This would hold water if what we are seeing transpire now was a recent and unexpected development. It isn't. Just look at fans' reactions. People aren't saying "we've seen this all before" in reference to the past few years. It goes back well before that. Even top journalists are bemoaning how many times we make the same mistakes. My personal take is that you aren't far from the truth in describing the problem, but where you place it on the timeline is out by around 5 years. To my mind, things started unravelling when we (Levy) decided to pursue a policy of not selling to rivals and holding on to top stars for as high a price as possible, or else we wouldn't sell. When did this shift happen? I don't think it happened overnight and tbh the seeds were probably first planted when we sold Berbatov to United, watered when we had to fend off Chelsea from Modric, then blossomed during the whole Bale saga. What fuelled its conclusion? Most probably our fairy tale maiden voyage in the CL. In Levy's mind, we have been a huge club since 2010. And in the above regards, we have attempted to act like one ever since. Problem is, we were not and are still not a huge club. So by acting like one without actually being one, we have got completely stuck in a self perpetuating cycle: - Clinging on to players long after we should because either we won't sell to a 'rival huge club' or we want too much money. - Going for the same targets as genuinely huge clubs and inevitably losing out. - Assuming our name alone will be enough to convince young talent to sign for us for pittance. - Not being able to match the wages of genuinely huge clubs but in stretching to do so, awarding long term bumper contracts to players who don't deserve them. You're right. The jump from top 10 to top 4 is like climbing Everest. But I am convinced that in Levy's mind, since 2010 we have been at Everest's summit dining with the hardened sherpas. In reality, we only started the climb in 2020 when we moved into the new stadium.
The reality is that everyone leaves it late. We don't know weather Diaz was even being offered until late your speculation is based on speculation.
Probably not but he's in the similar price range of Pereira, Tierney and Digne which is about right. Blind would've only been about a year younger than Tripps when he left Utd than Tripps was when he left us so the price was about right for Blind. Johnny Otto was/ is a decent player to be fair, I think a lot of teams would happily pay the circa £19m or so for him, just had rough luck with the terrible injury last year, not sure when he's due back. Targett don't forget was a domestic signing, any of the domestic signings you've gotta look at roughly subtracting 40-50% of their fee and that's what they'd have been sold for if they went abroad.
Except they don't, especially when they need business done which we do. Villa and Newcastle have shown that, both backing their new managers with multiple signings. Diaz wasn't offered. We made a bid.
Ornstein, Longari and Agresti are saying we're in deep talks for Kulusevski from Juve. Sounds like we're going all in for him now that Diaz has chosen Liverpool.
3.5 years still on his contract and Chiesa is injured. Wouldn't be surprised if he costs exactly the same as Diaz.
As Matt Law just said: “Tottenham hit transfer panic button in bid to salvage January window with late move for Juventus forward”… A panic button we’ve thrust upon ourselves for leaving everything so damn bloody late.
Your post is an excellent example if reverse cherry picking. From 2005 to 2015 you are looking at a period when we went from mid table to challenging for the CL every year despite never being among the clubs with the 4 highest incomes. Therefore we must have been one of the best performing football clubs. Of course not every decision was right, it never is. Getting to the position we were in 2017 was a fantastic improvement. We certainly won't finish top 4 every year, even Chelsea and Man United don't do that with far more resources. The problem Levy had is that success came quicker than expected and before we could afford to buy equivalent players to replace those who were ageing. Then £100m of our new found income advantage from the stadium was wiped out by covid just after the point where we backed the manager to sign 4 players who are little more use to the team than 4 academy players. I do acknowledge that this could theoretically be partly solved by a cash injection from the owners or a new investor but even that may be problematical depending on the covenants on the stadium loans.
