This is the thing which continues to go over people's heads, willingly at this point The reason why Chelsea can have the likes of Batshuayi on the bench is because they don't have to think twice about giving them the wages to make it worth their while Tottenham, like a mere 99% of all clubs on the planet, are not in a position to chuck £60k a week at somebody to play in cup games The issue there is who does that really leave us with? Somebody winding down their career like Llorente, or take a punt on somebody to do a short-term job - and the issue there is that, in our case, the punts never seem to work: Janssen was just a case of things not working out, Vini never got enough football so I'm not surprised he was happy to look anywhere else in the summer, and the less said about Booth or Rasiak the better
I think you underestimate how hard it was and still is to improve our squad. We needed to sign 7 £50m players to replace Walker, Rose, Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Wanyama, Dembele and Eriksen and since at least half anyone's purchases turn out badly that implies spending well over 500m. Which we didn't have.
No we don’t. Wood, Wilson and Iheanacho plus strong arguments for Armstrong, Barnes and Daka would make very good deputies for Kane and far better options than the likes of Lucas, Dele and Bergwijn playing there.
Time and time again you try making this point and it’s just so incorrect. There are plenty of players in the league who’ve been signed for less than £50m each that would be improvements on the players we’ve bought and made good replacements for a number of the good players we’ve sold.
I wouldn't move Son out of position and the others just aren't proven as strikers. Wood's hit double figures in the last four Premier League seasons at Burnley. Wilson got 12 in 26 last season for Newcastle. They've shown that they can do that job well.
Yet the fact is that Callum Wilson would not want to join us to sit on the bench, because we can't pay him the £75k a week Newcastle are paying him to play to sit on the bench ...also, Wilson's been an utter ****ing bust for my fantasy team this season
It's a matter of fact that the league is almost always won by one of the four most expensive teams. That was true even pre PL and Sky. There is exactly one recent counter example, namely Leicester. You need to have all the stars aligned to win the league now with a squad costing less than 750m. It simply won't happen. Given the difficulty that everyone has with predicting how good players will become there are bound to be lots of cheap good players. There are also a lot of expensive bad ones. It balances out. Our peak Pochettino squad was worth at least 500m. We need to spend that at least to get an equivalent one unless we perform a miracle of buying excellent players for less than their average value which no-one can do consistently.
You're the only one here who's mentioned about winning the league though, that's not been the topic of debate. I'm well aware to win the league you'll generally need City's level of finances or a manager like Klopp to be given x amount of years. We're currently light-years away from winning the league. Though we absolutely don't need £500m to build a good side again. We didn't need it to build Poch's one, we didn't need a comparative amount for Redknapp's one nor for Jol's. A good team can be built by having the right manager and the right signings/ players to fit into his and the club's philosophy. We've wasted money hiring the wrong managers and buying the wrong players whilst seemingly having no philosophy/ identity, hence my original point of spending money isn't the issue for Tottenham nowadays, it's how we've spent it that is.
The obvious point there is that, when Redknapp and especially Jol were in charge, the top four was sewn up based on one part money (Chelsea) and three part red privilege (Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool) so it was feasible to break into that based on the stars aligning, as Everton and Leeds managed...once, each, to break the monotony of the same four teams finishing in the top four spots in a slightly different order By the time Poch arrived the parameters changed, as the top four was a cannibalistic orgy of money (Chelsea, The Sheikh Mansour Team) and red privilege (Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal) fighting for four spots which meant there is the possibility of two of those teams cancelling each other out, which is effectively what happened the season Leicester won the league as Man Utd scraped into the Europa League while Chelsea and Liverpool missed European competition altogether to the point neither would have qualified for the ESL if it existed that season Also, realistically, the issue isn't how we have spent money (Ndombele excepted...) but how we've failed to integrate the money spent into the team. For a few examples Lo Celso - bounced around a variety of positions he's "good" in, and never given a run in one position he could become "great" in Sessegnon - played less games at LB than Danny Rose, and Danny Rose didn't play last season Foyth - played as many league games in one season on loan at Villarreal as he did in three with us Rodon - starting to swap notes with Paskotsi about how he's an international regular but not getting a sniff at club level Wimmer - apparently we forgot he was here after his first season Nkoudou - made Wimmer look ever-present Llorente - only played when Kane was injured Vinicius - didn't play even when Kane was injured Janssen - played when Kane was injured when he wasn't expected to Gedson - see Nkoudou We integrated Toby and Wanyama immediately, we took our time integrating Son and Lucas, we eventually integrated Sissoko and Aurier as we needed bodies on the pitch - but that period where Poch was doggedly keeping the faith in the core team even when parts of the team were physically declining in front of our eyes when he could have integrated some players we had, not only did that set us back a year or so in the rebuild but, in some cases, we're still integrating the players now since the ubermensch did such a rotten job
Rumour doing the rounds that ENIC are looking to buy Standard Liege. Edit: I've worked out why: please log in to view this image
Genuine question: if this were to happen, would anyone be opposed to ENIC buying them and by complete coincidence we loan them 2-3 youngsters a season? Considering that Liege usually compete for the Europa League spots, and the better teams in the Belgian league is roughly similar to the lower half of the Premier League/upper third of the Championship it could certainly be a good loan destination for Troy Parrott, and a season or two from now the likes of Paskotsi, Devine or Scarlett could also head there to get a full season under their belts ...or, and here's a second suggestion, we park Ryan Mason there as manager as either a long-term plan
So a small update on ENIC buying Standard Liege: According to reports in Belgium, Pini Zahavi is playing a role in negotiations So the odds of ENIC paying over the odds are pretty much guaranteed
I assume that's the idea, if this is a real thing and not just media speculation. Liege Hotspur, to use the RB metaphor. Chelsea's relationship with Vitesse.
One obvious thing to mention: ENIC had stakes in Rangers, Vicenza, Basel and a few other clubs before taking us over, and (IIRC) had to dump these as a condition of being allowed to takeover the club Either the rules have changed in the twenty years since, or nobody at the Premier League has read this Wikipedia page... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Football_Group
Bit different from us. I'm not sure what the deal is with vitesse but i don't think Roman owns them or has any share. You boys are actually buying another club ala City or the red bull owners
Vitesse are owned by Valeri Ojfu, another Russian oligarch. He coincidentally worked for Rosneft, Gazprom and Millhouse Capital. The latter manages the assets of Roman Abramovich, who he's close friends with. Ojfu took over from Aleksandr Chigirinsky, a Russian oligarch with close ties to... Abramovich. Vitesse insist that they're not a satellite club: https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/no-...elationship-chelsea/m3rivuryz3n01bjahkq5cizb7 They also have a bridge to sell you...
