I think it’s because Ali Gold was so sure about Conte and usually correct. Like I said before, don’t condone it but that’s why he will get more grief than others.
Here's the odd thing about this: somehow Liverpool are able to portray themselves as the plucky underdogs in spite of * Having a massive stadium * Being founder members of the G14 * Sitting on a lake of cash sloshing around FSG's coffers * John W Henry being a vice chairman of the ESL * A parade of ex-players occupying punditry sofas up and down the land talking them up at every turn So if they can portray themselves as something they clearly are not nor have been for decades, there's no reason we can't do that ...oh wait, yes their is, our fanbase will start bellowing about aMbisHUn and/or using the same old hashtags they always do when we aren't spending £500m in every transfer window
When they're standing outside our stadium with the same signs they were waving at Wembley about investment a few years back (because irony is their strong suit...) they certainly are Or when they're singing songs about how happy they'll be when Levy dies when attending an anti-ESL protest If only there was some way to tell which parts of our fanbase have spent too long on Harry ****espout's blog...
Incorrect. The 'Narrative' surrounding Liverpool has so obviously been around the fallen phoenix rising again from the ashes. This is where their phalanx of pundits is indispensable - they can make the script read like a 19th century romance novel. A similar narrative is under construction around United and Solksjaer. Our 'category' is markedly different, hence when up against a team even more of a plucky underdog than us (Leicester), we were cast in the role of spoilsport pantomime villain. But then when we went toe to toe with one of the new money oligarchies a year later, suddenly we were the media darlings. Which is why I repeat: we have lost our way because we are stuck somewhere between all of these identities. We aren't a plucky underdog (certainly not now that the likes of Leicester, West Ham, Leeds and Villa are on the scene), we aren't a fallen phoenix (unless you want to go back as far as 1961) and we aren't a corrupt oligarchy who the media love and protect simply because their salaries have increased exponentially since their emergence.
All of this is so correct. Regarding Man Utd, I was talking with a mate who is a Utd fan, and the way he was talking about how ole is doing a great job astounded me. To me they’re Man Utd and one of the biggest clubs in the world and should be competing for titles and CL but it seems like some of their fans have bought into the narrative.
It is a narrative that is fed by new money upstarts Citeh and Chelsea coming in and usurping the likes of United and Liverpool from their rightful inheritance as football's aristocracy. So now when either of them do well, it is cast as some brave victory for tradition and history over newfangled modernity. This conveniently forgets, of course, that both Liverpool and United are foreign owned, maintain wage bills on par with and field just as few home grown players as Citeh and Chelsea. We are caught in no man's land. So are Arsenal, incidentally. Seldom few pundits speak about them as a 'rightful' presence in the top 4. Most would prefer all of Leicester, Villa, Everton and Leeds to finish above them (and us).
Our "fanbase" is huge. There was only ever one or two protesting at Enic at wembley...I remember taking a photo of a bloke cos it was so weird watching him protesting with his Levy/Enic out banner as we came 3rd in the league after a whole season away from WHL. There are hundreds of thousands of spurs fans, possibly into the millions. A few dozen do not make up a "fan base". Our fans can be divided up into : 1. Those who fully back Enic and Levy. 2. Those who are fully against Enic & Levy. 3. Those who are for Levy stepping back from footballing decisions but accept Enic are as good as owners as we will get. What ever group we might fit into we can hear someone arguing our view point but being a twat in how they do it. I think the debate is needed. As long as it doesn't become about who shouts the loudest then it is a healthy a positive debate ... unfortunately in today's world many believe it is only their way that is right so dialogue is replaced with diatribe. It is true in every aspect of life unfortunately. I brought my kids up to challenge everything and to not just agree with my views because I am an adult. I explained that the only things that are for certain is that racism, religious hatred, sexism and homophobia is wrong and nothing makes those things ok. Everything is is up for debate. Never occurred to me that as a global society that we would lose the ability to debate and learn from one another.
