Matt Doherty

[P.D.]

Spending all January, right up to 10m before the deadline, dingdonging around to save 4-5m for Porro, and then realziing that getting him in means releasing one of the existing right backs and losing out on 4-5m in transfer fees as a result...

...I am in awe of the sheer competence of the folks in charge of our transfers. Hats off to them for this 1000 IQ play.



Won't be that much - he had us over a barrel with this, since we were the ones who fudged up and forgot that you can't loan out every piece of brick in the squad.

Think he'll have gotten the majority of his contract paid out.

Allegedly we gave up 15% of Edwards sell on fee too, used to be 50% and now it's reduced to 35%. I think Levy has tried to get too clever here and been caught out.

 

[Diamond Lights]

where to start with this.

Buying a player in 2020 and already cutting the contract? Screams of lack of judgement, strategy, just general forward thinking. Then the fact it was rumoured to be a loan until we clocked the FIFA rules at the 11th hour. eesh.

The club just feels like an utter shambles now.

 

[Raziel]

I get there's a sense of damned we do, damned if we don't but theamner of getting rid of players is up for discussion imo.

Releasing sellable assets on a free doesn't look good from a business perspective. Same but to a lesser degree with Aurier, but if Doherty is good enough for a club like Atletico he's got to be worth something surely?

Permanently loaning talented players like GLC / Tanguy, or in the case of Bryan, buying talented youngsters for a lot of money and a first teamer and then eventually loaning him back to that very club, it looks haphazard at best imo.

Hopefully it's these decisions that look rather odd to me at least, will take us to having a better squad in the long run.

All the very best to Doherty as a person though, hope he excels out there (and also that Kane doesn't miss him too much!)

Those are all fair/true observations, the issue some have is quite often that is just taken as a tool to drive a pre-defined narrative without context, that context ->

- European clubs simply don't have money post Covid, it makes getting rid of continental style players way more difficult now. Atleti basically had to dump Felix (a young player they paid >€125M for).
- Fans constantly shriek "back the manager", somehow Poch/Jose/whoever would have won everything if we simply backed the manager 5% more. Conte is the most backed managed ENIC has ever had, 11 players in 3 windows (only 1 summer window), ~£280M in committed spend, totally backed on squad choices (we are punting our youth strategy for him, we get rid of any player he doesn't want, we buy 33 year olds for him, we spend £60M on depth roles). Then complain the club is a shambles because we take a hit on a player the manager clearly doesn't want/rate

I really think to have a reasonable discussion you have to separate our strategy with/without DoF's and probably the people in those roles, e.g. currently with Paratici, pre-Paratici, Mitchell, Comolli, FA, etc.

Re Doherty, none of us will ever likely know the full details
- Probably clear Conte was never going to play him
- He's been a pro for us, never bitched
- He had about £5.8M of wages left on contract
- It was an opp for him as a player, perhaps last opp

I'd like to think we did the right thing for the player and we got some of that £5.8M back in the process.

 

[superspurs]

Those are all fair/true observations, the issue some have is quite often that is just taken as a tool to drive a pre-defined narrative without context, that context ->

- European clubs simply don't have money post Covid, it makes getting rid of continental style players way more difficult now. Atleti basically had to dump Felix (a young player they paid >€125M for).
- Fans constantly shriek "back the manager", somehow Poch/Jose/whoever would have won everything if we simply backed the manager 5% more. Conte is the most backed managed ENIC has ever had, 11 players in 3 windows (only 1 summer window), ~£280M in committed spend, totally backed on squad choices (we are punting our youth strategy for him, we get rid of any player he doesn't want, we buy 33 year olds for him, we spend £60M on depth roles)

I really think to have a reasonable discussion you have to separate our strategy with/without DoF's and probably the people in those roles, e.g. currently with Paratici, pre-Paratici, Mitchell, Comolli, FA, etc.

Re Doherty, none of us will ever likely know the full details
- Probably clear Conte was never going to play him
- He's been a pro for us, never bitched
- He had about £5.8M of wages left on contract
- It was an opp for him as a player, perhaps last opp

I'd like to think we did the right thing for the player and we got some of that £5.8M back in the process.

Agreed, assuming the "mutual agreement" means he forfeited most/all of that to get the move.

