I think the private placement is the way we borrowed the money. Because we have solid finances, private investors are willing to lend us money at a lower rate than the banks would. I think we are down about 150m on stadium income so I think there is some chance that we've borrowed enough to fund some transfers* but I could be a lot out. * I think ffp is temporarily suspended.
I agree with a lot of this, at the same time I believe the reason he's built all of these things is precisely to put in the position to more consistently competitive squad. It has been said often that higher wages often gets the best players. I agree that he's not a 'football man', whatever that is. (hearing him talk to Mourihno about Winks running 'a lot' made me cringe. What kind of footballing analysis was that?!?) It could be argued though that he is big picture. Bigger than the immediate picture that most of us fans are obviously, and understandably, focussed on. He just, annoyingly, hasn't completed the picture yet. (Covid also didn't help. How do you secure a stadium rights deal for a stadium that nobody is coming to?) It's chicken and egg. I've heard people say "build the team" and that will pay for the developments, but that doesn't happen too often in the modern game. The opposite is often truer. Did Man City build the team first? No, they found money, then built a machine of a team and infrastructure at the same time. Leicester City are the only modern example of building a league wining team with solid scouting and management on less money. Credit to them for building the necessary scouting network. What we are witnessing is Levy's version of building the engine that'll better fund the team in the future. The golf course development is more about raising the clubs stature in the women's game than it is about golf or land. Stadium rights. NFL ticket sales. Boxing and concert venue fees. = More money to eventually pay players wages. The major issue, a weakness of Pochettino and Levy, is not sorting out and agreeing on a solid structure in between them to efficiency and effectively source the right players. Hopefully the DOF situation will remedy that ill for whomever comes next.
There's a dichotomy in what appears to be Levy's behaviour that makes little sense...up to a point. Until you think that Levy is just a relatively small cog in the ENIC machine. He's the enforcer, not the brains. He is inescapably a micro manager. It pours out of him in everything that he does, from walking round the stadium site every Friday night rejecting stuff, to personally conducting business that he could and should delegate, to turning up at planning meetings. Then, there's the blue sky thinking re the NFL, a stadium with a removable pitch, etc. It's EXTREMELY rare that the 2 things are combined in one person. My take on it is that we see the true Levy in relation to the football team and the crap decisions on managers he should never appoint, the OCD he applies to balancing the books at every turn, always chasing a 'bargain' in the transfer market (even when the manager doesn't want the player), putting together a sensibly creative management structure, etc., etc.....basically the penny wise pound foolish lack of any manageable, sensible risk taking that's needed to win stuff. That's Levy. The blue sky thinking is all down to Joe Lewis. He had and still has the vision and is absolutely up for chancing his arm to win big. It's everything that he does. Looked at that way, it all makes perfect sense. LevY's not Tottenham Hotspur. He's not even the better bits of ENIC.
Don’t really know enough about the DOF or fonseca to judge so happy to give both a chance. I think the fact that having a DOF with a manager he has had a say in can only be good though as they will hopefully be on the same page like the arnesen/jol combo rather than the mismatches with commoli and baldini.
How are you judging Levy and Lewis' involvement? I don't think that the latter has anything to do with it, other than it being his money.
There is no possibility that Joe Lewis isn't involved in decisions on on the wider aspects of the club, that is non-football stuff. He's even less of a football man than Levy but he lives for the big deal Personally, he's been trying to buy an NFL for a couple of decades. Levy doesn't have the wit, wisdom, imagination, pull or juice to pull off such a deal. He's a bean counter, compared to Lewis, with just a few £million to his name. Lewis is the organ grinder Anyone dealing with ENIC knows that they're dealing with Lewis,via Levy. THFC now represent Lewis' most valuable investment and his only chance of a seat at the NFL trough. It's unthinkable that Lewis isn't fully cognisant of everything and setting the direction.
I think I've explained that the differing way in which bits of the club are run point to more than one individual being responsible for decisions. The ultra-conservative football management is in complete contradiction to the blue sky thinking of the stadium. It's unfathomable that the two are the product of the same individual. There's nothing similar about them at all. Levy isn't a dreamer, he's an anal-yst....but you only see what you see or want to see and I have no objective proof to give you. There's no god...but proving it is a problem.
