Levy thought he could buy top four, but he paid silly money for average players. Spurs are like the worst bits of Chelsea, throwing cash at their problems and sacking managers, albeit without the success that the Chavs have had.
Completely agree about Redknapp. In his 3 full seasons at spurs he finished 4th, 5th and 4th. Two out of 3 top 4 finishes and when he only managed 5th they where in the CL for the first time. He was unlucky that Chelsea qualified by winning the competition. If they had got CL again Redknapp may have been given more time? He is the only manager they have had who made them look like genuine contenders for the top 4. Granted it came at a time when other top teams have had poor seasons but it seems ridiculous to me that he was replaced with AVB.
I agree with most of that, although I wouldn't be overly critical of AVB and his man management skills, a few of the Tottenham players have come out and said he had their full backing and there was no notabel improvement in their first perfomance without him at the helm so that kind of backs it up. He was also in an ego loaded Chelsea dressing room with big characters and salaries to match, he was given the remit of changing the team and creating a long term future for the club and was given a 5 year contract (I think). The problem came when some of the fans (not all, there are some reasonable and understanding Chelsea fans out there) wouldn't accept anything other than success and the whole 5 year rebuilding project lasted about a dozen games before the fans, and eventually the owners, patience ran out, for the plastic Chelsea fans they can be grateful that the only thing that did run out was Abra's patience and not his chequebook. Typical of the modern style of running a club and that's been reinforced this week when Levy showed his stripes.
I didn't say it was good or bad business? That will be answered over the next few months. Are you so sure Lamela, Soldado, Eriksen will be flops - the jury is out for me. They are all good players, we just don't know if they can make a team.
I know you didn't that's why I'm asking you the question. Just because you made decent money on one player, doesn't negate the fact that you went and spent it on overpriced average ones. That's why I used the Torres/Carroll example. I think Paulinho was a good buy. But at nearly 60m for Lamela and Soldado, I think you got taken to the cleaners. The others you bought are distinctly average in my opinion.
He hasn't done much to justify his pricetag yet, i'll wait until we get a competent striker until i make a final judgement on Ozil.
Well he has the most assists in the league so far this season and has chipped in with a few goals. He creates chances every game which is what he is here for.
In one sense it is true, Ozil has not justified the 42 million price tag, but that's all down to the over inflated market these days, Bale isn't worth 80 million, and on it goes. He's still a top class player which any club would want to sign, sadly in these days, you will have to pay over the odds to get such players. I don't think Ozil will ever justify 42 million, even if he scores 10 goals, and grabs 20 assists, yes in an over inflated market we would say yes he has justified it, but from a general point, the answer is no, and it's not because he's ****, it's because the market prices are ****ed up thanks to clubs like Chelsea, City, Madrid, PSG, and Monaco...In fairness to Chelsea, they haven't been on crazy money spending sprees of late, but they were the ones who really began this bad trend, big money billionare comes in, and just throws money in, and suddenly the markets become inflated and Madrid also begin to start paying double-triple than what they did before due the inflated market and it just goes on and on.
Surely this is all about market forces, Liverpool got significantly more for Torres than he was actually worth allowing them to spend more on Carroll than he was worth and still make an additional 15 million, likewise with Spurs they also recieved a massive fee for Bale and used the money to replenish their squad if they had got 50m for Bale and bought all the replacements for that money it would have been seen as good business. Now clearly at the moment some of the money appears to have been invested poorly, there we will agree, but in both these cases from a purely business point of view the deals that were done made sense.
I think it comes down to value for money and having astute footballing knowledge about the players you buy and how it will affect the squad. Real clearly don't have a ceiling when it comes to spending. Spurs benefited from a massively overinflated valuation on Gareth Bale and whilst agree that it makes good business sense to reinvest that money into the squad, the real crux comes in the application of investing that money. I think Spurs panicked when they sold Bale and thought they had to get players in quick to bring the squad back up to the level that Bale offered, because they were deperate for a top four spot. But the result was that they sacrificed some quality and cohesion in the process. Wenger will tell you that bringing more than three players into a squad in one go will disrupt the team, but Spurs more than doubled that number in one go. I think they are beginning to realise that you just can't throw a hundred million at a problem and it will be instantly fixed. In a way they have tried a similar approach to Chelsea and City, big spending and lots of managers, albeit without the success of those clubs. Levy is a good business man when it comes to extracting the most money for his player sales, but at managing a football club and making decisions on buying players and hiring and firing managers, he hasn't got a clue.
