I’ve never really understood the lack of trust aspect of it. Maybe it’s me but I’m very much a believer in that if you’re good enough you’re old enough. More so when more tried and tested options aren’t working yet being persisted with whilst talented youngsters don’t get similar chances. In terms of the transfer situation, I know it’s never as cut and dry but managers, scouts and DoFs have plenty of time to make their minds up over targets, doesn’t just happen once a window opens and from what we hear Porro is the player they want, with a €40m release clause that should be relatively straightforward for a club like ours to sort quite quickly. There isn’t an abundance of available RWBs as it as is at the moment either so I doubt there’s too many choices to mull over, it does just feel more like we’re trying to haggle when Sporting aren’t budging - and nor should they. In the summer we attacked the market very well in my opinion and I want us to do the same in January, get Porro sorted, get Malinovskyi done and then we can go from there as to who else needs to be brought in whilst fielding offers for those we don’t want like Emerson, Lucas etc.
I do agree with you on the young player front particularly when the more established options aren’t working/fit. So specifically Spence. I’m disappointed he wasn’t given more of a go the first half of the season. With Gil and Sarr I’m hoping that Conte will now see them as players who won’t let him down if he has to use them. Particularly I hope Gil is now cementing his place as Kulu’s backup/rotation option. Richy covers two other positions so won’t be short of game time once he’s fit especially if Son doesn’t hit his straps soon. On the transfers I believe Porro has a 45m release clause and we’re offering 40. There’s some speculation that City have a different percentage of sell-on depending on if the clause is met or not that means Sporting do better out of it if we pay 40, but I’m not clued into how that exactly works or if it’s true. From a Spurs perspective we shouldn’t be haggling about 5m if he’s the top target. Though again I’ve seen suggestions that because he’s not the tallest player, that Conte isn’t entirely sold, which if true makes the discussion moot. Either way it’s standard negotiation. The club would be remiss not to try and negotiate and walking away for a few days to explore other options is nothing out of the ordinary. Players move for under their release clause all the time. The club know we need an upgrade in that position and can’t escape the consequences if we have a bad January.
I think that's quite disrespectful to some of the players that he mentioned. They're better than he ever was. I suspect that he knows that, though.
The issue with Porro is that we apparently have to convince Conte that he is the player we need, as Nicolo Schiera stated last month that Conte doesn't think he has the physical attributes to perform in his system (funny how that detail gets overlooked by the usual "stingy Levy" Narratives doing the rounds as per, isn't it...?) Obviously we've had 3-4 weeks for Paratici and Levy to talk Conte around on the subject so it might not be so cut and dried as it was mid-December, at the very least somebody can point out it's hard for defenders to clatter Porro as he's already 2-3 yards down the pitch by the time they get to him, although the obvious thing with Porro is we don't want to show our hand too quickly in case The Sheikh Mansour Team snap their fingers and activate his buyback in much the same way we showed our hand too soon with Luis Diaz and then Saltypool came flying in with a bumper offer
Your stat demonstrates a truth that many Spurs fans seem unaware of. We have never been a truly top club. Over that 17 year period the proper top clubs have won an average of 12 trophies each. Our best ever return in 17 years is 8 trophies under Nicholson. Outside that period our second best is four. ENIC are actually aiming at changing that which is why we need the stadium.
Yeah, but we need the shiny stadium to financially compete with the "top 5". We are now finally arriving financially. People who hate Levy for being a 'businessman' are failing to appreciate his acumen to spot this disparity and actually fix it. A highly bold and ambitious move to the extreme, that goes beyond buying a few top players in a couple of windows. This plus him getting out of the way with the football decisions by bringing in Paratici and the additional scouting staff in is the icing on the cake. If and when we arrive at the top table it won't be fleeting like Leicester for example, we won't be bankrupted afterwards, like Leeds, or yo-yo like Blackburn. We will exist at the top with some consistency. Wigan, Portsmouth, where are they now?
Sorry, in the argument "What have the Romans, er, I mean ENIC, ever done for us?", a new stadium which massively improves revenues doesn't seem to count.
Even the improvement in average league placing with no silverware to show, helps the club immensely. Keeping them lot out of the CL did serious damage to their finances in a short period (see the Deloitte "Money league" annual rankings) .. They won't be picking up cast-offs of the quality of Ozil etc for some time (even if they could afford them) .
We've had very few players since the 60's-80's that would "die" for the club.Maybe choppers are the answer....and thats sad because when one thinks of Spurs one thinks of always trying to play football even with a crappy team.
Precisely. Levy's put us in a position where we should've won trophies, even if we haven't. The last time that we didn't qualify for Europe was in 08/09, missing out on the last day. We also lost the League Cup final to Utd and that bent ****ing cyclist. City are the only club to have as long a record. Why haven't we got over the line? There are a group of clubs who outspent us badly during that period. Our managers all seem to make similar stupid mistakes, too. It's weird.
Conte reaction cam: 1st half: 1-0: 2-0: 3-0 and 4-0: End of the match: You'd be hard pressed to pick which team took the lead if you only watched the managers' reactions.
We never seemed to enter UEFA cup or Europa League with the right mindset. Our FA Cup semi finals have been disasters with goals given that weren't even close to going in, Poch picking Son at LWB, Battering Portsmouth but somehow losing in ET, anything that can go wrong in those games goes wrong. We finally win a semi in Amsterdam and UEFA in their infinite wisdom decide that the final should be played a month after the season and be refereed by a cretin. But the gap allowed Kane to be deemed fit and he started and was clearly not ready. None of these things are entirely at the owners door, but managers, players and even refs making awful decisions has been recurring theme through a period where our league form has been as good as it has ever been.
We won 8 trophies in 12 years under Nicholson, and 11 trophies in 23 years, that`s almost 1 trophy every 2 years. We used to be a top club, but no longer are, thanks to ENIC.
They had a better transfer window than Spurs, and had no CL to attract players. They spent a lot of money, wisely on the right players and are now top of the league.
Even under Nicholson we were eclipsed by both Man Utd and Liverpool. Top clubs win the League often. You are look at the past with cockerel tinted specs....
Taking 1961-1984 (11 trophies) and ignoring 1882-1960 (3 trophies in 78 years... 1 every 26 yrs) ) and 1985-2001 (2 trophies in 16 years ... 1 every 8 years) before enic arrived is cherry picking tbh. From 1985 we were in decline. We had a very good season in 1986-87, a good second half of of the 88-89 season coming third and after that we failed to come above 8th until 2006. I think that 1 trophy in 22 yrs is a poor return but actually we've seen 5 other finals in that time, 6 CL campaigns in the last 13 years, plus a further 10 European place finishes in the past 18 years. That has been an improvement on the pitch. I loved our cup win in 1991 but other than that run our season was horrific. We were bloody awful in the league from February onwards. The cup win in 1999 was great but has to go down as one of the worst cup finals in history as a serious bore fest until savage's dive. What ever the view of Enic and Levy is, regarding where we are now compared to 5 years ago, to say they have not improved us from the dark days of the late 80s and 90s simply doesn't add up. I have been very vocal in my criticisms of Levys mistakes and of the dross football in recent years but I also remember just how **** the football was throughout the previous 12 or 13 yrs prior to Enic taking over.
