Levy wouldn't allow Conte to bring his own team in at the expense of those already at the club, ergo he values his own judgement over the serial winner, pretty simple working out.
You're the one who mentioned £200m, I don't believe that figure has ever been specifically quoted anywhere, all I said was reasonable backing.
I don't care if he'd have walked after one season, Nuno won't be here more than that, probably much less I'd wager if I were a betting man, so we might as well have had a decent shot at making it a successful one.
Yup. It would have ended in tears, but the foreplay would have been exciting if nothing else.
We are a hot mess at the moment. I see some clinging to the first half as a platform to build on, but weren't we saying that after the display against City?
I said during the tw that now was the time to gamble, speculate to accumulate as I seriously doubt that we'll ever have so few competitors for signatures. I liked the acquisitions of Gil, Sarr and Romero, all very smart signings, but for the immediate to mid term, we shit the bed.
It was me who postulated that we should have spent circa £200M to bring in proper quality. As Chelsea have shown, the manager is largely irrelevant to who you buy. Their £200+ was spent when Lampard was incumbent, Tuchel has taken on the same team, added a better striker, and now I honestly believe they are Champions elect, even at this early stage. They have squad depth to match City and, as they demonstrated last season, they have their number.
One big outlay, which I truly believe we could have managed quite easily with the revenue streams we will have coming, would have set us up for the next few years, with no more than 1, maybe 2, signings per season following that to keep freshening the squad.
I've defended Levy/Enic in the past, but said at the end of last season that if they didn't have a window that showed clear intent to challenge, then I'd be joining the ranks calling for a change at the top.
Well the only intent I saw was to carry on with more of the same. So, if I'm feeling this way after staunchly defending them for years, then they truly are done.
Unfortunately, who can afford to buy us? Who would be willing to shell out £2Bn, to then have to fork out hundreds of millions more to make us competitive? It won't be a Yank, there's no one in Europe, I doubt there's anyone in China interested, and what Arab state is going to pay £2Bn to a Jewish owner? That hatred runs too deep. I'm utterly convinced that is the reason why we got offered a pittance for Kane and he was tapped up, it's an Arab trying to get one over on a Jew.
I was a ST holder all through the 90's and early 2000's and never felt the apathy towards this club that I am currently feeling. I guess that's down to the fact that we never expected anything other than a relegation fight back then. But we had our hopes and expectations raised considerably by building up a club and team that was on the cusp, only to be let down.
So yeah, I'm done defending them, looking for the Silver lining, waiting for Enic to make that final push. It's really not coming.
But then neither is that new owner, so we're stuck in limbo watching our rivals widen the gap we spent so long closing.
Happy fucking Birthday me!