Our impossible position

[Glenda's Legs]

I think we are gonna win our next 3 home games (3 of the next 4 games are at home), the injuries will clear up and, all of a sudden, we'll be optimistic again.

We'd all better hope so. That avatar is a scourge on all our eyes.

 

[Modric THFC]

Where does that wage data come from???

Monaco are paying wages tax free too don't forget so their numbers are massively scewed

Where do those figures come from???

Our wages are £80m a year less than arsenals using the original data at the top of the thread. Using your scale that doesn't add up!!!

Its from http://www.sportingintelligence.com/

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I've no idea where the £121m figure at the top of the thread has come from.

The last published reports of our wages are from the 2014/15 season
http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/upl...cuments/Annual_Reports/annual-report-2015.pdf
http://swissramble.blogspot.de/2016/04/tottenham-hotspur-moving-on-up.html

Our wage bill for 2014/15 was £100.8m not £121m

 

[lurker of old]

Fantastic post elltrev. We do incredibly well considering our wages. Injuries have fecked us so far but who knows what the second half of the season will bring?

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I think we are gonna win our next 3 home games (3 of the next 4 games are at home), the injuries will clear up and, all of a sudden, we'll be optimistic again.

I concur

We will soon be back to full strength and it will and a hue difference

 

[anfon]

It seems like there's a lot of negativity among us Spurs fans at the moment. Which is understandable, given our awful recent run in all competitions, culminating in our early exit from the CL. And it's also understandable that we try and explain our unusually poor form, and that this inevitably leads to questions about the manager, the dressing room, and the players' mentality. But I think the truth is much simpler, and is something that we need to constantly remind ourselves of:

We are trying to compete for 4 league spots against 5 other teams, all of whom have spent way more money than us! Here's a reminder of net transfer fee spend over the last 9 seasons, and wage bill this season:

Emirates Marketing Project: 779m / 225m
Chelsea: 397m / 218m
United: 414m / 221m
Arsenal: 161m / 201m
Liverpool: 153m / 166m
Tottenham: 14m / 121m

The difference is absurd! We're in such a difficult (and unique) position because we're a bigger club than the rest of the teams in the league, but we're just nowhere near the top 5 spenders in wages and transfer expenditure. So we're in our own little impossible bubble, expecting and expected to compete with the other superclubs, despite having nowhere near the resources.

This might all be very obvious; and of course it doesn't mean that we should just accept and be happy with losing to those fudgers, and/or just accept our lot as perennial Europa league qualifiers. It's natural that we all feel so frustrated and disappointed with how things have gone recently. But let's at least try and bear the facts in mind, and so get behind the team with pride for what we're striving to achieve, rather than becoming blindly obsessed with competing for the CL without acknowleding that the odds are so stacked against us. As per another thread, a start would be not having such an embarassing fudging atmosphere at WHL during one of the club's most successful periods in recent memory.

This season

I think this fundamental point is the foundation for our recent struggle in form, played out as follows:
- Because of our recent history as a club, we expect and are expected to compete with 5 other clubs for the CL, despite spending far less money than them
- This dynamic was magnified last season, after genuinely challenging (at least mathematically) for the title, which has raised expectations even higher for this season
- Those magnified expectations are misplaced though - we only got 70 points last season, which often would have seen us finishing 5th or even 6th - or at best, certainly nowhere near challenging for the title
- And we're in more difficult circumstances this year - we've had injuries to all of our key players (which we were very lucky to avoid last year), and we've had to stretch our squad against higher quality competition in the CL than EL

So essentially we've had even more articifically raised expectations than normal, and an even more challenging context in which to meet them, and I think the combination of those two things has then led to a young team having serious struggles with confidence. Which naturally might also have led to struggles to maintain the physical energy that Poch demands in his training and matches.

Of course I'm not trying to argue that the manager and players should be 100% free of criticism. No doubt they've made mistakes. But that doesn't mean those mistakes are the main reason we're not challenging more in the league and CL. Though it hurts and is disheartening to hear Poch talking down our quality and our chances to succeed at this level in the PL and CL, I think there's truth in it - and maybe he's trying to do the right thing by tempering expectations and reducing unrealistic pressure on a young and burned out squad.

