True, Brucey may be talking **** to stir the pot but Levy has form for eeking out a bargain - Such as Moura or not so much in the case of Aurier. You'll hit and miss (more hits recently) so this is just one of the things that you'll have to take on with Levy.
Absolutely. Overall, he's producing rabbits out of a hat on a regular basis. He's transformed Spurs on a shoestring budget and if he's as far down the road of getting stadium sponsorship, as a number of people think, then he will deserve to have his name on the ST/\DIUM. No other chairman has done anything like this, with so little resource to work from. I see lots of other clubs' fans asking why their club haven't matched Spurs? That's getting it arse about face. The point is none of the other clubs have done anything close to this; so how on earth have Levy and Spurs? Expecting to be able to produce a miracle, because someone else has, is delusional.
Yup, he's done amazing to build up spurs to what they are now (best business was getting Poch). He has plenty of credit but you are at a critical juncture as its getting more and more competitive. Does he keep with what he knows and try to get the best value for his money or does he try to challenge and spend a bit extra. Moving to the stadium is meant to enable you to release the warchest, not be the plucky underdogs punching above your weight. It's a few years til we'll know but it'll be interesting how it turns out for him and if he does continue with his current sensible plans, how that plays out down the line with Poch who has generally been very pleased with the project so far.
I think he’s already starting to break that ‘safe’ barrier, albeit it’s at its early stages. This summer we’ve made Poch the third highest paid manager in the Prem after Pep and Jose, while Kane is now being paid in accordance with the league’s elite (Ozil and Sanchez’s ridiculous wages aside). We offered Alderweireld a wage that would’ve made him one of the best paid CBs in Europe, let alone the Prem, but rejected it as he wanted even more, whether a compromise can be made, who knows? Son’s new deal no doubt puts him well beyond the £100k barrier as he was on £90k when he joined. Likewise with Lamela, who was on £80k when we signed him. There’s also meant to be deals in the pipeline for Vertonghen, Eriksen and Alli (plus others), so hopefully they’ll get done at some point. So from the wages side of things, we’re no longer the tightly run ship who pays bottom half wages to top 6/ top 4 players. The next step is to obviously look at trying to bring in legitimate quality to hopefully boost competition but naturally that’ll take time once we’ve been settled into the new ground. That said though, I still want us looking for the next Alli, Dier and Trippier etc as they’re generally our best types of buys.
It's all up in the air. Levy's on record as saying that when they went to the US to raise the money to build the stadium, they were made all sorts of offers including takeovers and partnerships. Joe Lewis wants into the NFL and not just renting our stadium out to someone else. He has the money but I'm not sure that a non-US based entity could buy a franchise. That would mean changing our ownership and possibly taking on a US partner or selling up .I don't see the latter happening but taking on a US partner is the way the club have been moving for some time. I reckon that we'll do that in the next 5 years and possibly very soon. That's a game changer, so who knows? I don't see us getting left behind from here and making real strides to be the top dog in London. Arsenal are now going to be milked by Kroenke - again, it's what he does. Chelsea is anybody's guess? Without the stadium build, progress is limited but Chelsea's finances are a ****ing mess and borrowing the kind of money they need is not going to be easy with Abramovic as owner.
Maybe due to this being a crossroads in THFC's future is confusing me a bit...let's see which direction Levy takes for Poch next summer
If the paperwork had been signed, would it not be legally binding ?? Levy was probably going down to the last day on this one.
It's all conjecture but Spurs put out that they wouldn't be making any further offers a day before the deadline closed. We weren't negotiating up to the close, we'd definitely pulled out. That's not very Levy, so it's probably fair to say that something very specific happened to cause it. What it was, is hard to say with confidence. Maybe Villa changed their minds or maybe we bid our maximum up front and wouldn't come back with a further bid? It doesn't sound very Levy-like to bid the maximum so early and then jack it in. He'd be at them until the last seconds with different deals. So. I'm guessing they ****ed us off in a major way but I've no proof of it and nobody ever will have. I'm just putting 2+2 together and hoping not to get over 100 but it sounds about right.
Out of the blue, again. For those that know nothing about Excelsior (including me), they're a top-flight side from Rotterdam who were Feyenoord's feeder club until recently. They play in the 4,500 capacity Van Donge & De Roo Stadion, where one of the stands is named after Robin van Persie. It has an artificial pitch, too. They're managed by Adrie Poldervaart, who isn't even on Wikipedia. I've never heard of any of their players, though we once signed Mounir El Hamdaoui from them and John Metgod managed them for a year. Here's a clip of them upsetting a filthy Gooner two seasons ago:
On paper it seems like a similar loan to Shashoua's, as both have been loaned to leagues where they can play to their strengths. Of course the true test is whether Edwards knuckles down and shows he wants to contribute, and considering the last couple of years of his development have been stalled by injury, illness and pissing off Norwich while the likes of Skipp and Amos have bypassed him to stake a claim for first team spots, he needs to.
A much better loan than Shashoa's, the Eredivisie is where we should've tried sending Shash too as well. Here's hoping Edwards can knuckle down, still without doubt one of the most talented players of his generation - it not the - but needs to sort his attitude. Still only 19 but has to show Poch signs this season that he's ready to at least come back and give food for thought with regards to selection. Kind of gutted he's gone right now though, was looking forward to seeing him tomorrow at The Emirates
Too late, every Saltypool fan has already voted for Norbert with each of their seventeen sock puppet accounts...
Is Poldervaart the most Dutch name of all time? The only thing that would top it would be if he was Van Poldervaart.
