And that's why without the help of a Pochettino masterclass in coaching/ managing for a while, we'll never really go that extra step. I think we could definitely entice some top players, it just feels like we never aim to do as such.
pretending to sign top players or taking a risk on youngsters that could become top players. I’d like the club to do both but that won’t happen under the current ownership.
Hey we take the cake when it comes to signing strikers on big money who, for whatever reason, flop big time. Sutton, Kezman, Mutu, Shevchenko, Torres, Morata, Lukaku. I guess we had more money to burn, but we are the experts in overpaying for ****house forwards!
The majority of the Spurs fanbase never wanted Richarlison and we've been proven right as to why. Solanke is never worth £65m but I'll give him a bit of credit in that his all round game is solid but ultimately he's already missed crucial chances in games that we've lost or drawn in that a better finisher would've likely slotted at least one or two away. If you could mould Solanke with Johnson you'd probably have a very good player, as Johnson's finishing is superb but he offers **** all else, whilst Solanke's finishing is basic but has a solid all round game.
Diving a bit deeper into the wages question, and this is perhaps only relevant since Kane left (I'm not sure what his final salary pw was), and there are actually two areas in which we differ from City and Liverpool, the most successful teams in recent seasons: 1) They simply have a much higher wage bill than we do. 2) The mean spread of their absolute top earners is much wider than ours. #1 Has no easy fix without cheating. We continue to strengthen the business side of the club and this will slowly allow us to increase the overall package. #2 Does have an easy fix. Right now, there is very little to choose between our top 5 earners. The spread from Son in first to Kulusevski in fifth is £80k per week. In fact the largest single drop in our entire wage bill is from fourth (Romero) to Kulusevski - £55k per week. The rest of the entire squad is spaced pretty evenly. City and Liverpool do not follow this spread. City's highest earners - De Bruyne and Haaland - earn significantly more than the players next on the list. The same is true at Liverpool where Salah and VVD are miles clear of the rest of them. Perhaps this is the way forward. To sign a superstar and say 'grin and bear it' to the rest of the squad as they take home £100k more than anyone else, even Son. In the short term it might hurt, but in the long run that superstar player will help us to greater achievements, which will in turn increase our funds, which will in turn enable us to pay everyone else more money, so everyone emerges a winner at the end of the day.
That's my point. Your club have convinced the world that a pile of manure should cost the same as a pile of caviar. You've completely doped the market.
What do you mean? That is exactly what we've done for the past two summers. Pretend to sign top players (Solanke, Maddison, Porro) while signing young prospects (Bergvall, Gray, Dragusin, Veliz, Odobert).
Sorry I worded it wrong. I meant sign a couple of top players and also the youngsters in the hope of finding another Bale. Solanke and Maddison are nowhere near what I’d class as top players.
Everyone overpays for strikers because they are the holy grail of football. Only very few actually deliver the promise they appear to show. Kane is our best since Greaves and look how great the years between finding them. When we signed Greaves we were the top club in the land chances are we would not get him if he were about playing in this era. Our only chance is to buy young or develop ourselves, as others have said. It's interesting to look at some of the values placed on players in todays terms. Bale to Madrid 157 million Beckham to Madrid 141 million Shearer to Newcastle 138 million So around 60 million seems to be par for a PL striker but someone like Kane, Salah or Harland is going to be at least twice that.
I think it's fair to point out that we probably don't know what City are paying their players, either.
We’ve had some very good strikers between them though. In my life time alone I’ve seen Sheringham, Defoe, Keane and Berbatov. I’m sure some older fans can list a few more on top of them. I don’t believe £60m should be getting us just a bog standard PL striker but if we assume that’s correct then Spurs should be/ should have been spending around £80m-£90m on strikers to match our stature and ambition, not settling for the basic ones.
There's a real shortage of top strikers at the moment, in my opinion. I think that Messi and Ronaldo might have something to do with it, as the skillset has changed somewhat. Who could we have realistically signed that would also suit Postecoglou's requirements? I don't think that Solanke is the issue. The lack of fit competition/backup for him is.
