Yes! Forgot the link. They moved the longform stuff to SubStack but as you probably saw, you can sign up for free.
I'm sorry but it's simply not possible for ENIC to grow the club's income to the point where we would be able to compete with United, City, Newcastle, Liverpool and Chelsea (currently, although for how long, I'm not sure). Some of those clubs are bigger than us. United and Liverpool will always have a genuinely larger income than us. Others are owned by states or individuals who are prepared to burn money at a rate that we'll never be able to earn it. The answer is to develop a strategy that acknowledges our actual financial position and seeks to work with it. Not holding onto players until they have a limited or no value, not having a car crash of an academy would also help...as would getting decent loans for our really talented, young players like Madueke and KWP...and employing a consistent type of manager who plays the game in a manner consistent with 'the club's DNA' and then playing that at all levels in the club (rather than switching from a pressing manager immediately to a low block one), so that we don't produce full backs when we need wing backs. The stadium revenue isn't the answer...it could be part of one..... If....
You are arguing about numbers! There is no basis for your argument that ENIC are unambitious. They have built one of the worlds best stadiums and an equal facility for training. You can't describe that as unambitious. The bit you are talking about (I assume) is the team on the pitch. If you follow all the rumours all the misinformation put out by agents for commercial reasons all the transfer stories in the media then you can easily get the idea that Spurs aren't ambitious enough but the reality says otherwise. But we haven't won anything for years. That's right but neither have most teams in the PL as the MONEY concentrates the success. Now there you can argue that we could do better because we keep changing managers and keep changing methods. That's a mark of ambition btw. Hopefully the big recent change of employing Paratichi will be the game changer if Spurs stay with him. Now we have someone with football knowledge directing transfers and squad building, in the long term (if there is one) this should make a difference and increase the teams effectiveness.
The haggling of around £7m-£8m for Porro does look rather ridiculous when you look at where we are in the Deloitte table. Add in how Chelsea (yes, we know how Chelsea do things, but still) are simply going for players and matching the asking price within days (or seemingly hours in some cases!) further makes us look unambitious when going for our key target - and I do stress key there, because this isn't a "take a punt" type signing, he's clearly the club's priority. Rumours today say we offered £12m for Trossard a few days back, Brighton laughed in our faces and understandably so, we walked away and Arsenal are now negotiating a deal of circa £25m-£30m for him which again makes us look weak if he was a player we genuinely wanted. We wouldn't get out of bed for an offer of say £60m for Harry Kane, so we should equally understand clubs won't accept our low-ball attempts for their players. I posted on the club watch thread the other day that the THST have asked for answers over some big questions mainly relating to ambition and investment that many fans are asking and Spurs have said they'll answer them after the January window despite the THST wanting an immediate response, I believe I've also read somewhere that we've delayed publishing our accounts until a later date too, fans are making theories as to why this is the case, both potentially positive and hugely negative ones. The final two weeks of the window are going to go one of two ways in my opinion: Very exciting Extremely toxic I don't see an in between where there's satisfaction if a little disappointment.
The simple answer to the income question is that all it takes is for a couple of those clubs to wobble and then, all of a sudden, a space opens up to exploit Take a look at the 2015-16 season as a prime example: Chelsea, Liverpool and both Manc clubs **** the bed at the exact same time which opened the door for us and the Derbyshire branch of Everton to take advantage of that, with them taking it due to unearthing a generational talent in Kante and a diamond in Mahrez that nobody could have predicted, or for that matter Vardy having the season that he did Why do I bring that season up? Because if we had a more liquid source of revenue at the time we could have potentially used that financial advantage in the January window with a transformative signing that could've potentially turned the wobbles in March/April (loss to West Scam, draws with Arsenal, Liverpool and West Brom) into positive results, but because we didn't have that we couldn't try to press an advantage we would have had that Leicester would not Same can be said for this season: there's been some royal bed-****ting from Liverpool and Chelsea while The Sheikh Mansour Team certainly don't have clean sheets in the morning either, and as a result Arsenal are taking advantage while Newcastle are certainly making the most of it. And that's why our ****ting of the bed linin this season is mildly aggravating, because there was a chance for us to challenge this season thanks to various fecal-smeared duvets, and we chose the perfect time to emulate Chelsea and Liverpool...
Like you I don’t see a middle ground here in terms of fan sentiment. The club have burned the bridge of mixed feelings. I fully understand the need to negotiate with a selling club but when you consider that - before the World Cup it was obvious that we needed better options at RWB and forward - during the WC, Richarlison got injured and Sonny did nothing to suggest his form would return - after the WC it has continued to be obvious where the holes are in the squad in terms of quality It’s inexcusable that we are sitting on our hands. Conte and Paratici and anyone else involved had weeks with no matches to play and many players away from the club in which to plan and strategise for the transfer window. It’s not like they can’t/don’t speak to other clubs all year round either. If Porro is the player we want then negotiations should have started over a month ago and if their position on the release clause was consistently clear then we make the decision to get the target the manager wants. I don’t understand the inactivity as the club has money and room to spend within FFP. There has to be something going on behind the scenes because I just don’t understand the inactivity otherwise.
The thing with Trossard is that a player with six months on his contract (albeit with an option for another year) who has publicly given the club both barrels should not be "£30m or **** off" unless that player is someone like Nicolo Barella While offering £12m as an opening salvo certainly feels undervalue, as somewhere between £15-18m sounds more reasonable, Arsenal are getting utterly rinsed
I don’t think Arsenal are getting rinsed. It was quite well documented that Brighton had an extension clause so it was inevitable they’d trigger that for one of their key players, trying to lowball them was never going to work. He’s been a very solid performer in the Premier League for a good 2 years now, will probably be joining at the prime stage of his career so I’d say he’s definitely worth the £25m outlay, especially in Arsenal’s position where they’re top of the league and Trossard adds very good and reliable depth in a number of positions. He would’ve been an upgrade on a number of squad players here in a variety of positions, including Sessegnon (LWB), Richarlison (LW) and Lucas (RW) and that’s not even taking into account Son’s current form where right now you’d probably prefer to start Trossard, £25m would’ve been good business for us too.
