I for one would have been delighted if we had signed Berahino. I would also be far more comfortable right now if we had any of Defoe, Soldado or Torres in the squad.
Not sure how accurate this is, but...: please log in to view this image £0 is actually a little high, I think. It's another season of negative spending, from what I can see.
At the end of all this when the new stadium arrives without a crippling debt because Levy has managed the funds properly and the manager of the day is not hamstrung when it comes to buying players, many of us will refer to this period of low spending and be grateful for it.
Hey, if that's what Levy's doing, then I understand it. Paying off most of the stadium debt before it's even built makes sense. Not talking about it also makes sense. Why let your opponents have any insight into your possible spending? It's quite funny that we're still seen as this big spending club, though. Our net spend's much lower than any other Premier League team over the last 5 years or so.
While I get the sense of committing to a group of players ranging from very young to in their prime, yeah, I wish we had either Defoe or Soldado as well. If it weren’t for personal/professional issues, the best player we could have if Kane were lost for the season might just be Adebayor, actually. A couple of years ago I thought having all three of Kane, Soldado and Adebayor was good. But Torres, no.
"At the end of all this when the new stadium arrives without a crippling debt because Levy has managed the funds properly and the manager of the day is not hamstrung when it comes to buying players, many of us will refer to this period of low spending and be grateful for it." Nothing to do with new WHL. Levy has been managing the player transfer/wage bills with a fist of steel based on what the INCOME of the club is, since the jump in wages after we got the CL slot in 2010. That will continue independently of the scheming ENIC have done to pay for the cost of building new WHL.
"Why do you think that is nothing to do with the new stadium?" Because the ramp in wages that happened after 2010 would have been unsustainable based on the clubs' annual incomes if allowed to continue, whether there was a new WHL planned or not.
Your argument would suggest that Spurs were/are struggling to meet their wage bill and without little spending on transfers would be in deficit. I don't see evidence for that. Our income has expanded since 2010 as has the PLs in general. The SKY money has funded the players increase in wages to a great extent. We have had a strict wages policy that goes back beyond 2010 and although increased it has always been in line with our financial position. Our transfer spending on the other hand has been noticeably less than we could afford with profits clearly put aside. The obvious reason being the imminent cost of a new stadium. I'd find it very hard to believe that Levy would sail on as if no such new capitol costs were about to land. I don't see him as a pay day loan kind of guy.
I dont have a copy of recent accounts as Spurs in their wisdom decided to stop sending copies to minor shareholders (1 share) in order to save money on stamps and envelopes. I signed up for an email version but have yet to receive anything. However, I doubt if the wage bill is far above £50M, which tv and premier league money should near enough cover. Clearly we have made a major investment in the training ground and all the legal battles and planning cant have come cheap so a lot of money is likely to have gone there. Nevertheless, this type of expenditure is clearly linked to the new stadium if not directly paying for it. I know that there are various companies set up for specific tasks but overall the money has to come from a single pot.
The wage bill's probably about double that. The Guardian are normally decent at this sort of thing: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/29/premier-league-finances-club-by-club Last released figures, which would be for the 2012/13 season, I think: £100m. They've probably dropped a little since then, if anything. Not much either way, I'd have thought. Substantially lower than most of the teams around us in the last few seasons, but a fair bit higher than some other clubs. Everton's is considerably lower, but the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, City and Utd are roughly double.
That guardian report includes all staff not just the players. So it includes directors salaries down to the groundstaff. I bet a far chunck goes to the non playing staff.
"Your argument would suggest that Spurs were/are struggling to meet their wage bill and without little spending on transfers would be in deficit. I don't see evidence for that." No, the comment tells you that if the wage ramp was allowed to continue at the slope from 2010 to 2011, it would not have been sustainable. Levy must also have realised that, because since that initial ramp, he has made the wage bill effectively "plateau" from then to now.
"Which has little to do with my original point about transfer spending." Everything to do with the point, because exactly the same process applies. High(ish) net spends stopped after 2010-11, and while the gross spends have been high enough to get the players deemed necessary, the net spends per season have effectively been zero.
Sorry RDBD I fail to see how you deduce from that that it has nothing to do with the imminent stadium.
"Sorry RDBD I fail to see how you deduce from that" Because the club has simply not been generating the income to allow the wage ramps and net transfer spends of 2010-11 to be sustainable. That is fact. Similar fact is that very little of the profits made by the club has been consumed by the NPD. Looking at the accounts, there was a payment of around 12m to purchase real estate needed for new WHL a few years ago. And guess what year / where the money came from to do that ...
