Zero Debt

[SouthStand Billy]

Love the bit at the bottom of Spams stats.. "Owners say they can be title challengers within 5 years "

 

[YidDriver]

 

[Tomo]

Recently we have posted record income and have officially closed out our debt leading us to be only one of the two clubs in the premier league to be debt free. (Swansea being the other one!)

This is an incredible achievement considering how much money we have definitely spent on the overall architecture of the club, the players we have invested in and how close we have been challenging for the top four the past decade inspite of the clubs like Chelsea spending way beyond their means and have racked up a billion in debt.

While as supporters we can't necessarily all be excited about the club being in zero debt while we are going through one of our worst trophies record under a club ownership, we should realise that this is nothing short of extra-ordinary!



My only regret is that one or two key signings have been missed due to our prudent nature which might have paid off big time if they managed to make us champions league regulars! A little risk taking there could have paid off quite well, but no point dwelling in the past.

Hope we kick on from this, get rid of players we don't need and sign players to improve the first team with academy guys providing the required backup.

A stadium is also all set to be built and under ENIC, we are in safe hands (at least financially!).
Also, why on earth are there no Ginola smilies? He is perhaps the best looking bloke who has played for Spurs!

Love abramovich to do a runner and leave them with a billion on their own.

 

[Sunglasses Ron]

QPR's wages at 195% of their income.

Brilliant.

 

[Astro]

And now we come to the National final of the Financial Fair Play League...
Tottenham Hotspurs vs Swansea.
Both teams sheets are looking very impressive coming into this game

The expectation builds as the accountants take to the field and we prepare to take a minutes silence for the cancellation of the bic biro that has finally ceased manufacture.

And now the Captains meet at the Oval table and they prepare to schedule meetings and toss the pencil.
The Ombudsman tosses the pencil and ... the pointy end goes to Spurs and they choose to file their papers first.

The brown envelopes are handed out and the Accountants head back to their team.
This is going to get tense!!!!

Who wins?!? Coming in the next exciting installment of the financial fair play league

 

[Kris]

Fuck the new stadium off, buy the world's best players win the league and then do a Leeds. YOLO.

 

[YidDriver]

Recently we have posted record income and have officially closed out our debt leading us to be only one of the two clubs in the premier league to be debt free. (Swansea being the other one!)

This is an incredible achievement considering how much money we have definitely spent on the overall architecture of the club, the players we have invested in and how close we have been challenging for the top four the past decade inspite of the clubs like Chelsea spending way beyond their means and have racked up a billion in debt.

While as supporters we can't necessarily all be excited about the club being in zero debt while we are going through one of our worst trophies record under a club ownership, we should realise that this is nothing short of extra-ordinary!



My only regret is that one or two key signings have been missed due to our prudent nature which might have paid off big time if they managed to make us champions league regulars! A little risk taking there could have paid off quite well, but no point dwelling in the past.

Hope we kick on from this, get rid of players we don't need and sign players to improve the first team with academy guys providing the required backup.

A stadium is also all set to be built and under ENIC, we are in safe hands (at least financially!).
Also, why on earth are there no Ginola smilies? He is perhaps the best looking bloke who has played for Spurs!

 

[Doom Funk]

my eyes have seen the glory of the balance sheet at white hart lane ochsulk:it's not as catchy

 

[JDK]

Yet this summer when someone suggests that we spend 25m on a player I guarantee there will be a response saying, "Do you really want us to do a Leeds?!"

 

[Doom Funk]

Love the bit at the bottom of Spams stats.. "Owners say they can be title challengers within 5 years "

They surely mean the championship title don't they

 

[Tomo]

Yet this summer when someone suggests that we spend 25m on a player I guarantee there will be a response saying, "Do you really want us to do a Leeds?!"

As Yorkshire_Spurs said we should be making £50 million from about 7-8 sales this summer.

The main issue as far as I can see is updating our purchasing model to reflect a team chasing top 4 and not just surviving relegation, we have to move away from knock down haggle deals like stambouli and Fazio and look at only top quality.

Two £30 million players are more likely to get us top four than 5 £5 million average players. Most Top 4 teams have about 4-5 top class players they can rely on, we have perhaps 2-3 of that level.

 

[Tomo]

I totally agree with this. The point I was trying to make, was that a high price tag does not guarantee quality. Good scouting and finding the players to fit the system is what we need. Too many people seem to associate not spending huge quantities with not showing ambition which is my issue. But clearly that was not what you were saying.

Yeh money does not always mean quality, that's where good scouting, judgement and even luck come into play. A typical #Spursy summer would be Poch desperately wanting a player who is worth £20 million because he believes he will make a huge difference to the side, then Levy bidding £15 million and pissing off the player and club with the offer and trying to haggle the deal down until it falls apart. Poch then gets given a second rate alternative he doesn't want who will just be competing with the young players, a player we don't need.

That's what I hope we avoid and where the flaws of the haggling over money, buying a cheap not needed alternative and not properly strengthening come into play and that's where my issues with Levy still are to some degree. We need to move away from this.

