Its not the ins that have angered me. We've sold the wrong players. We've now got no leaders and no passion, and we've still got some crap
"But i would like to know" The layman summary is ... ENIC are NOT : - poncing money out of THFC by draining profits via dividends - using profits to pay off debts caused by their own business actions (re the Glazers and Man Utd etc)
So what is the reason for the bottom of the table net spend over the last 5 years? The money must be going somewhere, we have the same massive TV rights deal as the rest of the division. Is there a nice big "stadium fund" mentioned on the financial reports?
"So what is the reason for the bottom of the table net spend over the last 5 years? The money must be going somewhere, we have the same massive TV rights deal as the rest of the division." "Is there a nice big "stadium fund" mentioned on the financial reports?" No. But there has been plenty of expediture recorded regarding new WHL over the past couple of years (land purchase etc) .
Somebody who can regularly locate the back of the opposition net without the aid of a compass or map, may prove useful!....
Ade will score, and i think Kane and Soldado would too, but we're still missing that CM to start our moves which will create the goal scoring chances they need on a more regular basis. Without that CM our best chance is to be solid and try and nick 1 goal wins.
I'm afraid their stats tell a different tale. Yes, I get your point about a creative midfielder - a la Modric, but it seems to me that even when we do successfully find our way through the opposition defence, as on Sunday, the chances are generally wasted. As the the only two times we did breach Liverpool's defence, and take advantage of their shaky CB partnership was via a long ball over the top of their high line, why was that not tried more often? O.k. The two clear cut chances were wasted, but somebody might have stuck one away eventually.
Kane seems to have a decent scoring record in the games he starts. At least it seems that way, i've not checked
We're yesterdays men, top four (for us) is a thing of the past. We have peaked under Levy and that was ironically when we had a manager who was old skool and the complete opposite to the type of manager Levy (and Enic wanted) as you think when they took over they imagined footballs equivalent of Arthur Daley leading us into the champions league and a gangly Crouch scoring against AC Milan?. We have had our time as a top four club under Levy and now its just a slow process of boring football with the occasional exciting game, and signings that will flop. Because of the success we had previously with signing players such as Berba, Modric, Bale , VDV, Fans believe it will happen again, but in that aspect we're also yesterdays men. We have used up our luck in finding talents from abroad and even the best one (Eriksen) isn't going to be the next great player, hes talented and will score goals (even Jay Rod can score goals in this league) but we're just in the top 6/7 to make up the numbers and best we can hope for is a cup run, as even Hull can get to a cup final but in terms of top four, we aren't getting back into the champions league while ENIC are our owners.
How do you know we have no leaders? We have in our squad - LLoris who captains France, Chiriches who captained Romania when he joined us, Vertonghen who was captain of Ajax when we signed him, Stambouli who was vice-captain of Montpellier, not to mention the likes of Kaboul and Lennon who have captained Spurs on plenty of occasions. I could probably go on. Sure we have lost some very visible leaders - Dawson who was always so vocal on the pitch, and the likes of Sandro and Holtby who were clearly well liked and were very obvious in displaying passion. But how visible was, say, Ledley King outside of matchdays? Did he need a twitter and instagram account to be a good leader and show his love for the club? All I'm trying to say is that we have plenty of players around our starting XI and in the squad in general who have had leadership experience in football. And who knows, in 6 months time someone like Stambouli or Fazio might be displaying just as much love for the club as Sandro or Holtby did. And maybe he won't, who knows, but I think its harsh to potentially write the new lot off before they've even got going, both as footballers and leaders. I think the sale of Sandro and the home loss to Liverpool coming in the space of 2 days has put some people down in the dumps about Spurs. I'm not saying there aren't problems to be sorted but how many of those could have been sorted in one day of transfer activity? Sure we didn't sign anyone on deadline day that was a classic Spurs deadline day deal - Stambouli had been in process for the previous few days. Would you rather have had the new Saha and Nelson coming in as panic buys? Or the chairman just going out and buying someone for the manager, because for every VdV there is a complete misfit and flop that is just a waste of money. I'm personally more annoyed about still having the likes of Benny on our books than selling Sandro. Not that I'm not sad to see the Beast go, because I am, but I can see why it was done.
This - Levy should have invested when we hit the top 4 just as Liverpool have done, instead we stood still when others invested and therefore ended up taking two steps back.
BOSS you are getting more and more pessimistic and Redknapp gets better and better as time goes by. We are still close enough to the top four to be in with a shout. Poch could turn out to be a great manager, at this stage we don't know. Our squad could start to work together and produce something greater than the sum of their parts. I think you are far too gloomy Boss.
"Or the chairman just going out and buying someone for the manager, because for every VdV there is a complete misfit and flop that is just a waste of money." I think you will find the VDV : other ratio is 1:N (where N is quite a bit bigger than 1) . We have to get back to the pre Arry days, when we picked up real talent that served us well for a good 3-4 seasons.
We spend a lot more in wages than we did 5 years ago, for start. It's risen by about £25mill a year. I agree on the TV rights and I think there is the money there to be spent but it will still be there come January and next summer, there's no point spending it if we can't get the players we want. I think we've had a decent window but ultimately the manager and the signings will be the proof of whether it has been good, or not. If Fazio improves our defence, Dier continues to do well, Stambouli does well and Davies reproduces his club form then our defence is significantly better than last season. We'll all be grateful for Vorm if Lloris misses a run of games like last season too. We also have a manager who's supposed to be better than either we had last season and all the signings from last season are a year more settled. If you look across at others around us, Everton spent £30mill just to sign 2 of the players they had on loan last season and loaned and free transferred there way to covering for the other 2 loan signings they had last season. All they have added to last season's squad is Besic and Galloway. They spent £36mill net. Arsenal spent about £50mill net, they got a quality right winger and another striker. The rest was all replacements for outgoing players, they still only have 3 centre backs, they still don't have a holding midfielder and whilst they do have another striker they still only have 2 strikers to get by with for the next 4 months. They're already struggling for any kind of form and they're still a striker injury, centre back injury or right back injury away from meltdown and as we know, injuries tend to catch up with Arsenal as the season goes on. I think that's 2 teams we've had a better window than right there.
You could be right regarding getting trounced by Liverpool again and selling Sandro so close. Verts i don't see as a leader, last year he was a prime candidate for being someone who needed a kick up the arse by a leader. Chiriches is not used to the league enough, or long enough at Spurs. Even more so Fazio and Stambouli. Lloris is too far away from the play with the high line. I'm rapidly losing trust in Kaboul. Lennon is not a leader, regardless of whether he's captained before. I actually don't think Ledders was that great a captain. First class player, but imo didn't add that much by being made captain.
"We spend a lot more in wages than we did 5 years ago, for start. It's risen by about £25mill a year." It rose from the 70m to the 90s during our CL year. The club have held the wage bill at that level for at least two more years (regardless of who has been on the squad roster / deserve(d) their wages) , even though the revenues have dropped by at least 20m from that season.
I guess what i'm saying is we have a lack of players that will take the game by the scruff of the neck. A Bale, Modric, Roy Keane, Gerrard type player. Players that step UP when it gets tough rather than giving the hell up. Players that will rally the troops, raise the crowd when we're 2 down, give us and the other players on the pitch some hope
I'd disagree there mate, while he wasn't a vocal leader, whenever he played, there was such a calmness in the defence. I'd say 8 times out of 10, whenever he was in the side, the team as a whole played a lot better and I don't think that was a coincidence. I'm pretty sure a player, can't remember whom, said that when Ledley spoke in the dressing room, everyone would listen.
