If he's not ambiguous, it would seem more logical to take his words at face value. And at face value, when asked directly if the construction of the stadium will herald a complete halt in the market, he rather unambiguously said 'No'.
Well I got a lot more words from the Q+A than the BBC ... <quote> Regardless of the stadium project, today our position on transfers is that we have a coach that very much believes in the academy. Unless we can find a player who would make a difference he would rather give one of our academy players a chance so that's regardless of the financing of the stadium. "Obviously when you're building a stadium of this magnitude in a UK context it all has to be privately financed. There's no state help whatsoever. "It is a challenge and we have to find the right balance but it's not impacting us at the moment on transfer activity because we're not yet in a place where we've found the player who we definitely want to buy but can't afford to buy." </quote> The "message" is completely different.
That is because how you are NOW, LDL was OVER 7 YEARS AGO. He has evolved (for the better) since then.
To an extent, I agree. I think we'll sanction one 'big' money signing this window (and that it will look and sound like Ross Barkley, and will be concluded with 5 minutes to go on August 31st). But any other incomings will be from the bargain bin. Hence £25m Ricardo Pereira suddenly turning into £3m Jeremy Toljan and £30m Alfie Mawson morphing into £8m Juan Foyth. If we can somehow offload Sissoko for £15m and take our revenue to a nice £100m this window, I can see us spending a maximum £50m and pumping the other half into the new stadium. What Lidls doesn't seem to understand is that our most successful players in the Poch era came from the same bin. Alli, Dier, Toby, Davies, Wanyama - all of them cost peanuts.
And then said that nobody had been bought because no suitable player was available who Spurs can afford. If that's not bracing you for disappointment in the transfer window, I don't know what is. It's nearly August. The club is on tour. There is no sign of any players being bought and bedded in pre-season. I think money will be spent, but expect promising £15M Dutch or Belgian league players. I might be wrong (I've been wrong before).
We've discussed this problem to death on here already Lidls and it isn't news to anyone, least of all because Levy has come out and said it himself. The fact of the matter is we have the 2nd best squad in the league but the 6th best income. The fact that our least talented starter just went for £50m highlights the scope of our problem: To improve on our starting XI is now an impossibility. We cannot compete financially for the likes of Lemar, Mbappe, Morata. What remains is, as you have said, to continue searching for the next Dier or Alli. They are out there, somewhere. Some place warm and tranquil.
We also cant offer a guarantee of 'first team' football (if such a thing still exists) and we aren't paying the sort of wages that so called superstars will sit on the bench for, we have punched above our financial weight for quite some time now. And of all the players that have moved to a premier league club this summer the one I most wish was going to be wearing a Spurs shirt next season is Kyle Walker. That's not to say other players wouldn't improve our squad, its just that not that many of them appear to be a massive upgrade on what was already at those clubs (with exception of Citys' fullbacks).
This is sounding like an Aldi advert. Finding cheap alternatives to the real thing has its limitations. The problem for Spurs at present is the lack of squad depth. Last season poor CL performances ultimately benefited the PL performances as the players were fresher post Xmas. If the club ends up playing 60+ games, the squad needs more players of first XI quality, not 17 year old double barreled prospects.
Clubs should look at the lower leagues, but there is too much urgency to find players who are the finished article or who have first team experience in other leagues, and who are expected to progress quickly. For the sums involved (Alli £5M), you'd think it would be worthwhile taking a chance more often.
Correct - but see above from @The Changing Man . We can't afford to pay that caliber of player the wages necessary to tempt them to be rotated in and out of the first team. Chelsea were paying FabricArse £160k, Willian £110k and Batshuayi £90k per week to keep the bench warm. Arsenal pay Walnut £110k and Giroud £100k. Your bench is made up of Martial (£65k), Smalling (£80k), Shaw (£70k), Lingard (£100k) and - until recently - Rooney on a paltry £250k per week. Just to sit down for an hour and a half once or twice a week. Finding a player equivalent to the quality of an Eriksen or a Wanyama is well beyond our means and precisely what Levy was talking about in that piece. Which is why our focus will invariably be on players entering the final year of their contracts (Barkely, Toljan), or on those with unusually low release clauses (Adrien Silva, Ricardo Pereira). And even if we do find that player, there is every chance that one of the vultures will swoop in and snatch them from us with promises of untold riches for keeping the bench warm. Our new stadium isn't to blame for all of this. It is the obscene spending of the likes of City, Chelsea and United that has caused this disparity.
I have heard some bullshit on other boards about getting banned on here but, from what I can see most of you are sound lads who can take a bit and give it back whilst talking real stuff.
