10 years ago ENIC buys spurs and Daniel Levy become our chairman. " months later Sol Campbell (who had been allowed to run his contract down walks out to join Arsenal on a free transfer costing us around £18m (this is what Man Utd offered 2 yrs previously) we were told that we should have sold him as he had every right to say he'd re-sign a new contract and then change his mind. 6 years ago Michael Carrick demands to leave. We get £18m (after being the only team willing to take a punt on him 2 yrs previously buying from West Ham for £2.5m). He had 2 yrs left on his contract and he was refusing to sign a new one. We forced the price up from £10m first offered. We were called a selling club as a result. That same summer Frank Arnesen (then DoF at spurs) resigned to join chelsea. We refuse to let him go and end up with £6m and an agreement that they can not bid on our players for 3 yrs. We are accused of being a feeder club for the rich and powerful in the Premier League. 4 years ago Liverpool make a public approach for Robbie Keane. He states that it has been his boyhood dream to play for them. Liverpool (who had come 3rd in the league and looked like they could be serious challengers the following year) agreed to make a sizeable contribution to the Sir Bill Nick Charity Foundation in return for us not making a complaint and paid £21m for Keane. This again provoke accusations that we were a selling club. " months later Berbatov (after going on strike) was finally sold to Man Utd for £32m. This was shown to be further proof that we were a feeder club. We refused to pay the quoted transfer figures for a striker... namely Arshavin whose club wanted over £20m for him. The following summer we decided to sell Darren Bent who threw a strop via twitter cos we wanted a sell on clause and £10m for him. This comes to fruition 18 months later when we receive a further £6.5m from his sale from Sunderland to Villa (meaning we lost no money on the deal as we bought him for £16.5m). A year ago we refused to sell Modric to Chelsea for £22m which eventually rose to £40m. We are told that this is pointless stubbornness from Levy as players have all the power and you should keep a player who doesn't want to stay. We also refused to match Man City's demands for Adebayor's loan or West Hams valuation on Scott Parker until they compromised. We were told this damaged our season. We refused to spend the £25-£35m we were being quoted for a striker in the January transfer window which apparently also cost us last season. This summer We have refused to match Adebayor's wage demands of £175,000 per week, to sell Modric to Real Madrid for £25m or to pay £20-30m for a striker. Now...I accept that some mistakes have been made but we have gone from mid table at best to flirting with relegation at worst until 2004 to being a top 5 club 5 times in the past 7 seasons (on the other 2 we won the Carling Cup in one and missed out on UEFA competition by 2 pts in the other). We have played in 2 carling cup finals, 2 fa cup finals, come 4th twice and got to the 1/4 finals of the CL in the last 4 years. This is massive progress yet the press and some fans are slaughtering us for being tight! Look at the stupid money spent by United; City and Chelsea....money buys success? Now look at Leeds & Portsmouth; Look at what liverpool spent last season. We are a very well run club ... the only serious transfer **** up we've mad in years (re financial losses or potential losses) is Bentley. United rarely sell a player for profit (Ronaldo and Beckham accepted) City are losing money hand over fist as are Chelsea (transfer wise) But they can all afford it...maybe. We can't...so I'd rather have a penny pinching owner than be faced with financial melt down cos we thought it was worth chasing the dream like Rangers, Leeds, Portsmouth, Wednesday etc. I remember 1991 and us beng saved from bankruptcy by selling Gazza and winning the FA Cup and don't wanna go back to them days.
I stand corrected...mind you I heard that from one of Harry's window down sky tv interviews...gonna be weird not seeing any of them on transfer deadline day
Thanks for the good take on the situation, Colin. Everything won't always be perfect, but Vertonghen and Gylfi look like excellent decisions as well. The real problem is making stupid buys.
Levy has made a rod for his own back, some notable figures have commended him for handling Modric and not bowing to player/agent tantrums. It would seem other Chairman have sat up now and are doing the same thing, some back to him, pay up or piss off, if theres no release clause and the offer isn't enough, thats the end of that, the player signed a contract, get on with it.
