The thing I don't get is your repeating the disingenuous-seeming question of "But what difference will money make?". Okay. So look at the Premier League positions now or at any point over the last couple of decades. The teams are arranged by number of points, right? Right. Now go ahead and arrange those same teams by transfer/wages spends. Notice any, er, *correlation*?! Hang on - you don't think this correlation could reflect a *causation* do you?! Surely not! That makes...hang on - I guess it *does* kinda make sense. When you think about it. Or did Chelsea and Man City just get really good youngsters and coaching staff about 10/20 years ago? Was it always Man Utd's highly-astute scouting staff that spotted the abilities of Berbatov, Rooney or Ferdinand whilst others in the Prem were painfully unaware?! Or...you don't think it was the gigantic transfer fees and wages do you?! Hmm - interesting theory. Money...wait for it...buys you success in the Premier League. If we had more money we could buy 7 or 8 Sissokos and be fine with 6 of them being crap*. We *could* buy players who are even better than Eriksen, Son etc. Don't get me wrong - I love both of them. But can I imagine *any player in the world* being better than them? Yes I can. Money would get them. Money allows you to keep your best players. ("Did Walker** leave for money?"?! Nah, mate - course not. It was all about,er, being close to his family and/or winning things. Yeah. Definitely. He'd have taken a wage drop to join them. After all - there are all those footballers who move to bigger clubs to win things and are so committed to getting trophies that they take wage cuts. Players like, er, hang on, like - um, all those footballers who every year are primarily concerned with winning silverware - there's hundreds of them every summer - like, er, um, hang on, a name will come to me soon...). Money gets you better players. It allows you to pay absurd wages which allow you to keep and attract the best players. I cannot believe I'm even having to write this.. *Bad example. If we bought 8 Sissokos we would somehow have acquired 9 **** players. Don't ask me how. The guy's magic. ** Also a bad example - great though he was he was also arguably our 11th-best player last year.
We’ve been civilly responding on the same subject to you since #387, around noon, maybe we’re just getting a bit tired of all the attention?
I don't get what sort of responses you're actually looking for. You've asked why we've not won any trophy under Poch and why Wenger has in that time frame - most of us said similar with regards to lack of depth in our squad and being in certain situations that have resulted in us focusing on a big prize but coming up short, while Arsenal have conceded their league ambitions but found success by focusing on cups. You've asked whether we as fans would prefer a trophy or top four - most have said we'd love a trophy but acknowledge the fact that top four finishes are more beneficial to the club financially, while we would also like to think that we now have a chance at both. You've asked what we'd do with finances of other clubs to improve our XI - again, most have replied with similar comments in that our XI isn't what we need to improve but our squad and thus the money would allow us a higher quality bench, others also mentioned the money would've likely persuaded some of our key players to not look elsewhere. Far as I can tell, everyone has answered your questions or countered some of your points with valid responses... No one's been abusive to you, nor have we put you down, you may have been hit with some sarcasm but if you perhaps read some of your own posts then you might understand why.
We don't allow personal abuse on the Spurs board either way. I have kept an eye and I think the posts have been ok on both sides. You are welcome here with sensible debate but there will always be a slight edge between Spurs and Arsenal fans even within the bounds of 'polite' I think you would understand that.
Money still has to be spent wisely. The risk for the wealthiest clubs is that selling clubs want huge fees for mediocre players, mega-wages can blunt the ambitions of even the best players and too many big names/egos in the same team can cause more friction than harmony. The examples you give of Berbatov, Rooney and Ferdinand are interesting. SAF built teams which combined young players produced by the club, bargain buys and marquee signings. That latter group were often 25 or under and their reputations as stellar players were made after they signed for Utd, not before. But back then there wasn't the same amount of money around in football, even if there was still a hierarchy based on wealth. Utd couldn't buy a squad of 25 expensive players on high wages as Mourinho has done. SAF relied on youth, a scouting network which identified promising players like Vidic and Evra who were available relatively cheaply and getting it right when spending big. Whilst there were dud buys, the transfer policy was remarkably successful. Contrast what SAF spent to the present spending which dwarfs what he could do and now has Utd competing at a level which would have been considered failure for him.
