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ENIC

DeanoAustin said:
We're even crapper in the league than we usually were and we haven't won a cup which we used to do every now and again.

But you're pretty much spot on. With some of our fan base, you'd swear we were up to our bollox in Champions Leagues and league titles before ENIC and Sugar.
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Sounds like ambition
 
Bishop said:
Who said it was simple? What we are saying is ENIC can't and won't win because they actively sabotage our position whenever we are in that position to take the final steps. Its almost poetic.
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Sabotage behaviour - creates problems with daily behaviour that interferes with long standing goals.
You think ...That's the club doing that? Ok.
 
Raziel said:
Let me start with, do I believe Spurs should have won more under current ownership in last 20 years? yes. However what you painted above is too simplistic a view, lacks nuance and misses out stuff

- Clubs successful periods are cyclic in nature, years/decades of success, followed by years/decades of drought. Forest, Leeds, Everton are easy examples of previously successful teams struggling but still around, you don't need me to go through the Championship and League 1 to point out "big" clubs that are no longer relevant. You starting your trophy view in 1950 is a perfect example of that (in a 40 year period we won more trophies than in the other 100+ years)
- Your view/picture (and this is the extremely frustrating part) looking at that, is basically Spurs were a great club and ENIC fudged it up and it's downhill since purchase, and that is wrong on so many levels it comes across as disingenuous/dishonest

Let me paint a picture slightly different

Trophies
- 1882 - 1950 (2 Trophies in 68 years)
- 1950 - 1989 (12 Trophies in 39 years, ~70% of all Spurs silverware)
- Context - 1980 -82 (2 of the 3 decade trophies pre Scholar purchase)
- 1990 - 2024 (3 trophies in 34 years)

League Positions (Top division only)
  • 1900s: Positions 15th, 15th, 12th, 17th, 17th, 20th → Average: 16th
  • 1920s: Positions 6th, 2nd, 12th, 15th, 12th, 15th, 13th, 21st → Average: 12th
  • 1930s: Positions 3rd, 22nd → Average: 12.5th
  • 1950s: Positions 1st, 2nd, 10th, 16th, 16th, 18th, 2nd, 3rd, 18th, 3rd → Average: 9.9th
  • 1960s: Positions 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 3rd, 7th, 6th, 11th → Average: 5.1st
  • 1970s: Positions 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 19th, 9th, 22nd, 11th, 14th → Average: 11.4th
  • 1980s: Positions 10th, 4th, 4th, 8th, 3rd, 10th, 3rd, 13th, 6th, 3rd → Average: 6.4th
  • 1990s: Positions 10th, 15th, 8th, 15th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, 11th, 10th → Average: 10.8th
  • 2000s: Positions 12th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 9th, 5th, 5th, 11th, 8th, 4th → Average: 9.1st
  • 2010s: Positions 5th, 4th, 5th, 6th, 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th → Average: 4.8th
  • 2020s: Positions 7th, 4th, 8th, 5th → Average: 6th
Context, any of the average league position decades of Spurs under ENIC has only be matched/bettered twice, and the best league position decade ever was under ENIC

List of compelling events not listed above
1984 - Club purchased by Scholar
- Context - in 80's TV rights held by ITV, 5 teams including Spurs got 75% of TV revenue deal
1991 - Sold to Sugar on verge of bankruptcy
1992 - PL formed, CL formed
- Context, Sky takes over TV rights, now 50% of revenue is based on league finishes and number of times on tv
- Two decades follow where Spurs doesn't take advantage of new tv money
1994 - Spurs fined, points deduction imposed based on financial irregularities of the Scholar era
2001 - ENIC purchases Spurs
2003 - Chelsea purchased by RA and proceed to lose £1M/week for next 13 years
2008 - City purchased by Abu Dhabi and proceed to invest in a way that has them facing 115 charges of financial irregularities
- Context - 2008-24, Chelsea and City win 30 of the available trophies (basically they win close to 2 of the trophies available each year between them)
2009 - Spurs applies for approval to build new stadium, approved in 2010 but CPO for the needed properties don't get approved until 2014
2019 - Stadium gets opened
2020 -2021 - Stadium closed to fans due to Covid, matchday revenue dropped from £95M to basically nothing for 2 years.
2021 - Saudi Sportswashing Machine purchased by Saudi group with £320B fund
2022 -Matchday revenue returns, Spurs matchday revenue crosses £106M

