Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

And now, the porn for stattos
https://statsbomb.com/2020/08/data-scouting-young-creative-passers/

 

You are missing my point. Where do you think the prize money and the TV money comes from. It is paid by fans for subscriptions. There isn't a free lunch...

I simply don't think the story on Grealish holds water. Even I think he would have been a bargain at 15m. Every club in the PL and half the top division clubs in Europe would have been in at that price. The only logical explanation for him not being sold is the one I have given.
Unless you were in the boardroom we are at best guessing though.
Given the way Onamah is currently playing, he would have been a bargain at 12m!

 

I don't understand where you're trying to go with that point, why are you bothered about how UEFA/ Media gets the money to pay out on prize/ TV money? It seems highly irrelevant. What truly matters is that we'll be missing out on that money next season due to our failure to secure a top four spot.

That's like saying every Prem club would've been interested in Dele Alli for £5m. You're not taking into account the needs of potential buyers and their views on certain players.

Every journalist expected Spurs to sign Grealish. Steve Bruce expected us to sign him. Grealish himself gave an interview after the move fell through... Here's a couple of extracts:

"Of course, there’s going to be disappointment there. You’ve just got to look at what Spurs have done this season. They’ve beaten Manchester United 3-0 at Old Trafford, they’re playing Barcelona in the Champions League next week. I felt that if I’d gone there I could have maybe been in the England squad by the end of the year."

"At Hull, I was 95 per cent sure it was going to be my last game. I waved to the fans when I got taken off as I thought I was going. Even on the Thursday morning of the transfer window, I thought I was leaving."

I'm not sure what else you need to be convinced that Grealish should've been a Spurs player. Levy messed it up.

 

Hi Piskie.

 

Big news

 

Anyone else find it quite funny that Maldini is behind Milan's interest in Aurier.

One of the best defenders to ever grace the game, tasked with finding a RB and it seems like his choice is Aurier.

Football, funny ol' game.

 

I suppose our scouts do keep a record of players in the lower leagues. If we managed to sign Dele from a lower league,there must be someone awaiting a chance!....or do our scouts prefer to travel abroad and be part time tourists at the clubs expense......and ours!

 

Levy apologists have turned up with their calculators at the mere sniff of us daring to hope that he gets the business done early for once for the good of the team

let’s not encourage Levy to play silly beggars and jeopardise our forthcoming season

 

Nothing to apologise for. He is the Chairman who has delivered our best ever decade of league placings. He needs our support and understanding, not additional pressure.

 

There are reasons this club never wins any silverware, Levy is the main one. He is a businessman first and a football club chairman second, he has delivered our most barren ever run of trophies. He needs to disappear and let somebody with proper ambition take over, not lumber us with the misery of yet another penny pinching last minute transfer window, and the inevitable squad that falls short.

 

We went 30 years without winning a trophy between 1921 and 1951, so your premise is wrong. The fact that our best ever squad by average league position hasn't won a trophy is not primarily down to Levy. I think it is you that is lacking ambition because by implication if we had won the League Cup a couple of times recently and finished 10th in the league and never reached the CL final, that would be better. Can you not see that by investing in the best stadium and best training facilities in the world he is trying to make us the best club in the world.
I've not seen a shred of evidence that there is any 'penny pinching'. Even those who accuse him of it can only point to about 3 players we have missed because of it and don't give any credit for the dross we avoid by not paying over the odds.
And as for being a businessman rather than a football man, no-one has ever given me an example of a different decision you would make between optimising the value of the business and success on the pitch. The ONLY way to increase the value of a football club is success on the pitch. The best measure of success on the pitch is league position.

 

That's 3 players you have missed using the player list that you were wanting to attain and didn't. That isn't players who were unattainable by the club because of prices.

A very odd understanding of success on league position. Liverpool have never finished below 8th i think in the PL era but that hasn't stopped everyone including myself laughing at them until this year. I don't think they or there fans have had any league success.

Levy has done excellent in investing in the stadium and training facilities and deserves credit for hiring poch and jol/redknapp previously before that. we will see how he continues but having nearly won the lottery in having hired poch and had him build an incredible side youthful and cheap side (including low wages) where there have been some poor league winning sides, people are rightly disappointed that the team wasn't pushed on especially when squad depth has been cited as one of the reasons

think that sums it up well that this is your longest barren spell unless you include a time when world war 2 was being fought

 

Then he will throw the manager under the bus

I said it the day Jose came in...if he fails to win us a trophy...that’s due to the DNA of our club and philosophy of our owners not the claptrap spewed by other fans and swallowed by the gallons full by some of ours, that he is past it.

