Completely agree mate. Last season before we were even linked, I’d watched Villa quite a bit as I was trying to keep an eye on Onomah. I said there and then how impressed I was with Grealish at CM and that he’d clearly matured from the once hyped up party boy who was seemingly failing to reach his promise. His maturity reached new levels this season, got punched from behind by a fan, doesn’t react, then goes and scores the winner in the midlands derby. That’s an elite mentality that we could do with. Grealish alone in the summer would’ve massively helped this team, we wouldn’t have ran Winks and Sissoko into the ground and we would’ve had some added quality and a creative spark from central midfield. Something we criminally lack.
Plus how much did we end up quibbling with Villa about over the fee? When you consider a PL place is worth nearly £2m (I think), not to mention CL revenues for top 4, it makes you think it could have been worth paying the cash short term, given how our CM has panned out this season.
Hopefully some of that cash comes from us, too. Ziyech and Tagliafico would be most welcome. Would also say De Ligt but I think that ship has sailed, he'll only go for mega money and I think he'll join Frenkie. Speaking of Frenkie, I really wanted him, man. **** Barca!
We supposedly offered a first bid of £3m and Onomah I think... Embarrassing, even if Villa were in dire straights before the new owners came in, he's essentially their Harry Kane. Ultimately we pissed about for too long and when we finally met their initial asking price, their new owners basically told us to **** off for playing too many games.
Well unless that 650 is a one off payment then I'm not sure that's a good reason to wait until you need to replace a good quarter of your squad. With that reason their you could also absolve the club if they decide not to spend on the next few seasons too.
Plus we let Barkley slip because we couldn’t or wouldn’t step up. If Sarri has got him playing imagine what Poch could have done with him!
Tbf sarri hasnt got him playing and he's been okay but not spectacular. Whether that's cause of barkley or its sarri i don't know. I heard he played well for England though
Must admit I'm not too fussed about missing out on Barkley. I don't think he's been that great for Chelsea, had a few patches of good form but nothing too special although admittedly I don't watch him that much, maybe @BobbyD can give an overview? Plus I think he was after insane wages that would've put him on more than the likes of Vertonghen and Eriksen, he isn't worthy of that sort of money in my opinion. EDIT: Bob has already given an overview
Barkley I don’t regret missing out on, one or two good performances for England can’t hide the fact he’s been bang average for Chelsea. They got a good price on him but he was suffering some fairly serious injury problems at the time IIRC. Plus wage demands etc. would have made him a big risk for us
The stadium is over running the extra costs are unknown and therefore you restrict your spending. Spurs come in for so much criticism on their spending despite being the best run and most successful club in the league. It shows me how far from reality most people around football are. Spurs should be the example of how to run a successful team and OVER ACHIEVE and yet here we are yet again having to explain the views of people who clearly know nothing about running a business, I am talking pundits who spread this garbage and are believed by the naive.
That does add some colour round the situation but isn't there going to be some compo round that? With respect to your success (which we won't go into whether you are the most successful), levy and poch has got their being smarter and improving players and buying gems and at great prices. The total opposite happened this summer and winter. Sure i don't have any business running skills of a club, but if you miss out on the cl that's around 50m right there as well as jeopardising your future seasons by overhauling a squad Edit: i guess we shall have to agree to disagree. At the end of the day, the new stadium will be a fantastic day out for the fan and support wouldn't be predicated on the team winning even if it is far more enjoyable. This is just a debate on what peoples opinions on the best way forward spurs should take
Whether buying a couple of players would make that difference re CL we will never know but those are the kind of calculations that Levy and MP have to make and as they have both done a brilliant job I'd rather they were making them than the average fan, who would very soon bankrupt us.
I think we supporters must take some of the blame as well. I went to as many games at Wembley as I could afford to fly back to England for, but there were always gaps in the crowd apart from CL and one or two big games.If Wembley had been even three-quarters full most of the time it would have lifted the players. It is now unlikely that I will be able to get a ticket unless we play Hartlepool or similar in the League cup. Had I been in England I would have gone to every one
I don't think we played that well yesterday. Liverpool kept giving us the ball and we failed to capitalise on it. It's not often in the Prem that a side gives you so much ball, once or twice a season maximum. I give them their due, they defended well, but they had to because of the amount of unforced errors. An average Spurs side would have won that game easily, so we were worse than average. We need to wake up for Palace, they will fancy their chances.
I think the average fan would have been happy to take a loss on some of the dead-weight in the squad in order to make wage-room for those players that could have made a positive difference to our season. Additionally, they may have given Janssen a run-out in the Carabao or, once a game had already been put to bed, in order to get him in the shop window/pick up form. Not all fans would go crazy like a kid in a sweet shop.
