ENIC

[Superhudd]

I don't know - season before last we seemingly had one WC player and a light squad of so-so quality players, which sounds tailor made for andyandy's argument thinking about it- would you swap that squad for the one we currently have?

I would argue its what Wenger did at Arsenal.. doesn't have the deepest of squads but likes to play the kids in lesser competitions. Been very successful from what I can see. Gets the odd kick in the knackers when they get knocked out of the $hit cups.. but hey ho.

 

[Superhudd]

In recent years we have been right to sign 6 "pretty good" players, as the squad had holes in it all over the place

Right now we have got a balanced squad with 2 decent players in every position... so right now would you rather

(a) Sign 4 more decent players, they wouldn't necessarily oust any first teamers, but they would be good players

or

(b) Sign 1 top notch player for 4 times the price and 4 times the salary? E.g. Ozil or Mata or Ribery or whoever the hell

This is what I mentioned earlier, it will get to the point where we swap in like for like quality every window.. that does not help anyone.. eventually we will every 3 years or so have to buy 30m players.

 

[spurspinter1]

Yeah it proved Arry was/is way behind the modern game. (I will not answer to Harry fans should they reply, as I really cannot be ar$ed!. :-" )

That was the scouting team rather than Harry. I didn't really understand your reply to my post before but can't be arsed to figure it out but I thought I'd point out the flaw in your post here!

 

[billyiddo]

I would argue its what Wenger did at Arsenal.. doesn't have the deepest of squads but likes to play the kids in lesser competitions. Been very successful from what I can see. Gets the odd kick in the knackers when they get knocked out of the $hit cups.. but hey ho.

Im not so sure about that, the last ready made 'star' he bought was Bergkamp all those years ago* and since then it has been a strategy of buying young players with potential or under valued players (Henry/Viera) for a reasonable price. The 'kids' he played in the cups were actually highly rated players they scouted/poached from abroad - often paying a premium to get them In/to break their youth contracts - if anything id say it's a policy which we have looked to copy/imitate - funny that you see it as the opposite.


* obvioisly with the arrival of Ozil and now Sanchez things appear to have changed in this area for them - we'll see if they are any better off as a result, personally i think they'd have been a much better side this summer had they spent the Sanchez money on a defender/defensive midfielder of a lesser ability as their team still has glaring weaknesses in these areas.

 

[Andyandy]

Funny.............I could have sworn that the current policy got us Champions League football once and should have done so again had Bayern Munich not wastefully squandered 30+ attempts at goal in the CL final or had Chelsea not scored from virtually their only good chance. Not to mention that the current policy got us within the narrowest whisker of qualifying for the CL on a couple of other occasions.

Clearly, though, my memory must be faulty. None of these things can have happened.

A lot of people (above) pointed out that the policy was put on hold during Redknapp's glory years. So it looks like your memory is a bit faulty.

So your plan is to take the transfer policy pre- & post Redknapp? Please expand this.

Please share your ideas, everybody else is very quick to point out what won't work or share ideas that have failed, are failing over and again and will continue to fail.


Sent from my iPad using Fapatalk

 

[billyiddo]

You do realize that the policy is about players becoming better with age after we sign them, right? A policy which benefits are not seen immediately - So when Redknapp was here he had the likes of Bale and Modric who were signed in the years prior to his arrival becoming better and reaching a level of ability we can't expect to sign ready made (for reasons outlined many times in this thread by several posters)

putting this approach on hold during this time did not effect the there and then it effects the years after when there are no more Bale/Modric players coming through - hence the drop off in quality since Redknapps departure as our better players moved on and us not being in an ideal position to replace them like for like

 

[jimmyb]

A lot of people (above) pointed out that the policy was put on hold during Redknapp's glory years. So it looks like your memory is a bit faulty.

So your plan is to take the transfer policy pre- & post Redknapp? Please expand this.

Please share your ideas, everybody else is very quick to point out what won't work or share ideas that have failed, are failing over and again and will continue to fail.

