Much as I don't like the money side of the game and the distortions it produces, it's not new. When we took Greaves from Chelsea, we were the top dog so had no qualms about damaging Chelsea through the loss of their best player. If you look at the history of the English top division it has for the most part been dominated by the the 'big powers' with the biggest stadiums and the most money. That's why the acheivments of Bobby Robson with Ipswich, and Clough with Forest and Derby are so highly thought of.
Unfortunately I can't say I know much about those eras Spurf but surely it's a bit different now? £ity especially, they weren't even a top dog prior to their billionaire takeover, they were fighting relegation about 5 or 6 seasons ago. Chelsea were good but never a title challenging side. PSG were usually behind Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux (I think) where as Monaco have just come from Ligue 2. These teams aren't just signing one or two top players, they're pretty much buying/ bought a whole new XI.
It's esentially the same, the difference is the hype surrounding the game and the fact that it is now truly a world game. Transfers between countries were very rare and are now common. Benefactors tended to come from the local area rather than Russia or Arabia, but it was still domination of the rich and successful over the smaller challenging clubs. Easier now to become rich and powerful (you just need an Abramovich) but harder to compete because the whole world is taking part.
Going back to the original subject of the post "If Bale goes - It is our fault"... I agree I believe it is... Bale is a great player and when he is on his game, terrifies even the best of defenders in the world. Our lack of ambition or more accurately, our dragging of our heels in the transfer window is why we are where we are. 1 bloody point caused this. If we had Champions League football this season, Levy's bargaining power with Bale would have been so much stronger. The kid's ambitious and he doesn't want to wait another season to see if we maybe do, maybe don't make the top 4 again. Can you blame him? The fact that Dempsey is off to Seattle within one season (wow, is that the only club that wants him?) is proof he was a last minute panic buy by Levy, and a poor one at that. We shipped out Caulker... for me, a young kid with great potential which I am still scratching my head about. We can't keep selling and replacing with dross at the eleventh hour. Our Chairman has to realise that it takes a little guts to get glory. There's no glory in finishing adrift by a point if you saved yourself a few million quid. If Bale goes, he will leave a huge hole in our squad and it sends a really poor message to the rest of the squad. I'd like to think that some of that £85m will go towards building a formidable squad, with 2 or 3 more acquisitions. Sadly, i think it will mostly go into the new stadium's piggy bank. Let's see where we are squad wise come September, but if we are weaker than where we are now, a certain chairman has to consider his future in my view...
It's too bad the picture in my signature is too small to see the crucial detail: BOTH hands on Bale, in the act of pushing him to the ground even after he's fallen... I couldn't agree more that people do attribute malice to acts caused by stupidity far too often. But if one of the dirtiest secrets of professional sports is that referees wrongly determine champions quite often, an even dirtier secret is that they rarely do so completely disinterestedly. I'm not talking necessarily about out and out bribe taking, I'm talking about all the soft factors that create bias...crowds, obviously, favorite teams, etc. In our case, it may have been a thought at the back of officials' mind that it would be more customary for Spurs to be the odd man out which led them to arrange things that way. No one knows, really. I can't rule out anything from dumb luck to straightforward bribery. But the numbers below are semi-staggering, and crowning the season with the most egregious offense struck me, at least, as a kind of advertisement that the fix was in. On the original topic, or closer to it...first of all, you can't compare teams built on Basque and Catalan identity to any but the few other teams built on ethnic identity. If you're not one of them, and Spurs aren't, you're left with the fact that the vast majority of players want to go as far as their talent takes them to the biggest teams. Don't get me wrong: loyal players should be honored and paid more than they are. But that won't make most players change their mercenary ways. It would be an interesting strategy to try to steer clear of them, but it's one I think would result in Spurs going backwards rather than forward. We've been doing well lately as the penultimate club for big stars. Why change? Incidentally, this whole "selling club" thing is a bunch of BS. Not to put to fine a point on it, but we're a "buying and selling" club, as is everyone ****ing else. What people are trying to say is that we're not one of the biggest 5 or seven clubs, we're in the next group of five or seven. So go ahead and say that, it's pretty descriptive. Don't say something that's obviously wrong.
I have to agree with all of this. Had we delivered CL football last year, I feel Bale would still be with us. I think Levy and his short sighted policies are partly responsible for that. Let's be honest, where would we have finished last season without Bale? Again, good point. Nothing illustrates Levy's policy failure last season than the panic buy of Dempsey. If he'd have splashed out and bought Soldado, or somebody of equal stature, we probably would be in the CL now, and not discussing how much Real are going to pay us for Bale.
