That's the thing. I agree we need leaders on the pitch, but just because Daws is captain it doesn't make him our only leader. If it weren't for his injury I would have actually had Kaboul as my preference for captain ahead of Daws, because I feel he's an equally good leader and a better player. The same goes for Vertonghen who was captain of an extremely successful Ajax side and has experience of winning titles. What experience does Daws have of leading title charges? Dawson's a great character and leader to have in the dressing room but that doesn't mean he should be given priority at the expense of technically better players. Sandro too is someone who leads by example on the pitch. I don't think we need to have any worries about a lack of leaders, whether Daws is playing or not.
Loving this, if Bale sits down with Levy he'll leave the room having signed a new contract without even realising
To be fair, who ever plays there is going to struggle against him. He's one of the most difficult players in the league to mark.
Fair comments WY. Let's see who emerges as our leader(s) this season. Re Rose, one of my big concerns with him is red cards. He seems to put in a lot of rash challenges. I expect him to play v Palace, I just hope he stays calm in what is likely to be a 'feisty encounter'.
http://talksport.com/football/spurs-will-carry-spending-says-villas-boas-13081555666 interesting quote from AVB on Bale: âThis is a player of great importance for Spurs and a player we are not willing to negotiate for." Followed by: "We recognise the interest from other clubs but we canât do anything at this stage.â FFS Andre... why did you have to ruin it!
Read between the lines: We have set Madrid a price we will not negotiate on. We can't do anything about it at this stage because Madrid haven't got the money, or aren't willing to spend it.
Being a **** player who offers nothing to the team is another way to guarantee being moved on sooner rather than later.
Get a tea and a biscuit and have a read on this. It sounds like something anyone could write, but I still found it relatively interesting. ------------------- "This is from the excellent COYS forum. The contributor is both clearly informed and well worth reading. This is not from Lewis directly, but based on what I heard yesterday it may help to make real sense of what is currently happening from a financial perspective! The “value” in a successful club is plain for all to see. The stakes keep getting higher. Joe Lewis (ENIC) is the longest standing owner of a PL club which belies all the chat that he is in this to make a fast buck, especially as he made more than £1b in 1 day on ERM. He has demonstrated that he is shrewd and does not need to make money out of Spurs to get his next meal! Notwithstanding that…….He is professional businessman and wishes to make his assets sweat. I think the advent of Abramovic and Man C made him realise that he could still compete spending a fraction of their total spend. I think AVB demonstrated last year finishing 6 points behind them and scoring the same amount of goals, the art of the possible. I also believe he had absolutely no regard for ‘arry, as he probably did not trust ‘arry one inch with money, and even if Daniel was buying the players he could not be sure if our ‘arry was getting some kind of commission, or if he really needed the player in question, Suarez no………. Neville yes? that is poppycocked up! Lewis is not a young man therefore it probably does not hurt to look back in time a bit to understand his thought process today. Historically 30+ years ago the old order of the “big 5″ was in no particular ranking Spurs Arsenal ManU Pool Everton, and it had been that way from the mid 50s if not before! Success on the pitch over a prolonged period, no matter how achieved determined who the biggest clubs were and most if not all of them appeared to be on a level playing field. I said “appeared” since for a long time the Moores family pumped considerably more money into Liverpool than most if not all of the competition… Man u got Fergie after a period in the wilderness and then putting together a winning team built Organically under Edwards (father and son), and as success came they smashed transfer records in order to stay there Ferdinand, RVN, Veron, Rooney, Berbatov, RVP, all over £25m and sold Ronaldo for £80m They became for a time the most valuable sports brand in the world and are still up there. worth C£2b Arsenal, much as I hate to admit it have also generally gone about their business the right way. They are in their new stadium, and have a sustainable model as long as they continue to produce success on the pitch even moderately and are worth c£1b this figure could be higher but for some inexplicable reason Wenger wont spend…. Chelsea were always a small club historically really untill Abramovic came and spent a fortune and hey presto they are now a big club as with City and al Nayan. By shrewd financial management Levy has taken us to the brink but not really got us over the line. This would normally be ok particularly if we had gone to the Olympic park stadium, which probably would have cost say £100m Currently (with FFP coming in) BUT we now have to take a mega punt on the new stadium. This is a £450m punt, in order to justify it as a success within a couple of years the Club must either be worth something in the billion pound range or a la Arsenal paid back most if not all of the investment and be throwing off sustainable cash flow in order to compete on a