Avg
We have 2 or 3 players in the Above Avg bracket, 5 or 6 in the Avg bracket and everyone else below 100. This, along with the Ange Factor is why we will finish 15th or lower.
We pay elite wages at boardroom level though
We're unrivalled in that metric.
League of our own...We pay elite wages at boardroom level though
We're unrivalled in that metric.
Which of our players do you think deserve to earn more money? Gray, Spence & Bergvale possibly but in the past the club has given established players a new contract with more money. So if Levy gave those 3 & possibly others higher wages, how will that help improve our results?
Isaac is a top player, no idea on his wages but his transfer fee was similar to Solanke but it is totally unrealistic to expect us to persuade him to come to us until we have won something. Haaland was not a top player when bought, playing in a farmers league. It was better scouting.
This is where I totally agree with the criticism. Levy could claim he deserved the highest wages but when undertaking the rebuild of the stadium but not now. His salary is too high but at least he did not get a bonus last season.
They deserve every penny , just think of all the stick they have to take for being totally fucking useless .We pay elite wages at boardroom level though
We're unrivalled in that metric.
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We pay elite wages at boardroom level though
We're unrivalled in that metric.
Hang on; half the people are banging on here that the Europa League is a 2nd rate cup. But our previous win was a major cup?
And winning the league back before colour TV doesn't make Spurs a big club now.
I don't really refer the club as 'WE' since I am not on the staff and not a player. I am NOT part of the club. I am a supporter - so I reserve 'WE' when talking about the fans.