I honestly get the frustration but a few points but the reason we are at Wembley is because we have to build a bigger ground to raise income to compete with the richer clubs in terms of transfers and wages. The club have been innovative with making it available as a NFL venue and all that corporate stuff...if FFP is to be a thing the club has to maximise it's income and one way is the Arsenal route of alienating many of their fans with huge ticket prices and another is what we are doing. I want a trophy, any trophy but the sad truth is footballers want CL football more (unless it is a title or the CL). The Arsenal won 3 FA Cups but as soon as they were out of the CL Sanchez wanted out. We have embarked on a long journey...today does not change that...bad result or not
We were initially quoted £15m for Grealish under the previous owners, in which Steve Bruce also said in an interview he expected Jack to leave. So what did we do? Offer £5m plus Onomah. Once the new owners came in, the rumours were they wanted £25m. IIRC we made two bids that were both rejected and then on the final or penultimate day of the window, we offered the £25m, which Villa then rejected likely because A) They were tired of us lowballing them and B) They wouldn't have gotten a replacement in time. We played silly buggers and it backfired.
In previous games v top 5 teams this season Utd have conceded 3, 2, 3, 2 & 3 - not to mention 4 & 3 v Brighton and West Ham. That's because the defence is poor and there is nobody to control the ball in midfield. Spurs should have won comfortably today, but it wasn't because de Gea made saves (they were all routine). It was because Spurs had no control in midfield either and the defence lacked some youthfulness (Sanchez should have played). The game was too open as evidenced by the shots on target count of 11 to 8. Whatever the financial position and policy, the failure to sign players was an oversight. Central midfield needed to be improved to compete at the top level. Dembele has been off the pace for 12 months and like Wanyama, is frequently injured anyway. Dier is a stop gap (injured too). Sissoko has performed well, but his main quality is athleticism not his prowess on the ball or reading of the game. Winks is not good enough. The back four is starting to get old together too. Whilst your squad is generally strong, there is evidence that a few key players are just past their best. That is the time to bring in a couple of promising younger players who can be integrated into the team over the season. I watched all of both your games this week and noticed that there were weaknesses (especially in central midfield) which were only being addressed in a make-do way. The top class attacking players can make up for these deficiencies against many teams, but defeats to City, Liverpool, Arsenal and now Utd (as well as being caught out by Wolves and a couple of times in the CL) suggest they are masking a problem. Dembele should have been replaced in the summer. Foyth needs more game or another young defender should be a priority too.
You've touched down in the middle of the "How do we improve the squad when we've got insufficient funds to buy such players?" argument to tell us that we should buy some new players? I'm sorry but....
Players didn't just want out once they dropped into the EL though. The likes of Ade, Clichy, Toure, Sagna and Nasri left them for City, van Persie left them for Utd, Fabregas went to Barca, this was while Arsenal were still a CL side... Players ended up leaving because they felt they had a better chance of winning stuff elsewhere. We lost Walker for similar reasons and now there's a worry Toby and Eriksen could be next. I agree it's a long journey and I know we'll hit many bumps along the way but this is the first time in my life time that Spurs have come anywhere close to being a title challenger and it feels like we have the potential to actually go that one step further but seem to be holding ourselves back but the problem is, we can only hold ourselves back for a limited amount of time before we end up falling behind.
Villa's owners were quoting us a fee of £35m, not £25m. Personally I think there's two reasons we then offered £25m i.) The fee wasn't to test Villa's resolve but Grealish's desire to leave, as the talk was how he wanted out and Villa were digging their heels in so the thought was a concrete offer would see him force a move - but he didn't (sort of like how Berahino didn't a few years previously) ii.) With the lunatic fringe beating Lamela and Sissoko over the heads with the £30m we paid for them, the club knew paying £35m for Grealish would put an unreasonable amount of pressure on him as said fringe would scrutinise his every move until he did something wrong
Buiĺding a stadium and remainiñg with the confines of FFP has repercussions... we can afford players but not necessarily the ones we need to improve us.
I think the frustration is that we didn't pay the £15m originally quoted but were then prepared to offer £25m
We owe up to £637m. Arsenal were richer than us when they built their stadium.Did you see them out buying better players at the time? Come on mate, you sound like The Sun or that bloke Durham.
And if said players don't want to join us, for the same reasons that some of our current ones want out, then where do we go when the manager is on record as saying that he will only sign players who will actually improve us and not stifle the growth of the young talent already at the club.
Oh so we don't have the money then...never heard that from any of the owners of the club yet...sometimes we have the money but the players aren't available other times we are shown the stadium cost as a reason...well whatever the reason...we have a squad running on empty and dropping like flies. I reckon if we were at the Lane...we still wouldn't have money...just a Levy hunch i get
No one wants to join us...alot of players want to join all the teams around us but no one wants to join us...you have to ask why
TBH mate I think you are too critical of the club. United spent fortune and are looking to take our manager, CB and have wanted Dier, Kane and Dele...around £400m spent has not made them top dogs. Liverpool have spent and appear to be on track for the title, but that would make a mockery of City spending more than a country yet failing to win the title. We are in the last 16 of the CL, are in the 4th round of the FA Cup, the semi final of the stupid name cup and are in the top 4. Sometimes a little perspective is required.
There must be a plan to meet financial commitments now and in the future that doesn't result in the club having a self imposed transfer embargo. Dembele and Vertonghen are 32 this year. Both seem to have injury concerns. The club must have some plan for replacing players. It doesn't necessarily involve substantial transfer fees. Buying nobody seems shortsighted.