more level playing field. My father used to say that “business is the art of taking the risk out of gambling” (an MBA later I agree with him). If we can follow that maxim then we can look at the effect of “leveraging” our current position, and postulate a theory that our squad now is younger, leaner than it has ever been before, and the gap on paper is such, that whereas Chelsea and City have had to spend £100s of millions to get them to the position where they are today and in both cases not an “organically stable” model ie if the Russian and Sheik naffed off, it would all come crumbling down, Chelsea like us don’t have a stadium ….unlike us they have not identified one. City will still be the 2nd club in Manchester in terms of fanbase and achievement for the foreseeable future. Surely Joe Lewis looks at this and thinks “how do I maximise my chances of a successful new stadium” ie how to make sure I dont pour £300-450m down a hole The first and most important thing is, surely to deliver sustainable success on the pitch, this leads to much increased revenue, leading to quicker payback, and decreasing his risk and exposure long term. Man U & Arsenal are examples of this strategy working Ok that seems like a good idea, the next question has to be “Daniel find out how much it is going to cost me to GUARANTEE on the pitch success on a Consistent basis?” Do you think Daniel replied “with or without Bale?”More likely he sat down with Andre who they both trust and said Andre “what will it take money wise to challenge for the title? If we aim high we may make sure of CL qualification.. “lets look at it both ways With Bale say £100m, without him realistically say £150m.More importantly how do you replace him” I honestly don’t know what the real numbers are….. but I bet I’m probably pretty close (within 10%.) He would also have told Daniel to make sure that he got the players he needed rather than losing out through excessive haggling! With no ‘arry and FFP coming in, the new stadium 2 years off, the all bar 2 of the TOP clubs with new managers, this is like the perfect storm… I believe this type of conversation has taken place….. it explains our activity and the reasons behind it"
Sometimes when I read comments about Kaboul and Vertonghen on here, I think we must have two of the greatest CB's the world has ever seen. I am certain Kaboul in particular, has been elevated to superstar status during his year out of the game. Yes, he turned out to be a good defender, but he was still developing his game there at the time of his injury and he was still struggling with his tendency to charge forward and thus be out of position at times. As for Vertinghen, I sometimes wonder if people have actually noticed how weak he is in the air, and how when we give the ball away, he just strolls back and leaves his fellow defenders exposed. I know he was picked in the team of the season, but as a keeper I would have the shakes playing behind him at times. Also, there were a number of goals we conceded last season which were clearly down to Vertonghen, yet somehow seemed to end up as being Dawson's fault. Without wishing to sound rude to another poster, it is very rare for me to agree with GHoddle10, but on this occasion I wholeheartedly support his views on Michael Dawson. His performances last season were a credit to his professionalism, his leadership qualities were frankly the only ones I saw last season, pretty much everyone else flattered to deceive most of the time and if some bigger names had shown the same level of commitment as Daws, then 4th place at least would have been ours. There were many on here holding street parties because we finished with a record number of points, yet every time one of the players who played a part in that "success" is discussed, he is said to be not good enough to be a first team regular, which seems to me a bit of an anomaly.
Points taken OS. There are those on here who are overly loyal to Kaboul and JV and there are those one here who are overly loyal to Dawson. In reality whichever ones take their chances soonest this season and show consistency will be the ones who cement the first team place. We're all entitled to put more faith in one than the other, it is after all, a popularity contest - we could have similar debates all over the pitch.
Hi Spurcat - In fairness I think both are good enough to play in Championship winning teams. Whilst i'm sure you will see them close up and know their idiosynchrasies better then us, many of us grew up on a CB diet of Ramon Vega, Ricardo Rocha or Gary Doherty and so the good things they do, or are capable of are amplified. I also like Dawson though, and agree that defensively we performed better with him in the team. Didn't we go some 10games un-beaten after xmas as soon as he was selected?
The hype around football, as almost everything in the public eye these days, is about glamour. Dawson being the straight forward no frills honest player that he is does not qualify under the heading of Glamour! Dawson just defends and defends with full commitment and a high degree of success. He does not make pretty forward runs or subtle shimmys, he just stops the ball around our penalty area and gets rid of it up the park. This is not a bad thing for a defender to do is it. The modern game includes wing backs who are often over valued for their wing forward exploits at the expense of being pretty ordinary as backs. Walker? I rate both Kaboul and Verts but they can both learn from Mr.Ordinary Dawson. Good post OS