I'll just finish by saying that on balance we still have a very talented young manager and team, with key players under contract and keen to stay, and a big new stadium on the way. As fans, let's not ruin all of that by sinking into a spiral of unwarranted negativity that drags the club down with it, just as we're on the cusp of a financial position that will allow us to truly compete with these other fudgers. More than anyone else we are the ones who have to shake the club's tradition of crumbling under pressure, because we are the only thing that is permanent. And judging by the atmosphere at WHL, we are failing. So let's fudging get behind our young team and manager, and make the Lane a fudging fortress whilst we still can. COYS.

Excelent !!!!

Sent from my GT-I9190 using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[parklane1]

It seems like there's a lot of negativity among us Spurs fans at the moment. Which is understandable, given our awful recent run in all competitions, culminating in our early exit from the CL. And it's also understandable that we try and explain our unusually poor form, and that this inevitably leads to questions about the manager, the dressing room, and the players' mentality. But I think the truth is much simpler, and is something that we need to constantly remind ourselves of:

We are trying to compete for 4 league spots against 5 other teams, all of whom have spent way more money than us! Here's a reminder of net transfer fee spend over the last 9 seasons, and wage bill this season:

Emirates Marketing Project: 779m / 225m
Chelsea: 397m / 218m
United: 414m / 221m
Arsenal: 161m / 201m
Liverpool: 153m / 166m
Tottenham: 14m / 121m

The difference is absurd! We're in such a difficult (and unique) position because we're a bigger club than the rest of the teams in the league, but we're just nowhere near the top 5 spenders in wages and transfer expenditure. So we're in our own little impossible bubble, expecting and expected to compete with the other superclubs, despite having nowhere near the resources.

This might all be very obvious; and of course it doesn't mean that we should just accept and be happy with losing to those fudgers, and/or just accept our lot as perennial Europa league qualifiers. It's natural that we all feel so frustrated and disappointed with how things have gone recently. But let's at least try and bear the facts in mind, and so get behind the team with pride for what we're striving to achieve, rather than becoming blindly obsessed with competing for the CL without acknowleding that the odds are so stacked against us. As per another thread, a start would be not having such an embarassing fudging atmosphere at WHL during one of the club's most successful periods in recent memory.

This season

I think this fundamental point is the foundation for our recent struggle in form, played out as follows:
- Because of our recent history as a club, we expect and are expected to compete with 5 other clubs for the CL, despite spending far less money than them
- This dynamic was magnified last season, after genuinely challenging (at least mathematically) for the title, which has raised expectations even higher for this season
- Those magnified expectations are misplaced though - we only got 70 points last season, which often would have seen us finishing 5th or even 6th - or at best, certainly nowhere near challenging for the title
- And we're in more difficult circumstances this year - we've had injuries to all of our key players (which we were very lucky to avoid last year), and we've had to stretch our squad against higher quality competition in the CL than EL

So essentially we've had even more articifically raised expectations than normal, and an even more challenging context in which to meet them, and I think the combination of those two things has then led to a young team having serious struggles with confidence. Which naturally might also have led to struggles to maintain the physical energy that Poch demands in his training and matches.

Of course I'm not trying to argue that the manager and players should be 100% free of criticism. No doubt they've made mistakes. But that doesn't mean those mistakes are the main reason we're not challenging more in the league and CL. Though it hurts and is disheartening to hear Poch talking down our quality and our chances to succeed at this level in the PL and CL, I think there's truth in it - and maybe he's trying to do the right thing by tempering expectations and reducing unrealistic pressure on a young and burned out squad.

I'll just finish by saying that on balance we still have a very talented young manager and team, with key players under contract and keen to stay, and a big new stadium on the way. As fans, let's not ruin all of that by sinking into a spiral of unwarranted negativity that drags the club down with it, just as we're on the cusp of a financial position that will allow us to truly compete with these other fudgers. More than anyone else we are the ones who have to shake the club's tradition of crumbling under pressure, because we are the only thing that is permanent. And judging by the atmosphere at WHL, we are failing. So let's fudging get behind our young team and manager, and make the Lane a fudging fortress whilst we still can. COYS.

