Daniel Levy - Chairman

[ricky2tricky4city]

Just seems a bit naive to think it’s eventually going to work when it hasn’t for 20+ years. Maybe you are the most patient person in the world would you be happy with being what we are now and what we have been for the the last 10-15 years even if we don’t win anything? Let’s say the next 10 years bring zero trophies.

I think it's the 'being close' that's the problem.

Millions of football fans are in our boat. ie not getting over the line. But the difference is we ARE close, but with some massive barriers in the way. That's the frustration. Arsenal have maybe been step perfect the last 2-3 years and it's quite possible they will come to the end of this cycle with not getting over the line?.

It just shows how much has to come together.

 

[Batspur]

That's not true. Chelsea were prepared to sell him to Spurs.

The price we could've got Grealish for at the very start of the window was actually £20 million. The player wanted to come, Pochettino really wanted him (he saw him as an Eriksen replacement) and the player's agent was really trying to make the deal happen. We were also interested in Maddison and passed over him to instead go for Grealish. Leicester then nipped in and signed Maddison (for the same sort of money that Villa wanted (needed at the time!) for Grealish, while we then spent over a month lowballing Villa until they eventually attracted new owners and no longer needed any money.

What i meant was Chelsea had a price and if we met it we could have signed him but they werent prepared to play ‘business’ with Levy.

 

[metalgear]

the only thing working for us now is the recruitment team and they have done reasonably well getting rid of players.
unfortunately the balance tilted far too much towards youth and not enough experience in the last window, and did not address some obvious gaps - fast CB, maddison cover - which were learning points from last season.
why ange opted to keep spence but not use him is another strange one.

 

[Bullet]

the only thing working for us now is the recruitment team and they have done reasonably well getting rid of players.
unfortunately the balance tilted far too much towards youth and not enough experience in the last window, and did not address some obvious gaps - fast CB, maddison cover - which were learning points from last season.
why ange opted to keep spence but not use him is another strange one.

Clearly the sweet spot is finding good value players, who do have a couple of years of experience, and are inexpensive for whatever reason.
I.e. not only buying "pretty damn expensive and loads of potential but extremely young" or "top whack" but finding value in the global markets.

 

[Bullet]

We don't. Its easy to confirm by just looking at the wage bills of the various clubs. Our wage bill is £80m a year less than the club one position above our own in the wages list. City's wage bill (at the top of the list) is £172m a year more than our own or to put it another way thats 22 players on 150k per week they spend over us.

We pay managers well but usually not the absolute highest.

For visibility, from the Swissramble link you and Bedfordspurs used:
MNC 423
CHE 404
LIV 373
MNU 331
*TOT 251*
ARS 235
LEI 206
AST 194
NEW 187
EVE 159
Note that these amounts will be heavily dependent on bonuses e.g. if Spurs did really well in the CL/cups/league and ARS bombed out of Europe/cups/league on day 1, it would make big differences to those figures

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I’d say we started to turn the corner under Jol. We became a consistent team under Redknapp and real challengers under Poch.

I guess the question is how long do people accept being at this level of being close but not close enough? Interesting that people want to dispense with players and managers after a year/2 years/3 years but Levy gets an indefinite stay. Feels like people would be happy to never see us win anything ever again as long as we are competing which I really don’t understand, you only live once.

I loved it under Martin Jol
He achieved things that were a pipe dream considering our most recent history
fudging great bloke too

 

[Jurgen the German]

I don't think any fan would be happy with us not winning anything ever again.

As long as there's good signs of progress I'm happy enough with who are in charge. There have been mistakes, as there always are. But now we seem to be moving in a good direction again.

It’s been said before that not many big companies keep the same person in charge for 20+ years. The average tenure of a CEO is between 5-10 and about 8 for Fortune 500 companies. Levy is already well beyond that as we know, yes I know his CEO isn’t his job title but he effectively runs the club. Even just to freshen it up, a change wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

 

[Jurgen the German]

I think it's the 'being close' that's the problem.

Millions of football fans are in our boat. ie not getting over the line. But the difference is we ARE close, but with some massive barriers in the way. That's the frustration. Arsenal have maybe been step perfect the last 2-3 years and it's quite possible they will come to the end of this cycle with not getting over the line?.

It just shows how much has to come together.

No argument that it’s tough to win. I said in my post to @braineclipse that heads of companies don’t typically last as long as Levy has and whilst it’s not unheard of, he has gone well beyond the tenure of a person who sits at the top of a company.

 

[Batspur]

But not playing the rle DM that we need. I'm all for signing the players the manager wants but this one wouldn't have solved the positionally issue we have at the base of midfield.

Gallagher is playing the defensive mf for England tonight. He looks very comfortable. As he should as its his natural role.

 

[SkipRat]

I loved it under Martin Jol
He achieved things that were a pipe dream considering our most recent history
fudging great bloke too

Just a shame he flirted with Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Killing his position with us.

I loved him too... He just felt like the chill mafia... Cool, clam, and collected...

Quality guy.

 

[SkipRat]

Gallagher is playing the defensive mf for England tonight. He looks very comfortable. As he should as its his natural role.

Are England playing tonight?

 

[Batspur]

Are England playing tonight?

3rd 20/twenty in St Lucia but its delayed atm