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Transfers The Summer Transfer Edging Thread 2025

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Explain why not. Using logic
 
We took 59 points from the 38 games between the end of the post-Chelsea 9 man tailspin and the beginning of last season's injury crisis.

Not good form by any means, and a level at which we've sacked a number of managers, but we've been there or thereabouts frequently in recent years. Exactly 59 points in 2019-20.

And THEN the bottom really fell out and we took 19 points from Ange's last 26 league games (17 of the dreaded 22 losses) which he couldn't survive even with a European trophy and all of the excuses, and probably shouldn't have.

That three-part breakdown is a more logical way to look at the Ange era, imho.
We've been over this multiple times with Ange defenders - you can't pick out that window and say "this was decent" because its not an even set of fixtures. Most of those points came in a run of fixtures between the Chelsea match and early Spring last season where we played basically no top half squads, and certainly won little to no points against anyone in the top half.

From early spring through the end of the season we started playing better clubs, and we couldn't buy a point.

Same story this year. This season we lost the majority of matches for the first time in 90 years.

The idea that Ange was "only shit" from January on this year is just wrong. He had a few bursts of decent points haul - but it was due to a fortunate run of fixtures, not because we weren't shit.
 
I wouldn't be shocked if it was around £55-60m though. It's roughly what we paid for him and he's got 2 years left on his contract.

People expecting £70m+ are going to be disappointed I reckon.

Plus we just dont get high sums for our players. If he goes it will be late in the window too. We love to keep players for as long as possible to get a couple of million more, which we probably have ended up paying them in wages over the same period while we have been haggling.
 
We finished 5th with a worse squad, so 5th should be realistic

Had no Europe, went out of all cups after 5 minutes and we clung on to it by the skin of our teeth.

Hardly fair to expect if of Frank with CL football (infinitely harder to balance than EL) and teams having strengthened around us - Chelsea this season for example are much better than the Chelsea Ange just about finished ahead of, they've spent another fortune.
 
1 we can’t do a Brighton who do buy for resale and therefore can use an entirely data driven system to pick young players then sell them to Chavs for massive money and repeat. Brighton are about 1/4 our size as a club so the expectations are vastly lower and they have a set plan. We are also not a selling club, we only sell when forced like Kane or Bale.
The thing that seems to get clearer by the year is that player prices are becoming more dictated by the revenues of the buying club rather than some strict objective market valuation of the player.

Brighton can buy the same player for less because it is obvious public knowledge that Spurs have more money. When we are seeking any player it's obvious what role we have picked out for them and its obvious what our budget will support for that role.

If we want Kudus, he's worth 60M to us, because that's the money we've got to fill that position.

This kills Levy's whole theory of the marketplace.
 
Had no Europe, went out of all cups after 5 minutes and we clung on to it by the skin of our teeth.

Hardly fair to expect if of Frank with CL football (infinitely harder to balance than EL) and teams having strengthened around us - Chelsea this season for example are much better than the Chelsea Ange just about finished ahead of, they've spent another fortune.

Also the league has got a lot stronger. Not the top 2-3 or bottom 2-3 I mean the 4-9th area.
 
Well Levy then is the clouds.

The league the last few seasons is changing. We don’t have 4-5 good clubs, we have 6-7 of them. Liverpool, City, Woolwich, Chelsea are getting joined by Newcastle and Villa who are maxing their PSR each season to build up as their owners are rich.

Top 4-5 will require big investment and probably an increase in the wage structure of the club. If Levy expects Frank or any manager to cheap his way to top 4 he is a fool.
The idea that we would "cheap" our way to top 6 is incorrect. Based on fees and wages, that's where we would expect to finish.

A manager should be a value added position - if you spend the 6th most money and finish 6th then your manager is net neutral (Mourinho maybe? AVB, etc.). Maybe you don't sack them, but they haven't really earned their money.

