now we are into the silly season leading up to the start of the transfer window where we are linked with every player and his dog I was wondering the benefits of either signing players early or late in the window, now as a fan I would like to see us do business early and get the players integrated into our setup ready for next season, but trying to look at it from levy's side of things leaving it until the end makes some financial sense, say we unload four or five players early in the window, depending on how senior they are he could save maybe £1,000,000 in that month on wages alone without taking into account any transfer fees we might receive for them, then leave getting in two top players and maybe one or two promising younger players untill near the end of the window saving paying their wages of say another £1,250,000 plus insurance premiums for both outgoing and incoming players which cant be cheap ( I'm sure they don't get a yearly go compare policy like the rest of us) that could be a saving of over £2.5 million during the four or five weeks of the window, now I know we all want to spend millions on players but its just monopoly money to us and we don't have to account for it but bearing in mind we made a loss this year I can see levy's way of thinking that £2.5 million is a tidy saving to make, maybe this is all in my head and not really how it works, I don't come from a financial background so I don't know but it makes sense to me that levy might think that way
I want our most important business sorted out early (Bale contract, Striker, Creative CM) and will be glad of any other business that improves us even if its `Last Minute Levy` specials.
I don't think that any potential savings are worth the hit that we take to our stability, consistency and preparation. We tend to get off to a bit of a stuttering start as a result of this, in my opinion. Get it all done early, use the pre-season effectively and go into the campaign with everything in place. Send the appropriate youth players on loan to teams where they'll learn something and will have a chance to force their way into starting XIs before the season starts. Have contingencies ready for January, in case things don't work out or we need to strengthen in unexpected areas. Hopefully the introduction of Baldini will help with this, assuming he actually joins. We need to apply a plan to the club as a whole, which I'm not convinced we've done well in the past. I've also wondered in previous seasons whether our inevitable late signings have anything to do with the late release of our kits for each campaign. We seem to put them out far later than everyone else, which I feel might be down to not wanting to advertise them without key men or with players that might leave. Could be completely wrong on that, but it seems a bit strange.
Every fan would like it done early because it's not our money. I think we do need to get in a striker early and any others would be a bonus. As much as people get annoyed with how we do business, wouldn't it be annoying if someone that would normally be out of reach(like VDV) became available late in the window and we don't have the funds left so he goes to 'Pool or if we end up one player short of what we wanted to bring in because we just paid whatever the clubs wanted for the other players. It's not really a balancing act between paying more early or taking your time and risking losing players trying to drive the price down, it's really just a gamble. Sometimes it will come off for Levy and sometimes it won't but as I said, being fans we don't appreciate the savings he makes anywhere near as much as we get annoyed at him for missing out on players we believe we could've signed or poor early season form with an incomplete squad. Anyway I don't think the window's even open yet, is it? No rush... yet
I would agree that early is far preferable, if it can be done. It's far more important to make sure we get the right players, however. As has been said, the last thing we need is more of Levy's last second "bargains"
No. The suggestion is that we'll get more money from someone if we can secure Bale on a longer contract. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen.
Personally would be great if it happened in the following order: Baldini (or whoever the DoF maybe) New Bale contract announced New Striker.... then whomsoever we get in, as long as it includes another striker/right sided attacking option, a shiny new first team midfielder, and a replacement for whoever goes out of our back line (be it Benny, Daws or Naughton) then its up to Danny Boy if anything pops up on Deadline Day
The sums you are talking about are utter peanuts compared to what 2(+) piss poor transfer windows cost us in missing out on the CL
Only if we missed out on someone who could have made our team better than the people we did sign who in general were not bad value.
Not necessarily. We had 2 piss poor windows where our squad actually got marginally weaker. Keeping players (happy) is just as important as signing new ones. Would we have finished 5th with Modders and VDV?
With the same net spend this would have meant going without Vertonghen, Lloris, Ade, Dempsey and Sig. Not obvious that we'd have got more points.
There are often people on similar threads to this who make assumptions that all we have to do in order to do our business early is to start earlier, others who think we simply have to offer more. Very simplistic, as if nobody had thought of these basic ideas on the Board. Firstly none of us know what really happens with these negotiations, meaning that we can conclude almost anything we want (Levy left it too late etc). Secondly there is plenty of evidence that on recent negotiations we were strung along until the last minute and it wasn't our fault we ran out of time anyway (but that doesn't fit in with some people's opinion of Levy so is ignored). Thirdly we have no idea that an early bid would work - who is to say the player wants to play for us anyway? We are also unlikely to make a signing until the agents have considered all possibilities (ie what gets them the cut of the largest pie). The negotiations could just as easily be something like Levy to Team A or Agent B, "we offer £15 million" (even though the player isn't even worth that, but we are trying to get business done early), and then Team A or Agent B simply go to Chelsea, Man City or the other 'newly rich' clubs and say "Spurs have offered £15 million, how much are you offering?" Basically we are the whim of so many factors, and to suggest that we have problems simply because Levy won't pay or leaves it to the last minute is completely simplistic.
that doesn't explain why other clubs that could be considered less glamourous/appealing than Spurs have done better than us in recent transfer windows though.
