Mourinho's going to ask for new players at every turn. It's what he does. He'd want the best player now and a better player in the summer and an even better one the following year. I'm not saying that's wrong but it's never going to happen at Spurs under Levy. The two of them don't see things the same way, it's just the way it is. In the summer, we need at least one full back, maybe two; a centre back; a defensive midfielder and a striker...on top of the spend last summer and Bergwijn and Gedson Fernandes in January. Levy was always going to duck chucking money around on a disposable striker. Always. We did the Ryan Nelson/Louis Saha thing a few years back and it didn't work...Levy never forgets and only plays the long game these days. He'll be on his death bed working on a 5 year plan. There's more chance of me being the next Pope than Adebayor being a Spurs player again. When he left last time, taking a big bag of our cash with him, he slagged the club's management but specifically excepted Poch, who he said was great. I wonder who he meant?
There really wouldn't Case in point, if we use the 150 figure as a basis, here's how we revise it down PDQ Wage Demands The Sheikh Mansour Team - 2 (Aguero, Gabriel Jesus) Chelsea - 1 (Batshuayi) Saltypool - 3 (Salah, Mane, Firmino) Man Utd - 2 (Martial, Rashford) Arsenal - 2 (Lacazette, Aubameyang) Barcelona - 3 (Messi, Suarez, Griezmann) Los Ladrones Do Madrid - 3 (Bale, Benzema, Hazard) Atletico Madrid - 1 (Joao Felix) Bayern - 2 (Lewandowski, Mueller) Dortmund - 2 (Sancho, Reus) PSG - 3 (Mbappe, Neymar, Cavani) Juventus - 1 (Cristiano Ronaldo) Inter - 1 (Lukaku) Total: 124 Recently signed (and this is leaving out Griezmann, Hazard, Lukaku or Joao Felix) Arsenal - 2 (Pepe, Martinelli) Everton - 2 (Kean, Iwobi) Los Ladrones do Madrid - 2 (Jovic, Rodrygo) Valencia - 1 (Maxi Gomez) Sevilla - 1 (Hernandez...briefly) Taurine FC Leipzig - 1 (Lookman) Hoffenheim - 1 (Skov) A German Team - 2 (Embolo, Thuram) Eintracht Frankfurt - 2 (Dost, Silva) Wolfsburg - 1 (Joao Victor) Juventus - 2 (Higuain, Pjaca) Napoli - 2 (Lozano, Llorente) Milan - 2 (Rafael Leao, Rebic) Fiorentina - 2 (Ribery, Ghezzal) PSG - 1 (Icardi) Monaco - 2 (Ben Yedder, Slimani) Marseilles - 1 (Benedetti) Lille - 1 (Osimhen) Ajax - 1 (Promes) Feyenoord - 1 (Narsingh) Total: 94 History of being a twat Brescia - 1 (Balotelli) Free agent - 1 (Adebayor) Total: 92 That's a third of the list eliminated already, and I didn't even put much effort into it as a.) I didn't delve into contract renewals b.) I cherry picked a handful of teams from four divisions c.) I didn't touch the Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian or Scottish leagues (among others) d.) Since I used Wikipedia, it has to be said some clubs have no transfer data on the relevant pages (notably PSV, Hertha Berlin and Werder Bremen) so the number could feasibly be lower
As i've been saying since the day the Lo Celso deal suddenly switched to a loan, and this was against the prevailing opinion at the time who explained it away as freeing up cash so that we could land Dybala and Bruno, I don't think we have nearly as much money as many fans seem to believe. Yes, the structure of the stadium debt is both sound and manageable. But it is a huge mountain of debt nonetheless. Our commercial revenue and global following lags behind many of our PL rivals and any financial advantage revealed by the most recent reports is almost entirely down to a sustained presence in the CL and a run to the final that was worth circa £70m overall. The logical explanation is that we only bid for Dybala on the gamble that we'd recoup a similar amount from selling Eriksen and Toby before the European window closed. I honestly believe that the club was genuine in its approach for him and that the 3rd party image rights headache was not just a page straight out of Levy's "well, at least we tried" handbook. I think we shifted Gio to a loan as a security just in case we landed Dybala and Eriksen/Toby didn't move on; it effectively reduced our outlay by almost £30m. And I think this was why Poch was so pissed off about the summer. Once all windows closed and those two were still Spurs players, he knew he no longer had the funds to land a true marquee signing to galvanise the second chapter of his time here. It is probably why a clear divide existed between him and the fans. Whereas most of us were delighted with our incomings in the summer, Poch had already plotted the