Well said.

 

[Robspur12]

If it's all explained by wages then explain us coming third in a Champion's League group with Monaco, Leverkusen and CSKA.


Here's the wages in each group

We pay more in wages than last years Champion's league runners up Atletico Madrid.

Our problem is our first team is great and then there's a huge drop off in quality.

This isn't helped by our recruitment.
Since Poch came in we have bought 15 senior players. Only 3 of those 15 would be in our first eleven is everyone was fit.

And still everyone agrees our squad depth is shocking.

We wont improve until we stop buying back up players every transfer window.
Alderweireld was the only time under Poch that we went out and bought a player that was going to come straight in and replace someone in the first team.

Not sure about the accuracy of your figures Modric. Monaco have players like falcao and Moutinho on big wages. Ditto Atletico have players like Griezmann, Koke and Godin on wages above £100000 per week. @DubaiSpur, you dismiss our injuries this season by saying the other teams have had similar injuries but we have loss the spine of our team bar lloris at various points of the season, as well as important players such as Lamela and alli and of course Rose was out on Saturday. Our options off the bench are not great and we play in arguably a more competitive league than any other team in our group. I know you have encyclopedic knowledge of teams in other leagues, can you detail how injuries affected them in the same way?

 

[Robspur12]

Where does that wage data come from???

Monaco are paying wages tax free too don't forget so their numbers are massively scewed

Just seen your post mate.

 

[DubaiSpur]

@DubaiSpur i posted this yesterday.....

You must realise two things dictate team selection....injuries and objectives.

We were going for the league last season also safe in the knowledge that CL qualification was a nailed on consolation (hence f*cking off the EL last year). Same team, a single focus = league.

Injuries have largely forced us to change the team (and system) this year. The objective being the league and secondary the CL league group. The other night showed that any hint of doing well in the CL has evaporated as an objective (probably well before we kicked off in Monaco) and all thoughts were focused on the league.

We will have an objective to do well in the EL. 1 because it is a feasible route into the CL and 2 because the PL does look challenging this year. We dont start in the EL until mid feb and the objective will be assessed round by round ( we could have f*cked the league by feb??)

You might not like it. (i dont particuarly) BUT you have to accept it.

Levy likes it, and he likes Poch because he accepts it.

And too add......

Sadly (from a glorious football perspective) it is very business driven. Targets, objectives, masterplans.
The main objective is CL qualification,(end of) because of the money it brings.
A net spend on transfers if we can. Focus on young players that can be developed and if they turn out seriously good sell them for massive profit (realistically we still cant keep these players).

We can run a good team (just like Monaco, Lever, A.Madrid) because we do buy well (sorry if its not 100% strike rate) and we have a manger that is talented (BUT young) and can organise a team and get it to be competitive in a very tough market. As the OP points out 5 big teams are way ahead of us in expenditure and all are managed by world top 10 managers.

Its very emotionless by definition, so contrary to what we as glory glory tottenham fans know and love. We want the swashbuckling, humdinger games and the chase for silverware.

Levy (and Poch) have a plan. A top table team in the best stadium in europe. That is a massive task given its's full of uncontrollables, uneven playing fields and bumps in the road. But that overall objective is set.

The stadium will cost a fortune. Levy is working his arse off to try and get other people to pay for it. Poch is helping with this.

Emotion will only knock you off course or waiver. It's hard (as a fan) because it is a long road.

As i said above you might not like it BUT you have to accept it. Its the only way to get where we want to. It could be boring, it will do your head in BUT if we get there it will be one of the greatest business AND footballing acheivements in history.

I stick with it because i believe in Levy and Poch as two of the best people we could have on board.

To do it organically and on our terms will rightfully gives us carte blanche to lourd it over all and sundry.