 

[Raziel]

Agreed, assuming the "mutual agreement" means he forfeited most/all of that to get the move.

As I said, none of us "know" even though I'm sure someone will be at pains to explain how they do. It would make sense there was some give on the player part.

 

[90291Spur]

Those are all fair/true observations, the issue some have is quite often that is just taken as a tool to drive a pre-defined narrative without context, that context ->

- European clubs simply don't have money post Covid, it makes getting rid of continental style players way more difficult now. Atleti basically had to dump Felix (a young player they paid >€125M for).
- Fans constantly shriek "back the manager", somehow Poch/Jose/whoever would have won everything if we simply backed the manager 5% more. Conte is the most backed managed ENIC has ever had, 11 players in 3 windows (only 1 summer window), ~£280M in committed spend, totally backed on squad choices (we are punting our youth strategy for him, we get rid of any player he doesn't want, we buy 33 year olds for him, we spend £60M on depth roles). Then complain the club is a shambles because we take a hit on a player the manager clearly doesn't want/rate

I really think to have a reasonable discussion you have to separate our strategy with/without DoF's and probably the people in those roles, e.g. currently with Paratici, pre-Paratici, Mitchell, Comolli, FA, etc.

Re Doherty, none of us will ever likely know the full details
- Probably clear Conte was never going to play him
- He's been a pro for us, never bitched
- He had about £5.8M of wages left on contract
- It was an opp for him as a player, perhaps last opp

I'd like to think we did the right thing for the player and we got some of that £5.8M back in the process.

Too sensible. We should be making emotional, snap judgments based on feelings, not looking at context and the realities of premier league football.

 

[Glenda's Legs]

Those are all fair/true observations, the issue some have is quite often that is just taken as a tool to drive a pre-defined narrative without context, that context ->

- European clubs simply don't have money post Covid, it makes getting rid of continental style players way more difficult now. Atleti basically had to dump Felix (a young player they paid >€125M for).
- Fans constantly shriek "back the manager", somehow Poch/Jose/whoever would have won everything if we simply backed the manager 5% more. Conte is the most backed managed ENIC has ever had, 11 players in 3 windows (only 1 summer window), ~£280M in committed spend, totally backed on squad choices (we are punting our youth strategy for him, we get rid of any player he doesn't want, we buy 33 year olds for him, we spend £60M on depth roles). Then complain the club is a shambles because we take a hit on a player the manager clearly doesn't want/rate

I really think to have a reasonable discussion you have to separate our strategy with/without DoF's and probably the people in those roles, e.g. currently with Paratici, pre-Paratici, Mitchell, Comolli, FA, etc.

Re Doherty, none of us will ever likely know the full details
- Probably clear Conte was never going to play him
- He's been a pro for us, never bitched
- He had about £5.8M of wages left on contract
- It was an opp for him as a player, perhaps last opp

I'd like to think we did the right thing for the player and we got some of that £5.8M back in the process.

And it is not without irony that we hear "just pay the fee, it's only a few million, what's a few million?" when negotiating to buy a player, whilst now that we have offloaded a player by mutual termination of contract, the club is wreckless for not getting a fee (of a few million) for him.

(Granted a lot of the ire is around messing up re the number of players on loan which if true is not particularly good on our part. But then again, you could say that we bit the bullet and got the deal done anyway. Imagine if we had just pulled the loan instead once we realised - that would be far more incompetent imo).

 

[spurspinter1]

Those are all fair/true observations, the issue some have is quite often that is just taken as a tool to drive a pre-defined narrative without context, that context ->

- European clubs simply don't have money post Covid, it makes getting rid of continental style players way more difficult now. Atleti basically had to dump Felix (a young player they paid >€125M for).
- Fans constantly shriek "back the manager", somehow Poch/Jose/whoever would have won everything if we simply backed the manager 5% more. Conte is the most backed managed ENIC has ever had, 11 players in 3 windows (only 1 summer window), ~£280M in committed spend, totally backed on squad choices (we are punting our youth strategy for him, we get rid of any player he doesn't want, we buy 33 year olds for him, we spend £60M on depth roles). Then complain the club is a shambles because we take a hit on a player the manager clearly doesn't want/rate

I really think to have a reasonable discussion you have to separate our strategy with/without DoF's and probably the people in those roles, e.g. currently with Paratici, pre-Paratici, Mitchell, Comolli, FA, etc.

