Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

Actually they aren't: the Champions League has made it possible to maximise profit without any actual on field success, as participating in the group stages of that competition maximise profits when all you have to do is finish fourth, and is far more lucrative than a team winning the FA Cup one season and winning the Europa League the following season

 

I'll go back to it again, I think the issue has been as much with identifying problems in the squad and actually dealing with them, as it has been signing players. Last summer we signed 4, and 2 more in January, and we were still left with a terribly unbalanced squad. And of the 3 'big signings' we made (GLC, Tanguy and Bergwijn), only 1 is a guaranteed starter, and one has become an outright major issue in the squad.

Yes, we could do more to invest in the squad, and we can argue about the semantics of that until we're blue in the face, but we also have to get better at doing it as well, both who we sign and why we sign them.

 

Indeed.

Just looked at the 2020 Deloitte "money league" report for Spurs,
and the revenue graph ramp-up during just 3 seasons of CL is immense. ***

*** Noted that the proportion of broadcast revenue increases that were from the PL
(new league deals, increases due to Spurs actually being in PL title fights etc)
is not stated

 

There's conflicting reports on Aurier...well, semi-conflicting reports on Aurier

Di Marzio reports that we'll be signing a replacement RB first, then selling Aurier
The Daily Sneer report that we are looking to offload Aurier for £23m regardless of replacement

Signing the replacement first is certainly the right course to take, because selling Aurier first would hand the advantage to whichever team we were looking to sign a RB from - but if we sign the replacement first, there's no way we'd be getting £23m for Aurier as other clubs know we're looking to sell so the only way we'd ever be able to negotiate that figure is with hefty use of add-ons

 

That outcome is certainly possible but somehow arranging to have good enough players to guarantee fourth while never winning a cup can't be executed as a strategy. In a couple of seasons if we had swapped our league win against a club for a cup loss we would likely have won the cup and finished in the Europa League places. No way can anyone do that deliberately.

 

Me too, seems to have a bit more about his game than Hojbjerg imo. Could we not have both and sell Sissoko?

 

Arsenal managed to do it for a decade

This is the point, it certainly was possible in the Premier League for a good few years when the Sky 4 were monopolising the CL spots every season, and that's what allowed both Arsenal and Liverpool to maximise profits when winning absolutely **** all. It's certainly true in other leagues, too, with Serie A being the most obvious example as Juve win everything yet the other three CL places go to a small number of clubs (Napoli, Inter, Roma, Milan) which is usually enough to keep them a step ahead of clubs like Fiorentina and Atalanta, while it's even more blatant in the Primeira Liga considering how far ahead Porto and Benfica are compared the rest of the table

 

The anti ENIC people think it is guaranteed that any other owner would do better.
But surely our strategy last summer was clear. We signed players that would allow us to play a midfield diamond and asymmetric full backs with this being our proposed first team
Lloris
Aurier/Foyth Sanchez Alderwireld Davies/Sessegnon
Dier
Ndombele Lo Celso
Bruno Fernandes (depended on Eriksen being sold)
Son Kane
Plus KWP, Vertonghen, Winks, Sissoko, Dele, Lamela, Lucas for cover

But Eriksen wasn't sold, the players bought in were not fit and neither was Dier. Even then if Son and Kane had stayed fit we would have likely got third.

 

It is certainly a possible outcome that both us and Arsenal have managed. What I said was that you couldn't do it deliberately.

 

We made a record amount of profit, more than most (if not all) the clubs that won silverware. We won nothing.

 

There is a difference between what outcome happens and what the strategy intends. It is very unusual to finish in the top 6 eleven years running without winning anything. I'm not sure how to check but I'd bet no-one else has ever managed it. I would have no idea how to do that on purpose and neither have ENIC. Our increased profits are a direct result of the better league positions we have achieved which has allowed many CL campaigns (cf none before ENIC). But none of that counts because we've had an unlucky run in cup semi finals?

