OMT - Tottenham Hotspur vs Smoggies in FA Cup

[Bedfordspurs]

It's not exactly skewed, they knew for at least 6 months if not earlier that Coutinho intended on leaving and knew that he would be going for a big fee. In that time they then bought Salad, VVD and Ox for a combined net of £18m in comparison to the fee they then banked for Coutinho.

Liverpool having been running excellent transfer business for the last 5 years, if we look at the figures they have been able to achieve for fringe players it is frankly remarkable.

Could we have done the same? Well yes I think we could have done similar to a smaller extent. If we accept that cashflow was poor due to the stadium build then we could have sacrificed one of our stars and maximised a selling figure and reinvested that to keep the lifeblood of the squad fresh. We had players at the time that I believe would have been of interest to others and who were mainly system players who would be relatively replaceable.

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We got £10m for Onomah... that’s scary

it’s skewed because over a period you cab make any clubs deals look good or bad
We sold bale and that massively bumped our numbers up, same with Walkers few.
No one factors in a players cost when you sell only the nett effect in that period. It’s odd TBH

city are a classic imo. It’s not what they spend that’s scary, it’s what their happy to write off as losses which they have done plenty of. That’s the power of the £££

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Cannot believe that people don’t think we improved under Poch... stunned TBH
And yes we did waste money on transfers but that’s a gamble with every transfer. The key is have the successes compensated for the failures. I’d argue that they have as I watched us play the CL final 6 months ago and I also saw us fight for the title
Have the failures hurt us... possibly but the issue now isn’t the N dubs it’s players that we don’t want or ones that don’t want us not departing and that’s not going away

 

[elltrev]

The average is low under Poch because we bought 26 ( yes 26 ! ) players. It was quantity over quality. The real failure though is that so few kicked on. And only Winks out of our promising youth academy has established himself ( Tactics Tim introduced Kane to the first team).

Mate that just isn't true. Over the same period Liverpool have bought 35 players. So they bought more, and they also bought more expensive - including 10 who cost more than £20m (average £41.2m), vs 7 who cost more than £20m for Spurs (average £31.6m). Also, as others have mentioned, wages: between 14/15 and 17/18 we spent £476m on wages on total, whereas Liverpool spent £846m - not far off twice as much. (Data isn't available for last season yet).

It's true that some of our signing haven't worked out, but I think it's plain wrong to suggest that Liverpool have been operating under the same constraints as us.

Edit: And more broadly it's wrong not to recognise that we've been operating under even more massive constraints compared to the rest of the big 6 teams, who've spent far more money even than Liverpool.

 

[Pirate55]

Mate that just isn't true. Over the same period Liverpool have bought 35 players. So they bought more, and they also bought more expensive - including 10 who cost more than £20m (average £41.2m), vs 7 who cost more than £20m for Spurs (average £31.6m). Also, as others have mentioned, wages: between 14/15 and 17/18 we spent £476m on wages on total, whereas Liverpool spent £846m - not far off twice as much. (Data isn't available for last season yet).

It's true that some of our signing haven't worked out, but I think it's plain wrong to suggest that Liverpool have been operating under the same constraints as us.

Edit: And more broadly it's wrong not to recognise that we've been operating under even more massive constraints compared to the rest of the big 6 teams, who've spent far more money even than Liverpool.

I don't know where you get the figure of 35 players from - but no matter.. I also acknowledge that Liverpool have a much bigger wage bill and aren't working with the same constraints we were over the same period. Nor have I ( or anyone else as far as I can see) claimed we didn't improve under Poch. We did - and the quality of the football was at times dazzling.

However, that is not the point I am making. Poch vastly improved the first team. However, outside his small select circle, he failed to adequately build a squad. Most of our buys have been really disappointing, and only Winks has kicked on from our once admired academy. Poch's failure as a coach was not to develop young players other than our first team - and whoever was responsible for our recruitment is also culpable. I simply don't believe that Poch would have had no ( or little) say in our incomings. His shortcoming was not improving THOSE players. It meant over- reliance on our first X1 and inadequate cover for injuries, fatigue and suspensions. Hence, the position we now find ourselves in.

