Just read this on another site and agree 100% Who does Levy think he is? Signing the French national captain? Signing the Germany Under-21 Captain? Signing both of them for much less than their true value? I hate him. I hate the fact that he hasnât backed AVB. Lloris, Vertonghen, Dembele have all proved to be rubbish. And Dempsey, Sigurdsson and Adebayor are League 1 at best. How dare Levy spend only £50m on strengthening the squad? I thought he was meant to be supportive of AVB? Itâs not as if the support clearly started when he appointed AVB in the first place is it? And Lewis Holtby. What is Levy doing? Signing one of the best young talents in Europe and Germany U-21 Captain for only 1.5m? Is he having a laugh? I thought he loved AVB â but surely if he did, he would have signed Lionel Messi for £250m of his own money. Wow, AVB may even walk at this lack of support. Wouldnât be surprised. I hope all the fans sing really abusive anti-Levy songs at our next home game. He deserves it. Heâs only taken our club from mid-table mediocrity to consistent top 5 whilst always ensuring that our finances are in check. Heâs only endorsed building a new 60,000 seater stadium whilst spending £50m+ on strengthening the squad in the same season. What a hopeless Chairman. Anyone would think he wants the club to fail. [End of satire] So-called Spurs fans need to grow up. Of course it is disappointing that we didnât sign a striker. But we got to 4th with this squad, now weâve added Holtby, so letâs press on and cement 4th. The way some of you are talking itâs as if weâre suddenly threatened with relegation. We have one of the best managers in the league and one of the best squad harmonies in the league as well as a range of attacking options and great defensive strength in depth. We have the French national captain in goal and the German Under-21 captain in the middle of the park, as well as the former England captain in our squad. Grow up, stop moaning, and get behind our club. We can do this. By Alex Beck
Whilst I'd agree that Levy generally does a very good job and we've made some smart, top-notch signings for relatively small amounts, I think that people are right to question our lack of strikers. Defoe and Adebayor are both up to the job, but they've failed to form any sort of working partnership and there's no suitable back-up for them. Signing a young prospect like Chris Wood or an experienced journeyman on the cheap as a temporary measure would've silenced some doubters, improved competition and left us without that deficiency. We've put in our 25 man squad now and it only contains 23 players, several of which are either out of favour or unavailable. Sandro's out for the season, Bentley and Huddlestone were on the way out a couple of days ago and Obika's only an emergency measure. We've also gone from 4 keepers to 2, which is a little light. Picking up a couple of frees might be an idea. Saha and Gordon, perhaps?
Ex England captain?! Are they talking about Parker?! Er, OK. And being an U-21 captain is not a very impressive brag. I'm sure many an U-21 captain has gone on to do bugger all in the full side. I could name a very, very long list of average players with U-21 caps. Many captains too. To be fair, though, Holtby looked class the other night. The article quoted sound a little...American to me (hate to say it and I'm not anti-American - I live here. But there's often a certain tone and reliance on phrases like "ex-England captain"). Most people's problem is the striker situation. When has a CL team last had two senior strikers? Jesus - when has ANYBODY last had two senior strikers? The late 80s? Noises from the club about last day "just missed out" stories of failed bids really do infuriate and stretch credulity too.
read somewhere avb said liandro talks started early in transfer window and were very close to getting him but ran out of time, maybe aload of flannel but i tend to believe him
If the club ran out of time then that also speaks very poorly of them doesn't it? I mean Jan 31st was always going to be the day after Jan 30th wasn't it? What a shame that in both of the last couple of windows Spurs' two biggest transfer deals by far have only just run out of time. That's just so unlucky. Here's hoping that there are 40 days in August this year so Spurs aren't so HORRIBLY unlucky again.
A gullible fan is more like it We've made a profit on transfers in the last few windows so the 50M being s pent theory is out the window If you want to have blind faith in someone who constantly makes bids at the last minute for one player he knows won't be accepted you're going to be disappointed As for the last minute nonsense, remember Moutinho and Charlie Adam? The fact we never went in for them in the next transfer window speaks volumes
It's a bit OTT on the sarcasm. Our signings over the past two transfer windows have been good, it was no easy feat replacing Friedel, King, Modric and VDV in one season. The only problem with our signings is that the creativity wasn't as immediately replaced as we needed and both windows have ended up with us missing out on a big signing. Levy's bargaining is a big positive and big negative, on the plus side we get better deals and I think if you look at the prices we were originally quoted for both buying and selling we could ended up £10-15mill poorer and therefore unable to go for players like Moutinho and Damiao in the first place, however it also runs a big risk of meaning we miss out on targets and our season has an unsettled start. I think we have to accept the problems we get with Levy, whilst he might not always have the short term in mind, it's hard to argue his long term view hasn't improved the club and helped us compete higher than our spending power dictates that we should.