I accept it, mate - difficult not to accept it, really, since my opinion on the matter isn't worth a damn. However, it will continually disappoint me, is all - for me, I fell in love with the Tottenham Hotspur that we *aspire* to be, that we strive to live up to. I fell in love with a side that embodied swashbuckling style, aggression, ambition, relentless innovation and a drive to never let the mundane interfere with the glorious, wherever and whenever they played. I fell in love with Danny Blanchflower and Bill Nic's paternal admonishments from the past, floated down through history and emblazoned today on the grand blue and white hoardings around the Lane.

I know, deep down, that Levy probably shares that love, and that ambition - Poch possibly at least shares the latter. But it will never cease to disappoint me that, in the present moment, we choose to ignore the real meaning that those hoardings are trying to convey while still putting them up there and defining ourselves by them - and, equally, it disappoints me that a man like Poch, who has *everything* still to prove in the wider footballing world, doesn't buy in to that as wholly as he is capable of doing. Trophies are what this club is built upon, it's what separates us from the chancers like West Ham who also pretend to our status as innovators and cultural touchstones in English footballing history - we followed our principles *and* have the rich history to show for it. We have opportunities every year to go for more such foundational moments. And I can't be convinced that our continual refusal to do so is beneficial to us - thus, I'll always be disappointed. I accept it, because that's the way the club has decided to go. But I'll continually be disappointed by it, and by every manager that decides to follow the zeitgeist and place league results over our shots at ending our growing trophy drought.

Firstly, let me say that I don't think that our opinions / analyses are too far apart from each other - I think maybe you just tend to focus on the negative in your posts, which leads to me emphasise the positive for the sake of balance

To reply just on the Monaco / Leverkeusen point: Of course I didn't mean to suggest that results are totally dictated by expenditure. I meant that for us I think there's this more specific and systematic issue that we spend less money than 5 other domestic clubs, but year-on-year are expected to compete with them, and more often-than-not fail to, and that this has a more entrenched and long-term impact on the club's mindset and mentality. And that this pressure has contributed to a dip in confidence amongst the players during our awful patch of recent form, including the CL.

Also worth saying that both Monaco and Leverkeusen have more recent experience of CL than us, and less competitive environments in their domestic leagues, both of which might arguably have reduced the pressure on them in the CL in comparison to us (and so mitigated the difference in wage expenditure to some extent).

So I think there are other factors that exacerbate our domestic competitors' extra spending over ours, and other factors that mitigate our extra spending over our CL rivals.

Still, as I said, not personally trying to suggest that Poch and the players shouldn't be subjected to valid and constructive criticism. Indeed there's a few Poch decisions I disagree with (playing Dier at CB, changing to the diamond formation, rotating for CL rather than vice versa). Just trying to put things into perspective.

No, we don't really disagree, we're just seeing the different half-full/half-empty sides of the cup. Overall, Monaco and Leverkusen are, despite their experience in the CL, still roughly comparable to us in terms of where they are in their respective leagues, what their position is relative to the title favorites in the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 respectively, and so on. Indeed, Leverkusen in particular are often called 'Neverkusen' because of how frequently they screw up unassailable leads and snach defeat from the jaws of victory when they're chasing trophies and titles - sound familiar? I would also disagree that Leverkusen's domestic environment in particular is less competitive than ours - relative to their rivals, they're in the same position as us, with Dortmund and Bayern expected to challenge every season and outspend everyone else, a range of smaller clubs expected to compete for CL football (Wolfsburg, Schalke and so on), and the league as a whole growing increasingly competitive with underdogs frequently upsetting traditional favorites (see Hertha last season and Leipzig/Koln/Frankfurt this season for proof of this). Still, they were able to beat us with some ease, which concerns me since we're still financially stronger than them to the point where we snatched their best player (Son) from them without even having CL football to offer him.

I don't disagree with your desire to put things in perspective (and, indeed, I agree with enough of your points to happily 'like' your post ), but that exacerbation of domestic disadvantages and mitigation of European advantages seems to me to be a bit overblown - we're not as badly off as that, which raises expectations in terms of our performances that Poch and the lads have failed to meet. Thus, honest, open self-criticism, improvement and self-examination is needed, is all.