You're still arguing and yet you're arguing ever more and more against your own point!

Yes, it is true that we didn't continue to pursue the same transfer policy for a few years under Harry. But the key elements of the squad (and the majority of the squad, for that matter) that gained us CL qualification (and knocked on the door on several other occasions) were brought to the club prior to Harry's arrival - under the previous transfer policy.

Furthermore, since your argument is that we ought to blow our budget on one world class superstar every year, rather than five merely good or potentially great players, citing the policy during Harry's time at the club makes even less sense - since he liked nothing better than buying lots of players who were far from world beaters individually but who were mostly Premier League proven and who could all do the job that he needed from them.

And once again, the ideas that you claim to have "failed" haven't, in fact, failed. They got us CL football once. But for a freak occurrence, they would have got us CL football a second time. And they got us within a whisker of CL football on two or three other occasions. All this in the face of overwhelming financial disadvantage relative to our direct competitors for CL places. In the circumstances, our transfer policy has proved nigh on miraculous and had us punching well above our weight.

So those of us arguing for a continuation of the transfer policy have empirical evidence to support our argument. We don't need more. You, however, do need more to convince anyone that your argument is worth serious consideration. And yet, at every turn, you refuse to answer the questions that have been asked of you. The ball's in your court. We're waiting......

 

[jimmyb]

Im not so sure about that, the last ready made 'star' he bought was Bergkamp all those years ago* and since then it has been a strategy of buying young players with potential or under valued players (Henry/Viera) for a reasonable price. The 'kids' he played in the cups were actually highly rated players they scouted/poached from abroad - often paying a premium to get them In/to break their youth contracts - if anything id say it's a policy which we have looked to copy/imitate - funny that you see it as the opposite.


* obvioisly with the arrival of Ozil and now Sanchez things appear to have changed in this area for them - we'll see if they are any better off as a result, personally i think they'd have been a much better side this summer had they spent the Sanchez money on a defender/defensive midfielder of a lesser ability as their team still has glaring weaknesses in these areas.

Apologies for the pedantry but it was actually Bruce Rioch who signed Bergkamp for Arsenal. Wenger inherited him.

 

[camspur]

The problem I see with the "bring in a star or two" policy is that we have a couple of players who already see themselves at that level and would no doubt angle for more money, this then bumps up salary, once the "not so star but think they are" players get a better deal the ones the level below do the same.

Of course if you don't give htem that rise they then angle for a move, get one and have to be replaced. Do you then bring in a star or two more or replace with "lesser mortals" who will no doubt think they are better than they are and demand higher wages.

I agee that the current system isn't improving us to the point that we are CL every season but going down the "superstar" route won't work either as we don't have the income to sustain that approach.

 

[Baleforce]

in that case we need the superstar who doesn't realise he's a superstar, like Bale was for a while

 

[Finney Is Back]

The price was only used as a yardstick to offer a metric to the quality of player than I would like to see. It isn't a price cast in stone. It's about the player.

What is wanted is one world class player!

We aren't going to win the league, we aren't going to be close to the champions league again, so why not enjoy watching one world class player turn up every week and play at the lane instead?

The outcome is the same in terms of trophies - it just might be more fun than watching 5 x Stambouli sit in the reserves.

Who could this signing have been? I thought it was a quiet summer for signing world class players in general but Antoine Griezmann was a very achievable target. An Alexis Sanchez or even a Mario Balotelli would have made me more excited about the upcoming season.

I am not against your viewpoint. I too would love to watch a World class player at Spurs again.

However if we take your initial argument and ignore the fact that we would really struggle to attract that one World class player to teh club and imagine we have signed one and then done no other business other than promoting our youth players. We would currently have a squad that contained only one suitable left back, only one, fit right back and either Dawson or Kaboul playing centre half every week, with Friedel in goal if Lloris get's injured/suspended (a keeper completely not suited to our gameplan). We would effectively be only one defensive injury away from a very worrying defensive situation and two injuries would kill us.