Alternatively, if you finish below, they're a negative value (Ange) and you're better off finding someone who won't drag you down.

What you're looking for is a manager that can elevate the 6th most expensive squad, they're a positive value (Poch, Conte before he decided he wanted to go home).
 
The thing that seems to get clearer by the year is that player prices are becoming more dictated by the revenues of the buying club rather than some strict objective market valuation of the player.

Brighton can buy the same player for less because it is obvious public knowledge that Spurs have more money. When we are seeking any player it's obvious what role we have picked out for them and its obvious what our budget will support for that role.

If we want Kudus, he's worth 60M to us, because that's the money we've got to fill that position.

This kills Levy's whole theory of the marketplace.

Clubs like Brighton or in this case West Ham also generally do have to sell as the Prem gives them huge money. PSR is the spanner in the works in this case for West Ham but in the past we could have gone for Bowen with West Ham needing to avoid bankruptcy. West Ham with Defoe, Carrick and Parker would price us out today like Bowen.
 
''Now, Tottenham have received another update on the transfer saga involving the Man United star. As per The Telegraph, the Red Devils are willing to pay a portion of Rashford’s wages in an attempt to offload the 27-year-old in the coming weeks. The prolific winger is willing to take a pay-cut as well to seal the move away from Old Trafford.''

 
The idea that we would "cheap" our way to top 6 is incorrect. Based on fees and wages, that's where we would expect to finish.

A manager should be a value added position - if you spend the 6th most money and finish 6th then your manager is net neutral (Mourinho maybe? AVB, etc.). Maybe you don't sack them, but they haven't really earned their money.

Alternatively, if you finish below, they're a negative value (Ange) and you're better off finding someone who won't drag you down.

What you're looking for is a manager that can elevate the 6th most expensive squad, they're a positive value (Poch, Conte before he decided he wanted to go home).

We have no idea if the squad we built is anything remotely as good as the transfer fee we paid for it. The only reason we are holding our own currently against Newcastle and Villa is they spent a load a few seasons back and hit PSR, in 1-2 seasons they will have a lot of freedom again to spend big and push on further and that’s before we come to any resurgence with United who will have a decent squad next season and if Amirom is still shit will replace him. In the past there where at best 5-6 teams who could fight for 4 places, there is now going to be 7-8 teams doing it and all of them will either have more financially firepower or will in the future. If the club hasn’t seen the changes in the league then I don’t know what to say.
 
you can't pick out that window and say "this was decent" because its not an even set of fixtures.
I'm not saying it was decent, it wasn't. It would have eventually gotten him sacked.

What I'm saying is that it's very sharply and clearly distinct.

The initial surge was one very easy to isolate thing. The endless losses collapse was too. The balance, which was about half of Ange's total tenure, was a different, third thing. And it was the "real" Angeball really, tons of chances at both ends, no control of the game, wildly varying outcomes depending on which team tied their shooting boots better.

I don't know why I bother fighting the historiography on this stuff, all I really care about is that we got our trophy, but the stuff that paints Ange as a random tea lady they stuck in the dugout as a prank just triggers me, I can't help it.
 
I'm not saying it was decent, it wasn't. It would have eventually gotten him sacked.

What I'm saying is that it's very sharply and clearly distinct.

The initial surge was one very easy to isolate thing. The endless losses collapse was too. The balance, which was about half of Ange's total tenure, was a different, third thing. And it was the "real" Angeball really, tons of chances at both ends, no control of the game, wildly varying outcomes depending on which team tied their shooting boots better.

I don't know why I bother fighting the historiography on this stuff, all I really care about is that we got our trophy, but the stuff that paints Ange as a random tea lady they stuck in the dugout as a prank just triggers me, I can't help it.

He basically was. The fact he's probably off to LA Galaxy confirms it.

He's not a top level European manager. He was a wildcard from nowhere and will return to nowhere. He will never manage at a decent club in a top 5 league again.
 
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