SAF is/ was an exception to any rule in football, you're talking about the greatest manager that's graced the game. It is highly unlikely any manager will be able to match him in the next 100 years. Jose and Pep have huge reputations but their success has been laid on a platter for them with the resources they inherited. SAF built an empire from the ground up (okay, he didn't take over minnows but nonetheless it's still remarkable) and Utd five years on are still considered the biggest club in the world despite the fact it hasn't achieved success to the levels he brought, such is the size of the club these days that even when you only had Europa League football, the likes of Pogba and Zlatan were still massively keen to join as your reputation and finances can attract the very best. As a Spurs fan, I have nothing but praise and admiration for what he done... Although he was a prick for taking Carrick and Berba from us! With regards to money nowadays, clubs with huge amounts can often sign big stars which very rarely fail to deliver such is their calibre and even when they do flop, the clubs are then able to replace them easily, just look at Bravo with Ederson, Mangala with Otamendi, Stones likely won't get into the XI now that Laporte is there. Wenger paid £50m+ for Lacazette, starts to get shaky so spends another £50m+ on Aubameyang. Utd and Chelsea used Falcao as a backup striker! PSG don't even replace flops, they just kept adding higher quality to their already world class side and we've actually managed to profit from that with the signings of Aurier and Moura. Bayern constantly mop up the best talent in Germany - including from their closest rivals - while also attracting anyone they want from abroad, too. Barca and Real can sign any player in the world, doesn't matter if your club is a league champion in another country, the moment they come calling, you're ****ed. In comparison with Spurs, we can't compete with any of that. We can't afford the very best players around, we have to either sell our flops before adequately replacing them or we delve into the academy or bargain buy in lower leagues/ inferior countries and hope they can come good in time. Thankfully for us, our recruitment has been pretty successful in recent years with the exception of strikers, most of who we buy are now worth far more than what we paid but we then become victims of our own success because the moment we get close to doing something great our stars then become linked with moves to the elite and it becomes a struggle to keep them. Money, now more than ever, dictates the levels of success in football.
Don't forget it took a Spurs manager to be the first to win the double and go on to win a European trophy.
At this point in our club's development, I'd rather finish top 4 than win the FA Cup. Note my use of the caveat "at this point in our club's development." Obviously, I would like us to achieve both, but (as someone has already stated) Poch simply hasn't had the quality of squad depth to be competitive on both fronts, and has therefore had to prioritise one or the other. Fans have bemoaned the fact that he has prioritised the Prem, but I have absolutely no doubt that he has done so with the full sanction of Levy and the board, who will be more concerned about revenue streams, what with the cost of the new stadium. That said, I think Poch and the board have a very clear intention to continue to (slowly, by financial necessity) strengthen the squad, which shows ambition, but matched with an acceptance of our financial realities. It is easy for outsiders to scoff with the hackneyed insult - "yeah, but what has Poch won!" - but it is clear that Spurs is a very different team and financial proposition to where the club was even immediately before Poch arrived. The real question that the wumsters need to ask (but won't, because they already know that the answer doesn't fit with their wum-agenda) is, "Does this Spurs squad, under Poch and moving forwards, look like it can win things?"
We were big spenders then. Jimmy Greaves as the first £99,999.99 player. Martin Peters as the first £200,000 player, Gazza, the first £2m player but we always had a good mix of home-grown players, too. When we got Irving Scoular as Chairman, he ****ed the club to the point where we were insolvent. Sugar bought it with no idea what to do with it. It's been a long road back with £0 input from our owners but a lot of sound business decisions. The new stadium will really start to get us back to where we were 30 years ago. Maybe we could win something shiny?
Too right, the sound business foundation is everything. One day Levy and Lewis might sell, die, retire, whatever and Spurs will still be Spurs. When Abramovic throws in the towel/spends all of his fortune/gets stung for alimony/assassinated, then Chavski will just be the chavs, unless they can find another rich criminal benefactor. When the oil runs out, Citeh will just be Sh!tty.
Tis interesting to place all three in the spectrum of ownership. Scholar was a real fan, but saw THFC plc as being far more than the football club (hence the Hummel/property stuff that led to near destruction of the club itself - which was the true moneymaker) . Sugar thought football was a business like any other (customers etc) , and could be run in exactly the same way (he was wrong) . Also the ulterior motive of being involved in football as a club owner as well as Amstrad, just as Sky were sourcing his products and also looking to take football away from terrestrial TV into the paid subscription era. ENIC (Levy really) has tried to find the middle ground of the club operating on its own feet as a business, and providing the on-pitch entertainment associated with Spurs while being able to actually compete for real silverware with those clubs who have enjoyed far greater financial power for a long time. The journey has not been perfect, nor painless, on or off pitch, but since 2005 IMHO the supporters have not had too much to seriously complain about.
ENIC's stance of not pumping the club full of money has pretty much been vindicated. We are very close to being inside the Top 10 richest clubs in the world, with an amazing new stadium, fabulous academy and training facilities and a team assembled for a fraction of the teams around us. At the time that ENIC bought the club, we were well behind Newcastle, Villa, Leeds, etc. Sure, we've had to sell players but we've kept moving forwards for well over a decade. In such a volatile industry, that's impressive. Over that time, lots of clubs have been bought by owners who were going to take them to a different level and make the CL in 5 years. Only Citeh and Chelsea have managed it and the cost was about £2 billion per club. The rest are where they were or worse off. ENIC's football experience and hard-nosed business acumen has been very good for us. I don't always agree with everything they do but when they sell up, we will have profited enormously from their stewardship. We will struggle to find anyone as good, let alone better owners.