next step - undoubtedly a mega money move such as Dybala or Bruno - and then on Aug 31st realised that this next step was no longer possible. Hence his foul mood from the window closing until he got the sack. So my reading of this is we really don't have much money to spend at all. DH points out that we had the money to buy Bergwijn and this is true but remember most of that fee was immediately offset by the Eriksen sale, and Jose himself has as good as explained that what little money we do have will only be risked on long-term assets we have have true confidence in, not total gambles like Willian Jose, Ze luis and Piatek. Sorting out stadium naming rights will help enormously in that it instantly covers baseline CL intake. That we face going into next season without that AND without CL income is potentially a huge failing in an area Levy has seemingly always been so successful in. If this does happen, my early prediction for the summer is that unless we sell a big name player (Alli remains top of that list), we will see very few incomings unless they are approaching the end of a contract or are loans to buy. Killjoy over and out.
...so yeah, can somebody let The Athletic know that Troy Parrott and Oliver Skipp didn't go out on loan in January?
Pretty sure that's not true. Your financial reports show that you are financially stronger than us and arsenal with only united and pool earning more (although city have an unlimited bank balance). Thats with only using your new stadium for 3 months. Didnt you also sign a new mega shirt deal for your kit as well?
You didn't even need to put that level of effort into it because you can use rule of average to tell you that there's absolutely more than 30 strikers who Spurs would be able to sign should we have made a sufficient bid. There's about 10 Premier League strikers that both you and I could likely think of who'd jump at the chance of joining Spurs. If you then factor in the Championship and then scour Ligue 1 (and Ligue 2, which throws up a couple of gems), Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, Eredivisie and so on, you can easily compile a list of well over 100 strikers that'd happily join this football club. Not all would set tongues wagging but then they wouldn't need too, most Spurs fans are understanding of the fact you won't get another world class striker when we have Harry Kane, very few sides have two elite strikers at their club because the elite are in such short supply. However, there is a necessity to ensure you do have a back up. We had a very good one (albeit very underused too) for the past two seasons. There of course remains a risk they could be another Janssen but that shouldn't deter a club from always ensuring that competition and back up is in place for such a key position.
Jose will want players, no doubting that but I wouldn't say it's accurate to suggest he'll want the best (as in high fee and high wages). His first two at Spurs have been young with potential which fits into our usual business model. I think Jose knows he'll have to operate differently here, people may or may not like him but we all know he isn't stupid, he didn't join Spurs expecting war chests every window and he'll have been told that by Levy anyway. We also know he and Levy are like chalk and cheese but I feel we have to believe that whatever went down in their meetings there was a mutual understanding and an agreement as to what was doable. Agree on the list of positional targets and Levy's actions. As for Ade, we've welcomed back Robbie Keane after leaving in a sour manor and I'd bet that we've kept tabs on Bale who left in even worse fashion. Ade didn't particularly leave peacefully (and I think it was Levy he criticised) but if Jose wanted him Levy would approach the guy with an offer for a 6 month deal. It's desperation of me to suggest his name but at the same time you can also do a lot worse. The fact the window is now shut, he's one of very few we could actually still sign too. Not the greatest signing to make but if it adds an option, especially a target man which we lost with Llorente, I'd be all for it.
I think it is pretty simple. Without the new stadium our net spend would be about zero + any unexpected prize money. With the new stadium it can be 50m + any unexpected prize money. What has just happened is consistent with this. This also explains the low spends from Chelsea and Arsenal who are worse off than us and have bigger wage bills.