 

[JDK]

We will actually quite likely see at least another team "do a Leeds", probably this summer. QPR in particular.

It's not about doing a Leeds as much as the mentality of "spend some money" is based on this mythical idea that all you need to do is buy a few "superstar" players and everything magically improves.

We've seen plenty of evidence that you can't buy your way to overnight success with several "projects" around Europe blowing up in failure, and a lot of "big names" turn out to be colossal failures because they're completely wrong for a particular club, or just weren't very good period. (Radamel Falcao).

The clubs that have done well, and in particular, done well in Europe and the League at the same time (unlike City), all have a coherent system with structure and planning. Yes, buying a few players who can improve the squad is fine, but you need a plan first that actually identifies "right fit" players who will actually contribute to the squad. Just spending money on a bunch of names doesn't do that. We didn't really have adequate plans in place in the past, and as a result, spending some money for us was a bit of a problem, since we generally bought pretty damn poorly, between Redknapp, AVB and Baldini being unable to identify talent and fit them into a coherent system.

Most people who scream "spend some money" though, remember none of that and simply rattle off a bunch of names which they saw on a highlight reel or in FIFA. The real world doesn't work like that, and clubs that win things don't work like that.

I am not saying that you are like that, but that's where the whole "spend some money!"/"don't do a Leeds" dichotomy comes from.

I mean, rich clubs that spend money win things. Since 2007/2008 there has only been one club to win one of the big four leagues or make a Champions League semi-final that wasn't ranked in Deloitte's top 20 most valuable clubs in the world and that was Wolfsburg who won the Bundesliga in 2008/2009.

For someone who is obsessively stats based you're very flippant when it comes to sample size. Using Radamel Falcao or our terrible 2013 summer acquisitions are not telling measures of spending money whatsoever.

There is no logical basis that would say just because we failed when spending 100m once that we would fail if we did it again. An argument could be made that because Baldini and Levy are poor evaluators but ultimately just by spending that much money they would still have moderate success more times than not. Would it be as effective as a shrewd club spending 100m? Most likely not, but it would still somewhat successful because spending big mitigates a substantial amount of concerns in regards to scouting. The reason for this is simple, on average, a more expensive player will outperform a less expensive player.

There will be flops, of course, and there are plenty of cheap players that vastly outperform their price tag but on average a more expensive player will outperform a less expensive player. If Spurs were to spend a 100m a summer for the next three years it would require an extreme aberration for the club to not be better than it is today even if you grade the decisions makers as particularly poor. Expensive players are generally expensive for a good reason.

Looking, for example, at the likes of City, Real Madrid, and Chelsea they don't seem to be wizards in the ways of scouting. However, when they can spend 200-300m over the course of three windows they are able to play the overwhelming odds that expensive players will outperform cheaper ones. Just because Torres, Kaka, and Robinho flopped doesn't mean that big money players like Bale, Ronaldo, Aguero, Silva, Costa, Hazard, etc will as well. While flops are easy to point at they are much more often aberration than regularity.

Now, of course Tottenham aren't one of those teams that can continually play the favorable odds in the transfer market and write off big money flops. I've long called on the club to embrace the fact that it does not have the same monetary resources as the true big boys and build a smart scouting system. It finally seems like we've chosen to do this. However, it doesn't change the fact that Mitchell can spend 10,000 hours in the black box room looking for a Central Midfielder and whoever ends up paying the 70m for Paul Pogba will in all likelihood get the better player. Equally, Mitchell can scout a wonderkid from Croatia or Serbia but the better choice for next season would be to pay +20m for Morgan Schneiderlin. Money makes your scouting much easier.

Fortunately for us, we've built a phenomenal academy and much credit to the club for playing the long game on that. Not even including the five first teamers (with more to come) we have at the moment it has paid off handsomely with the substantial sales of Livermore (8m), Caulker (8m), Falque (4m), probably Carroll this summer, and we also got not insignificant fees for Dawkins, Luongo and a few others.

But the value of having a quality academy doesn't simply lie in the production of players but also in the ability to invest more money into fewer spots. Because of the cheap academy players that have come through and will continue to come through we have the luxury to go big on our most pressing needs like winger, center half, and central midfield.

So yes, I am in the spend some fucking money camp. I will be extremely disappointed if we pull the shit that we did this summer again. We have a manager that actually seems worth trusting, a technical director with good pedigree and an actual system, and a booming academy that has the ability to sort out depth roles in the squad.

Now is the time to smartly pick a few players that will improve the first eleven and open the cheque book in a big way. We have no debt, massive new revenue streams/TV money, and a solid base of a squad. Get out there this summer and SPEND SOME FUCKING MONEY. I'll be fuming if we don't tbh, there's no excuses at this point. Everyone can see our deficiencies, back our manager and address the faults. This team has real potential going forward if Levy puts some money behind it.

 

[The Yinzer]

He falls down on selling players we don't need as well - refusing to take a loss on players like Bentley and instead just paying them their wages until they leave on a free.

