When Conte asks for patience, he's not addressing it to Levy or the journo's. It's addressed to the fans...because there's a very significant number who are fed up with Levy's lack of sporting ambition and the decline on the pitch, whilst ticket prices increase along with everything else. Appointing Conte was a start to addressing that, it wasn't an end to it...or anywhere close to an end. A week into the TW and already there's nervousness. If (it's probably when) we go out of the League Cup and if we lose in the PL to 'them' and there's been no signings, I'm expecting some venting of dissatisfaction towards the owners. I'm not advocating it, but fans want to see their concerns being addressed with cold, hard cash. My personal protest was in withdrawing my membership and not buying tickets until it's been addressed. Levy can plead poverty due to the cost of building the stadium and the repayments as much as he wishes, but fans have increasing cost too and for their considerable expenditure, they want to see significantly more ambition and return than is currently on offer...Oh, and it had better start soonish, Daniel.
Plus the narrative is that the debt has been refinanced in a long-term, sustainable way that means that it shouldn’t have as much as an impact on spending elsewhere. That, coupled with the return of crowds to stadia, mean that Levy is running out of excuses. We know that under FFP the rules currently allow us spend an awful lot of money if it’s there. With Conte in place and a respected lieutenant who knows the coach and European football very well, Levy can’t sit on his hands any more. Don’t get me wrong we don’t have the money of a City or Newcastle but the window is there now and penny pinching on a key player isn’t acceptable any more.
Money talks the same language to any team though. Whether you want someone from Ukraine, Croatia, Belgium or Spain, it’s all the same process. Buying from another English club is probably the only level tougher than most as English player tax comes into play which is then debated by clubs. Everton wanted that £20m Ukrainian LB and got him practically the day the window opened. If we want that £30m-£40m rated CB or CM then we should’ve gone out and got them. As you said the reactive nature we’ve had for too long has ****ed us. We’re a big club with a small club mentality in the market and that needs changing… yesterday.
Again I agree but it’s not so much the offer to the club I’m talking about it’s the offer to the player. There are many clubs I would ‘rank’ similarly to us that might want, say, Kessie for example. Sure the pull of the PL and Conte work in our favour but we also have to compete financially. And that’s before you even account for clubs who rank above us in money and likelihood to win trophies, of which there’s a fair few, who can make a more convincing offer, both financially and in terms of career. We’re trying to shop for big club players without the budget and top prospects don’t seem to be what we want or need, and even they might prefer other teams where they can settle in out of the limelight and get a bigger move than Spurs in 2/3 years. Ultimately we want players who are good enough to play for the clubs above us in the league, or players literally on the cusp of that status, and everyone wants those players. There are far more players in the bracket of the two that Everton just bought and therefore far less competition for individuals in that market. And the career sell is easier once you’ve met the valuation and are speaking to the player. I’ve touched on this at length before but bridging the gap between ‘top 6 club’ and ‘serial trophy contender’ is really ****ing hard to do without a massive injection of cash. It’s why most clubs (Dortmund being the classic example) end up as talent factories who win the occasional trophy. We’ve done a lot wrong in this mission and I don’t want to make it seem like I’m always making excuses for the club, but it’s really not an easy task.
But that's where we need to act fast and quick. Kessie's actually a perfect example of our procrastination too because he's been a long term target for Spurs, I think he may have even been on our radar under Poch at one point which shows just how long we've known of him yet seemingly not acted. We've now likely made it tougher to sign him because of the fact his contract situation now becomes appealing to many clubs that just 6-12 months ago may have been considering other options. There are many good players in Europe though, it's not such a closed market as some seem to think. For instance, Utd, City, Chelsea, Pool, Bayern, PSG, Juve, Barca and Madrid could each sign one or even two good midfielders and there'd still be a hefty amount of midfielders still available to us that would improve our team. Likewise other positions. That's the beauty in some sense of teams have differing views and opinions on particular players as well as factors like money, stature and playing style. Spurs - for the time being whilst Newcastle are where they are - should comfortably be at least the sixth best side in the country. There should be a solid gap between us and then the likes of Leicester, West Ham and co. But we've made so many poor choices over recent years, both with signings and non-signings, as well as hanging on to poor players for far too long, that it's reached a point where we failed to get 6th last season and it's not going to be a given this one and realistically the only way that changes in our favour is if we start acting in the market and finding the players Conte wants/ needs for his system. We're a big club, we need to start acting like one.
Which is precisely why the "season compass" is statistically objective (the fixture schedulers are also unknowingly applying a concept well-known in communications theory - interleaving to mitigate against "burst errors" ) .
Conte and Rangnick sound very similar at present. We’re not at the level the you want us to be at, but I’m doing the best I can with this shower of sh*te
A lot of hard work has gone into planning for the January transfer window long before this month began,which is clear in how quickly we have been able to complete this move .Eddie Howe . Will we ever hear that ??
I was hoping we would be on or around the 1st of Jan but now in the evening of the 7th and the closest thing that looks like happening is a bid for Traore... Lucky us!
Obviously nobody leaves the Spanish league champions for a relegation placed team for money ,it's about the project !!!
Don’t forget this guy decided to forget about transfer windows for 2 years when our club was at its peak as a PL force. The bloke is clueless
Just two windows. And Pochettino was allegedly offered several players including Tielemans and declined them.
We had an academy that from 2011 to 2015 was producing at least two players per season that were tried in the seniors. We got the gem (Kane) , and lesser but long serving players (Walker, Rose etc) who moved the team upwards. Those that did not make the long-term grade (Naughton etc) were sold on, and hopefully for all them, the total cost to the club was "zero sum" (whatever transfer fee we got at worst covered the cumulative expenditure on the player over their time at Spurs) . The above has not happened now for several years. At the other end of the scale, we are not finding the Bale/ Modric/Berbatovs, great players who make a difference and if they are to go, then to the "apex" clubs (and most recently - NOT in the PL) . So the club is failing at both extremes of the player acquisition spectrum when it comes to the on-pitch directed machinery.
We bought Walker, Rose and Naughton, but I agree with your overall point. Pochettino kept a lot of the youngsters hanging around and didn't use them much. Walker-Peters is probably the best example. Should've been out on loan for at least 2 seasons.
The first two were in the academy pipeline for a few years, from the time of signing to becoming senior squad regulars. At the moment the club is completely rudderless on what methods to use to achieve the squads akin to those that BMJ/Arry/ Pochettino had. And it shows. Badly so.
