A bunch of high earners leaving in a short space of time absolutely does skew the percentage downwards
This is what PS and I have been discussing at length recently. We're almost maxing out on transfer fees every year due to stadium loan covenants, but wages aren't matching that at all. This has led to the phenomenon of relatively large fees (Richarlison, Solanke, Johnson etc.) delivering players on very low wages (compared to what our rivals pay when they spend similar fees). This will very occasionally produce a bargain, such as VDV or Archie, but more often it produces a player who will never live up to their transfer fee because they just aren't that good. We urgently need to raise our wage ceiling (by my calculations by £24m per year to take us above Villa and Newcastle and bring us on par with Liverpool). This might help us attract a higher quality of player.
Correct. From second bottom to bottom. If you see this graph as some cause for celebration, that's fine. I don't.
I don’t know if that graph is a good or bad indicator. It does look like we have room to manoeuvre in the wage bill but how do you keep it getting out of hand? Pay one new signing £300k a week and others including existing players will want the same amount and before you know it we’re at the dangerous levels of Villa. are we really a club who would entice players truly worth those type of wages or would it be a case of overpaying just to get someone in and end up with a load of mercenaries we can’t shift because we’re paying them exorbitant salaries?
If you plotted turnover minus direct costs against wages then you would get a different perspective. We have higher direct costs than anyone else as more of our commercial revenue comes from hiring out the stadium which has high associated costs. Just about every team on that list is spending all it's spare earnings on wages and transfers. A few are betting the house on spending more, which is a course not available to us because of the covenants.
And I pointed out that to save the £24m on transfer fees to balance the books we would have to spend £120m less on new players. We could possibly have got to that position by a different transfer policy historically but it's hard to get there from here.
If you need to increase player wages to increase their weekly performance from 80% to 100% , then you have the wrong players. If your club increases player remuneration (bonuses etc) come May as a result of their on-pitch performance (collective or individual) , then you have the right club. So which of the above is what Spurs have/are ??
Business perspective it’s great. Footballing perspective it shows we’re likely not targeting enough of the players needed to ensure we remain a top side. And that’s been obvious with or without that graph.
You're right, there is always a risk, but it feels like we've tried every other approach and safe to say - none of them have worked. In fact, they've taken us backwards. I personally don't agree with the fear that paying certain players much more than others will lead to jealousy or discontent among other players. Other clubs do this and seem to be completely fine. Liverpool pay Salah over £100k more than any other player. De Bruyne and Haalan are on over £100k more than any other player. In fact if KDB leaves this summer, Haaland will be on £200k more than any other player. Those are the two most successful teams over the past decade. Villa are only on such thin ice because their revenue is so limited. We have a much bigger global brand and a multi-purpose venue as a stadium. These are muscles that we are not flexing nearly enough imo. We can't flex them any further in fees, so wages is the where the focus needs to be.
No we wouldn't. We'd need to deduct the annual increase in wages from the overall transfer budget which by my understanding from our exchanges is: 150 - 24 = £126m Which is plenty to be spending every year if it is spent wisely, which an offer of higher wages could help.
We don't need to do either of these. I'm suggesting a third option which is what Liverpool and City have used for a decade or so: Keep almost the entire squad at exactly the same wage structure used until now, with standard annual increases for performances and new contracts etc. Then pay one or two genuine superstars much more than anyone else. We don't need to increase the whole wage bill to increase player performance. Most of them are overpaid and underdelivering as it is. We need to increase the quality of the team to increase performance. Higher wages could help in that regard. We've never tried it.
Please put up the wage histograms for the Poool and Spurs squads for any seasons of your choosing (so we can what really has been / is going on) .
presuming this is correct (this is way over my head) why on earth do we spend what we do on the likes of Solanke and Gray, for example? - Both players command the “English player tax”, and subsequently rinse our transfer budget. please correct me if I’m being thick, but am I right in thinking we’ve got a situation where we: Have a limited transfer budget Can’t/wont/ change the wage structure But then blow the transfer budget on the types of player who come with a premium attached to them because they’re English? is this not the worst of all possible situations?
Whilst this is clearly no time to be flippant,the great irony of all this talk of us not being prepared to a pay big wages can be summed up in 2 words Timo Werner! In what is now a huge catalogue of managerial faux pas surely agreeing to pay all his ages for the duration of 2 loan spells is right up there with the worst.
In fairness you didn't specify that in your statement. I think this plan is doable. Let me know when we can meet and organise a hostile takeover of ENIC and your mate Daniel
The reason there is a premium isn't because they are English, it's because they are association trained so they don't use one of the 17 places needed by players trained in other countries. So if we don't pay the premium our squad will be smaller.
