Brighton employ Paul Barber to run the club. He doesn't own it. Michael Edwards is chief executive of football at Liverpool. He is also an employee. Owners don't always provide the best leadership. Levy should retire and hand the football club over to someone with real experience, aptitude and authority. I remain unconvinced that ENIC will always act in THFC's best interests. Nobody's holding a gun to their heads in talking to the Qataris and similar. Whoever they bring into the club as full/partial owners will be entirely ENIC's decision...not the fans. Telling rightly dissatisfied fans that they should be worried about what their protests bring forth, is like blaming cranberry sauce for the death of turkeys at Christmas. Those who condemn such a sale had best prepare themselves, as when it comes down to it (it is when and not if), ENIC will sell the club to the highest bidder, whether fans want it or not, whether the owner is a despotic nation or a American venture capitalist. For them, it is a £billion investment. Anyone expecting philanthropy is going to be very disappointed. Owners come and go, they all have their motives.Tĥe club will outlast them all and quite likely, it will thrive.
Bardghji tore his ACL in May of last year and isn't expected back until sometime this month, which takes him from the Must Buy he looked to be last season to seeing if he appears in Copenhagen's Conference League and/or Danish Cup matches this month so we can gauge if he's still the player he was this time last year or not
Apparently the club encouraged his call up as good for getting him match time and improving his 'match' fitness he will be available for us on Thursday night if sources are to be believed!
Ah, the Football Manager special: use international breaks as a means to get your players' condition back up to a reasonable level rather than give them 60 minutes for 3-4 games in a row before having to use one of your subs
Your last two paragraphs are exactly correct. The problem is that fans demonstrating against the owners is hardly likely to encourage new investment unless it's from a sportswashing group. The demonstrations have no effect other than discouraging exactly the sort of owners the fans should want. As for the fans being 'rightly' dissatisfied...literally every other mid-table club at the time of the ENIC takeover has done worse on the pitch except for Man City. We are the only club outside the usual five who has both stayed in the Premier League and won a trophy over that period. So I don't know where this experienced and competent CEO is magically going to come from
If they are good enough to improve us then one of the richer clubs will likely be after them and outbid us. If not then we shouldn't be signing them. The only difference in them being a free agent is that they pocket all the value instead of their clubs.
Ol⁸906k Representing your opinions as facts doesn't make them so. They're still opinions and still wrong...in my view. You can deride my suggestionson CEO's, it's your MO on new owners too. There are better candidates out there than what Levy has to offer these days. I've given you 2...and surprise, surprise...it's not enough. It's never going to be enough...only because you don't want it be. You know full well that I supported COYS Daniel up to 2017/18...but still you ignore that. He was a force for change and good, but his interests and abilities have changed and lessened. It happens to us all...it's time for further change. The horse is dead...you can stop flogging it. Oh yeah, if you only thought about the truth of the situation, football clubs sell when there's trouble in the air, not when everything's plain sailing. Purchasers like a little discount on the back of it.
I remember very well that you used to be a big ENIC supporter and I think a lot about the situation. The problem we have is that the stadium covenants restrict spending so a new owner will make little difference unless they pay back the stadium loans or inject a lot of cash via sponsorship using one of the PSR loopholes. No sane investor is going to do the former and the latter significantly reduces the number of buyers. I entirely agree that your two examples of CEO have done well but one is already running a richer club and the other (who is actually a Levy protege) doesn't have the track record we need because literally no-one does. I am happy to be corrected on the last point but I can't think of a club anywhere in Europe who has gone from winning the league twice in their history to being serial contenders in the Champions League. My main thesis is that the task Levy faced was close to impossible but he is 90% there and any path to success involves regression as well as progression. However a new owner with £5b would undoubtedly do better whoever is the Chairman or CEO.
It's realistic when referring to wages, I think, but that's not the only factor. Being able to offer clearer options to play than other clubs is an obvious one. Giving youngsters (albeit not academy products) plenty of first team opportunities is another.
I imagine that you're reporting rather than agreeing with this idea? If - and it's a big if - he was English (or Welsh etc) and being made available to join the squad for a couple of low key friendlies at Wembley or Cardiff, then maybe, just maybe, it might make sense. Sending him on a 7 day return trip of +20k miles and possible involvement in two decidedly unfriendly games is very much another matter IMHO
Spurs can pay more wages but they choose not to. PS saying that any player who improves the squad is unattainable is negative and wrong.
I don't see any progression anymore for the football club. Daniel's doing his European Club thingy and HEAVILY Involved in fighting 'the axis of evil' of Citeh, Chelsea, Villa and Newcastle and developing half of Northumberland Park, plus a golf course. The idea that he's got the time and energy to lead from the front, as he did 20 years ago, is delusional. He's also playing a game that others have learned and moved beyond. He's a 4-4-2 man in the age of inverted full backs and ball playing goalkeepers. Time defeats us all, in the end. Pass the baton and move aside, you've made your money, Daniel.
I think Brian has made an extremely important point that I hadn't previously considered. His reference of Barber and Edwards at Brighton and Liverpool was a crucial one. Those are the two teams we (and everyone) should be aspiring to be like. Brighton have shown the most sustained growth and improvement over the past decade and that is despite a frankly ridiculous turnover of managers and players. Liverpool have been the most successful club relative to net spend over the past decade. It is also significant that we aren't a million miles away from them in revenue and wage bill. I'll ask the following question: Is it a healthy thing that the person who runs the football club also owns a 30% stake in it? What's to stop that person understandably putting their investment above footballing success, especially when - as I've demonstrated numerous times on numerous threads - modern football is a massive gamble that produces net losses far more often than gains, which is why most of Europe is now broke? I'm struggling for an analogy but it's a bit like a school governor who also has a kid in the school. So he pulls strings and makes decisions so that his kid gets the best teachers every year, when in reality this is to the overall detriment of the school as another class of a lower academic level desperately needs better teachers. But the governor is too fixated on his child to notice or care. Levy's rather large horse in the race means he can never be fully trusted to put the football club first...and yet he is expected (and paid handsomely) to put it first.
Tis actually incorrect. That clubs can outbid on transfer/wage fees any player Spurs may be interested in, does not mean said clubs are interested in acquiring such players at that moment in time, Which is why Spurs got Carrick, Berbatoss, Modric etc. And in a kindred vein with the above, the story Spurs should be telling prospects is that if you come to us and progress but the club does not win the major silverware, your next destination will probably be an apex club.