I was aiming for 'the best the club can attract' but didn't use enough words. We're not in the market for players who are in their prime and at the top level. However, Mourinho will still need to be taught that a centre forward is for life, not just for January...and 'right now' is a good time for him to start learning, so I don't see any quick fixes. There will be some young forwards on a list for recruiting in the summer window. Hopefully, Victor Osimhen is top of the list and obtainable, because he'd be perfect. So, no Adebayor for a second chance...I'd be staggered if we even thought about it. Not only is he TROUBLE but I was at that game when he played for Palace at The Lane...and he was beyond awful...well beyond it and that was 4 years ago.
Think Bergwijn actually cost more than all of them, certainly Llorente and Janssen. Soldado’s figure is iffy, quoted fee was £26m but I don’t think all of that was up front and some was also based on certain add-ons. Bergwijn’s is reported to be around £25-£27m and I presume it’s a similarly structured deal. Whilst Janssen and Soldado were utter tripe, Llorente earned his £12m price tag I’d say. Wouldn't have made the CL semi final without him, he also got a pivotal touch in the build up to Lucas’s winner at Ajax. He was an excellent target man that was unfortunately criminally underused by Pochettino and someone I was quite disappointed to see leave, more so when it became apparent a replacement wasn’t coming in.
Let me remind you what your initial argument was "There's about 150+ strikers playing in Europe's top 6/7 leagues though" The fact I could easily reduce that number by a third solely by wages, signing in the summer, or being Balotelli and/or Adebayor is the reason why I can say the number of viable options is merely 30 What would really reduce that number down from 150 to 30 is looking at strikers who would be a poor fit. Case in point, Guido Carillo. On paper he ticks various boxes, as he's a striker in one of Europe's top 6/7 leagues (namely La Liga), has experience in the Premier League and a few seasons playing for Monaco...but if we signed him I would think the club had lost their collective minds, as not only has he failed to score a single goal in La Liga this season, but Southampton are desperate to get rid of him after paying £19m for him before realising he was a dud within half a season, hence back-to-back season-long loans to Leganes in the hope he raises his value so they can move him on, but he couldn't even manage that last season And that's the point: if you say look at the top 6/7 leagues of Europe, you actually have to look at the top 6/7 leagues in Europe - and if you look at strikers in the bottom half of the Eredivisie or Primeira Liga, you see a lot of strikers who can best be described with the word "****e" as they would offer nothing to our team other than a drain on our wage bill that could be better used elsewhere and would likely be harder to shift than Janssen or GKN were, which is why we're not being linked with strikers from Fortuna Sittard or Portimonense
Admittedly I did use leagues outside of that bracket but then you did also say you haven’t even checked the Scottish/ Turkish/ Ukrainian leagues, implying they’d help your argument. I guess it’s subjective. You and I both have strong knowledge of domestic and European football, your criteria may differ to mine as to what you’d deem good enough/ the right fit so I guess we’ll disagree but I personally could name a lot more than 30 who I believe could do a job here, either long or short term. The risk of them being another Janssen/ Carrillo lies with every potential signing regardless of their pedigree, I don’t think any of us envisaged Soldado to be as useless as a chocolate teapot but that’s football. If Origi is good enough to play a role for Liverpool that to me shows that there is a lot of options out there who Spurs should consider.
I think mathematically it is easy to say there must be more options, and blame Levy for pace etc. The other view that I more recently have come to better understand is, if both we and Manchester United are looking for an available quality striker and the best either of us can come up with is Ighalo, the situation must really be tough. I mean, no disrespect at all to Ighalo, I remember he was pulling up trees when he was last in the league, but Ighalo, NOW, really? The other thing worth asking. If we had got Ighalo and not Man U, would we be happy? How would the media spin it differently? I find it all fascinating. In that light, I’m happy to see a false nine Deli or a front three situation with Bergwijn, Lucas and Son up top. Put Parrot on the bench now though please. Let’s just hope they all stay in tip top shape.
