Football involves money, handling money wisely requires business sense. Without a sustainable business you won't have a sustainable club. We should be glad to have Levy at the club, the model we adopt will pay dividends in the long run. I agree on a few areas, that I think sometimes Levy holds out too long to get players off the books, Palacios for instance should have been let go for 10 million to Napoli as he in no way held an identical value to what we purchased him for. As for Bentley he was a proven performer for Blackburn when we signed him, as was Palacios at Wigan. I can see why you'd prefer a smaller squad with greater quality, we could improve the wage budget a little by reducing numbers perhaps but it's a dangerous game to play as from that moment on players will demand prices at that same level. You'll be limited in terms of squad size there on in. At the end of the day we've paid some good money to average players and everything points back to our scouting and coaching when I look at the clubs problems. Not picking the right players, and not bringing through enough youth players are major issues.
You're really not addressing the wage limit BigJohnny, which is the problem. We're not in a position to go around offering players like Glen Johnson £120k pw, like Liverpool have. We can't offer one player massive money as it leads to other players demanding the same. I'm not sure how many times I can say that in different ways. As I've already said, what would Bale and van der Vaart do if we offered Modric £120k pw? They'd demand parity or a transfer.
Well said. I know what people expect sometimes, yeh we all want to see Spurs be the best club in England but atm it isn't realistic. Call me negative but as long as we are in the top 6, then i'm a happy fan.
It would help if Levy would realise that he's not going to get his money back on the Bentleys etc. Cut them and move on.
Very true. That's where I feel he went badly wrong this season. We need to move on quite a number of players in this window though and having our better players angling for a move will just add to the disruption.
In retrospect Comolli didn't do a bad job did he? Here is page from the website about academy details: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/academy/academy_about.html in particular Ian Broomfield is our chief scout and has been since 2009, he has previous experience with Southampton, Leeds & worked alongside Harry at Portsmouth in a scouting capacity. Judging by media reports Redknapp is taking a more active role in scouting players, is this a sign of a restructure, lack of faith? E.g. this > http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/may/13/harry-redknapp-tottenham-luis-suarez Either way I think we need to take a look at both areas, what international scouts do we have? Do we use freelancers for the work of scouting other leagues and nations? What do our club affiliations provide us with knowledge wise? Our strikers really suffered last year and didn't look short of relegation form, it had me wondering what the coaches were going through with them.
Exciting and Entertaining for Spurs goes without saying, we have never been a boring team and I don't think we ever will be. Competing for top 4 is the icing on the cake at the moment. Until we get a new stadium or billionaire wants a toy called Tottenham Hotspur then my expectations are less than a lot of Spurs fans.
I will reply to one of your posts as you appear to be getting your knickers in a twist, mate. No one knows exatcly what wage any player is on, so if I say wilson and bentley are on a combined wage of 150k pw this isn't a fact, it is a possibility and the reason for bringing keane into the point was just another example of a player on high wages that arry doesn't require. As darren has pointed out, my wish of having a smaller squad, with greater quality not only means the wage bill is reduced but we also have players of a higher quality with a higher chance of re-sell value if required but of course its a little more dangerous but to achieve things in life you need to take risks and make change. As for arry and rose, i praised arry as he isn't stubborn with youth players and is prepared to help them progress so maybe you want to re-read what i typed initially. Also, as for bale and vdv demanding 120pw, no that wouldn't happen, intially, yes there would always be one player that decides they are woth more then they are worth but in general the signing of a top player wouldn't cause an issue and again PNP you're thinking far too negative and worst case scenario. If you look at our current squad, bale and vdv will be on contracts to match their ability and what they have achieved, as is modric, if we signed a player and offered him 120pw then if modric decided to stay and asked for a wage increase, this is a GOOD thing as matching his ambition and trimming down our squad means we have a lower wage bill and any increase in wages isn't going to effect the overall wage bill to the level its unsustainable.
Why wouldn't our top players ask for parity, BigJohnny? It's so much a part of football that it's frequently a clause in certain players contracts. I'm not thinking negatively, I'm thinking realistically. A rise in the wage ceiling means a rise across the board. It also brings up the problem of how to deal with players on big money if they fail. We're struggling to shift some of them on the wages that they're on now. A Veron-type balls up could do us major damage for years.