I don't think we 'panicked' but I think we severely underestimated the problems of assimilating so many new players into the team at once. As well as the 7 signings we had 2 returning from loan and 2 from long term injuries, plus Holtby who only played a handful of matches last year. A team like Loris Walker Chiriches Kaboul Rose Capoue Paulinho Chadli Eriksen Lamela Soldado is quite decent on paper but only the first two were in our squad last year. Probably better to have kept Caulker and Huddlestone for short term but I think Capoue and Chiriches will be better in the long run. But if we hadn't spent the money people would be saying we lacked ambition and that money in the bank never caused success. And even now our squad only cost about as much as Arsenal's and Liverpool's and 60% of Chelsea's or the Mancs. And I think we will still have the lowest wages of the six, so why anyone was confident about top 4 I don't get at all
I haven't worked it out but given your splurge in the summer i would think Tottenham have spent far more than Arsenal on assembling the current squads.
Also don't forget that this isn't a new phenomenon for Spurs, since the PL began they have a bigger spend on transfers than Man Utd. That is quite a staggering fact when you compare the relative success of the two clubs. To a degree Spurs' net income has masked their spending, but it hasn't masked their lack of achievement. They want to be known as a big club, but the only big thing about them is their spending.
Ours cost £206m and yours £182.5m. Last year the figures were £147m for us and £180m for you according to http://www.transferleague.co.uk/premier-league-squads/arsenal-squad-201213.html The extra 33m got you one whole point more last time out so I'm sure the difference is insignificant this year. Chelsea and Man City are over £350m (ie about double). People keep going on about our gross spend, but our net spend is actually almost zero over the last few seasons (as is yours). Essentially both clubs generally buy cheaper younger players and sell them on if they become superstars.
It's amazing how valuable a point can be. 33m on one point is absolutely worth it as it meant a CL place - which pays back most of it - plus the attractiveness to star players such as Ozil who come in & improve the team. 33m for an extremely valuable point.
Well if you believe what you read, AVB only wanted Capoue, Paulinho and Soldado - the other 4 were not on his list. If we only had bought those 3 instead of all 7, things might have been different.
He has made more assists than any other player in the Premier League in less games. This is what he does and he has started doing it already in a new league. He has also created more chances than any player in the league except Silva so I am not sure what you want him to do to justify his price tag.
Anyone old enough to remember the great DB10 and his first few weeks will realise how hard it is to adapt immediately to a new country and new league. Couldn't be sure but he showed nothing for his first half a dozen games then snatched a brace against Southampton but only finished the season with about 10 goals, but he turned OK didn't he ? Too many owners panic these days, there are 6 or more Chairman who think they should be in the CL and probably 3 who think they should win the league every year, that means there will always be disappointed people. Whilst the AVB sacking was a shock, the Steve Clark sacking was senseless, where exactly does the West Brom Chairman think his club should be ? Tottenham don't have the infrastructure to be competetive (to the level they can challenge for the league), they have a small ground and cannot command the level of sponsorship as 4 or 5 others, I think they've done very well in recent seasons to be as successful as they have but until they can develop the income stream necessary to compete with others they can't succeed over the course of a season. We saw how hard it was for us before, during and post stadium development/move, it will be no different for Tottenham. Ultimately City and Chelsea will throw whatever funds are needed at the team to remain successful, Utd have the infrastructure and income to demand success so that leaves a single CL place available and there's no question that Arsenal's infrastructure is superior to the rest and Liverpool and Tottenham need plenty of things to go wrong elsewhere for them to qualify....
Was that down to Baldini or Levy or a mixture of both ? In trying to attract a top manager to Spurs, I'm not sure how many would be willing to sacrifice control over player transfers.
