The figures are far more distorted by the fact that we keep having to sell out best players and replace them. You're simply trying to suggest other timelines because they'd be more favourable to West Ham. Your squad is cheaper because you've not made any major sales. We sold Jake Livermore for more money than anyone you've got rid of since Craig Bellamy. A club that keeps all of it's best players and invests heavily should outperform one with a net gain who has sold all of their star names. Overall spend is irrelevant. Net spend and wage bills are all that matter.
You sing "he's one of our own" for Kane, but we can sing that for about a dozen players who train with the first team.
Yep, you're doing well. The other line of thinking suggests that you should be doing better, because your squad cost some money. You've spent about £125m on your squad in the last three seasons. You should be winning the league. Or something.
£125m is peanuts compared to what Chelski, Manure and Citeh have spent, and that doesn't take into account how much their respective wage bills are.
I came to the opposite conclusion from the debate over those penalty calls. It shows how subjective it is that people disagree even after several replays. I don't see how it can resolve the problem. For me any technology has to be able to solve the problem or we shouldn't be using it at all. With goal line technology it eliminates the possibility for error in an action that can be an impossible decision for the officials to call. With or without video technology there needs to be a serious attitude shift in referees and their association. There's far too much shying away from the important issues, they've cocooned themselves away in their own little world of hypocrisy and incompetence and I can't see how that will ever change unless it's addressed. Video technology will just become another cause of baffling decisions and inconsistency, I'd much rather we didn't allow it into our game.
"As I'm sure you're aware, After the Lord Mayor's show, is a Spurs speciality." Was always the danger.
"I would like to think that if we spent another £140M on our squad though, we would be doing considerably better than you are now." 1. Join the queue behind Brenton Rogers. 2. With their squads, the Spanners SHOULD HAVE BEEN doing considerably better over the past 4 seasons than they have. <Physician, heal thyself>
Video technology is already in the game it is just used by the media instead of the officials who run the game. Remove it completely (which is not going to happen) or give it to the people who are actually needing it, the match officials.
I'm starting to worry about you. What is so difficult to understand? Regardless of where the money comes from - be it player sales, some rich arab, a massive sponsorship deal, the more you spend on your squad the better you should be. The fact is, you have spent over £200M on your squad and are only slightly outperforming us, a team which has spent less than £70M on ours. In the last few years your net spend is less than ours because you had the freak sale of Gareth Bale and we have had a relegation & promotion in that time and have had to rebuild. Look at the bigger picture though and go back 10-15 years and your net spend is huge compared to ours.
I don't trust them to use it, do you? At least in the hands of pundits and commentators they can't do any real damage with it. Giving 4th officials the chance to review referees decisions will only continue the same problems we've always seen, one week raising a hand to the face will be a straight red, the next it won't, won week it'll be a dive and the next a penalty will be given. It might eliminate some of the most blatant errors but if you're going to make a change to the structure of the game it should be a near perfect system and this won't even be close. Also, I just don't see how the it would be implemented, surely they'd have to get monitors too. And what happens if they challenge an offside call, once the whistle's blown how do you recreate the chance with the referee moving everyone into the right position like in snooker? If there's no decision and the ball stays in play at what point does the referee stop it for the review? I think it's incredibly problematic trying to bring in live reviews to such a fast paced game.
I think you should aim your worries a little bit closer to home. I've already explained why you're wrong and you're just repeating yourself.
"Look at the bigger picture though and go back 10-15 years and your net spend is huge compared to ours." 1. Going back to 2000-01 ... Spurs net spend : 112m. Spanners net spend : 55m. http://www.transferleague.co.uk/premiership-transfers 2. The Spanner transfers had have "big one-off" stuff (Ferdinand) . The truth is that a decade ago the Spanners were akin in their transfer housekeeping to what Levy is now. But those days have long gone, and yo-yo dom etc is easily explained (as well as the Fat Sam effect) .
First of all I don't agree with "the commentators can't do any real damage" You must be joking! they have created the modern game with the diving and the cheating by undermining the authority of the referees. Refs. have always made mistakes the difference is that today their mistakes are exposed to millions on TV which makes them look worse. In the past it was an expected part of the game that the referee was right whatever decision he made. Now it is suggested he is biased that the big teams get favoured and so on. This has all been brought about by media examination of every decision. As to how it would be implemented, that would need to be discussed and considered. The offside rule right now is far too complex anyway, the older system of a player being in front of the defence would be easier and a system similar to the lbw decisions in cricket could be used. There would be no challenge because the decision would be made by the match officials. Otherwise it would be used to view fouls/dives when deemed needed. I've no doubt this will happen it is just a matter of when.
Have a look here if you want to try and compare: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...pending-from-the-200001-season-to-201112.html You'll notice that in 09-10(when we finished in the Champions League places) you were spending roughly the same as us if you combine wages and net transfers and much more than us if you just look at net transfers. I'll save you some time and list the seasons where your net transfer spending out did ours. 2000-01(28mill diff), 2001-02(£5mill diff), 2006-07(£1mill diff), 2009-10(£7mill diff). That's about half the seasons you weren't relegated for. Your wages were ridiculous too, considering how badly you were comparing to us in league finishes. It's probably a good time to remind you that you haven't actually achieved anything yet. Even if you did finish near us, or God forbid above us, it would only be one season compared to years of being totally dominated. If I were you I'd hold back until you do actually achieve something. There's an obvious flaw in talking about our total spend(not net) and then dismissing selling the best player in the league because as much as Bale's transfer income was an anomaly, so was our spending in that window. We broke our transfer record, which had stood for 4 years, 3 times in one window, and Bale's sale is directly related to that. That's about all I can be bothered with. If you want to think that West Ham are showing up the big spending Spurs, so be it, I couldn't give a monkeys fart what you think, I was just trying to help you out so you don't look stupid
As is being discussed on the other thread on this subject, the game would only be stopped for major decisions. Goals scored from possible offside positions, penalty decisions, serious foul play, etc. In most cases, these are very quickly evaluated in a matter of seconds. Again, the game would only be stopped and the 4th official asked to check something if the referee wants clarification. Also, as has been discussed and is the norm in Rugby, the referee would consult the 4th official as to his recommendation on what should be awarded, and to who. Yes, it consumes more time, but my feeling is that most fans would rather that than see blatantly incorrect decisions stand.
Simply not true. That would be the difference between selling Bale (and a few others) and buying the now infamous 7 players, and keeping Bale etc. and still getting the same 7 players in. I worry about you if you can't see the difference between those spending strategies.