 

[Glenda's Legs]

Not sure about the accuracy of your figures Modric. Monaco have players like falcao and Moutinho on big wages. Ditto Atletico have players like Griezmann, Koke and Godin on wages above £100000 per week. @DubaiSpur, you dismiss our injuries this season by saying the other teams have had similar injuries but we have loss the spine of our team bar lloris at various points of the season, as well as important players such as Lamela and alli and of course Rose was out on Saturday. Our options off the bench are not great and we play in arguably a more competitive league than any other team in our group. I know you have encyclopedic knowledge of teams in other leagues, can you detail how injuries affected them in the same way?

Don't forget we did lose Lloris as well for a couple of games at the start of the season. Vorm filled in admirably, but it was nonetheless the start of a string of injuries that have upset our equilibrium throughout the season to date. Yet we have still managed to stay in or around the top 4 or 5 during that time. The test will be when we have Toby and Lamela back (assuming others remain injury free) - will we regain the cohesion and sense of purpose that has been missing for much of the season? I think we will, and I have high hopes that we will see ourselves challenging not just for top 4, but for that top spot (I also have a bit of a romantic vision of us surpassing eveyone's expectations and winning the league in our last season at the Lane.. Dream on....) But those high hopes are tempered with a dose of realism : we over-performed to expectations last season. Whilst very valuable experience was gained by players and manager alike, we haven't changed our squad significantly since then, others have. We are competing in a very unequal league but managing to hold our own. I am incredibly pleased with what is happening at our club right now. I just hope that everyone can take a deep breath, see the long game of what is going on, and exercise some patience as it plays out in front of us.
(In fairness I haven't seen much negativity on here, but the negativity is already out there in some quarters, ridiculously so imo).
The future is bright...

 

[DubaiSpur]

Not sure about the accuracy of your figures Modric. Monaco have players like falcao and Moutinho on big wages. Ditto Atletico have players like Griezmann, Koke and Godin on wages above £100000 per week. @DubaiSpur, you dismiss our injuries this season by saying the other teams have had similar injuries but we have loss the spine of our team bar lloris at various points of the season, as well as important players such as Lamela and alli and of course Rose was out on Saturday. Our options off the bench are not great and we play in arguably a more competitive league than any other team in our group. I know you have encyclopedic knowledge of teams in other leagues, can you detail how injuries affected them in the same way?

Well, I addressed that 'competitive domestic league' point above - I don't think Leverkusen, for example, are in any more comfortable a situation than we are. Monaco maybe, but not Leverkusen. Hell, they were 9th when they played us at Wembley, having just lost to a third-division side in the cup, and they *still* comfortably outclassed us. They're 10th now. And in terms of their injuries (sticking with this example for the purposes of illustration) they lost their (arguably) best performer of last season, Karim Bellarabi, to an injury in late September that's kept him out for the past two months - Hernandez, their prime goalscorer, has struggled with a freak hand injury and various muscle sprains between September and the start of this month, while Tah (so impressive against us) and Toprak have had muscle injuries at times this season.

Btw, if by 'encyclopedic' you mean 'can recall a European club's name well enough to quickly Google the relevant information', then sure. Otherwise, nah, I'm the same as anyone else here, mate.

 

[Robspur12]

Well, I addressed that 'competitive domestic league' point above - I don't think Leverkusen, for example, are in any more comfortable a situation than we are. Monaco maybe, but not Leverkusen. Hell, they were 9th when they played us at Wembley, having just lost to a third-division side in the cup, and they *still* comfortably outclassed us. They're 10th now. And in terms of their injuries (sticking with this example for the purposes of illustration) they lost their (arguably) best performer of last season, Karim Bellarabi, to an injury in late September that's kept him out for the past two months - Hernandez, their prime goalscorer, has struggled with a freak hand injury and various muscle sprains between September and the start of this month, while Tah (so impressive against us) and Toprak have had muscle injuries at times this season.

Btw, if by 'encyclopedic' you mean 'can recall a European club's name well enough to quickly Google the relevant information', then sure. Otherwise, nah, I'm the same as anyone else here, mate.

Thanks for the reply mate.