 

That's handy for Jose. I guess he's got it made then, whatever he does, he comes out squeaky clean.

Frankly I see nothing wrong with how the club has been run to date but I do agree that today the team needs investment and despite the virus I would hope there are resources for that. We need to strengthen a few positions and I will be as angry as other fans if Levy doesn't sanction that, we are clearly being left behind now.

 

No it’s not handy for Jose because he is at Spurs and many of the fan base have got their heads firmly up Levy’s ‘arris, Blind and programmed to accept and move onto the next timeframe the owners decide to set, once they pull the plug from the previous timeframe.

Now you’ve done what I was hearing during the 2 barren windows ‘you’ll be angry if...’

Nothing will happen...many talk but they all fall into line and accept the path Levy takes...maybe a handful protest, more so than used to but definitely not the amount that make out as though they aren’t happy.

lets see

 

I am sorry but just blaming Levy for our failure to win a trophy since ENIC came in is frankly ridiculous. There is no question that under their tenure we have reached enough semi finals and finals to have won tournaments to go alongside the massively improved performances in the league.

Management and players have failed to deliver on the biggest stages not Daniel Levy and ladyluck has constantly looked the other way.

This could be a massive post buts lets look at just 2 such matches.

FA Cup semi final v Chelsea - Did Levy pick Son at Left back? did he tell Toby at the time our most reliable defender to hack down the first Chelsea striker to run at him and give away direct free from which they scored? Did he award the penalty that the aforementioned Son conceded, no he didn't and yet still we were well in that match until ladyluck intervenes and Matic scores a worldy, it happens but 99/100 he doesn't score with that shot but he did and that was game over, but nothing to do with Levy.

Champions league final - Did Daniel pick Kane and drop the semi-final match winner, did he prepare the team, did he tell Sissoko to stick his arm and give the the ref to the opportunity give the ludicrous penalty after 45 seconds that shaped the rest of the match, no once again players and management were not at their best.

We should have won trophies, the fact we haven't cannot be laid solely at Daniel Levys door, and its easy for fans of teams whose owner has a bottomless pit that he is happy to spend on his toy to come here and say we shold be doing better but they would probably still be the West London equivalent of Wet Spam if he hadn't turned up, because that's the Chelsea I remember from my youth when QPR were the best team in West London.

 

The point I was trying to make was that the very top clubs win the League often. Liverpool being the prime example except during the PL era. We've won the League twice in our history. The most recent 60 years ago. You only get to win the league by consistency at a high level. If I was the club chairman i would measure my performance by league points over a rolling period. These days the cups are generally won by one of the best placed league clubs. In the past the standards were more even so a mid table club had a decent chance of a trophy. That is pretty much gone now. Arsenal excepted of course. I think Levy understands this so his efforts are all at making us better and more consistent. If we remain one of the top 6 sides and get better still then we will win trophies. Hopefully we will win the League and the CL too. Before ENIC that would have been a dream.

 

Levy buys the players and Levy appoints the managers, he`s either not appointing the right managers, not providing the right players or not providing enough of the right players.

 

I agree about the DNA of the club but for a different reason. If you look at how Arsenal won the cup, I am pretty sure that we wouldn't have won it given the same performances. Because the other members of the top 6 have won the League many times they have an aura of invincibility that we don't have. So when, say, a Leeds player or even a Man City is through on goal against us, it's just a normal chance and he scores. Against the others he gets nervous and blasts the ball over the bar. Arsenal were totally outplayed by Leeds, Sheffield Utd and Man City and about even with Chelsea but won all 4 matches. We would have had more even matches but would have lost one.
But Levy is the first chairman in my lifetime who is trying to change this.

 

Since Levy was appointed there is only one club which has improved more than us. And they did it by breaking the rules. You seem to expect miracles.
As I pointed out a few weeks back, he doesn't choose the players we buy but does set the budget. His mistake has been not to insist on a DoF though. But even with perfect management and recruitment we still started so far behind we should not expect more than we achieved.