Indeed. I have come to terms with the fact that I personally believe Bale is going and I wish him the best of luck. But we all move on and so.... my crosshairs are firmly fixed on Levy. He has big shoes to fill and if he wants to match AVB's and the fans ambitions, we will not tolerate him shortchanging us again with pony players 3 minutes before midnight! £85m+ is a whopping sum of money and can easily be spread to buy quality and still have some left to help finance the stadium.
All this knocking of Levy comes from the same posters who complained about the sacking of Redknapp and the appointment of AVB. That was a pretty gutsy decision wasn't it? Yet you expect him to go on a spending spree with a new manager who many didn't think should even be in the job. See how he does and then back him if it works seems a sensible strategy to me. We have already signed 3 serious players in this window and if Bale is going it's not without a serious fight to keep him. Unfair and premature complaints about Levy IMO.
My comment is subjective! and yours? If not premature when it's before the season has started and the team situation not clear then it's poorly timed.
Sorry Spurf disagree completely. These complaints aren't premature at all. These kinds of complaints have come from me for several seasons now due to the same old protracted, destructive and regressive transfer sagas year after year. Berbatov... Modric.... Bale. We can go back even further and mention Carrick, even Keane. Players that were central to our progress. Today's team and scoreline at Monaco must send a massive message to boardroom level that we have no depth if we get key injuries. How many times have we said we look short in several positions and are toothless without key players? It's always the same with Levy. Give with one hand, but take bigger with the other.
So what should he do sell Berbatov, Modric and Bale without a fight? Come on FLA if you think anybody else could have done better for us in these situations then I would ask who? Why bring this up now when we have just spent some 50 million on 3 players and obviously are fighting to keep Bale. What do you expect?
It stems from the fact that we have gone backwards in the past 12 months. The league table doesn't lie. I'm not just venting now because of Bale going, this stems from season after season of missed opportunities. I'll reserve judgement until the transfer window closes and we have a settled team but we look very short right now.
See I think we have gone forward, considering we had a new manager and horrendous injuries for most of the season and yet still managed to get a record PL points total. If today's team bears any resemblance to starting 11 at Palace I will be very surprised, so I don't see much to be gained by looking at it. As for short! Again Paulinho, Soldado and Chadli are additions with only Caulker out so far in first team and the business is not finished. Making this discussion premature.
Why do so many people cling onto the record premier league points tally as though it has any significance? It's relative. The fact remains we finished 5th. Season before 4th. How is that going forward? We looked short at the back... did you see our centre back pairing? They were midfielders with one pre-season game to go!!!!
The thing I'm most worried about is the lack of action our "proper" first teamers have had. I can understand the first couple of pre-season games are for a shop window XI but we've got one remaining friendly now and the likes of Kaboul, Sandro, Ekotto, Vertonghen, Bale have had none or very little game time where as Paulinho and Soldado will have one game to get used to the squad. I would've taken Paulinho to Monaco today and given him 45 minutes. With Palace coming up in two weeks, I think this has been arguably one of the worst pre-season preparations we've ever had. Some of it may have been out of our hands and I don't know who's to blame but it's a bit concerning. The fact that no one knows what's happening with Bale is also proving to be annoying. AVB has maintained for ages that Levy has assured him of his stance on Bale, now in my opinion that should've been it. Yet all these reports of talks now happening with Madrid can't be far off the mark in my opinion and so not only have we had a poor pre-season but we could be about to lose our best player which'll result in a likely transfer merry-go-round in which we MAY end up with possibly 4 or 5 new first team players in the starting line up against Palace that have had very little preparation with us... Not ideal in my opinion. Hopefully AVB/ Levy/ Baldini have got a masterplan up their sleeves...
The really top drawer players usually finish up at the top clubs where both the money are the trophies are. There are very few who have stayed loyal to the clubs who have nutured them. Spurs can't compete with the lure of Real Madrid and their ilk even with Cl football. The hope for Spurs fans is that Bale is content with the status quo for the time being, but it would be a surprise if a player of his rare ability didn't want to further his career by moving to one of the recognised elite clubs. Not to do so may show a lack of ambition. If you were a footballer you'd want to win honours which your talent deserved and maximise your earnings. If Bale goes, it's not Spurs fault. It's the natural order in football holding sway.
Well yes, it is subjective, that's why I said so. The comments referred to Levy's policies of last season, and the season before - especially last season, which meant that we failed to achieve CL. in which case, the comments are hardly premature.