All of the above is fact, just data points

Let me give you an interpretation (so yes, this is opinion)
- Spurs wasn't a particularly relevant club pre the 50's
- 60's - 70's are heyday, no co-incidence that skews a lot of older fans perspective of Spurs, even in 70's there are a bunch of bottom half league finishes and relegation
- From the 80's the club is on a downward trajectory (some of that doesn't highlight itself until the 90's)
- In the 90's there are series of unfortunate events, loss of fiscal advantage from ITV deal, the close to bankruptcy, the failure to capitalize on the increased revenue of the PL & CL (that allows United, Arsenal, Liverpool in particular to pull away) that basically puts the club in hole that ENIC will have to dig out of.
- In the 2000's you get the addition of the money doping clubs (Chelsea & City) that creates a pool of 5 clubs we have severe financial & structural disadvantages against. (vs. the 80's where we were part of the "advantaged 5")
- Against that backdrop, the club under ENIC puts in consistently the best league form across the history of the club, while building WC infrastructure that will allow the club to compete.

In summary, my perspective is this view of "well, if ENIC had spent $30M more here or whatever decision you disagree with" is the reason Spurs isn't raking in the trophies is nonsense

- They have probably saved the club from being an Everton or West Ham, and future proofed it.
- Could they have done more? absolutely but this "worse owners ever narrative" just doesn't fly
- Would it be great to have owners who splash cash? sure (with the moral hypocrisy that comes with it)

Too lazy, but I could probably do a cup run view, i.e. the QF/SF/Finals/runner ups in ENICs time (last time I checked in was more than 22 in 24 years IIRC), so we haven't been out of cup contention, we just haven't converted (and that itself is a whole other conversation).
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Super post.

Cutting through every thing you have written I have always asked myself at any point in time whether the club are being run "optimally".

You can only play the cards you have been dealt and then it is up to you optimise them and make them work. What is strange is that right now the club is mostly optimised. We've spent 2 to 3 years removing all the surplus players from the squad and it is mostly now a lean and capable squad. We've progressed in all 3 cups to the later stages bringing in as much match day revenue as possible. Off the pitch, the club is in absolute great shape with revenue streams everywhere contributing to the focus on the 1st team.

There were so many times in the history that you wrote about where that wasn't the case. Even in ENIC's tenure the running of football operations has been so sub-optimal. I've looked at some of our squads over the years and wondered how we got into that mess in the first place. Major overhauls required, not so different to what we've recently gone through.

Right now, the sub-optimal part for me is squarely around whether the manager has the capabilities to optimise these amazing resources he's been given to work with. Easily fixable, unlike where we've found ourselves in other points in time.
 
Raziel said:
- Context - 2008-24, Chelsea and City win 30 of the available trophies (basically they win close to 2 of the trophies available each year between them)
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This is what i was getting at in my post - in 15 seasons, 30 of the available 45 domestic trophies were 'won' by 2 state/oligarch backed clubs. That leaves 15 trophies on the table over 15 years - with a fair portion of that time being pre stadium revenue era, about 10 years? So that's 10 years of competing against a far richer group of Utd Liverpool & Arsenal for effectively one trophy a season. This isn't an ownership caused problem (outside of them not being an oligarch or nation state) - it's caused by the change in football landscape post Sky & CL TV money
 
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billyiddo said:
This is what i was getting at in my post - in 15 seasons, 30 of the available 45 domestic trophies were 'won' by 2 state/oligarch backed clubs. That leaves 15 trophies on the table over 15 years - with a fair portion of that time being pre stadium revenue era, about 10 years? So that's 10 years of competing against a far richer group of Utd Liverpool & Arsenal for effectively one trophy a season. This isn't an ownership caused problem (outside of them not being an oligarch or nation state) - it's caused by the change in football landscape post Sky & CL TV money
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You're using money as an excuse. Wigan, Leicester, Portsmouth, Swansea, Birmingham have all won things some multiple since we lost won a trophy. Yes the financial landscape makes it difficult, but not impossible as evidenced both by winners outside of the consistent group and ourselves getting close multiple times, but as has been said by others and the examples I gave we are run sub optimally so we are unable to actually capitalize when the movement arrives.

Did we need more money to not sack Mourinho the week before the CC final? Did we need more money to reinvigorate Poch's squad or did we need refresh the squad intelligently by selling players at peak values and replacing them before they were completely broken? Why are we unable to do this yet it seems plenty teams across Europe in our similar context are? What is so special about our situation that we were completely incapable of selling high and buying low? I could go on and on.

My complaints are never about funding, they are about the actual leadership and if funding is your only solution it says that Levy isn't this world class football chairman that so many make him out to be, because essentially it's impossible for him to improve Spurs beyond par yet we have continuously expected our managers to do so and sacked them when they haven't. That isn't a money related issue it's a football culture one.
 