Purley, it came out sometime later that there was a straight £40mill offer, right at the death of the window. RCL, It's a great take on things mate, but no one is asking for us to break the bank. We're just asking for those additions we need to secure our aims, rather than coming so close but failing. we're a profitable club, but we've got to compete and use some of the money. We cannot dream of regular CL football if we're not prepared to do al least something to match those squads around us. we pretty much have no strikers, as we all know. How can CL football be a realistic target with out a reasonable number of goalscorers in the team? we have an ageing goalkeeper and we need a new one. If Modric goes, we need a replacement. we all know that we can't match the likes of City and Chelsea, but we appear to be doing very little to help ourselves at the moment, despite the obvious problems staring us in the face.
He has made a rod for his own back, as notso points out, as the whole point of being a tough negotiator is that you get the better of people, you make huge profit and acquire bargains. Just for example, how much did we get VDV for...8-9 million? he was worth at least 18-20 million. Is it any wonder Madrid don't want to be paying us 40 million for Modric. I would rather we was known for buying proven pedigree at the right time then having a chairman that always gets the best deal but I understand why fans defend Levy, yet you also got to see the negatives.
Well said RCL Not being ITK myself I can only view on as a fan and a businessman (admittedly a difficult combination at times), but the underlying feeling that I get from looking at Spurs is that our club is well run and doesn't over-extend financially. This is difficult at times when we hear unsubstantiated rumours about failing to get this or that player, but frankly I am happier believing that we will progress at a manged pace. The new stadium is a good example of the business acumen of the club. Through the OS 'bid', we appear to have eeked out several million pounds from local and central government to enable the club to stay virtually 'on site'. Now I am not saying that right now I am in my most confident mood for the season ahead - but I am still prepared to put my trust in DL and ENIC until proven otherwise.
RCL has got the history right and Levy/Enic have, against heavy odds, got us back from mediocrity towards a seat at the top table. There have been a few mis-steps along the way but anyone who thinks we can get much more than 50% of the difficult calls right has never run anything. We've got no idea what is happening currently because Spurs don't announce things until they are certain, so it is a little unfair to criticise at the moment. Let's see where we are in a couple of weeks.
exactly Boss. It's the bloody timing of it all that does my head in. 27 mill is not acceptable in today's market IMO, but if that is the case... we should have accepted the offer a few weeks back and be done with it. (as they (real madrid) were our only option, with us not wanting to sell to a PL club) Strengthening and preseason training together in order to move forward next season, is just as important.
I remember in 1991 us winning the FA Cup, an achievement ENIC have yet to match, unless in the strange world of modern football, getting hammered in the CL Q/Fs is considered to be an equal of that. ENIC have done pretty good/ satisfactory, but their haul of one Carling Cup in 11.5 years is our worst trophy haul in over 60 years. Even in the much maligned 90s we did better than that.
Also, just to add to the digs at ENIC/Levy They have sacked our two most successful managers (under their reign) and the managers employed with "projects" to take us to the next level, Hoddle, Santini, Ramos were all shambles.
To be fair, the financial situation in football has changed beyond all recognition in the past 15 years and it is unfair to compare periods of relative success. I am guessing that there are a few clubs who would regard the last decade or two as a serious barren patch. Other than Utd, Chelsea and Citeh of course.....
If AVB wants to play Bentley I'm all for giving him a chance,I really don't see what so many of you have against him. Agree with everything else you post Colin.
What I think you fail to recognise in your well considered article is that a lot of our problems of signing quality players stems from the utter dross we have wasted millions of pounds of money on and still can't shift so it's not always about the profit on selling.... it's about overheads which add up over time in a big way and are killing the bank balance month to month. We have so many players picking up vast pay cheques each month, rarely ever contributing to the first team let alone the reserves. So this really has a negative effect on budgeting, especially when these overhyped, under-talented individuals believe they are worth the money they are on and expect to get paid the same if they were elsewhere. It also doesn't help that they can't go anywhere but down because let's face it... the likes of any top 4 club won't touch the dead wood we want to shift but their ego's can't deal with rejection so they'd rather warm the bench, still taking that lucrative Spurs pay packet each month and keep up their lavish lifestyle. Sad but true.
What happened to the news that was supposed to blow our socks off? What a complete and utter load of bollocks that all was! Alan Brazil should be stripped naked and made to run the length of Tottenham High Road, with lookers-on pelting him with rancid vegetables and bottles of piss.
We missed that opportunity a few weeks back when the Olympic flame was ran through the streets (although I'm not sure if it went through Haringey). That would have made some really surreal up headlines!
Jenas and Bentley must add up to 100k a week, all the time these 2 twats are still here draining resources you can see why its difficult for us.