 

"Inter to swap ____________ for Tottenham's ____________" Watch/The Third Annual Tanguy Ndombele Transfer Saga Watch
So the latest variation says that Milan Skriniar doesn't want to join us because of our lack of CL football, so that "obviously" means that it's a choice of either Brozovic or Perisic as part of any deal that takes Ndombele to Inter (in spite the ubermensch stating otherwise)

Anyone else liking the sound of a midfield trio of Lo Celso, Brozovic and Gueye?

 

It makes sense if Poch was truly wedded to the diamond, still holes at DM and striker though. As has been so often the case recently though, the issue has also been hanging onto/being unable to shift players for too long.

 

The problem with THAT BASTARD DIAMOND is that, while it did stiffen up our central midfield - which was certainly an issue in 2019-19 as neither Winks nor Sissoko are press resistant - in doing so it weakened us elsewhere, most obviously exposing the fullbacks as we were lining up without wingers

Realistically, if Poch was brave and played a 433 he might still be at the club. True, there would have no doubt been teething problems for the first 6-8 weeks of the season as the central midfield would have to learn to be more proactive as they wouldn't have Eriksen in front of them...but since Eriksen's decline began in the last third of the previous season it might have been better to make a clean break and rely on the personnel being good enough to get the job done in the short-term while the new system took hold

 

You can't completely blame Levy on lack of trophies when the previous manager turned some cup competitions into reserve outings.Mind you,this past season's lack of....was due to our players who sometimes seemed disinterested.
Success breeds success I was always told.......!?
Poch decided the PL was more important,which was ok if you can spend oodles on players.We couldn't.

 

My gripe with Levy lies with the fact he's taken his eyes off the ball from a footballing perspective and allowed a great team to massively decline with little being done to rectify it. Well, that and how much he charges me for a ST.

Ever since 16/17 he's overseen the decline of the squad and little has been done to rectify it. Since the end of that season to now, Rose, Walker, Toby, Jan, Trippier, Wanyama, Dier, Dembele, Dele, Lamela and Eriksen have all either left or declined.

Of all of those, there's only really been four meaningful signings with the aim of rectifying/ covering them:
Sanchez - to be the long term successor at CB
Aurier - to replace Walker
Ndombele and Lo Celso - to replace the dominance and creativity we had in the side thanks to Dembele and Eriksen

Two of them have flopped, one still hasn't reached their potential and one began showing their quality after early struggles and injuries. None have been as good/ better than who they were meant to replace/ cover though, at least not yet.

FWIW I don't blame Levy for our trophy record that some seem to do. We've reached 5 finals in his 20 years as Chairman. It's not his fault the team and/ or manager has failed in 4 of those 5. Had we won just 2 of the 4 we've lost, the record would look semi respectable for a club like us, especially when taking into consideration we've played European football in 13 of those 20 years too.

Personally I don't want Levy gone, at least not yet, but I do want him taking a step back from the transfer side, hand the budget to a DoF (ideally of Jose's choosing) and have them work with Hitchin and Jose to find the best possible players for Jose's system. I also want him to be ruthless with binning players off, there's so much mediocrity now at the club it's painful and holding out for any extra penny proves more costly in the long run if we fail to sell them. If he fancied lowering ticket prices that'd be great too.

 

2-7 to Bayern...at home!
3-1 to Colchester. Colchester???
..and a cup loss to bottom of the table Norwich.
Bloody unforgivable!

...and then you think of relegated Newcastle 5 Spurs 1......and that loss gave Arsenal a runners up spot!

Even more bloody unforgivable!!!!

 

It was 0-0. Still ****ing pathetic, of course.

 

We've finished in the top six for the last eleven seasons. City are the only other club to do so, I think and they've spent eleventy billion quid.
It's bizarre that we haven't got a single trophy to show for it, honestly.

 

Many teams have lost to Bayern
Crystal Palace also lost on penalties to Colchester
Norwich beat Man City this season.