You also talk about three players who signed for Athletico Madrid, Arsenal and Liverpool. Unfortunately we are simply not a bigger attraction than any of those 3 clubs right now. These are clubs that are already in the Champions League, and are perceived to be challenging for their national title. Signing for such clubs even increases the player's potential earnings from their personal sponsors.

 

[jimmyb]

I am not against your viewpoint. I too would love to watch a World class player at Spurs again.

However if we take your initial argument and ignore the fact that we would really struggle to attract that one World class player to teh club and imagine we have signed one and then done no other business other than promoting our youth players. We would currently have a squad that contained only one suitable left back, only one, fit right back and either Dawson or Kaboul playing centre half every week, with Friedel in goal if Lloris get's injured/suspended (a keeper completely not suited to our gameplan). We would effectively be only one defensive injury away from a very worrying defensive situation and two injuries would kill us.

You also talk about three players who signed for Athletico Madrid, Arsenal and Liverpool. Unfortunately we are simply not a bigger attraction than any of those 3 clubs right now. These are clubs that are already in the Champions League, and are perceived to be challenging for their national title. Signing for such clubs even increases the player's potential earnings from their personal sponsors.

It would be worse than that.

Don't forget that, in addition to signing only one world class player instead of the six players we did sign, andyandy also advocates that we reduce our first team squad size to a mere 18.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Yeah it proved Arry was/is way behind the modern game. (I will not answer to Harry fans should they reply, as I really cannot be ar$ed!. :-" )

I don't see the relevance of this. Suarez was not a world class player at the time. Didn't Wenger turn down Drogba and Ronaldo?

 

[Finney Is Back]

lol at correcting the spelling

Anyway.. Lavezzi has seen his wage reduce over the past two years due to the tax laws in France. I dare say also that PSG would be also willing to pay some of the wages too, which therefore would put him under Adebayor in terms of wage. Cuardado has a value.. something no club is willing to match yet and as like you suggest.. Utd and Barcelona don't need to take gambles, they can purchase the polished article.

I wasn't correcting the spelling, just trying to clarify if we were thinking of the same player. I don't profess to know all of the players in the World (in fact I barely even know a majority of them in the Premiership!)

Regarding your other points - they are all well made. However, as I said before I used the examples I did because they were the biggest transfer fees actually paid and therefore these signings were known quantities and not hypothetical. We may have been able to get the players you mentioned for those prices, but then again we may not have. The player may have simply refused to join a club of our stature, or even if we had agreed a fee and the player decided he would be prepared to join us then having done the groundwork we may have then had competition from another club (i.e. when Chelsea nipped in and signed Willian). I'm not saying you are wrong in any case, just that I thought it was better to use real life transfers to discuss the point.

To go back to Lavezzi in particular - one thing to consider is that on many occasions contracts in leagues outside than the UK are negotiated as "net" salary. I can remember a case several years ago of a player that my father represented who came and signed for an English club and was extremely happy with the deal that my father negotiated. He then came to him when he received his first salary payment saying that the club had failed to pay him the agreed amount. My Dad looked into it and it turned out that the player didn't realise that the contract negotiated was a gross salary and tax would be deducted, as previously over in Spain his contracts were always negotiated and agreed in terms of net salary. I don't know why that was the case.... Perhaps on the continent the tax systems are more liable to change and therefore agents protect players from any potential rises in taxation?

Andy spoke about Athletico being the exact sort of club who proved his model and then named the players they had signed this Summer - when in actual fact I think that those examples show that they operate a model pretty similar to ours. Andy then listed 7 signings made by Athletico. These are all the sorts of signings that we tend to make in terms of the types of fees that we pay and also in terms of them being players who aren't yet superstars....