I don’t think they will feel ‘rinsed’ if he helps them achieve their goal I think you wish they feel that but they won’t give two hoots £30 mill is peanuts for Trossard bulking up a squad chasing the league Levy could learn from that He won’t because he’s not capable but he should
But you are making a logical mistake in that analysis. Nobody has ever said that money is the only thing that matters. It certainly isn't true that winning things requires you to have money. If all the stars align, you sign a couple of world class players for £1m each, your coach gets the best out of the squad for exactly one season, all the rich clubs have bad seasons together and you win an unusual number of matches by a single goal then you can win the league, as Leicester demonstrated. But that doesn't mean that Leicester had a good strategy because most of the things in that list were outcomes, not part of a deliberate plan. There is a lot of randomness in football but you have much more chance of winning if you have better players and a better coach. You have much more chance of getting those if you have more money. Of course other things have to be right too but you're fighting with one arm tied behind your back if you have less money. Levy simply can't have a lack of football knowledge because the club has outperformed its wealth under his leadership whereas immediately before that it was doing the opposite.
No, he wouldn't have been an upgrade on those players, because most of the players you mentioned don't even play in the same position Two of the players you named don't even play on the same side of the pitch as Trossard so he wouldn't be an improvement on them as he doesn't address the role they play in - which does bring us to the point that Everton fans swear blind that Richarlison plays best on the left yet Conte has played him on the right all season, but that's for another time and/or thread As for Backup Emerson, it does have to be said that Brighton have been moving Trossard away from the LWB role this season, deploying him either as a CF or playing 4231 and playing him as a Chadli-like LW
Our behaviour is explained entirely if we think Porro (and each other player we could sign) is only 1% better than our current options in which case overpaying for him will make no noticeable difference to our results but simply waste money that we could use better in the summer. I actually think our transfer strategy is wrong and we should sign fewer more expensive players so I'm not sure Porto is the best choice.
Which does beg the question about what their goal is, because if their goal is to sign a player so another team don't get them and they aren't a bottomless pit of money like Chelsea or The Sheikh Mansour Team (who both have a history of doing exactly that) then they are getting rinsed And as I said earlier, the amount of their fans kvetching about signing a 28 year old is bizarre, as if their player profile should now be the same as Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriends: once you reach you're 27th birthday you're replaced (not to be confused with our fans, who are snarking that signing a 28 year old is Conte's version of signing a wonderkid on Football Manager...) Also, let's be real, Levy has seen us make those sorts of signings in the last eighteen months, Sarr and Spence being the most obvious examples, but because we play the same eleven players barring injury or suspension we don't make the best use of them so when they are called upon they aren't as sharp as we need them to be
Thanks to the hyperinflation of the market, what we realistically need is some £30m players who can be £75m+ players with the right coaching That's why I brought up Kim Min-jae and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia a day or two ago, because Napoli paid a combined £25m for those two in the summer - and now their values are at least £50m each after half a season Those are the sort of deals that used to be our bread and butter, and yet we seem to pass on that sort of deal every time we could make them
Richarlison's played on both flanks for us this season and if Son were to get injured or dropped, Richarlison would be next in line to start there. If we had Trossard, he'd represent the best alternative to Son in that position and on current form would probably start ahead of Son if we're being honest. As for RW, there is in fairness little evidence he'd be great there but if we're in a situation where Kulusevski and Gil (and Richarlison?) are injured and you have to select Lucas or Trossard, then it's Trossard all day long. He upgrades on Sessegnon blindfolded, I assume it was Sessegnon you meant instead of Emerson anyway, easy mistake though, both shocking players.
The problem is that every club who has more money than us can do ALL the things you suggest for us and probably also do them better because they can spend more on doing them. I don't see any sustainable way to success other than growing income. Raising £1b by a share sale puts us equal with our competitors financial clout temporarily and buys us time to use that to win something which will further increase commercial revenue. I think we can catch Man U and Liverpool and stay ahead of Newcastle.
With the right scouting and everyone at the club being on the same wavelength, you can get £75m players for probably £30m, or even less. Just look at the likes of Son, Bentancur and Kulusevski (once he's made permanent). Son cost us £22m, Bentancur, £16m and Kulusevski will cost around £35m, all of these players have given us the calibre of someone far, far more expensive. Trossard will be worth far more to Arsenal if he helps maintain their position at the top of the table over the next 6 months. Brighton are probably the best pound for pound example in the league at the moment of what everyone going in the same direction/ wavelength can do. Whether it's players or managers, they sign the right fits for their vision and ethos and are greatly benefiting from it, especially financially but also competitively and aesthetically as they're one of the best teams to watch. If we could operate like them but with considerably greater resources, we could find ourselves in a very good place, unfortunately too many people at the club seem to be pulling in different directions for that to happen at the moment.
Yes that is true in theory but you can't build a sustainable future from having a theoretical advantage in the transfer market. Every club in all the big leagues has access to the same data on every player and to the same pool of scouting talent. How can we expect to be continually better than the opposition. Some clubs such as Brighton have had fleeting success by a run of good transfers. Brentford might even have a data analysis model that gives them chance of a longer run of success but that, too, is unsustainable in the long term. You have been saying for the last two seasons that we should have signed several players that West Ham got cheaply. Do you still think that?
