There always seems to be a huge divide over Levy and ENIC. Either staunchly defensive of them or overly critical. Realistically I think Spurs fans should be in the middle. We can appreciate the infrastructure now in place. We’ve qualified for Europe in many seasons and that’s come from being competitive in the league despite battling against bigger clubs and those backed with sugar daddies. We’ve reached a solid amount of finals - losing most isn’t on the board, that’s on players and managers. We’ve never really had to worry about going bust or into administration, something similar size clubs to us have. On the flip side we can bemoan the overly prudent nature in many transfer windows. The farcical managerial appointments (and at times, sackings). The exploitation of match going fans with ticket prices. The ESL decision and having the audacity to use terms such as “legacy fans”, showing a real out of touch nature on ENIC’s part with key supporters. I’m personally open to both scenarios of them staying or going. A new owner should on paper be very ambitious considering the asking price ENIC will likely have. Equally, ENIC deserve credit in the bank to hopefully show they can take us to the end game, the infrastructure’s here now so there’s little to hide behind.
Trophies are a weird measure of a club success, though they are the one we as fans appreciate. They’re weird because they reward success in moments and over short sequences of games, rather than the league, which is a measure of more consistent performance over time. We had a period over 2 seasons under Poch where we won more points than any other team. But never won a trophy for it. Despite being the best team over that period of time. I ran the figures a while ago so don’t have them off the top of my head accurately. But I think that in the last 20 full seasons, basically the time period of ENIC’s ownership, our average league position has been 6th. In the 20 years before that it was 8.5/9th. In the last 10 years I think it has been 4th. That IS progress. But we haven’t put it together enough times to win a significant number of trophies. Ultimately under ENIC’s ownership we have raised our average league position while not winning a lot of cups, all while delivering an absolute sea change in terms of infrastructure and the financial positioning of the club for generations of fans to come. There is definitely something weird internally about the mentality of the club. ENIC have much to criticise them about. But I think the on-pitch performance of the club has definitely improved over my lifetime, in a consistent sense. But the short bursts of performance that win cups has been missing.
Yeah and hindsight is 20/20 isn't it - No one was saying that they had a better window than us when it closed in August not here and not in the media - We all knew that Jesus was a good player but our window was applauded by fans and media a like. The seasons not even half way done yet, they may well win the league if they steer clear of injuries to the spine of their side, but it will be achieved with pretty much the same players that finished 5th last season.
I think that the world of football has changed too. If you go back to 70s & 80s where we won a few cups, the FA Cup was a huge tournament, the final was the only domestic match shown live on TV and the average man in the street was more likely to know the cup winners than the league winners because it was all everywhere, it was shown live on 2 out of 3 channels!!! And it was won by a different team almost every year the 70s saw 9 different winners and 80s 7 with no team winning more than 3. In the last 25 years 8 teams have won the cup and 22 of the finals have been won by teams that finished in the top 4. Fans still love the cup competitions but the romance has gone, many teams will rest players today in the 3rd Round because the league is 'more important ' total prize money for winning the FA Cup approx £4.5m, about the same as each place higher/lower in the premier league. I remain a fan of the cup and I am going hoping to see a giant killing at Gillingham today, and I would genuinely swap 4th place in the league for seeing our players running around Wembley holding this trophy aloft, but that's not logical for the club as the money lost by not qualifying for the champions league would be immense this is where fans and owners (maybe even managers and players) will always differ.
You have already noted the diversity drop in FA cup winners per decade (ris similar for the League cup) . The days of the PL "Sky 4" has distorted all the competitions severely, in terms of the financial (dis)advantages caused. For example, the "double" . Spurs were the first 20th century era team to do it, with a gap of 60+ years to the previous one. In the 70s/80s, it was done once. So a modern era pattern was set : once a decade. And that is when you consider this is nearly all the timespan of the Poool empire. Since then ?? 4 times in the 90s (two teams) . 2 times in the 00s (two teams) . And surprisingly, only once in the 10s (when Citeh won the owner lottery) . Ironically, it seems all the money in the PL is making the league part of the double much harder to do, while for some clubs the FA cup part is easy. "Fans still love the cup competitions but the romance has gone, many teams will rest players today in the 3rd Round because the league is 'more important" Not for me. R3 IS the romance of the FA cup. Watching bigger clubs try and field a weakest possible team, and potentially mess it up, is part of the fun from here on.
I remember reading that between the wars Spurs were notorious skinflints. We spent little and won little while Arsenal spent well and reaped the harvest.Rings a bell doesn't it?
Not to be confused with them spending well and suddenly being considered for promotion to the top flight...
No offence, but fans like you are part of the problem, the clubs current owners do not have an elite mentality, which has filtered down to some of the fans. The club needs a complete change of mentality, not acceptance of failure and fans who put the club down to try and justify the miserable tenure of the current custodians.
I have no problem with different opinions to me but to claim fans (who go to games through thick and thin to support the team) are part of the problem is laughably daft mate. Fans who do not abuse the players or shame the club are never a problem (whether or not they go to games) imo
It is fans like you who don't have the right mentality, being happy with never challenging for the league if we win a cup every ten years. And not even noticing the logical impossibility of a strategy where having a worse team is somehow more likely to win cups. ENIC are our first owners who are actually trying to make us an elite club.
No, that was Irving Scholar (as you have been told umpteen times by me whenever you post the above) .
Perhaps he should've said trying to make us an elite club without bankrupting the club? It's quite funny to see how small the amounts that nearly took us under were in retrospect. A couple of million, maybe? We'd give that to an agent now as part of an average signing.
Perhaps he is especially privy to the motivations of Scholar to invest in Hummel, and commercial property (ie not being done primarily with the aims of increasing the finances of the club for engaging in player business) ... "It's quite funny to see how small the amounts that nearly took us under were in retrospect. A couple of million, maybe? We'd give that to an agent now as part of an average signing" Indeed. Shows the transfer/wage fee inflation in the game that the PL has been a large cause of,.
