Standing still in fifth place is a remarkably good achievement when every year five other clubs have more income than us, spend masses more on transfers and wages and should actually be pulling away. Pulling out of a bunch of clubs with similar resources as Southampton and Swansea have done is much easier and more likely to be lucky. I don't think we've made fools of ourselves at all. Transfermarkt reckons that our squad is worth more than we paid for it even excluding the value of the homegrown players. I'd much rather we'd found a manager who could last five years or more but only one in fifty managerial appointments seem to turn out like that - Levy isn't any worse than average at managerial appointments
I'm surprised we've still got Townsend to be honest. I don't think he's going to settle for a place on the bench/ europa only. He's another i can see leaving on deadline day to help raise some funds. possible/theoretical scenario between now and the end of the window: in: In Heung Min son - £18m Wanyama - £20m? Berahino - £25m? Total - £63m Out Lennon £5m? Fazio £5m Lamela £20m Townsend: £10m? Ade - loan Total - £40m Current profit - £14m £63m - £54m = £9m spend so where does the £9m come from? (we're not going to make a 9m net spend). Less offered for Wanyama? £22m final offer for Bera? or just Austin for much less on Deadline day? Over to you levy.
WHY can't we make a £9m spend though? I know we're saving for the stadium but that is peanuts with the money in the PL
I’m no fan of Levy’s managerial record. But on the same math theme as my last post, if you sack your managers @ 1 every 1 to 1 1/2 years, they’ll all be flops, or nearly all. Of course, many will say, they’re flops, so we sacked them. But it may be, instead, that we sacked them, so they’re flops. Ferguson often told the story of how he could have been sacked and wasn’t as the turning point in his career. Think he would have lasted at Spurs? For that matter, in the case of a less illustrious manager, AVB won things before he got here. He won things after he left. Spurs hadn’t won anything for a long time before AVB got here. We haven’t won anything since he left. Are we really so sure the problem with AVB and Spurs was AVB? So there we have it: my no-nothing recipe for success. Sign fewer, sign better, and if you can’t do that, just sign fewer. For both managers and players.
He won things with a Porto side who were pre-eminent in their league. Since that, he got fired by Chavski and by us. Also, he was putting most of our fan base into a coma!
This seems exactly right to me: I still think Levy should have kept Jol, but i can see why he wanted to take a risk on improving us quicker. Since then he seems to me to have sacked managers when they've started to do weird stuff that was outside reasonable expectations. Sacking AVB could easily be seen as a mistake with hindsight depending on how he does for the rest of his career. But if United had sacked Ferguson he might never have been heard of again. Personally I'd like to give Pochettino five years and tell him he can only sign two players a year and see if stability really does have an advantage.
Who would he go to for advice - almost all top clubs have had as many managers as we have since 2001 except the few who hit on say Ferguson, Wenger and Moyes (?!)
Chelsea being so **** that they sack avb in march and under a manager sacked by west brom they improve to the point that they win the fa cup and CL 2 months later suggests AVB was the problem and a predictable car crash of an appointment for our manager
Yes, it was AVB. Some research should have been done on style of play. Spurs will never accept someone who plays the game like he wanted to. He just wasn't a fit for us. Being less controversial, does anyone disagree with the Ramos sacking? The problem is not the sacking, but the hiring. Just hire a good fit and give him 3/4 years at least. As long as we don't look like being relegated, that is a real test of faith. By the way, over here it is Maths, not Math. It is short for Mathematics and so the "s" is needed. I will resist Americanisation (see, no Z) of our language wherever I find it!