Re Doherty, none of us will ever likely know the full details
- Probably clear Conte was never going to play him
- He's been a pro for us, never bitched
- He had about £5.8M of wages left on contract
- It was an opp for him as a player, perhaps last opp

I'd like to think we did the right thing for the player and we got some of that £5.8M back in the process.

Appreciate the response, I'm openly not consistent enough in my own views to be seen as driving a certain narrative one way or the other, but I am able to point what does or doesn't make sense to me at that point in time. I am not clued up enough on owners/ shareholders to know what would be better and I do resonate with the club being a bit of a "shambles" anyway!

Spurs fans are understandably frustrated, and often make things out to be simpler than they are without knowing the full picture, like for fans of every club but it is one thing after another ie Paratici's investigation, Conte falling ill, nevermind the gooners looking so good after we thought we had really gotten one over on them last season...

Absolutely agree on the Doherty specific points, although we'll be in a pickle if one of Royal / Porro gets a long term injury but if Conte is happy with the coverage than so am I.

 

[DubaiSpur]

And it is not without irony that we hear "just pay the fee, it's only a few million, what's a few million?" when negotiating to buy a player, whilst now that we have offloaded a player by mutual termination of contract, the club is wreckless for not getting a fee (of a few million) for him.

(Granted a lot of the ire is around messing up re the number of players on loan which if true is not particularly good on our part. But then again, you could say that we bit the bullet and got the deal done anyway. Imagine if we had just pulled the loan instead once we realised - that would be far more incompetent imo).

I think you're misunderstanding a wee bit. The anger at this comes from the fact that we basically caved to everything Sporting wanted, precisely because we dingdonged around for so long trying to save pennies...and then lost out on the pennies anyway because of the screw-up with Doherty.

The club tried its usual haggling and harrying tactics and lost, comprehensively - Sporting fudged us sideways. When the alternative, acting quickly to get our man, would have meant Porro would have been here on January 1st, shirt pressed and ready to go, while Sporting would have to content themselves with his release clause money, and nothing more. And who knows, maybe we wouldn't have had such a miserable January with him in the side.

It wouldn't by itself be a big issue if the club learned its lesson from this and stopped trying to be penny wise, pound foolish - because in the end, it worked out alright. We got Porro, and Doherty leaving isn't too big a loss in the grand scheme of things.

But the likelihood is, the club hasn't learned a single thing from this - it will keep haggling for pennies up until deadline day, and then do macaronic brick like forgetting the loan limit, because our transfers are conducted with a unique mix of malicious penny-penching and pig-headed incompetence.

 

[Glenda's Legs]

I think you're misunderstanding a wee bit. The anger at this comes from the fact that we basically caved to everything Sporting wanted, precisely because we dingdonged around for so long trying to save pennies...and then lost out on the pennies anyway because of the screw-up with Doherty.

The club tried its usual haggling and harrying tactics and lost, comprehensively - Sporting fudged us sideways. When the alternative, acting quickly to get our man, would have meant Porro would have been here on January 1st, shirt pressed and ready to go, while Sporting would have to content themselves with his release clause money, and nothing more. And who knows, maybe we wouldn't have had such a miserable January with him in the side.

It wouldn't by itself be a big issue if the club learned its lesson from this and stopped trying to be penny wise, pound foolish - because in the end, it worked out alright. We got Porro, and Doherty leaving isn't too big a loss in the grand scheme of things.

But the likelihood is, the club hasn't learned a single thing from this - it will keep haggling for pennies up until deadline day, and then do macaronic brick like forgetting the loan limit, because our transfers are conducted with a unique mix of malicious penny-penching and pig-headed incompetence.

You have absolutely no idea what happened during the negotiations. You are just assuming.
You think we should have paid the release clause in full, upfront. Who's to say Porro wanted to do that (given that it's the player who technically triggers it, not the buying club)?

 

[Raziel]

You have absolutely no idea what happened during the negotiations. You are just assuming.
You think we should have paid the release clause in full, upfront. Who's to say Porro wanted to do that (given that it's the player who technically triggers it, not the buying club)?