 

[Robspur12]

Don't forget we did lose Lloris as well for a couple of games at the start of the season. Vorm filled in admirably, but it was nonetheless the start of a string of injuries that have upset our equilibrium throughout the season to date. Yet we have still managed to stay in or around the top 4 or 5 during that time. The test will be when we have Toby and Lamela back (assuming others remain injury free) - will we regain the cohesion and sense of purpose that has been missing for much of the season? I think we will, and I have high hopes that we will see ourselves challenging not just for top 4, but for that top spot (I also have a bit of a romantic vision of us surpassing eveyone's expectations and winning the league in our last season at the Lane.. Dream on....) But those high hopes are tempered with a dose of realism : we over-performed to expectations last season. Whilst very valuable experience was gained by players and manager alike, we haven't changed our squad significantly since then, others have. We are competing in a very unequal league but managing to hold our own. I am incredibly pleased with what is happening at our club right now. I just hope that everyone can take a deep breath, see the long game of what is going on, and exercise some patience as it plays out in front of us.
(In fairness I haven't seen much negativity on here, but the negativity is already out there in some quarters, ridiculously so imo).
The future is bright...

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Kandi1977]

Let not forget Chelsea, Liverpool , city and united all dropped out of the cl at the group stage in recent years.

Leicester showing everyone the way, which is give it 100% and don't seek out hard lessons you don't need to learn.

Swansea, Sunderland and Burnley would all have progressed from Leicesters group.

 

[Mikey10]

I think we are gonna win our next 3 home games (3 of the next 4 games are at home), the injuries will clear up and, all of a sudden, we'll be optimistic again.

This.

And the fact that City play Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool over the next four weeks. Somebody's dropping points each time.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[Kandi1977]

This.

And the fact that City play Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool over the next four weeks. Somebody's dropping points each time.

Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

I'd want one team to win all those. Preferably not Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool. I don't think we can win the league this year, so better that one team runs away, than all taking points off each other

 

[spurs' magna carter]

A little something I made earlier.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ue-finances-club-by-club-breakdown-david-conn

 

[Bullet]

net transfer fee spend over the last 9 seasons, and wage bill this season:

Emirates Marketing Project: 779m / 225m
Chelsea: 397m / 218m
United: 414m / 221m
Arsenal: 161m / 201m
Liverpool: 153m / 166m
Tottenham: 14m / 121m.

Wow, look at those wages.
If we spent say £900m on wages in 9 years and City spent say £1.8bn on wages in 9 years... you can forget transfer fees.
Who cares if a player was £15m or £25m when you look at the sheer scale of the wages over 9 years

 

[diego_maradona]

I think we're ok. We've stumbled of late mainly due to not being able to field our strongest team for pretty much most of the season. Managing the champions league has proven to be tough. But Emirates Marketing Project with their billions, also struggled to make a real impact on the tournament for a number of years. I think we could have if we focussed solely on the champions league as Leicester have done (we have had some very decent opponents too).

For me the first XI is great. The manager? Well he is amongst the best out there. Not polished by any stretch but we are very lucky to have him. This is what has kept us punching above our weight.

Where we have perhaps let ourselves down has been our transfer strategy. It's difficult but it almost needs to be perfect when we are buying at our level. The level of risk is higher, with the talents being somewhat unproven. Until we are willing to budge on the wage structure we will continue to operate at such a level.

We need to have a good look at ourselves as fans if we genuinely are doubting the manager. When was the last time you remember Spurs being the team most people really didn't want to play. I don't think anyone genuinely fancies themselves to turn us over easily (apart from the mighty Saudi Sportswashing Machine of course).

 

[tw12yid]

Money is one thing but when our squad IMO has been weakened by transfers then I can't completely accept the point. Chadli and Townsend are two players which offered us chances created and goals. Compared to them, although he has improved, we have the liability of Llamela. Never sure if he's about to do something brilliant or petulant and get sent off. Then we have £30m sissoko. Why oh why!!!
After two full seasons we are now seeing pochetinos squad. I think in the attacking 1/3rd it looks worse now than it has done.