I don't see it that way. Not on the god thing, I'm with you there. The stadium and infrastructure are all natural and logical growths of a businessman's thinking. Some of the details show a fan's insight into the game, but that speaks more to Levy than it does to Lewis. The elder of the two has never shown any interest in the game or the team. I've seen nothing to suggest he cares about either, beyond being a business opportunity. Hiring Mourinho was along the same lines as our stadium rebuild. He wanted the best available. What works. What's proven. What a lot of people were calling for. Everyone thought that we were getting a lot of things right, but couldn't get over the line. He hired someone that was supposed to specialise in it. The consensus on here at the time was largely negative, but we don't reflect the general public's view of the game, in my opinion. Mourinho wasn't right for the club, because the club's ethos isn't all about winning and the squad wasn't right for his mindset. People wanted a winner, but he wasn't that at the time or we wouldn't have been able to hire him in the first place.
The contract length seems a bit “we want a long term project, but we’re not sure if we want you long term”.
He’ll be agreeing to an extension once he’s won the league and gone unbeaten, mate. So it’s all good.
it stinks of “you’ll do for now”, but we’re going to drop you as soon as someone better becomes available
My take is that the Poch thing was/is very serious and we are waiting for him to either fail at PSG and get the boot, or at least get some major trophies under his belt there before leaving of his own accord and coming back to us. Personally, if Fonseca and Paratici can spend 2 seasons draining the swamp while Poch wins a couple of proper tins in Paris before coming back here to lead us to the promised land, at this point that would be the stuff of dreams. Captain Oliver Skipp lifting the PL trophy 2023/24 under Poch's beaming smile. Ah. There's the spot.
He’ll be smart enough to know he wasn’t the club’s first choice but the fact he’s seemingly Paratici’s main target should provide a comfort. He’s probably happy to get this “chance” regardless of how far down the pecking order he may have been or how long the contract is though. As he’s out of work, probably get a solid increase on his old salary, set to take over a “big six” English club in the biggest league in the world where his career could either rocket... or plummet lol. That sort of risk and opportunity should excite most people though.
I’m not sure whether this is a comment from you, or an iMessage you’ve hacked from Levy to Joe Lewis.
I agree about Poch. I’ve said it for weeks. I’m not feeling very confident about this appointment to be honest. I’ll fully back the guy, but after being brought back to reality regarding Conte, I don’t know why we haven’t gone for potter with all things considered. He knows the PL and seems far less of a risk.
I agree Re Potter but bottom line is we've almost all been crying out for a DOF and this is that man's second option. Now we need to trust that decision and give it some time to bear fruit.
Fonseca looks better to me than he did a couple of days ago...because I remembered how I felt the last time Spurs appointed a Portuguese manager. He really shines by that comparison, actually. What I've been able to gather about Fonseca is that he is (unsurprisingly) in the Portuguese school of managers, but has the reputation for being something of an innovator and attacker within that school. Considering he's young and seems to be at least somewhat youth-friendly, you could spin him as being as close as we can get to Pochettino without Pochettino. On the other hand, it's hard for me to look past the fact he's Portuguese, since Spurs have had two other Portuguese managers quite recently, all of them failures. You do wonder whether the club needs to keep failing in exactly the same way. Surely the Netherlands, England, Argentina or Germany would seem more promising places to look for Spurs managers. The Portuguese style desperately needs the right deep-lying playmaker. Espirito Santo was successful because he had Moutinho. AVB wasn't successful because he didn't. Simply to judge from that, deep-lying playmakers who can make a Portuguese system work aren't particularly thick in the field. So good luck finding one, since Moutinho is old and Jorghino isn't going to Tottenham. Nevertheless...I'll back Fonseca and hope for the best. I would have taken Bielsa, ten Hag, Conte, Hasenhuettel, Potter, Parker or Mason over him, among others, but I don't hate him. As to Levy...the things which stand out about him are that he's displayed very commendable ambition...and his decision making has been erratic at best...and erratic has nose-dived into disastrous in the last couple of years. An optimist would think, surely we can do better. A pessimist would think we're unlikely to get someone who both shows ambition and isn't as morally reprehensible as a petrokingdom. I'm a pessimist.
Of course, I disagree...and know you're wrong, most vigorously, but there's no truth here...only perception, which is what makes life interesting. Vive la difference! ...and Levy OUT!