With Traore it seemed Paratici likes him but Conte is easier about getting him or not. It sounds like we had everything lined up so if Conte wanted the trigger pulled then we would have done. Ultimately I don’t think too many at the club, or fans, are fussed about him going to Barca, he would have added something a bit different but he’s ultimately a muscly Lucas Moura when all’s said and done. With Diaz it seems like we were trying to steal in and get him late this window before Liverpool could respond. If the news got out on January 2nd he’d probably already be in red. It’s not the worst idea but the news getting out backfired and Liverpool have mobilised fast. Club is probably furious at the leak getting out but ultimately it’s to be expected in this day and age. Keeping journos out is hard enough but it’s in an agent’s interest to leak info anyway. Levy seems to have this obsession that everything we do has to be hush-hush, and I think he perhaps overestimates the ability to do this in 2022. Ultimately we should be bulldozing the market where we have excelled and can offer players a better proposition - those players ready to make the jump. Diaz is considered one of the elite now and there’s too much noise about that kind of thing to pull it off quietly these days. Where we want to shop is incredibly competitive though as clubs are shopping ‘up’ into it and ‘down’ as well.
Admittedly my post was a long winded way of asking a question I have asked before on here: Why did Levy radically change our recruitment strategy to mimic that of a big club, seven years before we had the infrastructure to be a big club? It was precisely the buy low sell high cycles that elevated us from mid table to the top 6. And precisely our abandoning that cycle that is seeing us drift out of the top 6 back into mid table.
Kulu could be fun, and handy as a flex winger/striker too. Need the recruitment in other areas to be sorted though, just get the damn CM in and work out our options for RWB.
I tried to answer this a bit upthread but I think I’m part it’s because it’s easier to buy low/sell high when you’re an up and coming club than it is when you’re so close to the summit, as we were under Poch’s peak. There would have been a lot of dissent if we’d sold say Toby, Jan, Eriksen, or Kane at their peaks, and reinvested. Not least because our record buying players seems patchy. But when you choose not to do that, you have to invest still, from a position of strength. Or everything stagnates and you end up where we are now.
Yeah I’m not so sure why the club are obsessed with another winger when there is other areas that need addressing far more. If I had to guess then I’d say it’s because they can easily shift a winger (Bergwijn to Holland) compared to selling the likes of Ndombele, Lo Celso, Dele or even Doherty. It’s a shame that the transfer policy is still at one in one out as that is massively hindering things.
There were rumours that he was one of Conte's top priorities so not sure about Conte being somewhat blasé about it. We didn't have the fee lined up either, every journalist was saying we still had to agree with Wolves, so we were still haggling three weeks into the window for him, though it sounded like we verbally agreed the contract with Traore. Fans didn't want him and I'm not arsed we missed out on him one bit, I'm just annoyed we spent three weeks haggling for a basic player who's now gone elsewhere. Leaving it any later in the window for Diaz may have caused Porto to say no as they're surely going to want a replacement in(?). The leak could've just easily come from Diaz's agent anyway, he would've known of Pool's interest so once we engaged talks I imagine he would've let Pool know. We would've been better off offering the deal for him on the 1st, if Liverpool intervened as they've done, we could've then pursued elsewhere. I just don't think Levy's doing a good enough job full stop in transfers these days, hasn't done for about 5+ years now and it's massively hurting us with each passing season. I hoped Paratici's arrival would see a fresh approach but this window has just reeked of Levy'ing... and not for the right reasons.
I also think we’re too focused on a name vs actually what the squad needs now. Traore and Arambat would have been underwhelming to some but at least it would have been 2 players the DoF and manager like and who bring different skill sets to what exists in the squad, to an extent. Then the opportunistic move for Diaz blew up and the club is trying to manage the fallout by getting a name the kids know from FIFA rather than being sensible.
I'd say he's somewhat of a project signing, won't immediately oust Lucas from the XI but in time could be a very good player with the right attitude and coaching. The CM issue is just baffling...
I haven’t seen such strong likes with Conte for Traore tbh mate, everything I’ve seen has been that Paratici was the big mover there. I think the Diaz one was opportunistic rather than planned. Hence the late approach, in tandem with trying to shaft Pool. Hasn’t worked though. And I think it’s a symptom again of what’s wrong. He’s a good player and would have been an exciting signing but we have plenty of wingers. I agree on your last point. There’s too much ****ing around and not enough identifying problem areas in the squad and actually addressing them. And don’t even get me started on getting rid of players.
