I’ve always thought that typically spurs, we peaked at the wrong time. That last season at the lane was our best under poch but with the stadium finances, I think it really hampered us in trying to kick on and improve that side to take us over the line.
Agreed. And United are if nothing else, a serious cautionary tale that we'd be wise to read very, very carefully. From that peak under Poch until very recently, we seemed to operate under the naive assumption that the 'good times' or at least 'nearly good times' would last forever. It's fascinating (and a bit sad) how many posters assume the same, basing this on reading data across 24 years without stopping to look specifically at the last 5 years. United's history averaged out over 24 years would also look damn impressive, and even 5 years after Fergie left would still comfortably be the best in the country. But those 5 years became 10 years, then 12 years, and you are further away than ever at getting back to where you want to be. And that is despite having one of the biggest names and largest budgets in world football. We enjoy neither of those. This is the cautionary tale. I'm arguing it is far more likely that our next 7 years post-stadium go in the same direction as United's 12 years post-Fergie, than any other outcome. For obvious reasons, I'd love to be very wrong.
Really ?? So in ... 1. 2015-16, the title chase was effectively blown in March with the Spanners + NLD games (1 pt from 6) . Notably, the naivety of not playing "ugly" in the Spanners cup final just to try and take the 3 pts. 2. 2016-17, Chelsky won the title because Spurs had EIGHT more games to play due to UEFA land, while they had ZERO. Proven the next season by Spurs finishing 9 pts worse off, while Chelsky finished TWENTY THREE pts to the worse. Notably, Pochettino did not learn his lesson from the season before, and did exactly the same thing for the Spanners in their taxpayers arena cup final. None of which has anything to do with the "transfer market" .
On the other hand, in 2016-17 we started slowly because Dembele was suspended for the first few games for an incident that Twattenberg claimed to have not seen when footage of the incident proved he was looking right at it, and you have to wonder if we had Sissoko in place a couple of weeks earlier we could have got 4-6 more points on the board early and helped us dictate the narrative of the season better
This sort of analysis always involves some kind of hypothesis. But adding extra depth, versatility or quality would have been a smart move. Loosening the purse strings would have improved your chances. Levy has always been too conservative. The issues you allude to might have been improved by having better options to rotate or change the personnel or formation tactically. Most teams who compete for trophies plan for potential problems such as fixture congestion, injuries etc. I recall Spurs having a strong XI, but not too many options. The point I was making (and still make) is that the time was right then to show the club’s ambition and to gamble on success. The criticism made by CK (and others) is that Spurs have pursued a particular course, which relies on everything going to plan, but falls apart when there are setbacks - as per the current situation with the paucity of the squad laid bare. The club’s hierarchy didn’t seize the moment when it was there under Poch and their approach hasn’t changed. Your transfer business hasn’t been bad so far as it goes, but it’s relied on unearthing some gems for a modest outlay (Eriksen, Vertonghen, van der Ven, Son - the list is quite long). But there hasn’t been ambition to spend again when there was a chance to seize the opportunity (as under Poch) or to plug obvious gaps once the budget has been spent (like now).
Levy hasn't always been conservative: there was a lot of player churn in the Redknapp era where players were coming and going at quite the rate, albeit helped by Portsmouth's finances being so bad we could get half a team out of them for comparative pocket change, and of course we had the Baldini Splurge in the Villas Boas era I think the issue is that we haven't been so prolific in depth building since then is twofold: partly it was Baldini splurging a large amount of money in a short space of time and a fair number of those players didn't last eighteen months with us which gave a degree of pause when approaching the market, and also Poch liked working with a smaller core squad so he could instill the idea of fighting for a common cause into them (which is why his PSG and Chelsea tenures didn't pan out, as those clubs are run along the exact opposite lines) There's also the side issue that we had the appearance of depth for a few years because we weren't moving on a lot of the squad clutter due to the global transfer market being depressed during Lockdown, but now we've overcorrected and have maybe trimmed a little too much from the squad, for example Oliver Skipp may not have been a nailed-on starter for us but he would have been a useful player to have on the bench - but we moved him on in the summer, which also had the knock-on effect of needing to keep our fourth and fifth choice keepers around to fulfill our CG quota in the Europa League
This is spot on. And if a fan of a rival club can see it, I'm not sure what prevents some of our own fans seeing it too.
You've touched on another equally true problem: Our chronic inability or unwillingness to get business done early in the window. I'm not going to bother listing examples as we'd be here all night, but what irks me most is the sheer lack of any urgency behind any footballing decision. It's all far too happy go lucky, hope things will work out for the best.
I have given you the hypotheses. Do they stand up to scrutiny ?? I contend that they do, and do not place the blame on who was not in the squad, but who was present + manager. As an aside. on 2016-17 I would say a combo of my comment + the hbic comment on the Dembele ban is an even stronger hypothesis.
Last summer the transfer window opened on 14th June. Archie Gray arrived on July 2nd In the summer of 2023 the transfer window opened on 14th June. Deki arrived on the 17th, Vicario on the 27th, and Maddison on the 28th In 2022 the summer transfer window opened on June 10th. Perisic and Forster were signed before then (31st May and 8th June respectively), Bissouma arrived on the 17th, and Richarlison on June 1st Even in 2016-17 this was the same: the window opened on July 1st, yet we signed Wanyama on 23rd June and Vincent Jansson on 12th July The issue is not getting deals done early, as we clearly do that, but there is an issue that we do our big moves either early or late and there's a fallow period in the middle
You choose not to notice that the club has invested almost the maximum possible amount throughout the last few years. Where is the extra investment supposed to come from? It's very easy to come up with a better plan if you ignore all the financial constraints. Most of those criticising the club don't even know what they are.
The club could spend more money on wages, that’s not debatable. Probably a little more on transfer fees too. You can bury your head in the sand and pretend the owners are doing everything they can to give the club the best chance of success but history, the present shows that isn’t true and the future will say it continues not to be true.
Also it’s not always about how much you spend but how it’s spent too, I agree every transfer is a risk but some of the expensive flops were always going to be flops (Richarlison for example) I’m more critical of how the club spend money rather than how much. They need to increase the wage budget though as that attracts a better quality of player and the weekly wage has come down significantly at Spurs in recent years
You are entirely wrong. We are up against a hard limit on EBITD from the stadium loan covenant. Extra wages or higher transfer spend would both risk breaching it which would effectively bankrupt the club.
Wrong again. Wages have doubled over the last 6 years and there is not a single year when they have gone down.
You’re wrong. The club could spend more on wages. How much I’m not exactly sure but they’re not at an upper limit like you say they are.
How do you know? The accounts are not yet published. If true it would be the first time ever but revenue dropped by at least that last year so perhaps it was necessary to meet the covenant.