 

[AdamB]

Cannot believe that people don’t think we improved under Poch... stunned TBH

The way which I would look at it is that the footballing side of the club definitely improved under him, however its also regressed back over the last 12-18 months. You can debate whether you think that 25%, 50% or 75% of the progress which we had made between him joining and things peaking has since been given up - its clearly subjective but I think its clear that things have regressed when the peak point under Poch, but in my view they're clearly ahead of where things were when he arrived.

What has also changed is that the Poch era has increased expectations of fans, so perhaps the footballing side has improved, but expectations have increased more?

 

[elltrev]

I don't know where you get the figure of 35 players from - but no matter.. I also acknowledge that Liverpool have a much bigger wage bill and aren't working with the same constraints we were over the same period. Nor have I ( or anyone else as far as I can see) claimed we didn't improve under Poch. We did - and the quality of the football was at times dazzling.

However, that is not the point I am making. Poch vastly improved the first team. However, outside his small select circle, he failed to adequately build a squad. Most of our buys have been really disappointing, and only Winks has kicked on from our once admired academy. Poch's failure as a coach was not to develop young players other than our first team - and whoever was responsible for our recruitment is also culpable. I simply don't believe that Poch would have had no ( or little) say in our incomings. His shortcoming was not improving THOSE players. It meant over- reliance on our first X1 and inadequate cover for injuries, fatigue and suspensions. Hence, the position we now find ourselves in.

The 35 figure is from Transfer League, which also has a figure of 27 for Spurs.

If I try and break down your argument about the squad not being good enough into potential different points:

- Our recruitment hasn't been good enough: On the face of this, I can maybe agree to an extent. There certainly seem to have been a few stinkers (e.g. N'Jie, N'Koudou, Janssen, Sissoko, Aurier). But I think every club has a few stinkers, and that's why I think it's important to compare our spending to our rivals - the more you spend, the more you're able to get away with a few stinkers. I'm also genuinely not sure to what extent Poch should be blamed for poor recruitment - I just don't know enough about everyone's role - but at the very least I'd suggest that the scouts are more to blame than him.

- The coaching of senior squad players hasn't been good enough: I don't think I can agree with this. If I look at all the squad players who've never performed under Poch, none of them have given much evidence before or after their careers here that that was down to Poch. And on the other hand there are squad players who have performed to a decent level under Poch, especially in the first three years: Trippier, Davies, Sanchez, Dier, Winks, Moura etc.

- The coaching of youth players hasn't been good enough: I agree that we haven't had many youth players come through to be important squad players under Poch. But how many top 6 clubs can say that they have?! City have Foden, who barely plays. Liverpool have Trent AA. Chelsea are doing well with a few academy players at the moment, but I'd argue they're the exception. Arsenal and Utd aren't doing any better than us at the moment. I certainly don't think that our lack of good academy players in the squad can be seen as one of the main reasons we have fallen from grace over the last year or two!

Am interested to hear your thoughts!

 

[thfcsteff]

I am not saying Poch didn't improve our first team. Clearly he did. My point is that ( outside the first X1) he largely failed to improve the many players we bought or our bright academy prospects.

Levy's business model assumed we had a fantastic coach and if young prospects were bought he would improve them. Then we could either sell them on at a profit or they would be assets in our first team. Same with the academy. Sadly, it didn't happen.

Dele - not just improved but turned into international regular and 100 mil+ asset
Kane - improved beyond belief into massive international star and 150 mil + asset
Eriksen - improved vastly and turned into 150 mil asset (already international)
Tripper - improved vastly beyond his base level talent into international star (since receded and maxed out, sold on the cheap I suspect for a reason we will never fully know)
Skipp - developed from child into promising squad member with development still ongoing prior to Poch's departure
Winks - developed from a kid into International player
Dier - signed and developed into international star
Sissoko - miraculously reclaimed from the scrapheap after 14 of the worst months a player can ever have experienced at a club (arguably not his first choice signing)
Son - signed and developed into international star and 90 mil asset (my valuation I accept)


Dele, Dier, Son and Trippier were all bought for relatively small change. All developed into vital players under Poch. All received massive valuations. All were helping us achieve CL football. They were assets.

