Apart from game against Arsenal, Tottenham have not drawn a game this season. At a stage I was scared that Tottenham are going to win.
I’ve never seen any evidence of what he asked for. But, yeah, if it came to a pissing contest on that score, we wouldn’t compete with the Chavs.
I appreciate that I come across as a complete ray of sunshine in most of my posts and admire the positivity of posters like Spurf, RCL (when and how did that happen?!), Vim and Brian, but to give this some perspective: I and many other posters from the miserable old git school of thought are not and never have been calling for vast investment running in to the hundreds of millions. I am totally at ease with the fact that for years now we have been a sell to buy club and to be honest I am happy with things running that way as it means our successes are genuine and the result of hard-work and careful planning rather than petrodollars. Poch's first 2 summers were easily his most successful: in a way the core of the current team (other than Eriksen, Jan and Kane etc.) were all signed in that period: Toby, Dele, Son, Trippier, Davies, Dier. What also marks those summers as unique is the volume of outgoings we managed to notch up. More intriguing still is how many players we sold at a clear loss. In 14/15 and 15/16, fourteen members of the first team squad were moved on, with some (Soldado, Paulinho, Sandro, Fazio) going for far less than we spent on them. There was a certain ruthlessness in Poch's early years that saw what was basically a cull of any and all players whose attitude or level of ability simply didn't reach his required standard. It was the major pruning in that period that cleared the grounds for us to bring in new players and for Poch to mold them in his image. Since then, our ability to shift players has dwindled terribly. As others have said, we are stuck with half a dozen players who either simply aren't good enough or aren't reliable enough to possibly have a long-term future at the club. The squad is clogged with non-HG players, many of whom just aren't worth the space they occupy. Janssen, GKN, Wanyama, Trippier/Aurier, Lamela, not to mention the multiple players out on their umpteenth loan...until we shift that lot we can't hold a hope of maintaining the sell to buy policy that has served us surprisingly well over the years. To my mind, one of two things has happened. Either Poch doesn't feel that he can improve on them, which I would disagree with as to be frank the caliber of players he was shipping out in those first two seasons wasn't all that different to the group I've listed above. Or, Levy is digging his heels in over price as we now have the stadium debt to clear. Here again, I would sympathise but struggle to comprehend how the odd couple of million here or there would make one iota of difference in the grander scheme of things. In a way, the real tragedy of the summer wasn't that we didn't sign anyone; it was that we didn't sell anyone when multiple players could and should have been moved on. Can't be a sell to buy club if you don't sell anyone
Could it be those players are not going to command a similar salary elsewhere. I know our wages are not on a par with the other teams in the top 6 but they are far higher than most of the rest, fekwit teams excluded.
The basics work out like this * His wage was £40k a week at Everton * Everton offered to up his wages to £100k a week according to the Telegraph (among others) and he just shrugged and let his contract tick down * He was due to sign for the Chavs for £35m in the summer only to change his mind * He ended up signing for them for £15m in January (plus add-ons) * Barkley's agent pocketed £7m from the deal according to The Times So not only was Barkley taking the piss with his wage demands, but given it;s increasingly common these days for clubs to pay agent's fees on top of the transfer fee it would not surprise me if we were expected to pay essentially half the transfer fee on top of it - which, if that is the case (and I strongly suspect that it is) is a second reason to tell Barkley to do one
Te the clear outs. Regardless of my view that Trippier needs a break and could rediscover his form NO ONE was arguimg he should be sold last summer. If he'd been sold then people would have been livid. There was s general consensus that Aurier should be given another season. The same is true of Wanyama.
Looking at the list of players that you believe need to be moved on, the following occurs... Big Vic is probably at the stage of late career Ledley King. It's been a badly guarded secret that he has limited mobility when he does play and after playing more than a few minutes he's unavailable for weeks after. I don't think that they're would be any takers, possibly even The Spammers would think twice about offering him a contract. Vincent Janssen's stock has fallen through the floor but wasn't he injured this summer and not fit again until post-Christmas? At which point, nobody's buying an unfit player that even Mauricio Pochettino can't get a tune out of and who refused to go on loan to Brighton, preferring to head to the retirement resort of Turkish football. GKN, given what we're paying him against what he'd get elsewhere, I can't see him leaving other than on loan, unless City or PSG suddenly decide they need someone to run their Twitter account. Trippier was always going to be knackered after the World Cup. Not a smart signing for anyone and he played pretty well in 2017/18. He'd be expensive in terms of wages and likely to carry injuries/fatigue as we've seen. He'd be a much better buy this summer for Everton/The Spammers, if we sell him. Erik Lamela - see Big Vic only on bigger wages. Serge Aurier.....nobody's going to make a serious offer for him given his wages and form since we signed him.....not even Everton or West Ham. I would have preferred to see Big Vic as a done deal and recruited someone to replace him in the CL and PL and try and use him in the cups, if we couldn't get rid. Especially so, because we knew Mousa was on a very steep decline and Winksy'd not had a pre-season again. Had we done that, we'd have been far better off but we have been left with some players that are worth precious little for varying reasons. The club said we didn't have any offers for players that we wanted to get out, possibly with the exception of Mousa Dembele, where we probably did overestimate his value. I'm tempted to believe it.