Bishop said:
You're using money as an excuse. Wigan, Leicester, Portsmouth, Swansea, Birmingham have all won things some multiple since we lost won a trophy. Yes the financial landscape makes it difficult, but not impossible as evidenced both by winners outside of the consistent group and ourselves getting close multiple times, but as has been said by others and the examples I gave we are run sub optimally so we are unable to actually capitalize when the movement arrives.

Did we need more money to not sack Mourinho the week before the CC final? Did we need more money to reinvigorate Poch's squad or did we need refresh the squad intelligently by selling players at peak values and replacing them before they were completely broken? Why are we unable to do this yet it seems plenty teams across Europe in our similar context are? What is so special about our situation that we were completely incapable of selling high and buying low? I could go on and on.

My complaints are never about funding, they are about the actual leadership and if funding is your only solution it says that Levy isn't this world class football chairman that so many make him out to be, because essentially it's impossible for him to improve Spurs beyond par yet we have continuously expected our managers to do so and sacked them when they haven't. That isn't a money related issue it's a football culture one.
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It's not an excuse It's looking at things over a long period of time and spotting trends and i think that there is a clear and obvious trend regarding trophies being hoovered up in the manner described. Those smaller clubs winning a handful between them doesn't disprove the trend, it is part of it - in decades previous trophies were more spread out.
 
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Bishop said:
You're using money as an excuse. Wigan, Leicester, Portsmouth, Swansea, Birmingham have all won things some multiple since we lost won a trophy. Yes the financial landscape makes it difficult, but not impossible as evidenced both by winners outside of the consistent group and ourselves getting close multiple times, but as has been said by others and the examples I gave we are run sub optimally so we are unable to actually capitalize when the movement arrives.

Did we need more money to not sack Mourinho the week before the CC final? Did we need more money to reinvigorate Poch's squad or did we need refresh the squad intelligently by selling players at peak values and replacing them before they were completely broken? Why are we unable to do this yet it seems plenty teams across Europe in our similar context are? What is so special about our situation that we were completely incapable of selling high and buying low? I could go on and on.

My complaints are never about funding, they are about the actual leadership and if funding is your only solution it says that Levy isn't this world class football chairman that so many make him out to be, because essentially it's impossible for him to improve Spurs beyond par yet we have continuously expected our managers to do so and sacked them when they haven't. That isn't a money related issue it's a football culture one.
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This is what always makes me laugh on here, other teams outside the 'big 6' manage to win things. But there is always some excuse as to why super special unique Spurs can't and don't. All the other clubs don't have constraints they have to work within, there are always excuses about why Spurs are just unlucky for not being able to get over the line with a trophy for various flimsy reasons.

You make your own luck, and it's all to do with the culture of the club and that starts from the very top. Enough ex players have referred to it, but of course some would rather ignore what is staring them in the face...
 
Bishop said:
You're using money as an excuse. Wigan, Leicester, Portsmouth, Swansea, Birmingham have all won things some multiple since we lost won a trophy. Yes the financial landscape makes it difficult, but not impossible as evidenced both by winners outside of the consistent group and ourselves getting close multiple times, but as has been said by others and the examples I gave we are run sub optimally so we are unable to actually capitalize when the movement arrives.

Did we need more money to not sack Mourinho the week before the CC final? Did we need more money to reinvigorate Poch's squad or did we need refresh the squad intelligently by selling players at peak values and replacing them before they were completely broken? Why are we unable to do this yet it seems plenty teams across Europe in our similar context are? What is so special about our situation that we were completely incapable of selling high and buying low? I could go on and on.

My complaints are never about funding, they are about the actual leadership and if funding is your only solution it says that Levy isn't this world class football chairman that so many make him out to be, because essentially it's impossible for him to improve Spurs beyond par yet we have continuously expected our managers to do so and sacked them when they haven't. That isn't a money related issue it's a football culture one.
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Which one of those clubs would you like to swap places with right now?

Success isn’t only measured by trophies.
 
harr1984 said:
This is what always makes me laugh on here, other teams outside the 'big 6' manage to win things. But there is always some excuse as to why super special unique Spurs can't and don't. All the other clubs don't have constraints they have to work within, there are always excuses about why Spurs are just unlucky for not being able to get over the line with a trophy for various flimsy reasons.

You make your own luck, and it's all to do with the culture of the club and that starts from the very top. Enough ex players have referred to it, but of course some would rather ignore what is staring them in the face...
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We've won a trophy, same as each of those clubs - the discussion is not what seperates us from those clubs it's what seperates us from those that win consistently/semi-consistently.
 
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