It's not the samething and also that was last season we don't know what our financial predictions are for this season but I'd say the streamlining of our squad has made us better positioned for reinvesting in the squad.
But did we really go for them? Really? I can't see any evidence of us genuinely pulling out a single stop to try to make these deals happen. And with regards to the U-21 qualifications to ascertain a player's quality here's the most-capped U-21 list of all time for England: James Milner Tom Huddlestone Fabrice Muamba Michael Mancienne Scott Carson Steven Taylor Jamie Carragher Gareth Barry David Prutton Danny Rose World beaters! And joint top-scorer of all time? Francis "fox in the box" Jeffers. U-21 caps for any country mean nothing to me. It doesn't mean that a player is crap (obviously) but it is no indication of how genuinely good they are.
He does appear to be a complete moron, especially when he adds in comments such as "former England captain" & "German Under-21 captain" (who is yet to start a game for us). His persona leads me to believe he's overly dramatic, extremely gullible and is pitching himself as "the level headed fan", as its the easy option to take when the majority of fans are showing passion for football and not thinking about business. Any one of us could have written an article on the positives of Levy's/ENIC's ownership), as we all remember the sugar days, and how far we have come, this isn't even in question. Spurm wrote a good article (http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/194271-Learning-from-mistakes-and-ambition), which turned into an interesting debate on their ownership, offering a real level headed view, commenting on all positives and negatives, as that is what level headed people do, they don't just focus on positives and tell people "to grow up" if they disagree while ignoring the negatives. Also, was the guy attempting to be Ironic by ending the article with: Anyway, I'm sure once he wrote the article it made him all all warm and fuzzy inside and he could watch MOTD with his mug engraved with "Level Headed Fan".
It depends how much evidence you need, if what is widely reported in the media or what our manager says counts then there's plenty of evidence we were trying to do deals for those two that would break our transfer record. If you don't feel those sources are entirely trustworthy(understandable) then you're going to find it very hard to be convinced we know anything other than the signings we made, inwhich case we're in no case to criticise Levy for not trying either.
Spurs have a good squad and some of the recent signings have made good starts, but I think most observers would say, without fear of contradiction, that Spurs have not replaced the forwards who have been sold recently and the difference between Spurs and the top sides is strength in depth up front. Not just another body, but some real quality to convert some of the chances a creative midfield provide. Spurs would look a far, far better team with a £20M striker in the squad. It is an obvious statement to make, but Levy needs to address the issue. Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of Utd or City here- and Real Madrid, Bayern Munich etc abroad- the ability to call upon a top drawer striker when needed is a huge advantage. If Damiao is as good as Spurs continued pursuit of him would suggest, then sign him.
I don't doubt we was interested, yet I'm interested in buying a new car, I look at all these fancy cars and then I look at my budget, smile goes to Levy looks at these fancy players, looks at his budget and attempts to still purchase, at his price, "Levys Way", maybe if we carry on talking to inter, our current valuation will work when Damiao is 31, but unless we're serious about putting in serious offers then lets not waste time or get fans exceptions up.
On U-21 captains... not sure if you should make much of it. Considering your likely opinion on the guy captaining England ...
So you don't believe AVB when he says we were close, I take it? Or the widespread reporting of us having a fee agreed for Moutinho in the summer window? As I said, that's fine but what are you basing your opinion that these players weren't in our budget, or at least near it?
In terms of Damiao, Inter said we were miles apart (or words to that effect) to 5Lives South America football correspondent, as we wanted to pay in instalments while Inter wanted the majority of the fee upfront, so we're the buyer, we don't dictate how the seller decides to sell, which is why we're wasting our time trying to buy a player on our terms, when they don't match the sellers terms. As for Moutinho, 24 million and 100 grand a week, no I don't believe that at all, as if a fee was agreed in the summer, and we was serious about the purchase then the deal would have been tied up for this window. Dempsey for 6 million and Holtby for 1.5 million looks better to the accountant, then 24 million for Moutinho and you honestly think Levy would gamble 24 million on one single player? Fair play if you do, yet what has Levy done in the transfer market to suggest he would spend such a huge fee in todays transfer market?
Bent June 2007 16.5 million Bentley July 2008 15 million Modric April 2008 16.5 million He has done it before all three of these fees can easily be equated to over 20 million in current terms. Bentley of course has burnt his fingers, but there is no doubt in my mind Levy would spend at that level if he considered it right. Deals in Jan are always more difficult because the team very often has to replace the player at once. I don't think you have a strong case there Boss.