We've had a couple of fairly mediocre transfer windows and spectacularly ballsed up with our failure to bring in at least one more striker last season, but who were you thinking of, Spurm?
Well, although the results haven't shown it (last season) i think Newcastle have done pretty well in the transfers over the last 2 years. They signed a bunch of decent looking Frenchies in january (you don't know ANY player will be a success when you sign them but on paper they looked decent) and they've brought in strikers for decent money (Ba/Cisse). A lot of Arsenal's signings, ahem Giroud, were maligned but i think they had a better summer than us last time out despite losing their talisman. The key for them wasn't the quality of players compared to ours but that they strengthened the positions they needed most. Using Giroud again, i think he would have commanded a starting position for us had we signed him and he got the best part of 20 goals in all comps. Chelsea, obviously, had a spectacular summer. A bit of an unfair comparison but we were trying to challenge them last season. I hate barking on about it continually but for me it all boils down to NEW STRIKER. No transfer window will be a success until we sort this MASSIVE problem in our squad. Everton got Jelavic in a "sellers market" January window for peanuts. Where were we? I've already mentioned Ba (who has moved twice) and Cisse. Crouch and Saha were shown the door without bringing in replacements. They might not be the quality we all want but they would have got on the pitch last season i can guarantee. Villa picked up Benteke. Fulham signed Ruiz, Rodallega and Berba, players we could have used. Liverpool signed Suarez. People thought he was too expensive but they aren't saying that now (despite him being a nob) Norwich snapped up Van Wolfswinkel Swansea pulled Michu out of some sort of hat (the Sorting Hat?) WBA picked up Lukaku (ok, unlikely to be loaned to us) and Shane Long for peanuts. (i'm bored now but there are bound to be others) The players we brought in were good quality (Dembele, Lloris, Verts in particular) but the problem is we lost massive chunks of quality in Modders/VDV and King (yeah, that wasn't by choice but we perhaps should have replaced especially in hindsight with Kaboul's issues). As far as NEW STRIKER is concerned we are either missing out, deeming players not good enough or trying to sign players out of our league. Either way something is wrong.
I'd agree that we've definitely failed to strengthen up front or replace Modric, but I'm not sure that anyone with a lower profile than us or with worse finances made better signings without taking big risks. Newcastle did some very good business, but they couldn't bring in enough decent players to add depth to their squad. Ba was a big medical risk too, by all accounts. Jelavic started well but then died off horribly, losing his place to the injury-plagued Anichebe eventually. Benteke was a great signing, but look at the rest of Villa's squad. £24m for Bent? Dunne, Given and other senior players all flopping badly. Vlaar was a good buy, though. I'd have only have looked at Berbatov from Fulham's signings and there's two reasons why he wasn't ideal for us. The first was his past at the club and the second was Utd probably not selling him to us on the cheap. Other signings like Michu were totally out of the blue and his previous record didn't suggest anything spectacular, but perhaps that's why we need to bring in someone like Baldini? Our chief scout left and our whole network collapsed, from what I've read elsewhere. That's a massive mistake. Not sure how that was allowed to happen. Liverpool may have signed Suarez but they've fallen short in other areas and he's looking for the exit now, too. Their wage bill and spending far outstripped us in the last campaign but they ended up way behind anyway. I'd agree that mistakes have been made and something does need to be adjusted, though. We've been too close too many times and it's extremely frustrating.
I hope so. I think we are being "out scouted" by a few clubs tbh. Chelsea/City/Utd don't need spectacular scouting as they can just throw the money at the finished or well-known article. We can't (or don't) do that so we need to be smart. Taking a punt on a Cisse, Benteke, Giroud or a Van Wolfswinkel type is fine as far as i'm concerned. They won't all hit the mark. The problem is we haven't even taken a punt. When its been clear how much we need a striker its pretty much unforgivable as far as i'm concerned. Dempsey is not a striker before anyone mentions him
History shows that the earlier the better. Players get a full pre-season and time to bond with the squad and improve team chemistry. Younger players in particular benefit from having that stability early on. The later you leave it, the more the upper hand goes from the buyer to the seller