Doesn't make sense, we just need to accept when a transfer has failed and move to damage limitation tactics.

I think this is the weakest aspect of our transfer policy. I think economists call it the "sunk cost fallacy." The concept is that we should not consider money already spent and gone when making decisions going forward. It doesn't matter how much we paid for Soldado. That money is spent. The only question should be: is he now and in the future worth more to us than we can get on the transfer market. It seems that Levy far too often looks at what we paid for a player in deciding his worth. That's not acting rationally. And it's bad for the club.

 

[VirginiaSpur]

QPR's wages at 195% of their income.

Brilliant.

 

[JDK]

I think we can spend £50mil this summer.

We have enough shit to make near that sum in sales if we can shift them.

I don't disagree at all. My point is that whenever there is a discussion about spending a bit of money someone says oh well we don't want to do a Leeds. It's so asinine considering our situation of having zero debt and also the massive revenue streams that the Premier League has now. It is very unlikely we'll ever see that happen to another team again, let alone one of our size. That doesn't even take into account how well we are run. We could have a +50m net spend this and we wouldn't even be in the same galaxy of "doing a Leeds". But someone will bring it up this summer, I guarantee it.

It's like bringing up Hitler anytime a tin pot third world dictator starts making a bit of trouble.

 

[n17troops]

WE ARE DEBT FREE
OH WE ARE DEBT FREE
OH LEVY,S A TIGHT CUNT
BUT WE ARE DEBT FREE.

 

[VirginiaSpur]

Zero debt is a good thing is a good thing if you think the new stadium is necessary for the future viability of the club. Allows us to drive a harder bargain and demand more attractive loan terms for the financing of the new stadium than if there were competing debt obligations outstanding.

And for those of you that believe debt is a measure of ambition, you can relax; that debt figure is set to shoot up by a few hundred million by the time next year's financial figures are released. Just be patient...

 

[Tomo]

Clubs don't get their first choice players all the time. What we need to stop doing is (in agreement with you Tomo ) signing the likes of Capoue and Stambouli, who are just a waste of £5-10 million. I'd rather see Carroll given a go than these carefree time wasters that could care less for the club.

I voted yes, by the way. Being debt free, regular European football and a state of the art stadium on the way, we're in excellent shape for the future, whether that be under ENIC or otherwise.

Agree on the shape of our club, looks very promising the poll related to our transfer policy which I think has had issues thus I voted no, if the poll was overall running of the club and in particular this season I would have said yes, transfers or the way we have conducted them have been a weakness, at least in comparison to some other teams IMO.

But the thing is that we thought that about Soldado, Paulinho and Lamela too. Yet they did not. Man U probably thought Diego Forlan would improve them. Or Liverpool thought Robbie Keane would improve them.

What I'm trying to say is every transfer is a gamble. And when it comes to gambling I prefer a low risk strategy. Even if this does mean that the rewards we reap aren't as high. We aren't far off the top 4, so a few shrewd signings are what we need rather than throwing around money like it's going out of fashion.

I think tarring the Soldado brush on every player might be the wrong move, we got burned no question but I don't think that should deeply affect or plans, many other clubs bought top players for top money well, we didn't, that is unfortunate but bringing in top players is part of the way you get top 4 and push for a title one day. Next time we need to do it right, now we seem to have a stable manager and scout we should be in a better position. For every Soldado at the price he came their is a Costa, we just were unlucky.

The reason why I believe we should not abandon going for top quality is why we shouldn't abandon the youth system. Last season so many Spurs fans thought nothing of our youth players like Bentaleb and Kane and despite good games simply disregarded them, it really annoyed me at the time. The reason I think we did this is because we were burned by a youth system that produced so little for so long (a decade between good players like King) that we had grown used to buying solving the issue and thought our youth was crap or at least alot of us did.

Now it's our youth system that has saved us but I really hope we don't develop the mentality that we can purely rely on it even if there are not the standard of players in a certain area. For me we have the depth of the youth system therefore no average buys needed, Capoue and the like are simply getting in the way of home grown players, therefore our transfer policy should be on obtaining the highest possible quality even if it comes at a price, we need quality not quantity. In the summer we don't need lots of players, just one or two top one's do me.

 

[Blanchflower]

Yeh money does not always mean quality, that's where good scouting, judgement and even luck come into play. A typical #Spursy summer would be Poch desperately wanting a player who is worth £20 million because he believes he will make a huge difference to the side, then Levy bidding £15 million and pissing off the player and club with the offer and trying to haggle the deal down until it falls apart. Poch then gets given a second rate alternative he doesn't want who will just be competing with the young players, a player we don't need.

That's what I hope we avoid and where the flaws of the haggling over money, buying a cheap not needed alternative and not properly strengthening come into play and that's where my issues with Levy still are to some degree. We need to move away from this.

He falls down on selling players we don't need as well - refusing to take a loss on players like Bentley and instead just paying them their wages until they leave on a free.

Doesn't make sense, we just need to accept when a transfer has failed and move to damage limitation tactics.