Sidney has summed up what I meant. I shouldn't have used figures as I didn't mean it literally, I was just trying to give examples. There's always going to be exceptions out there like you guys have mentioned, quality can be picked up for not much. But in general, there's a market with values which are there for a reason.
I used to like their chocolates but they seem to have lost there quality over the years. Maybe a little sick of truffle style. Beers is another matter , to be treated as good wine. My favs are the Trappist , Fruity Kriek and Wit (wheat ) if that's right in Flemish. With a bowl of steaming mussels , I am a happy bunny.
Fantastic, I wish that was my Sunday lunch. Today a family get together at Mama's house. Linguine with frutti di mere, an old classic. Thank you Spurf that looks like next weeks treat lined up.
Agree with the first half, Sidney. The problem with signing two players at £30m is that if they turn out to be worth £30m then likely we will qualify for the CL and get at least some of the money back. If they turn out to be duds it might cost us well over £100m (lost transfer fee + overspend on wages). That is more than half of our turnover and many years of profit. We can only risk this if we have an Abramovich funding it and that is very risky. What if we think we have one and he turns out to be the guy who ruined Portsmouth. Signing four 10m players and hoping two of them turn into £30m players is much less risky and I think our recent transfer activity is consistent with that.
Hi PS. What you've said at the end here, is what I hope we get really good at. It's the best approach for a club like us. It's got to be done properly though and the correct infrastructure put in place to ensure we really are finding the top potential talent. Get it wrong and it could still be a way of being wasteful with money. But even taking those risks into consideration it's the most sensible choice for us.
spending money means you only standstill, huge money well that's another story. Our net over 4 years is showing we are spending nothing in real terms. 20 million plus spent is nothing if we want to be winners than the fall guys. We should make that back on revenue earned. Nobody is asking for friary style funding that could cause the club to implode. Remember these are also assets that bought wisely will at worst retain their value. Back to no striker , creative midfielder , we need them but don't get them. Levy earn your 2 million a year and not morph into Wenger type chairman. Off to lunch and may I wish you all a nice day.
Lerner did the "lets just spend money to get us in the CL" approach and eventually had to withdraw that plan, sell off the assets they had to become more sustainable again, their current position should serve as a warning for sides wanting to do similar. Villa weren't outspending any of the top 4 sides but they were spending a lot more than other PL sides and more than they could afford and without CL money Lerner's gamble didn't pay off. The current salary expenses we have mean that without CL money we have to control our transfer spending very carefully. It was a calculated risk as we had a side that had just got top 4 so in an attempt to keep together the squad that had just proved they're good enough for where we need to be, we sorted out our key players with more competitive contracts and also allowed ourselves to go for quality players like VDV who normally would have been well out of our reach before. If we'd done that alongside big spending we'd have been in the same boat as Villa, probably worse as we had a lot more expensive deadwood than them up until recently. It's easy for us to see with total clarity what players we need that would guarantee us top 4 but the truth is that we're not seeing anything, just speculating. Were our fans all hoping we'd sign Berbatov? I don't know about you but I remember when a lot of fans were gutted when we missed out on Marin, when fans thought we should sign Carroll for £20mill and there's plenty of other examples. Everyone's got an opinion on football but there's a reason we're not paid for ours. I'm not saying we shouldn't question the board or express our opinions but there's got to be some kind of appreciation for the fact that we are underqualified at the sametime.
Yeah agree. I personally prefer this approach anyway, don't get me wrong if we brought in a £20m-£30m striker I'll be chuffed to bits but there is a possibility they could do a Torres. We're not financially strong enough like Chelsea to be able to stay afloat and keep spending if that happened to us. We've proven in the past we can pick up players for reasonable prices and make ridiculous profits, Carrick, Berbatov and Modric are prime examples. A lot comes down to fully researching and scouting the players, making sure that every possible angle has been thought out to try and ensure that the chances of a player being successful is high. We'd all love to be able to have one window where we can do a City or Chelsea and bring in one, two or three etc £20m-£25m+ players but realistically we just can't do that.
Well thats not yours or my problem, but after today, anyone who thinks we're ok with 2 recognised strikers and Dempsey wants a check up from the neck up! I don't remember saying sell Ade, all I've said is we need another striker, when its even highlighted on tv as it was today at HT for all to see, then something is wrong, and this is where I lose faith in avb. He has categorically said that Dempsey is quality enough in the event of the other two's absence...that went well today . If we have to take on PL teams like that we've had it. Its up to our chairman to get rid of two high paid arseholes off the wage bill at a loss and be done with it, they're going for nothing when their contracts end anyway, and just get someone in, its another TW wasted.
SO basically we're a selling club, we take no major risks in signing truly great players, but rather look to find the next Modric, Berba, help them grow as players and then flog them to proper clubs that actually want to win silverware? there is only so much that can be achieved by this type of thinking and we're basically just making up the numbers at the top of the table. No chance of winning the league. Virtually no chance of winning any major trophy. We're not going to compete for great players. We play dour football BUT we find players, sell them to bigger clubs and if we're lucky we may finish 4th. Seems rather lacking in ambition from people that run our club as a business.
