If any of the other top six clubs managers were coming out with the quotes Mourinho (and pretty much every other manager we’ve had during ENICs time) constantly come out with in relation to how we have to be “clever in the market”, “I know what the clubs objectives are”, “we cannot go and spent big money”, fans would at the very least be getting tetchy, but at Spurs there’s just this acceptance. It’s like a broken record. I’ve never seen a manager take over a big club and be so utterly negative about the prospect of improving their squad as Mourinho has been.
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I guess its better the devil you know than the devil you dont.
Levy is a pain in the arse. But it could get much worse with a new owner.
Its pathetic. Grand expectations, pauper budget.
I’m genuinely interested to find out from the Levy / ENIC our lot two things if possible.
1. Is it Levy that’s the problem. Or ENIC? Or both?
2. Which board and club are we enviously coveting? Who has, for a decade or more, delivered what you want? A huge investment in transfers. A risk free transfer strategy. A strategy that doesn’t cost too much as to effect further transfers, wages or the actual financial standing of the club.
Honestly keen to find out who this perfect board and owner is.
1. Is it Levy that’s the problem. Or ENIC? Or both?
2. Which board and club are we enviously coveting? Who has, for a decade or more, delivered what you want? A huge investment in transfers. A risk free transfer strategy. A strategy that doesn’t cost too much as to effect further transfers, wages or the actual financial standing of the club.
Honestly keen to find out who this perfect board and owner is.
Windows not over yet, but fail to strengthen the team by time it does, and I genuinely can’t think of a single excuse that will wash this time
Correct. I understand we can't compete with the likes of City in terms of wages and transfer fees. I'm not deluded to think otherwise. I understand we have to rely on a strategy of buying young players with lots of potential and a high reselling value. I believe if we apply this strategy correctly and have the proper coach for it, we can be a competitive club. However, as you said, a balance is needed. We can't rely just on young players that take time to settle.
My main gripe right now is with the way we have implemented our transfer strategy. I wouldn't want Levy to take care of transfers anymore and we need someone capable to identify the correct targets. We badly need a director of football.
No idea about Levy or ENIC. Maybe it’s Lewis who puts tight restrictions and Levy just has to do the best he can within them or maybe it’s Levy who knows.
I want a transfer stratagy that is based on what the team needs. With us it always seems we can never sell players because no one meets our asking price and thus we can never bring players in when we need to and thus we are always in danger of going stale.
When we buy it’s often cheap punts or players that are good but maybe not the ones the biggest teams want. I grant you this summer for the first time in a long time we seemed to get players the manager really wanted rather than the Nije, Stambouli type signings but it was two years too late.
Every season we have obvious holes in the team and then wonder why we don’t win things. The last season at the old WHL was probably the only time I saw us with a team close to complete.
For me if Levy stays he needs to take much greater risks, we are not going to ‘do a Leeds’. Sell players even if you don’t get the extra £2m you wanted, get players in that we need. Above all bring in a director of football who can manager transfers, scouting and the long term vision for the club. Levy is a good businessman but it has to be said a flawed football man.
Levy will have a great legacy of a brilliant stadium but when it comes the football side whether it’s larger clubs like Liverpool or smaller ones like Leicester or Wolves they all look like they have a better plan football wise relative to resources than we do. If we remain on the present course I will be very much Levy out, if he shows evolution then I will he Levy in. It’s about what’s best for Tottenham as a football club.
And your last sentence is what Levy always says when questioned
He’s always doing what’s best for the football club but failure to qualify for CL will put pressure on him surely
(you were right about Davey being Multi btw)
Cant argue with much of that, thanks for the response. I agree that we need to speculate more to accumulate more. Now the stadium is up, ENIC need to accept it’ll be several years before they get maximum value, rather than a few years. Sell us in 2023 for £2b or 2026 for £3b?
Regarding the clubs you mention, that’s three from a much larger number. And it just so happens that it’s three clubs with a pretty risky transfer strategy that has worked as much to do with luck than anything else.
Take Liverpool. They signed Salah and we signed Lamela (not at the same time I know, but similar positions in the team). Who honestly thought Salah would be the better player? They signed a ropey looking fullback from relegated Hull and gave an unknown kid his break at full back too. Hardly high spending. Then they blasted £80m on a centre back from Southampton! Nuts! Who honestly saw him becoming as good as he is? Can you imagine the implosion on here if we were to sign James Milner when they did? Lots of luck and a bit of good judgement.
I don’t know if it no longer works, but it’s absolutely certain it doesn’t work for a team trying to permanently stay in the Champions League.
We’re trying to spend like West Ham while competing like Chelsea or Man U, not going to work in the long run.
How do season ticket holders feel when they pay 1.5k and watch crap?
I think that will ramp up the pressure on Levy.
I think that will ramp up the pressure on Levy.
Empty seats certainly will
Even west ham seem more ambitious.
Out of interest Brian, how did you vote?
I'm not having a go. You raise some fair points in your previous posts.
I'm just curious to know wether 189 people on here voted NO because they genuinely think ENIC are doing a fantastic job, or simply because, as you rightly say, we're probably stuck with them so we may as well just suck it up.
Considering they have half the money we do, they probably are. Obviously they spend it silly, but from an ambition point of view. Are they less ambitious than we are?
I suppose you may have a different definition of ambitious than I do. They may spend a higher percentage of their capital than we do, but I imagine Rochdale spend a higher percentage of their capital than we do. Does that make Rochdale also more ambitious?
But our aims are significantly higher than theirs, so we need to spend a higher amount than they do. We need to buy better players, paying more fees and more wages. So are we then more ambitious?
I don’t accept that throwing money at something equals ambition.
Were West Ham being ambitious when they moved to the athletics stadium, or were we when we built the best football stadium in Europe?
I think with Liverpool there was luck, Alexander Arnold being one. However they got a good manager like us but gave him the exact players he needed to build a team that plays perfectly how he wants front to back. A good manager with the right players is the winning combination.
Only time we came close was the last season at WHL. Poch’s system was dependent on top full backs and a press resistant midfield which we had back then. Afterwards we sold Walker, Dembele degraded and left, Rose declined and it all gradually went south. His system was never properly backed.
I do understand partly why. The energy of the club was in building a stadium and maybe the 2-3 years of underinvestment was inevitable but then Poch should have been backed for a proper rebuild afterwards considering he performed miracles for a few seasons before it went tits up. We had a manager with a great style of play but without the players to play it anymore and with the stadium done investment should have been across the board.
If you bring in Jose then you have to spend and spend big, very very big. It’s clear the team needs an overhaul top to bottom. For me I am not wedded to Levy leaving or staying but if Levy bought Jose in without being prepared to spend £200-300 million net over the next two windows then he’s a fool, an intelligent fool but still a fool because Jose will not have any patience for mediocre players. Hopefully he isn’t one and we see the investment. These issues aside long term I want a director of football at the club.
I think Poch had decent backing, but either identified shite players, or agreed to them coming in.
As for the rest of your post, could not agree more. I think ENIC deserve a chance to show they’ll pump money into transfers and I think that chance should be longer than ten days, maybe 6-8 windows. To hire José and not give him a huge budget would be stupid in the extreme. And I’m pretty sure all the talk about working with what we have is just talk to stop us being bent over.
But we’ll need several windows as we can’t replace half a dozen players at one time. Maybe three at a time could be integrated. Only two of them will be successful, another regular player will leave and thus will happen each window, so it’ll be three years before we have a top quality first eleven.