Did you mean "oh why not use Chrome as it has a great spell-checker" especially as you decided to go down the route of personal insults and attacking spelling & grammar.
We can deal with several players that have failed on combined wages of 150k + so yes we can deal with a single player that fails, even if he is on big wages, but again you're being negative as you also look at worst case scenarios rather then the positive aspect. Having a smaller squad, smaller wage bill, greater quality and matching the ambition of our top players is a positive and forward thinking way to go.
No, it isn't. Smaller squad, a couple of injuries, no depth, have a poor season and our best players all leave. Great. Name a team that's succeeded recently using your way of thinking.
My issue with the statement is that if we do sell Modric now then no one will believe a word he says again or feel he's looking to build a team that can win the league. I've always stuck by Levy, and I guess the irony here is that Modric was a Levy buy so in a way it's down to him, but if he was to sell after that statement, then all respect and trust would be out of the window. I've put my faith in you Levy, now don't let us down!
There was also the small matter of receiving a phonecall telling us that Berbatov travelled up to Manchester without our knowledge or consent, was picked up and driven to Old Trafford for a tour and to meet the squad, and now we'd better sell him - or else.
Again a negative comment and view, your glass is always half full mate. If our squad is too big, reducing makers it smaller, but we can still have a healthy balanced squad as for example next season do we need bentley, wilson, jenas & keane (who i personally still rate) but he doesn't get a game so effectively isn't needed. That is four players we can cope without having, now look at their wages, and look at their re-sell value and its obvious we can go an entire season and still have depth and lose those four players and IMPROVE our squad by bringing in 1-2 players of a higher standard if it can help us improve. Also, rose will be part of the squad next season, as will walker and by bringing through youth and getting rid of players above then not only do we have a more healthy balanced squad, we also have a reduced wage bill and more chance of success.
It's not negative, it's realistic. When was the last time that we didn't have a fairly extensive number of injuries in a season, let alone the standard few that everyone gets? Our squad is too big, you're right, but you're still totally ignoring the effects that raising our wage ceiling would have by simply saying, "that wouldn't happen", without any attempt to justify it. The idea that we could bring in 1 or 2 players on wages that are far higher than our current first XI and it wouldn't have any disruptive effect is pure fantasy, frankly.
Listen, this club has a wage cap, right? we all understand this and we understand the reasons behind this, even if I don't agree completely, I get it. The issue I have is that because were happy to spend silly money on average players and pay them decent wages, were left with a big squad of players we don't need, there re-sell value drops and while the wage cap means we don't have any single player on a huge wage compared to our rivals, if you look at 4 average players on decent wages, the combined wage is huge so effectively our wage cap means we end up with a big squad of too many average players which is one of our main problems. What I am suggesting is to have a little flexibility and if there is a chance to sign a real top player then we shoudln't allow the wage cap to stop this and have this fear its going to cause great unrest as mate footballers do want to win things, players like bale, modric and vdv are humans and fans likes us, they would also be excited at the prospect if we signed a top top player that they knew would help the team, they aren't going to throw hissy fits and demand higher wages right away, this would only come when contracts are renewed but that would be a positive thing for the club, to have our top stars wanting to stay and of course there are risks to this, but if were trimming our squad, spending less money on average players then the way wages/fees are allocated changes. Also mate, look how freely this club spends money on players like bentley and wilson, that should tell you there is a great deal of cash for this club to use and invest in players but the wage cap and business "sense" behind this, is what is holding us back, as the safely safely method stops us progressing.
I'm not sure that you have a realistic view of our wage bill, to be honest. This is from Talksport, which we all know is normally full of ****, but they've got the figures from Deloitte, who in turn get them from Companies House. They're always a year behind, but should give you a good idea of how much we're spending in relation to those around us. http://www.talksport.co.uk/magazine...otals-revealed-where-does-your-club-rank?p=12 In summary: Everton's wages: £54.3m Spurs' wages: £67.2m Villa's wages: £80m Arsenal's wages: £110.7m Liverpool's wages: £121m Man Utd's wages: £131.6m Man City's wages: £133.3m Chelsea's wages: £174.1m (!) Basically, we're not paying those squad players what you think we're paying them, so getting rid of them won't free up enough of our wage bill to do what you want, even if it was prudent to do so.