Mario Mandzukic (£18m),
Jan Oblak (21), (£12.5m)
Jesus Gamez (29), (£2m)
Raul Jimenez (23), (£8m)
Antoine Griezmann (23), (£24m)
Miguel Moya (30), (£2.5m)
Cristian Ansaldi (27) (loan)

On top of those above however Athletico also signed the following players:

Alessio Cerci from Torino,
Emiliano Vlezquez from Danubio FC,
Diego Gama from Dportivo Toluca
Cidoncha from Zaragoza
Angel Correa from San Lorenzo
Jusuhu Guilavogui from Saint Etienne
Leo Baptistao from Real Betis
Pedro Martin from Numancia
Ruben Perez from Elche
Saul from Rayo Vallecano
Silvio from Benefica
Siqueira from Benfica

The year before they signed all of the following: Diego, Jose Sosa, Josuha Guilavogui (loan), Toby Alderwald, Aranzubia, Martin Demichelis, Borja Baston, Leandro Cabrera, David Villa, Jose Gimenez, Leo Baptistao (loan), Pizzi, Silvio

So it's clear that they aren't just adding a superstar signing and supplementing with youth, but instead making sure they have a big enough squad and taking a number of gambles at fees that aren't too extortionate.

 

[milo]

It would be worse than that.

Don't forget that, in addition to signing only one world class player instead of the six players we did sign, andyandy also advocates that we reduce our first team squad size to a mere 18.

I also think that it could harm the development of our youth players and the fitness of our first team regulars. The youth players are not going to get the game time that they would get on loan and I am sure that the manager would end up picking the same 11 players week in week out and rushing players back from injury because there is such a big drop of in quality outside the 18.

 

[Andyandy]

Furthermore, since your argument is that we ought to blow our budget on one world class superstar every year, rather than five merely good or potentially great players.

I would like to maintain only one world class superstar.

And yet, at every turn, you refuse to answer the questions that have been asked of you.

Not sure which one I missed. However happy to answer it.

In the circumstances, our transfer policy has proved nigh on miraculous and had us punching well above our weight.

I am not sure that it is miraculous, I think it is just statistically skewed. In the statistical sample 2008-2013, I agree. In this period it demonstrated a very good return in terms of revenue on just a few players. So how will it perform next year or the year afterwards? This is the real test.

We can use history as a good example of how your think can be mistaken. We could say from 1987-1992 that the club was also doing very well at producing world class players as we had made money on selling Gazza, Waddle and Hoddle. I am sure that people would have being saying the same thing. However we didn't produce world class player at that same rate. I would say that the next world class player we had young and sold was Campbell (oh dear!) in 2001, we then had King but the next we made money on was Carrick (not world class) in 2006.

Southampton can claim to have an effective policy as they have consistently done it for many years even Arsenal. We cannot, not yet, we need many more Modric & Bales before we can say that we are any better than random chance that those guys happened at the same time under the current policy. At the moment we can only say we have been lucky.

And once again, the ideas that you claim to have "failed" haven't, in fact, failed. They got us CL football once. But for a freak occurrence, they would have got us CL football a second time. And they got us within a whisker of CL football on two or three other occasions. All this in the face of overwhelming financial disadvantage relative to our direct competitors for CL places.

One qualification into the Champions League...if we had managed it four or five times, I would agree that the policy is working well.

 

[Superhudd]

I wasn't correcting the spelling, just trying to clarify if we were thinking of the same player. I don't profess to know all of the players in the World (in fact I barely even know a majority of them in the Premiership!)

Regarding your other points - they are all well made. However, as I said before I used the examples I did because they were the biggest transfer fees actually paid and therefore these signings were known quantities and not hypothetical. We may have been able to get the players you mentioned for those prices, but then again we may not have. The player may have simply refused to join a club of our stature, or even if we had agreed a fee and the player decided he would be prepared to join us then having done the groundwork we may have then had competition from another club (i.e. when Chelsea nipped in and signed Willian). I'm not saying you are wrong in any case, just that I thought it was better to use real life transfers to discuss the point.