- The club and player wanted him to play in the cup final (last week-end)
- The club did not want the release clause money in this fiscal year (that's why the loan, it was to accommodate them not us)
- Sporting are an absolute bastards to deal with, they literally did the exact same ploy with United/Bruno (and United often overpays in the first part)

But to your point, others "know" it was just the club fudging around ..

 

[DubaiSpur]

You have absolutely no idea what happened during the negotiations. You are just assuming.
You think we should have paid the release clause in full, upfront. Who's to say Porro wanted to do that (given that it's the player who technically triggers it, not the buying club)?

I do think we should have paid the release clause in full, up front, because then the club would have had zero say in it. The reason Sporting kept dragging it out, demanding he play in the cup final, then demanding we pay the admin fee, then demanding we give up a share of Edwards, is because we didn' t do that.

Trigger it on Jan 1st, take them out of it.

As for if Porro wanted it or not, given how desperate he seemed to come here, I think he'd be fine with it, but I admit that is educated conjecture on my part. Point is, we didn't even try.

 

[Glenda's Legs]

I do think we should have paid the release clause in full, up front, because then the club would have had zero say in it. The reason Sporting kept dragging it out, demanding he play in the cup final, then demanding we pay the admin fee, then demanding we give up a share of Edwards, is because we didn' t do that.

Trigger it on Jan 1st, take them out of it.

As for if Porro wanted it or not, given how desperate he seemed to come here, I think he'd be fine with it, but I admit that is educated conjecture on my part. Point is, we didn't even try.

Again, you don't know what we tried. It usually takes a lot before a player will hand in a transfer request, preferring to effectively go on strike rather than lose out on whatever they might be due in bonuses, wages etc. I'd say it's highly unlikely Porro would have wanted to trigger his release clause as early as 1 January, if at all.
But yes, it is more likely that we simply didn't want to pay upfront and we wanted to pay a lower fee than Sporting had set as the release. I don't have an issue with that. I'm glad that as a club we don't just go out handing over €40m or whatever in one lump sum - especially if that has other impacts.
And we don't really know the details of what was agreed in the end. Presumably the fee is made up of a fee + add-ons.

By all accounts Conte wanted a RWB this January and he identified Porro as his preferred target. So we got him. We paid more than we wanted to. But the club stuck with it to the bitter end, despite the best efforts of Sporting to scupper things, and got their man. You'd think that would be a good thing.

 

[Bishop]

Those are all fair/true observations, the issue some have is quite often that is just taken as a tool to drive a pre-defined narrative without context, that context ->

- European clubs simply don't have money post Covid, it makes getting rid of continental style players way more difficult now. Atleti basically had to dump Felix (a young player they paid >€125M for).
- Fans constantly shriek "back the manager", somehow Poch/Jose/whoever would have won everything if we simply backed the manager 5% more. Conte is the most backed managed ENIC has ever had, 11 players in 3 windows (only 1 summer window), ~£280M in committed spend, totally backed on squad choices (we are punting our youth strategy for him, we get rid of any player he doesn't want, we buy 33 year olds for him, we spend £60M on depth roles). Then complain the club is a shambles because we take a hit on a player the manager clearly doesn't want/rate

I really think to have a reasonable discussion you have to separate our strategy with/without DoF's and probably the people in those roles, e.g. currently with Paratici, pre-Paratici, Mitchell, Comolli, FA, etc.

Re Doherty, none of us will ever likely know the full details
- Probably clear Conte was never going to play him
- He's been a pro for us, never bitched
- He had about £5.8M of wages left on contract
- It was an opp for him as a player, perhaps last opp

I'd like to think we did the right thing for the player and we got some of that £5.8M back in the process.

People say back the manager because Poch wasn't. If we back Conte let's wait and see if those same people still criticise because at the moment it's a very strawman argument from you.

Sent from my XQ-BC72 using Fapatalk

 

[spurspinter1]

People say back the manager because Poch wasn't. If we back Conte let's wait and see if those same people still criticise because at the moment it's a very strawman argument from you.

Sent from my XQ-BC72 using Fapatalk

gonads, Poch was backed and bought GLC / N'dombele and Conte was backed in the summer with buys like Richarlison / Perisic / Bissouma (these players may work out in the long term but don't look great at present!)

Every Spurs manager has been backed but given our operating levels we have so be so so lucky to get anywhere with it, that's football.