It's totally correct Go back a couple of seasons and look at how all the pundits tried to portray Liverpool, not as a sleeping giant but the antithesis of the superclubs which is why their shot at glory is long overdue...even thought that was complete bollocks for the reasons I mentioned before The fallen phoenix Narrative was certainly used for them in the 90s, after all we remember how them winning the Season Killer Cup in 1995 was their "long awaited" return to glory (funnily enough, I don't recall being asked if I was waiting for this, did they ask anyone else?) and that was certainly the Narrative in place when Stevie G dived in the 2005 Champions League final to take the game to penalties, but more recently? No, the pundits try and make out the club is some underdog punching above their weight which is insulting, not least to the people who lived around Stanley Park whose houses were literally worth a tenner so the club could buy them out to redevelop Anfield, which really says just how **** pundits are at their job when they try and make out they're some kind of underdog when they clearly aren't And let's be blunt, plenty of clubs try and pretend they're underdogs when they aren't, for example look at how Chelsea and The Sheikh Mansour Team tried using the old "One of the big boys told us to do it" defence when the ESL went tits up which, mystifyingly, the pundits ate up without question instead of suggesting one of the dozens of reasons why saying that is complete bollocks
The simple argument against that is to look through this very thread and spot the numerous buzzphrases so common in Harry ****espout's blogs. Take a drink every time you see one of the following being used unironically * Levy apologist * To dare is too dear * Profit before glory * Stockholm syndrome * Happy clapper * Puppet They're all in here, I know this because I've had notifications calling me at least three of them, so trying to say it's a handful of people is simply wrong as there's a handful of our regulars using the exact terminology on here which makes it obvious how widespread that particular blend of toxicity is getting Same goes for the Two Minutes Hate about Steve Hitchen which has bled onto here that is entirely based on a passing comment in the Amazon doc which he is hardly alone in expressing (case in point, Harry Redknapp said the exact same thing about the January transfer window being a pain in the ass yet he never got blamed for things that simply didn't involve him) or indeed the one about Ryan Mason only playing his mates which has also got an airing as if playing Harry Kane is a bad idea. Frankly the one positive is none of the MouAnon conspiracy theorists (which is the reason WindyCOYS has pretty much given up using Twitter) hasn't taken over because we realised the guy was making a rod for his own back while the Twitter/Reddit crowd were blaming everyone else for him pissing away the season in the space of a few weeks in February and some of them are still at it judging by the holdouts who are making excuses for his childish jab at Gareth Bale a couple of days ago
Either way, the crucial part here is not how pundits perceive us. It's how we perceive ourselves. Or more importantly still: how Levy perceives us. That he even went for Conte in the first place suggests he views us one way. But then the reasons for the breakdown in negotiations suggest he sees us completely differently. This is reinforced by the push to bring Poch back, which more or less confirms that in Levy's eyes we are back to where we were well before the stadium was built. Yet he charges ticket prices and makes PR decisions that directly contradict that. I've said from day 1: I don't mind us eating a chunk of humble pie, bringing in someone like Potter to build from ground up. I also don't mind us going back to the days of buying shrewd and low, selling smart and high. What I do mind is the incoherent, haphazard strategy that has plagued us from the day we left WHL to the time I write this post.
Well we know how pundits perceive us... please log in to view this image ...which comes from the fact that a chunk of them are Gooners so look down on us, and another couple of very large chunks are Man Utd or Liverpool so are appalled that we don't know our place (a place which r/soccer routinely tries to enforce, hence I avoid that ****hole because there's only so many hundred times you can read "Lads, it's Tottenham" from people with Barcelona flairs using Americanized spelling every day...) The thing with Levy isn't how he perceives us, it's how he perceives how people perceive us Think back to 2004. We'd been without a manager for over six months after sacking Hoddle, and when we brought in Arnesen he recommended Martin Jol and Levy was on board with that...until he thought about how the fanbase would respond to bringing in some random Dutch bloke from a club nobody can pronounce after a couple of pints and instead switched tac and brought in Santini with Jol as his assistant When you look at that some of the other moves make a lot more sense, because rather than acting from the gut instead we're acting from Levy thinking "Hang on, will the fanbase overreact?" Off the top of my head I can certainly think of a few * Overspending on Ndombele in the summer of 2019 due to not spending at all in the summer of 2018 * The fact we had Pini Zahavi "helping" us with transfers in the summer of 2019, including Zahavi client Tanguy Ndombele * Delaying the Jack Clarke announcement so it slipped out less than an hour before Ndombele's announcement * Bringing in the ubermensch as Poch's replacement * Signing off on the aMbisHuS fees for Paulinho and Soldado that Baldini "negotiated" by thinking of a number * Putting van Gaal at the top of the managerial list...only to get let off by van Gaal moving to Man Utd so we were free to move for Poch * Suddenly deciding to make a play for Conte when he was available even though Los Ladrones reportedly looked elsewhere due to his demands * Randomly appointing a transfer committee of Trevor Birch and Steve Hitchen When so many of our more lunkheaded decisions happen to look remarkably like trying to appease our fanbase first and foremost as they just so happen to look like Levy is responding to exactly the things they complain about, because look how easily each of those fit in with what they were demanding * People complaining about us "underspending" on players * People complaining about us taking too long to get transfers sorted * Delaying announcing a depth signing in case that got flamed endlessly * The bloke that people were loudly demanding come in when things were going south under Poch * Again not paying "small" fees on "unknowns" * Looking to bring in a Big Name™ after going without a fulltime manager for six months (again...) * Looking to bring in a Big Name™ after going without a fulltime manager for six months (and again...) * Responding to people demanding Levy pay less attention to footballing matters That's the reason why, on more than one occasion last season, I was asking if the people who were loudly demanding we bring in Mr Winning Mentality were going to own their **** when things went to...well, **** as they were the ones demanding him and got what they wanted, but when things went bad because that tends to happen when he's in charge? Silent as the ****ing grave, at least until they found something else to yell about
I'm largely in agreement with many of your points. It seems we agree that Levy's approach for many years now has been haphazard and confused, often stumbling into success accidentally. Where we differ is that whereas I see the confusion as arising from Levy's lack of footballing expertise, you see it as stemming from a fickle fanbase. In which case we're looking at the same slice of cake, just eating it from different directions. Either one of the highest paid chairmen in football makes too many decisions on matters in which he lacks expertise, or one of the highest paid chairmen in football essentially gives in to peer pressure and public whim. Whichever way we slice this, that chairman's competence should be under scrutiny.