Osimhen? Seemed ripe for the taking after issues at Napoli. Following up previous interest in Martinez or Vlahovic from a couple years back? Maybe even a short term shot at someone like Benzema who was rumoured to be having issues in Saudi? Problem with all these though is they’d want monster wages, if we tried offering them £90k like we did with Richarlison and Solanke they’d have rightly hung up the phone before we could’ve said “do we have a deal?”. Ange would’ve probably vetoed them too because they wouldn’t have initially been desperate to join Spurs and would’ve required financial incentives. Solanke isn’t necessarily the issue (Richarlison is though, he’s tripe), I just don’t think he’s the answer either. The club often talks a big game, Ange himself does too but it feels like we seem to want to aim for the stars but barely do enough to punch through the ceiling.
Chelsea couldn't get Osimhen done with their finances and he doesn't work hard enough for Postecoglou. Inter just won the league, so I can't see Martinez being interested. Vlahovic can't run. He said so himself. Benzema's 36, a sex offender and he tried to blackmail his own teammate with a sex tape. I think Richarlison would work very well in Postecoglou's system, if he could ever stay fit. He seems to be broken entirely now though and being asked to constantly run won't help. We'd probably be best doing another unexpected deal for someone not on most people's radar. Our most successful recent signings seem to be in that bracket. Romero, van de Ven, Udogie, Kulusevski and the like, rather than Ndombele.
Top level strikers tend to fit any system though. We were something like £200m under FFP coming into the summer, one of the few teams that were IIRC, there was scope to really go big if we wanted on both fees and wages. We went solid on the fees but the wages remained moderate, we probably cleared more wages than we brought in. So if Osimhen for instance was demanding £300k-£400k, we could’ve offered as such whilst throwing £90m+ at Napoli but we just won’t do that sort of thing. If Solanke is/ was the perfect fit then he should have more than 6 goals in 17 games. I don’t believe Richarlison would’ve done any better either if he were fit too, they’re both simply middle of the deck players (below even that in Richarlison’s case) . Veliz was one of those unexpected deals and he’s not been given a sniff.
We couldn't have got the Osimhen deal done. Chelsea couldn't. PSG couldn't. It might be possible for someone to sort it out in the summer, though. Napoli ****ed it. Conte ballsed up the whole situation. Solanke's played well when available and I think he'd have done better if we could've rotated more. If we'd have had Richarlison at 100% and used him in the cups and off the bench, then I think we'd be doing very well. Having Lankshear available for cup appearances from the bench on top of that would've been great. Instead of this we've basically had Solanke struggling to get back to 100% and cameos from the other two. The biggest question is how much of this is down to the manager?
Galatasaray got him though? You telling me Spurs can’t financially match them? Oshimen would have been worth the risk imo. He’s level above Solanke and Richarlison.
We might have done if we’d tried… but that’s the point, we don’t even bother trying, Gala ended up getting him for the season and we’d be a more appealing proposition than them. And if Osimhen couldn’t have been got then move on to Martinez/ Vlahovic etc. We could’ve maybe even tried for Julian Alvarez, albeit I’m not completely sold on him but that’s just a personal POV, he’s highly rated in football. Solanke’s played well at times, he’s not been as good as some have made out though, I think him being better than Richarlison has given off the impression he’s a lot better than what he is. 6 in 17 just isn’t a great return either, he’s also missed some crucial chances in games vs Leicester, Arsenal and Ipswich too which have proven costly. The manager’s at fault for plenty of things to be brutally honest. As I’ve said previously, after 18 months now I think he’s a very average or even borderline below par calibre manager but ultimately a lot of his flaws can be negated with better players. He isn’t a Pochettino who can work on a shoestring, improve players and still deliver so the club needs to do more for him if they’ve truly bought into his idea and philosophy.
Galatasaray signed him because the clock ran out on all the other possible deals and Conte had frozen him out. The Turkish window closed later than most other European ones, including our own. Napoli had agreed deals with Al-Ahli and Chelsea, but changed the price late on and they collapsed. He was left out of their squad, so he joined Galatasaray on September 3rd. Our window shut on August 30th.
The problem is we're also guilty of doping the market. I'm convinced one of the main reasons B'mouth (rightly) dug their heels in over Solanke was that we'd just pissed away a similar amount on a weaker player. It's no different to our stance when City valued Kane at £20m less than Grealish, we were rightly incredulous. We've cultivated a reputation in recent years that we're prepared to massively overpay for absolute garbage. In fact, I'd say this probably goes all the way back to Sissoko. It's a problem and makes a mockery of the nonsense that Levy is apparently an 'excellent negotiator'. No, he's very easily fooled.
