Yeah, pretty brutal! You know with both its unlikely you'll ever have more than minor success. And that is the heart of the problem for English football.
I dont really mind too much to be honest. Football at the highest level in this country is ****ed. I miss league one.
My back up is that every time a bigger club comes in for your players you end up selling them Sometimes you get the advantage of choosing which top club to sell them to, other times you just sell to the first team to pay the going rate, like City. The fact that a rival side isn't willing to match a valuation doesn't mean you aren't willing to sell, if United put £70m on Levy's desk for Dier he'd be a United player, like it or not.
Completely agree. You're not the first Southampton supporter to tell me they preferred blitzing through the divisions. It is ****ed. Basically you have to pour millions and millions in to buy a whole squad. United, City and Chelsea will always be favourites. Arsenal are sort of on their own. Then there is Liverpool who spend loads of money but also loose players regularly. They're trying to compete with City, United and Chelsea by spending but cant attract the same quality of player. Spurs and Southampton similar in doing things the right way but its exceptionally difficult for them to win the league. I mean you have West Ham loaning decent players like Joe Heart but the parent club is subsidising his ridiculous wages. There should have been a cap on wages, fees and transfers about 17 years ago. Has to come from FIFA though otherwise the Premier League's loss will be La Liga and Seria A's gain. It pisses me off. Foreign league based in England to the detriment of English players, staff and fans.
Ignores the point and proves nothing. Simple facts are; when Utd came in for Berbatov, when Chelsea came in for Modric, when Real came for Bale, a willing seller would have set a price and then haggled to reach an agreement. Levy did none of that. Utd's bid was rejected and they were told Berbatov was not for sale. Berbatov, upon hearing of Utd's interest put in a transfer request, which was rejected. Following this, he and his agent chucked all their toys and Berbatov refused to train Chelsea, similarly, were told Modric was not for sale. Modric put in a request, it was rejected and he actually stayed for another 12 months, when Real came for him. Again his request was denied,and this time he wen on strike - refusing to,train. There is strong suspicion that a verbal agreement had been reached the year before that he could go abroad, and eventually he was sold to Real. Bale, the story is very similar. Real's bid was rejected, as was Bale's transfer request. None of those actions equate with your claim that Levy is/was a willing seller.
And you sold them all, willingly accepting the payment in return for the player. Let's just stop this now, you clearly think you have a chairman who is one of a kind, despite the fact he's delivered no trophies nor has he managed to resist the overtures of any larger clubs.
No club willingly sells their best players mate. They go because bigger clubs offer them better prospects and bigger wages. Spurs aren't immune from this. Your chairman doesn't have any special powers in this area. He's subject to he same market forces as every other chairman is. (Abramovich and the sheik being the exception)
Where have I claimed any different? But to insinuate that Levy is always a seller. That it's only a matter of price, is just wrong.
No, I disagree, unless it's a bid that nobody in their right mind would refuse. If MP wants to keep a player, any club will have a hard time getting him from Levy. He's told Utd flat out that Dier is not for sale - at any price.
Given that the lifespan of a PL managerial stint is shorter than that of a Spinal Tap drummer, odds are he will be gone in a couple of years. Who knows though
Dont expect any leeway from fans of clubs who are still feeling a bit daft for giving a player away then buying him back for 90 million i'd desperately be trying to make every other club look like its run by a bunch of monkeys to feel better about things too
League One was ****ing superb. Remember Cheltenham away, we had two sides of the ground and the rest of the home end was full of Leicester fans too. Perfect pick-me-up after such a miserable time plodding about in the lower reaches of the Championship.