To go back to Lavezzi in particular - one thing to consider is that on many occasions contracts in leagues outside than the UK are negotiated as "net" salary. I can remember a case several years ago of a player that my father represented who came and signed for an English club and was extremely happy with the deal that my father negotiated. He then came to him when he received his first salary payment saying that the club had failed to pay him the agreed amount. My Dad looked into it and it turned out that the player didn't realise that the contract negotiated was a gross salary and tax would be deducted, as previously over in Spain his contracts were always negotiated and agreed in terms of net salary. I don't know why that was the case.... Perhaps on the continent the tax systems are more liable to change and therefore agents protect players from any potential rises in taxation?

Andy spoke about Athletico being the exact sort of club who proved his model and then named the players they had signed this Summer - when in actual fact I think that those examples show that they operate a model pretty similar to ours. Andy then listed 7 signings made by Athletico. These are all the sorts of signings that we tend to make in terms of the types of fees that we pay and also in terms of them being players who aren't yet superstars....

Mario Mandzukic (£18m),
Jan Oblak (21), (£12.5m)
Jesus Gamez (29), (£2m)
Raul Jimenez (23), (£8m)
Antoine Griezmann (23), (£24m)
Miguel Moya (30), (£2.5m)
Cristian Ansaldi (27) (loan)

On top of those above however Athletico also signed the following players:

Alessio Cerci from Torino,
Emiliano Vlezquez from Danubio FC,
Diego Gama from Dportivo Toluca
Cidoncha from Zaragoza
Angel Correa from San Lorenzo
Jusuhu Guilavogui from Saint Etienne
Leo Baptistao from Real Betis
Pedro Martin from Numancia
Ruben Perez from Elche
Saul from Rayo Vallecano
Silvio from Benefica
Siqueira from Benfica

The year before they signed all of the following: Diego, Jose Sosa, Josuha Guilavogui (loan), Toby Alderwald, Aranzubia, Martin Demichelis, Borja Baston, Leandro Cabrera, David Villa, Jose Gimenez, Leo Baptistao (loan), Pizzi, Silvio

So it's clear that they aren't just adding a superstar signing and supplementing with youth, but instead making sure they have a big enough squad and taking a number of gambles at fees that aren't too extortionate.

They have massive debts though and you fail to add that to your post.

 

[Superhudd]

I don't see the relevance of this. Suarez was not a world class player at the time. Didn't Wenger turn down Drogba and Ronaldo?

I was talking about formations and smaller guys play up top on his own. Anyway, lets not bring this into a arry debate.

 

[jimmyb]

Not sure which one I missed. However happy to answer it.

It would be quicker and easier to list the questions that you have answered!

Southampton can claim to have an effective policy as they have consistently done it for many years even Arsenal. We cannot, not yet, we need many more Modric & Bales before we can say that we are any better than random chance that those guys happened at the same time under the current policy. At the moment we can only say we have been lucky.

Southampton have produced good players from their youth system but their transfer policy can hardly be said to have been successful. After all, they have spent most of the past ten years in the lower divisions. Arsenal have indeed done a good job. But they operate on twice our budget. Think about that for a minute. Even so, their transfer policy (if not their wage bill) has not been all that dissimilar to ours over the past ten years.

And maybe we did get lucky with Carrick, Berbatov, Modric and Bale (not to mention the likes of Lennon, Walker, Lloris and Eriksen). But since this policy has been ongoing for ten years now and since we consistently get more for our players than we originally paid, the likelihood that it is all down to luck is very slight indeed. There has clearly been good judgement at play too.

One qualification into the Champions League...if we had managed it four or five times, I would agree that the policy is working well.

Well, if you're going to ignore context completely (namely, that Spurs operates on a far smaller budget than their direct rivals for CL places), then yes.........it will seem as though our transfer policy has failed!

 

[Superhudd]

So today the Italian league seems to have released salaries of footballers..

Carloz Tevez top Juventus earner on £70k

De Rossi on £5.2m a year and highest earner in the league

Paul Pogba on €4m a year

Vidic is Inters top earner on £50k

Higuain is on £84k

Clubs in Italy are spending 500m less than they did in 2011.

Therefore, not one Italian league player should not be within our means.