Kane, through the ranks, undoubtedly stratosphered under Poch. No need to sell as he was an asset.

Eriksen, not his signing but cheap cheap. Turned into a world star. We could not agree a deal with him two years ago, Levy held out for the absolute TOP number valuation, scaring everyone away.
Same with Toby with regards to valuation.

It is, IMO, irrefutable that Poch not only improved us beyond any belief, but he did it with a lot of young talent. it is why he asked for a more courageous turnover of players, because IF the model was as you say, and if the goalposts shifted due to the immense success of this unit (all that CL money no-one thought would come) then he was entitled to feel he would get not just heard, but the chance to build again.

Truth be told, I was blind last April/May/June. Poch must've got tired at being flat-batted and patronized for every request he had. I believe he would've left had we won the CL because he had probably figured out that Levy was not going to deliver n his specific requested way ever. Again - my blindness. That he stayed showed how much he loved the club and still held out unreasonable hope he could find a way to turn it around. Deep down it now appears he knew. As did Levy to be fair. The whole thing is tragic.

I sometimes wish we hadn't built the fudging stadium and had stayed at the Lane, because Poch's squad would've won the title the next season had we been at the Lane IMO...still, who knows eh?

 

[Bedfordspurs]

The way which I would look at it is that the footballing side of the club definitely improved under him, however its also regressed back over the last 12-18 months. You can debate whether you think that 25%, 50% or 75% of the progress which we had made between him joining and things peaking has since been given up - its clearly subjective but I think its clear that things have regressed when the peak point under Poch, but in my view they're clearly ahead of where things were when he arrived.

What has also changed is that the Poch era has increased expectations of fans, so perhaps the footballing side has improved, but expectations have increased more?

I don’t think we have regressed unless you look at the last 6 months. Despite playing poorly last season we still achieved CL which was a very very rare achievement prior to Poch
I agree massively that expectation has changed under Poch which comes form achievement and he has to get some credit for that as he grew with the club and team too

 

[thfcsteff]

The average is low under Poch because we bought 26 ( yes 26 ! ) players. It was quantity over quality. The real failure though is that so few kicked on. And only Winks out of our promising youth academy has established himself ( Tactics Tim introduced Kane to the first team).

But he did not develop him whatsoever.

 

[thfcsteff]

THIS! Very good post!

To be clear. I appreciate what Finney is saying re: Aurier, as it pans out with Mourinho basically sacrificing defending for attacking as that is where our strength lies (lay?)...I further (obviously) understand that he has not been asked to be a stay-at-home FB more than a wing-back. I think that is obvious to all. MY issue is that Aurier's attacking productivity does not -IMO- mitigate his enormous defensive deficiencies, his lack of positional awareness (NO manager anywhere would coach a player to take the angles he does defensively, especially when caught upfield and recovering - when he recovers!) and as I just hinted, his poor recovery skills. It's funny. Walker got away with poor positional play whilst with his thanks to his speed and absolute determination. Guardiola coached him into better defensive shape at just the right time in his career, and I suspect it was another reason Poch was happy to sell him (personal issues not withstanding) and develop Tripper to be more attacking as he was a better defender when he came in.

I think Aurier comes down to opinion. I think he is a liability we cannot afford to entertain. Mourinho, and you and Finney, obviously disagree. If he plays Saturday, he will get my support as every starting player does. I still don't think he should be out there.

 

[parklane1]

Could we have done the same? Well yes I think we could have done similar to a smaller extent. If we accept that cashflow was poor due to the stadium build then we could have sacrificed one of our stars and maximised a selling figure and reinvested that to keep the lifeblood of the squad fresh. We had players at the time that I believe would have been of interest to others and who were mainly system players who would be relatively replaceable.

