Or it's his way of trying to remove himself from accountability, seeing as it's relatively well known we have a three-man decision making process between Levy, Hitchen and Jose.
He often makes the point he is <insert blame-avoiding noun here>. It all depends on the question the journalist is asking him. He'd probably claim to be the groundskeeper if it got him off the hook.
If we are going to be lumbered with the misery of ENIC for the foreseeable, then they need to completely overhaul their scouting system. There has been a never ending run of signing the wrong players, whoever recommended Sanchez for eg. needs sacking for that decision alone, and only a handful of signings in recent years can be considered good ones. Why can`t we unearth bargains just before they start to really flourish like other clubs have done, with ENIC`s reluctance to throw big money at it you would think that this would be something they were focused on getting right.
I'm not really sure it's still fair to say ENIC are reluctant to throw big money, that may have held weight 5-10 years ago but we're certainly not against spending big when the time calls for it. Our problem has been who we actually spend it on and somehow we've spectacularly ****ed it over the last 3-4 years. Sanchez at £40m. Ndombele at £55m. Lo Celso at £42m. The three biggest transfers in our history and they've all been piss poor signings. Ndombele shows glimpses but he isn't a patch on Mousa Dembele or Luka Modric and for the money we paid, that's near the level we should be expecting of him. If I could have the option of a refund on all three I'd bite your hand off. I definitely agree though that the scouting/ transfer system needs changing and that's where Levy needs to be removed from the decision making in my opinion, whilst Hitchen should probably be sacked or demoted. Take some inspiration (or even try taking the staff themselves!) from clubs like Ajax, Dortmund, Salzburg etc.
The issue dates back far further than the 3 you've mentioned. Bent, Bentley, Soldado, Lamela, Sissoko...when we spend big it almost always ends in embarrassment. My suspicion is that there is a disconnect between our buying power and paying power, in the sense that while both us and City can table a £50m bid for the same player, their wage packet will be twice the size and QED said player is far more likely to sign for them. I think this more than anything gives the impression of being ripped off, as we are effectively paying A-grade prices for B-grade players. Although the fact that Alderweireld earns more per week than Ruben Dias suggests it has less to do with money and more to do with pure stupidity.
Since the reports of the cost of sacking him have dropped from £30m to £25m in the last week or so, does that mean if we grit our teeth until the end of the season we can get rid of him for £15m? However, don't get your hopes up about the claims that he does have a break clause in his contract - Duncan Castles is the one saying it
I think scouting has been overtaken by events. There are now massive databases on player performances that everyone has access to and I'm sure most clubs have their own as well. You can see player values quoted in several places on the net and although there are a lot of weird ones, most of them are not too far off when transfers actually happen. This means that getting a competitive advantage in signing players is close to impossible. Expensive players are generally going to be better than cheap ones though. But you literally have to pay £50m to be sure of getting someone better than Winks. So the only solution is to have more money so that we can buy better players.
Agree with most of that. Your last comment is purely a consequence of Alderweireld being out of contract though. The cost to Man City of Dias is the fee plus his contract...a lot more than Alderweireld's contract which is the only cost to us.
We've already upgraded on Winks by paying just £15m for Hojbjerg whilst when Skipp returns he’ll also jump ahead in the pecking order. It would only take about £10m-£15m to upgrade on Winks. He’s a £10m calibre player himself... at best.
I agree about Skipp and wouldn't necessarily rate Winks much above where you do. But I said £50m to be sure of an improvement and there are a few £40m players who are worse than Winks
I think you’re massively inflating fees though to suggest that such an amount is the only way to guarantee a higher calibre player. We’ve already upgraded with just £15m on Hojbjerg and with the right scouting you can do similar. West Ham’s Soucek is another example, as is Doucoure at Everton. Upgrading on a player like Winks as well as Sissoko shouldn’t be too difficult for a club, they’re very low calibre players.
I think Hojbjerg is actually worse than Winks. Sissoko and Winks have both been good enough to play for top 5 ranked international sides. It is harder than you think to improve on them.
I think you’re alone in that thought. Winks is now (finally) seen by most fans as one of the poorest players at the club and is often mocked by rival fans too. Sissoko is simply an engine, he has no footballing brain nor technique. International selection also doesn’t necessarily represent a quality player. Wilshire and Lingard for instance have multiple England caps, both are very poor players. Getting an England cap these days requires a player to have about 10 good games in a short amount of time or simply rely on the big club bias that has plagued England selection for years.
If football was so simple that fans could understand it then we wouldn't have to pay managers millions of pounds! Sissoko has played 65 times for the world champions.
One thing about our CMs that is interesting is how they move the ball Winks and Sissoko move the ball out to the flanks Nbombele and Lo Celso move it through the middle Hojbjerg is somewhere between the two, as he moves it out to the flanks or in to Ndombele Now just think about how many times we've seen Kane, Lo Celso, Dele or Eriksen either isolated up front or having to drop deep and you can see the issue ...or, to put it another way, half of the issue, because there's an obvious solution to the issue is not having two players with identical passing instincts alongside each other, as that guarantees against stubborn opposition that we find one blind alley or another
Football also isn't as complicated as you try making it out to be either. It doesn't take an expert to acknowledge that if Spurs want to be a top four/ top six team, then players like Winks, Sissoko etc aren't going to be helpful enough in getting us there.