 

[Bishop]

gonad*s, Poch was backed and bought GLC / N'dombele and Conte was backed in the summer with buys like Richarlison / Perisic / Bissouma (these players may work out in the long term but don't look great at present!)

Every Spurs manager has been backed but given our operating levels we have so be so so lucky to get anywhere with it, that's football.

Poch was not backed. You're talking nonsense, 3 windows without a signing. And previous windows with him not getting the players he wanted. fudging Sissoko instead of Gini, Nkoudo instead of Mane. That's not backing. He was in charge for 5 years and was backed for 1 window. A window after which due to the rationing of quality incomings over years the team was struggling and he was sacked. If that is the level that you consider backing then we disagree wholeheartedly.

Now Conte is being backed I do not disagree but to claim Poch was is a nonsense.

Sent from my XQ-BC72 using Fapatalk

 

[DubaiSpur]

Again, you don't know what we tried. It usually takes a lot before a player will hand in a transfer request, preferring to effectively go on strike rather than lose out on whatever they might be due in bonuses, wages etc. I'd say it's highly unlikely Porro would have wanted to trigger his release clause as early as 1 January, if at all.
But yes, it is more likely that we simply didn't want to pay upfront and we wanted to pay a lower fee than Sporting had set as the release. I don't have an issue with that. I'm glad that as a club we don't just go out handing over €40m or whatever in one lump sum - especially if that has other impacts.
And we don't really know the details of what was agreed in the end. Presumably the fee is made up of a fee + add-ons.

By all accounts Conte wanted a RWB this January and he identified Porro as his preferred target. So we got him. We paid more than we wanted to. But the club stuck with it to the bitter end, despite the best efforts of Sporting to scupper things, and got their man. You'd think that would be a good thing.

Well, we would have known had we tried to trigger his release clause, because as I understand it, they would have had to announce it. That they never did is an indication that we never tried.

As for handing out 40m in a lump sum, we had the liquidity for it - we had 50m still sitting around from that 'cash injection', as per Ali Gold. In terms of other impacts, it made no difference because we didn't use the fiscal space gained by not paying the lump sum on anything else - our only other transfer was a cheap loan.

Like I said, we got Porro in the end so it worked out, but it's symptomatic of the way we operate, and why we have failed at the death far too often - we spent 31 days trying to scrimp and shave pennies off the fee, and in the meantime, we are left to rue what might have been had we just had Porro for some of the many games we dropped points in, from City to Arse to Villa.

Clubs that care about on-field performance over scrimping and saving every possible penny don't let that happen, and it speaks to the mindset that holds us back, imo.

It looks like only new owners can change that - so one day soon, I dearly, dearly hope we get a Boehly of our own.

 

[spurspinter1]

Poch was not backed. You're talking nonsense, 3 windows without a signing. And previous windows with him not getting the players he wanted. fudging Sissoko instead of Gini, Nkoudo instead of Mane. That's not backing. He was in charge for 5 years and was backed for 1 window. A window after which due to the rationing of quality incomings over years the team was struggling and he was sacked. If that is the level that you consider backing then we disagree wholeheartedly.

Now Conte is being backed I do not disagree but to claim Poch was is a nonsense.

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I do feel like Sissoko over Gini was a choice on his (Poch's) part but Mane chose not to join us, so already this discussion is going to cover no new ground at all.

It's like discussing who is "world class" or if top 4 means more than trophies, what's the point? How about you settle right in to your comfort zone and disrespect Dawson during his time at the club if it'll bring comfort to you as a complete joke of a poster.

 

[Lilbaz]

I do think we should have paid the release clause in full, up front, because then the club would have had zero say in it. The reason Sporting kept dragging it out, demanding he play in the cup final, then demanding we pay the admin fee, then demanding we give up a share of Edwards, is because we didn' t do that.

Trigger it on Jan 1st, take them out of it.

As for if Porro wanted it or not, given how desperate he seemed to come here, I think he'd be fine with it, but I admit that is educated conjecture on my part. Point is, we didn't even try.

Heard so many stories about the release clause. Doesn't count in this window. Doesn't count in the last 12 days of the window. Has to be paid upfront...

 

[billyiddo]

Heard so many stories about the release clause. Doesn't count in this window. Doesn't count in the last 12 days of the window. Has to be paid upfront...

Just pick whichever scenario suits the narrative you want and run with it as fact.