The truth is that Spurs have one of the strongest squads in the PL, but there is an inbalance to it. There is an abundance of midfield talent and options at the back, yet goals remain the strongest currency. Any top side needs four decent strikers. They don't have to be out and out centre forwards, but you need players who are capable of 15+ goals per season. Spurs have 2.5 in Defoe, Adebayor and Dempsey. Anyone can see Spurs need to buy a proven goalscorer ASAP.
I don't think that implies we're a selling club. So when you've got yourself a player who other teams value at 30m but you only paid 10m for that's a bad thing? Thing is this is the only way we're gonna get top, top players - get them just before they're top, top players. Before they cost 30m and they want wages of 100k+ a week oh - and before they wouldn't want to join us over Man Utd, Real Madrid etc. Fact is that the other teams around us have vastly greater resources. We simply do not have the money of City, United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool. I'd much rather we had the problem of other teams wanting to pay 30m for our players than not. Seeing the advantage of players increasing in potential transfer fee-worth does not imply, necessarily, that we want to sell them.
We're a selling club if we look to buy players before they reach their potential and don't invest to match their potential as they grow and attempt to win silverware, as if you can't keep these players then you have to sell. You can argue if you believe we want to sell them, or not, but the fact is we can't keep players of that standard due to the way the club is run so essentially yes we're a selling club. We sell Modric for 30 plus million, berbatov for 30 plus million, Vdv for 10 million? Their replacements were Dembele, Pav & Dempsey. That to me shows a lack of ambition overall as I'm not having a dig At dembele as player (as I rate him) but when we sell a player like Modric, we look to bring in a player that has potential, so we're always going to be stuck in a cicrle and I feel we have reached what we can achieve with our current owners.
There are very few clubs in Europe that aren't "selling clubs" when it comes down to it. Man Utd couldn't keep Ronaldo. Especially when the price was what it was and with the fact that the player was pushing for the move. To be fair the power of players (and their wage demands that they know will be met elsewhere) has much to do with the movement of players. Would we have sold Berba and Modric if they hadn't repeatedly engineered moves for themselves? I believe we wanted to keep them but what can you do? If players were being actively put on the market and the management is trying to hawk them round Europe then fair enough - we are being a "selling club" but I don't see that happening. VDV was a weird one but with the other two it does seem that the club did everything they could (without smashing the wage structure) to keep them. Then when that was not going to happen concentrated on trying to get the absolute maximum fee. I'm not sure that Madrid or Man Utd would agree that Spurs are an easy club to poach top players from. I don't think that the reason players go is how the club is run - we just have a fraction of the income of other teams and have to operate, as all clubs bar the Cities, Chelseas of this world do, accordingly. We just cannot afford 200k a week wages and 30m fees. So we have to find those Modrics and Berbatovs rather than slapping 30m on the table cos it looks like that boy Rooney might be able to cut it (and he'll want to come to established champions) as Man Utd can afford to do. we have to be a bit smarter than that.
The facts are we are a selling club . Yes we demand a high price but our players are there in most cases to be sold on. Berbertov we downgrade with Frazier, Pav etc. Modric we downgrade with Dembele (a good player but not in the same class.) VDV we downgrade with rubbish as Dempsey and Siggy. We keep nobody because we offer them no competitive future with us and the board engineer this for the players to be sold on. Why does any one decent want to time after time jump ship. The same old bollocks year on. The surplus stay , the crap Jenas , Bentley , the average and the good Verts , Lloris , Dembele any one above this level will move on. Bale next.
Of course I know finding players with potential such as Modric & Berba is key, yet it seems we accept the limitations are what they are, and aren't a result of how the club is run, thats the bit in which we differ with our views as ENIC & Levy have set the limitations, we're running within their structure as they own us. I'm not expecting or even thinking we can sign players like RVP, Rooney or a player of such calibre, but when we lose players like Modric, Berba & VDV, and sign players like Dempsey & Pav then it makes me question what the actual ambitions are, especially when our chairman attempts to get every last penny out of a sale and enjoys saving every last penny in a purchase. When did we last keep a player that was wanted by bigger clubs? Anderton turning down Man utd? King (who's blood is lillywhite), just thinking off the top of my head but as soon as a player thinks about winning trophies or moving up a level they tend to be off, be that Modric, Sheringham, Berba, Carrick even Keane (although that was foolish) and I expect Bale will be next. Also I can't remember the exact fee, but how much did ENIC buy us for? 80 million? how much are we worth today? a small fortune I bet compared to their initial outlay, so why are they our owners? to throw money away? or build us up and sell us for a small fortune and keeping us as near to profit each year?...Although to be fair to ENIC, we have come a long way since the Sugar days and am not all against their ownership ( I can see their positives). However if the clubs value is rising and the net spend is low, and we're maximising sells and attempting to get best value in purchases, thats great business practice and for us to achieve more then our current position, then a greater risk has to be made, which is why I say we have reached our limitations and there is a lack of ambition to exceed our current position.
