Clubs like Spurs cannot endure the costs of it going pear-shaped with the likes of Dybala. There are more than enough who complain about what the effects of NDombele/GLC have had on the transfer/wage bill with little significant ROI, let alone when you get to the likely wage demands of this player.
Dybala has proven himself a lot more than Ndombele plus has we done our research on Ndombele we may have swerved him altogether as he has previous for his lacklustre behaviour. Dybala is a different mineral altogether imo
Would gladly sign him on a year's contract. Our lack of impact subs is a huge concern. Other than Bergwijn's miraculous cameo against Leicester, I'm struggling to think of many other games when someone came off the bench and rescued the match. And this has been the case for years now, it isn't a recent problem. I'd hoped Lucas would become that Defoe-type player with his shift to the bench but sadly in the games he's come on he's had minimal impact and truth be told is probably just a very limited footballer after all. Bale would ease our reliance on Kane and Son and our desperation for one of Scarlett or Parrott to hit stardom really quickly. No brainer.
Probably suits all parties too, I think Wales are still in the running for WC qualification and if they do it, Bale will be desperate to play. Boils down to whether Conte thinks he’s physically up to it. There’s nothing wrong with him as a footballer, as we saw plenty of evidence of last year. He’s not the athlete he once was, but is simply sublime.
Question : If both were fully fit for most of the season, which do people think would do the best job for Spurs on all campaigns - Bale - Dybala
Why not bring both, we should be looking to have 2 quality players for every position and different options. Bale and Dybala would bring more goals and creativity to our wafer thin squad.
Bale 1000%. Known quantity at the club, knows the league and many of the players, and even if his salary would be big he’d probably only want 1 year, to get to the World Cup potentially for Wales, then retire or go to the States. Both have risks around fitness but there are far less questions around Bale IMO. We get a true game changer for a year and hope that others continue to improve over time. Signing Dybala on the wages he’ll likely command is placing a huge amount of our eggs in that basket for the next 3/4 years given his injury record and the usual worries about adapting to a new league and country.
Bale. Basically for similar reasons as to what Hudd said. Knows the club, the league, is revered by fans, knows a good number of the players both from internationals and his stint last season, is HG and CG and would be less of a financial risk for the club as he'd be on a shorter contract whereas Dybala would want around 4 years on massive wages. Whether we like it or not, Ndombele and Lo Celso - amongst others - have left the club scarred so there needs to be better planning at least for the next couple of seasons when looking at who to spend big fees and/ or wages on, more Romero's, Kulusevski's and Bentancur's will certainly aid us. Plus, Bale still has world class talent even if he doesn't have the legs like he used too, I think Dybala's a brilliant player but world class? Just under for me and we can't be certain if Conte-ball would definitely be for him, though I'd like to think he'd do just fine. So if it's one or the other, I'm going with Bale but either would be most welcome.
This is where our miserly owners need to change their ways, we have one of the lowest percentage of turnover wage bills in the league (may even still be the lowest), so wages could be increased to accommodate some high earners no problem, despite Levy always pleading poverty.
I think we’re now in a position to increase wages even without affecting the ratio that much anyway, now the stadium is built and we’re out of Covid closures (hopefully). But there’s definitely room to push the envelope a bit now we have access to higher revenues and, hopefully, we’re past the uncertainty.
Lyon are reportedly willing to take Ndombele on a season-long loan next season, so a decent chunk of his wages will be off the wage bill at the very least
Proportion of revenue paid out on wages is NOT a sensible measure of performance though. Imagine a football club with a turnover of £50m of which 80% is paid out in player wages. That means it can afford £40m per annum. Now imagine it borrows £500m at 4% a year to part fund a new stadium costing £800m which costs an extra £10m a year to run. The stadium increases turnover to £150m but assuming amortisation over 40 years, costs also increase by £50m (£20m interest, £20m depreciation, £10m running costs). If all the net revenue is used on wages it can now afford to pay out £90m per annum. That’s two and a half times the previous amount but only 60% of turnover instead of the previous 80%. Increasing turnover almost always increases non wage costs so most investment will have the effect above. So generally having a smaller proportion of turnover spent on wages will be a good thing!