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Not saying we could not have done that, however if we had sold one of out star players then you know as well as i do there will be fans screaming about " same old Spurs always selling our best players"

The truth is that no matter what/which way we go there will always be fans who moan about what we (Levy) does.

 

[afsoc4life]

I think we suffered from Ugo's passing away as well.

 

[billyiddo]

I think we suffered from Ugo's passing away as well.

You know i was thinking that may well be true for the youth players at the club during his time here

 

[Bishop]

Not saying we could not have done that, however if we had sold one of out star players then you know as well as i do there will be fans screaming about " same old Spurs always selling our best players"

The truth is that no matter what/which way we go there will always be fans who moan about what we (Levy) does.

It doesn't really matter if the fans complain, if the right course of action was taken.

If you look at the Liverpool example once again, the fans weren't happy to sell Coutinho. The vast majority wanted him to stay at any cost yet they sold him, replaced his importance to the team and improved in his absence.

That's takes brave and insightful leadership. Liverpool have that, sadly I don't think we can say the same about us. We often spot the players but are too cautious to take that step, instead we want to wait until the player's quality is confirmed at which point it is too late to buy them, especially from fellow revenue high Premier League teams.

The annoying thing for me is the times we are brave are the times when we do best, ie. Modric, Berbatov, Dele, Bale etc etc.

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[elltrev]

It doesn't really matter if the fans complain, if the right course of action was taken.

If you look at the Liverpool example once again, the fans weren't happy to sell Coutinho. The vast majority wanted him to stay at any cost yet they sold him, replaced his importance to the team and improved in his absence.

That's takes brave and insightful leadership. Liverpool have that, sadly I don't think we can say the same about us. We often spot the players but are too cautious to take that step, instead we want to wait until the player's quality is confirmed at which point it is too late to buy them, especially from fellow revenue high Premier League teams.

The annoying thing for me is the times we are brave are the times when we do best, ie. Modric, Berbatov, Dele, Bale etc etc.

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I don't think selling Bale and replacing him with the 7 players we did was good business, or the reason for our subsequent period of success...

 

[billyiddo]

I don't think selling Bale and replacing him with the 7 players we did was good business, or the reason for our subsequent period of success...

When we sold Bale the squad needed quite a bit of work iirc so the money had to spread around a bit more than say if we had sold Eriksen a year or two back and bought 2 or 3

 

[Bishop]

I don't think selling Bale and replacing him with the 7 players we did was good business, or the reason for our subsequent period of success...

Literally everything we have done in creative terms has been on the back of Eriksen, he has been our sole truly creative player for seven years, to say our relative improvement was not on the back of that summer at all would be a little disingenuous.

We didn't buy that badly in retrospect, Eriksen and Lamela are still with us. Chadli was good while he was here just replaced with the better player in Son. Capoue shouldn't have been sold and the young Chirches has gone on to have a decent career. The only outright failures were Soldadao and to a lesser extent Paulinho.

Our issues then we're as billyiddo stated the squad was very much in the same state it is now and needed a complete rejuvenation. We also had an inexperienced coach who wasn't the right choice for the job but who also didn't get all the players he actually wanted again that's a bit different from the Liverpool scenario.

But let's say I even agree that it went horribly the first time does that mean we don't try again and better? You learn from your mistakes and you improve the process, you don't run away and stick your head in the sand. That's where the brave leadership comes in.

"To dare is to do" and all of that.

When we sold Bale the squad needed quite a bit of work iirc so the money had to spread around a bit more than say if we had sold Eriksen a year or two back and bought 2 or 3

Massive amounts of work.

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[parklane1]

It doesn't really matter if the fans complain, if the right course of action was taken.


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The point i was trying to make is no matter what the club( Levy) do there are always fans who complain. ie they will always disagree on what is/is not the right course of action to take.

 

[Pirate55]

The 35 figure is from Transfer League, which also has a figure of 27 for Spurs.