As unbelievable as it sounds, the real issue from last summer wasn't who we failed to bring in - it's who we failed to move out It's long since been established, not least by Poch himself, that the squad had reached its non-HG quota so if we wanted to sign any non-HG player that meant somebody had to leave - and there were obvious candidates for this, with Janssen and GKN being obvious deadwood, we were looking to offload Dembele and Wanyama as injuries meant that on the rare occasions they did play neither were close to the levels they were a couple of seasons before So that's four non-HG spots we could have freed up in the summer, and it's safe to assume that Dembele and Wanyama would have definitely been replaced if they moved on - the problem was there was little to no interest in any of them, as Dembele was linked with clubs in Italy and China but nobody bid, while there were whispers of loan bids for Janssen and GKN but that's all there was Even if we only managed to move on GKN last summer that would have helped considerably, as that one non-HG place in the squad could have been filled with a first-choice CM/DM, be it the dream of Ndombele, the credible options like Berge or Lobotka, or even a Stambouliesque signing to tide us over for a season before the first choice is signed the following summer
I'd have sold Wanyama. I also said in my "Stick or Twist" thread at the end of last season that I'd sell Aurier. Admittedly I didn't foresee Tripps becoming so bad, I'm sure most will remember I even went on a one-man crusade backing him up last season but ultimately he did have many doubters even then (Roo, CK being two I can remember), now he's just become an absolute liability to the point where I don't think any fan would care if he were sold today. What's been worse for Tripps that's made his form look even worse, is that the likes of TAA, AWB, Pereira and I'd probably also say Matt Doherty have been far better than him, not forgetting the guys like Azpi and Walker (plus a fully fit Seamus Coleman) who we all knew were better anyway. So there's about 7 better RBs in the Prem than him now. If we have aspirations of maintaining top four and challenging for the title & trophies, we need a player who's regarded as at least in the top four in his position.
So we can't buy players until we have paid off 650 mill...how many years before this excuse/reason is eradicated? Since when did I start supporting a business first and a football team second? I don't think I signed up for that. At least admit we are the new Arsenal... I recall many saying we won't be when the doomsayers saw this deep pockets and short arms approach from Levy a good few years ago.
Funny how with all these crap players and management we arguably deserved to beat this year's runners up who have lost only one PL game this season and not lost at home for yonks. Not surprising that WUMs don't do well on our boards, they can't compete with our supporters.
Do you deliberately not read the posts you challenge Spurlock? Where did anyone suggest we had to pay the 650 million before we could sign a player? You ARE supporting a business, if you don't want to do that then look down a few divisions or support amateur football. Fear not because their business is in part to keep supporters entertained and I think the new stadium might help in that process. Your attacks on Levy are mind boggling when you consider the strides forward made while he has been in the chair. Perhaps what you really want is a club like Chelsea or City so that you can see trophies. If that happened to Spurs I would find another team because I would get no satisfaction in winning anything by simply buying it. As for being an apologist that's a joke because I am enjoying the journey that Spurs are on which as far as I am concerned is the whole point of football. I have no interest in using my support of Spurs as some sort of life support it's all about enjoying the football.
Unfortunately for us Keith Burkinshaw was right when he left saying "there used to be a football club there." He was complaining about how Scholar and co were preoccupied with turning us into a business. It was done appallingly and led to us almost going under in 1991. Only selling Gazza and winning the FA Cup saved us. No one believes me but the debt was ... wait for it....£7m! Sky ramped up the business aspect with the TV deals and marketing abroad and here we are. To put this in perspective...fans who have been going for years when it wasn't the place to be will not longer get tickets as there are so few available. The new ground has meant there has been a huge increase in members...I read that there are well over 130,000 members but only 7000 member tickets. That means long standing members are struggling to get tickets (which go on sale at 10am on a work day so, unless you work in an office you have no chance of applying) and many of those who are successful are reselling at hugely inflated prices. No attempt has been made reward members while official sellers are allowed to charge ridiculous amounts for a ticket. To buy 3 tickets for the palace game for me and my girls will cost over a month of my take home pay. Unfortunately that is the reality which is why the Emirates has regularly only got 45 to 50,000 in it...people have been pushed elsewhere and no longer wish to go. If a club does not have a sugar daddy or is not a global brand this is what has to happen. Spurs are attempting to do this without falling foul of FFP but a cost of that is leaving some fans unable to be part of the journey. Football lost it's soul a while back and soon it will lose touch with a lot (more) fans like myself. This is why I have no time for the likes of Rose and the "pay me what I sm worth" bollocks from multi millionaires. For what it's worth I suspect a new set of players are going to be incoming. Completely random off topic rant over.
Well I wish I missed the football yesterday because it was a shoddy game. Made worse by the fact another hideous blunder by our keeper resulted in us losing in the final minutes.
The exploitation of the football going public is worse in England than any other European country but then so are many other services in England.
