Re: Daniel Levy isn't stupid...
As mentioned before, the signal fault we have as fans is blaming the manager for bad results when it is abundantly clear that said manager has had the rug pulled out from under him in terms of getting the players he wanted/asking for in the transfer window, which by extension means bad results as the team struggles to adapt to the second and third choice players trying to fit into a system that was envisioned with someone else in mind. Now, I see people across the spurs-related internet already whispering about Poch and his suitability for our club: if this erupts into anger on par with the anger around the fanbase last December, it will provide Levy with an easy excuse to pull the trigger.
In what way did Poch "have the rug pulled from under him" during the transfer window? We failed to land Schneiderlin because Southampton refused to sell. And we failed to land Musacchio because Villarreal, as a consequence of third party complications, refused to sell unless we met his full buyout value of €50m (clearly far too much). In their stead, we signed two players who were also very much Poch signings, according to reports - Stambouli and Fazio. So there wasn't much else Levy could have done and Poch has no cause for complaint. Nor has there been any indication that he is unhappy with our transfer business.
We should also remember that Poch was very explicit in stressing that he wanted to get to know the players before making any major moves in the transfer market. And this pre season wasn't ideal in that respect because of the late return of many players after the World Cup. It's only now that Poch can have a good idea of which players he wants to keep and which he wants to shed.
If that happens, and given that I really don't hold Poch accountable for our results after the transfer window he had, what would you expect me to do? Grin and clap for Levy once again? And don't say you don't see Poch being sacked as possible: AVB made a better start than Poch did, and he stormed out after Levy either 'suggested' or demanded that he play Ade/ two strikers, and after building discontent behind the scenes that only came out after he left (all that stuff about the players he received not being the ones he wanted, and Jason Burt's insinuations of a breakdown in his relationship with Levy). There is little by way of faith one can place either in our fanbase (who rush to dissatisfaction with our managers far too easily at times, me included) or in Levy's backing of his managers through these stormy spells given the evident advantages of just sacking him and calming the fans down.
Of course it is possible that he could be sacked but I see no danger of it happening unless Poch completely loses the dressing room and has us in danger of relegation. Levy has never sacked a manager in his first season at Spurs.
As to the Jason Burt report about why AVB left, I think we have to take it with a large pinch of salt. Burt was, effectively, AVB's mouthpiece in the press. So it was hardly impartial. Personally, I'd give equal weight to the stories about AVB identifying a list of first choice targets - who were either unrealistically expensive or also targeted by bigger, richer clubs than us - and then being wholly inflexible when it came to suggesting alternatives.
You are the expert on these figures, so I'll defer to you on their reliability. I had imagined the dividend payouts to be far higher, although the amount they'd put into the club prior to this year (26 million quid over the thirteen-odd years they'd spent running this club before 2014) didn't really surprise me given that I don't remember any massive infusion ever being reported. I was also unaware of their 40 million pound loan earlier this year, although you'll forgive me for waiting to see if it will actually be converted to share capital.
I retract my statement about ENIC not providing any money to the club, and will consider my position with regards to their financial infusions into this club. I'll leave the implications of their generous funding for others to pick over for now, but will also point to this
http://transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/transfer-league-table-last-five-seasons.html as a potentially interesting factor for discussion amid all the talk of ambition and backing that revolved around Poch's appointment in the summer.
Net transfer spend is a somewhat overvalued metric, IMO. In our case, it is clearly skewed by the sale of Bale and Modric for a combined £120m - two players, by the way, who we absolutely didn't want to sell.
But what of the five years previous to that table? I seem to remember Spurs routinely being near the very top, with a higher net spend* than all but Chelsea and Man Utd (and possibly not even the latter). And there is a reason for that. In 2004, our squad was nowhere near good enough to be competitive. So we embarked upon a systematic upgrade, season on season. Until the priority changed. We now had the competitive squad. So we had to pay them accordingly. Consequently, our wage bill leapt by 50% - in an instant, wiping out the £20-30m operating profits that had funded our previous annual splash in the transfer market.
In the meanwhile, other than the Champions League spike, our turnover has flatlined for the past four years. Add in to the mix that we have built a £45m training complex that is one of the best in the world, and that we have spent some £100m on acquiring the property for and progressing the plans for the new stadium.........is it really so hard to understand why we might have reined in our transfer spending?
* Bear in mind that, because of accounting practices within football, we would still have been paying for our big net spend from 2004-09 for four or five years beyond 2009.
