Also, why is he comparing Spurs and Chelsea? One will pay players loads of money to compensate for the absence of CL football, while Spurs can't.
That was his point, SJW. Players often say that they want to play for Champions League club, but they often mean that they want to play for Champions League money. There are exceptions and the ideal is to be paid well and challenge for trophies, but it seems that money comes first in most cases, somewhat understandably.
Yes, that's problem for Spurs. CL is not overrated for them and the question was about how Spurs will go about their business this summer without it. The money is part of the whole CL thing. For, Arry to just point blank say that it's overrated, especially for a club like Spurs is absurd.
It's largely irrelevant to our ability to sign and retain players, SJW. We won't budget for future seasons on the back of it, so it doesn't matter.
It does when you might have players like Modric using the CL reason if he wants to move. If you got it, he will not be able to pipe up with that excuse. For that reason alone, it's important. Not having it, gives players excuses and Bale already used it when talking about his future. Also, the CL has become the premier club competition, and even though some might use it as excuse, others will want to play in such a competition. Bale had a brilliant debut in the CL, and he will be surely itching to get back in it.
Money is used as a reason to knock Arsenal's lack of ambition on here, but the reality is that Chelsea and City's spending immediately put Arsenal and Spurs at a disadvantage. Harry is right though to point out that the power of player contracts and promises of Trophies and CL football can lure them away from working to achieve it at their clubs. We've seen it with Nasri, Spurs will probably now see it with Modric and poss Bale, VDV. Harry is a hilarious though. He's a one man walking gaff machine of self parodying Harry-isms -
I don't understand why everyone is presuming this will happen. We weren't in the CL last year and you were, yet we still improved our team (Walker > Corluka, Adebayor > Crouch, Friedel > Gomes, Parker > Palacios etc), and you continued your trend of selling players. Why is it all suddenly going to change this year?
because even when Arsenal And Chelsea were at their weakest for a decade, and you had no European distractions, you still bottled CL qualification. I think Modders and co may have noticed
Or the other side of the argument - we showed we have the ability to qualify for it in future season, and we had the good cup run alongside that. Modric will probably leave (Real Madrid), but Bale and VDV will stay, we will sign Vertonghen and Adebayor, and one other striker. We've only been in the CL for 1 season. It's not like we've been consistently in it and now dropped out. Liverpool aren't in the CL either, why is there no talk of Suarez, Agger, Skrtel, Gerrard etc leaving in a mass exodus? Show me one example in the history of football, in any country, ever, where a team has in one season had their team ripped apart purely because they failed to qualify for a certain competition / gain promotion etc.
That was over two seasons and the £100mill+ they got left them very well placed to get right back to the top. Fortunately they wasted it all on English players. Anyway if we do become the first team to collapse we can always sell up everyone, make Khumalo captain and live like Kings in League 2