Levy's hardly alone when it comes to chairmen who bow to the whims of the fanbase, after all the exact same thing can be said of both Los Ladrones and Man Utd, and this is where the key difference comes into it: Los Ladrones and man Utd have plenty of friends in the media to try and convince the fanbases that All Is Well and, more often than not, the fanbase swallow it even when the latter has somebody brought in as a six-month caretaker yet is still in the job two years later, something that if we did it we'd be lambasted for both within and without And it's that difference which makes all the difference in the world, because some clubs are permitted to make mistakes as they never get publicly called on it, to the point where fans have to storm onto the pitch and get a match cancelled before the press suggest that maybe All Is Not Well, but think about how many clubs that courtesy isn't offered to. I can name sixteen of them in last season's Premier League, for a start To put it another way, Los Ladrones and Juventus could rehire Zidane and Allegri respectively without pundits sneering about it. Now imagine what they'd do if we rehired Poch, would we get the same courtesy? Of course not, the only good thing that can be said is The Sun wouldn't be deliberately trying to rile up our fans like they were with us and Arsenal (and only us and Arsenal) over the ESL
In other news, Il Messaggero claim that Lazio are anxious about Maurizio Sarri taking over because, while they have a verbal agreement, Sarri has said he needs a little time to think their offer over Which is Journalissimo speak for "Let's squeeze a few clicks out of claiming he's waiting for an offer from Spurs" - which ignores how Sarri and Paratici reportedly did not get on at Juve In other other news, here's an example of our fanbase's bipolar approach to discussions: for months they have been demanding we sack Steve Hitchen for his part in signing off on that brown third kit we wore in the 2006-7 season and want a DoF brought in, yet now that Fabio Paratici has received a firm offer what's the consensus? Levy's a git for bringing in Paratici over Hitchen's head WHAT DO YOU ****ING WANT???
Everyone in Levy's type of role is permanently under scrutiny. But I think people underestimate both how difficult a job it is and how many mistakes you can actually make while still being way above average. I still don't get how people can claim that he gets footballing decisions wrong when, based on the only sensible measure of football performance, we have improved more than every other club apart from Man City. And we were not in some false lowly position when he took over and a sleeping giant who it is easy to wake. We've been mid table or worse for every period you look at other than the 1960s. I've said before that in areas like investment management, world class class performance can be had by getting 53% of decisions right. Or even by getting 37% of decisions right if the right ones return twice the value that the wrong ones lose. On managerial appointments Levy is definitely in the second category. His good appointments have done very well and his poor ones have not lost much at all. The main thing that has gone wrong is the transition from having to make do with less money to spend than our competitors, to what happens when we have more money. The success of our signings appears to go down the more we spend. In some ways that's inevitable as improving a squad that has finished second in the league is much more difficult. But it also might suggest that our process for evaluating players might have some faults. Whatever the reason it hardly suggests that spending another £300m would necessarily have made a difference to the outcome. Since I have no expertise in football management at all, I am inclined to try to learn why Levy acts as he does rather than call for his head. And he may be over influenced by fans....(that would be called customer focus in other industries) because if he can't sell stadium seats then his plan is scuppered. Nevertheless, the managerial appointments that looked like fan appeasement (Hoddle and Santini) and the ones that were driven by the thoughts that winning trophies was a magic skill (Ramos and Mourinho) did little harm.
I think that you are looking at what a few dozen people are writing on social media and equating them with our "fan base". For me that is like equating the racists who abused Bergwijn with our fan base. Social media gives a platform form for anyone to say and do as they please. It does not give them the authority to speak on the behalf of others. The vast majority of spurs fans won't of heard of the spurs websites you refer to so they do not represent the spurs fanbase anymore than the 20 or 30 of us on here do. I personally think that most social media is a poisonous hole which is best avoided. It is a big mistake to see it as being our fanbase...I know gooners who really resent Arsenal TV as non arsenal fans act as though the dozen or so regulars on it represent the rest of them. I disagree with people on all sides of the debate on here on some points and like wise agree with those same people on other points. I have said several times that I do not think that the debate on here should get personal or have insults lobbed around but in fairness I see people on all sides of the argument doing this.
He has a history of this, more than once he has castigated United "fans" for racist tweets against players. An estimated 600m supporters and he goes off some tweets he can find
