I thought it would be a good idea during this window, because there was lots of talk of signing players early, and potential marquee signings due to us moving into a new stadium. Right @Dier Hard ?
Absolutely agree (Liverpool have only spent more this season since klipperty klopp) they spend more and it hasn't paid off (rightfully so we don't want the people spending to automatically be successful). However they are attempting to fix their mistakes and improve the side (whether they have done this well or not is debateable) but at least there is that action and will there.. What's disappointing from a spurs point of view is that it looks like spurs are doing what they normally do which is waiting for the bargains to crop up. It has been successful previously but at this moment in time this spurs side is the same as last year. As you have mentioned you boys have got the new stadium, your revenue is now on par and the wages are there and your team is really close to challenging. I guess we will see in 2 weeks time what levy has decided after his big talk at the end of the season
Tbh, I’m getting worried that we’re gonna do nothing. It’s hard to be optimistic when you’ve got injuries, no new signings, a new stadium, and a squad full of players still recovering from the WC. I hope I’m being unnecessarily pessimistic, but none of it bodes well atm.
The problem with that argument is that winning trophies does actually increase the value of the club. Our transfer dealings are quite effective in outcome so I don't see why we would change a way of working that has really improved the squad over the years. Winning the PL is at best a 6-1 shot since there are five other sides at least as good as ours. There is no way we can make our squad much better than theirs to change those odds by spending more money since they have more than us. There is no quick fix to this.
This is what I don’t get though. These end of window signings are never bargains. We’ve spunked £42 million on Sissoko and Llorente on the last 2 summer deadline days. Both have offered us very little, and to me, it seems really odd spending that much money, when it wouldn’t have taken too much more to get “better targets” in the first place. It’s one end of the spectrum to the other, where it seems we don’t wanna go the extra mile for our primary target, but then we end up spending a fortune on on ****e instead. Really really odd.
Surely we just have a budget and buy the best players we can get for it as early as we can get them. Seems a sensible strategy to me..
We will. Levy will make additions, but it’s seeming more likely that it’ll be random deadline day panic buying. Another squad player/s that Poch won’t fancy, and we’ll be happy to sell in a years time. He’ll be picking off players from clubs further down the league that he can bully, or turn the players head on deadline day. I was fairly optimistic about this window, but it’s got a Saha/nelson feel about it now.
So you think Sissoko and Llorente were on our list all summer, but we waited till summer deadline day to sign them? I get that there may be players who we get quoted large fees for, but there’s comes a point where you have to consider which is the better option, paying that bit extra, or wasting even more money. In the case of the two I mention, £42m, which is likely to be more that the “extra” we’d have needed to pay in the first place. Sometimes it’s worth paying that bit extra for someone you are keen on, even if the price is alarming. £42m on Davidson Sanchez for example.
Sissoko is a classic example in how to wait till the last minute to get a bargain, and end up with an overpriced donkey instead.
As much as price, that tactic is driven by a desire not to get muscled out by other teams paying stupid wages and taking players that we have been working on all summer - see Willian and Martial. I'm pretty sure that clubs with bigger resources would have made the signing of Davinson Sanchez very, very difficult for us last summer had they not got their 25's sorted. In that instance, it was the right tactic. It helped that we didn't leave it it to the last few hours of the last day. As a tactic, that's dead. It's particularly dead this summer when the rest of Europe is still 'open for business' and getting any deal done is hard going. I understand buying Llorente and to some extent Sissoko. the first looked very good when he was properly fit and Swansea played to his strengths. He broke his arm in a cycling accident that summer and wasn't fit and we did zero to help him in the way we played with him in the side. Sissoko was attractive because Ashley offered us a deal on payment terms. - we paid no money up front, £6m per season at a time when we had no money for transfers. I see why he bought him. I wouldn't have done it but last season showed that he has uses. I doubt that he's top of MP's list of players that we need to move on for that reason.
Yeah I see what you’re saying. What’s going to be interesting this summer, (and may be a big reason for us not signing anyone yet) is that foreign clubs can still look to do business after our window closes. It’s well known that we look to shift players to free up the wage bill and put money in the kitty for transfers, but if no ones coming in for our dead wood yet, that’s not gonna sit well with Levy!
That would be sensible and logical. However it seems Spurs price players and rarely will negotiate on that price so often are left to find someone else or panic on the final day and end up with a Plan B or C.
If you go to buy something with a clear idea of its value and then pay more than that then that will lose in the long run. We've bought quite well on average so I would say knowing the value of players is a strength not a weakness. Why do you think we panic? What else should we do on the final day than spend the budget on the best players we can get? As has been pointed out above there is no correlation between the time of the buy and whether the player performed.
This is where we need to accept the realities of the situation. Foreign teams can afford to wait us out and drive down prices. There's nothing that we can do about it. We voted for this situation and need to take our medicine. It will cost us and every other PL club, that's just a fact we need to accept and buy what we need and live with it. There's always a deal to be done at a realistic price. If we fail to buy players so that we can screw an extra milions on GKN or Vinnie, I will be righteously angry and will expect MP to jump the next time that a club comes calling that won't do that ****. He needs to get DL to understand that he means that. I understand that was part of the deal in signing for 5 more years and turning down Real Madrid - we don't come up empty handed or with Raziak or Frazier Campbell or Sissoko any more - best we don't do it.
Sissoko was actually an early target if you remember. We were linked with him after the final game of the season against Newcastle and again after the Euros. Levy just likely left it late to sign him in the hope of his price going down or because we had other options in front of him that didn’t come off, but Sissoko was definitely on our radar long before we signed him. As for Nando, yeah he did seem a very late option but having said that, I don’t think many Spurs fans at the time were disappointed at his signing, I know I wasn’t. Guy's won the World Cup, Euros, Serie A, Europa plus other domestic trophies, not forgetting he’s scored goals everywhere he’s been. On paper it looked a great signing in my opinion. We also paid a fair price on him, £12m seemed great value for money at the time. I still do think he’s a very good striker but it’s never going to work for him unless we use tactics that he thrives on.