If I try and break down your argument about the squad not being good enough into potential different points:

- Our recruitment hasn't been good enough: On the face of this, I can maybe agree to an extent. There certainly seem to have been a few stinkers (e.g. N'Jie, N'Koudou, Janssen, Sissoko, Aurier). But I think every club has a few stinkers, and that's why I think it's important to compare our spending to our rivals - the more you spend, the more you're able to get away with a few stinkers. I'm also genuinely not sure to what extent Poch should be blamed for poor recruitment - I just don't know enough about everyone's role - but at the very least I'd suggest that the scouts are more to blame than him.

- The coaching of senior squad players hasn't been good enough: I don't think I can agree with this. If I look at all the squad players who've never performed under Poch, none of them have given much evidence before or after their careers here that that was down to Poch. And on the other hand there are squad players who have performed to a decent level under Poch, especially in the first three years: Trippier, Davies, Sanchez, Dier, Winks, Moura etc.

- The coaching of youth players hasn't been good enough: I agree that we haven't had many youth players come through to be important squad players under Poch. But how many top 6 clubs can say that they have?! City have Foden, who barely plays. Liverpool have Trent AA. Chelsea are doing well with a few academy players at the moment, but I'd argue they're the exception. Arsenal and Utd aren't doing any better than us at the moment. I certainly don't think that our lack of good academy players in the squad can be seen as one of the main reasons we have fallen from grace over the last year or two!

Am interested to hear your thoughts!

An interesting forensic analysis of the key points I am putting forward for discussion. At least you have bothered to read and understand my points. ( unlike some who go into some diatribe about me saying Poch didn't improve the first XI - which of course I did not!) . Adreesing each of the three areas in turn:

Recruitment: this has been an abject failure imo. Only Son has really improved our established First XI. When we were at our zenith, the team virtually picked itself with only rotation of full backs, a choice between Dier or Wanyama and the discussion at that time of whether Son was better than Lamela! The team was:

Lloris

Walker(Trips)
Toby
Verts
Rose (Davies)

Dembele
Wanyama/Dier

Son/Lamela
Eriksen
Dele

Kane

Our recruitment showed two areas most of us were alarmed at the lack of cover. A viable alternative to Eriksen and Kane. Our strange insistence on buying unproven wingers ( the N'twins, Sess, Clarke etc) which really didn't fit in with Poch's preferred style of play. Even those we spent ( relatively ) big money on were underwhelming - Sanchez, Sissoko, Moura, Aurier . And, while early days, our latest recruits, haven't exactly hit the ground running ( to be polite to them!)

While I agree this is principally the scouts problem, I don't think you can entirely absolve Poch from this area. During our transfer drought, he was quoted as saying something like, 'there is no point in buying players if the aren't better than the ones we have'. Furthermore, our recruitment of three Argentinians under him ( i.e. Gazza, Foyth and LoCelso) inclines me to believe he had a distinct influence on who we bought. No one outside the club knows for sure, and it is all speculation, but given Levy's close relationship with Poch ( until the final days) , I choose to believe Poch's fingerprints were all over our recruitment policy. I would suggest that others who think he didn't have any say are being naive.

Coaching of squad players: The key point you make is that some squad players were good "in the first three years". Coming into a settled side at the top of their game, doesn't surprise me that they looked 'decent' . However, when asked to make the final step up to regular first teamers, they have all almost universally failed. Dier and Sanchez have regressed alarmingly, Davies is, and always was, a limited attacking full back, Moura is inconsistent, Aurier is awful at defending, Winks has not consolidated his opportunities ( and I don't think anyone would have him as first choice when everyone is fit). By all accounts, Trippier and Edwards have found form away from us.

Youth players: I haven't studied other teams youth players in depth, but haven't TAA, Gomes and Origi all progressed from Liverpools youth team? Origi in particular, has made important contributions in key games. TAA and Gomes have established themselves as key members of the Liverpool team - even though they have bought many expensive players ( as you point out!). Seeing Liverpool's youth side beat a full Everton first team in the FA cup last week, surely you would have been impressed with their talent coming through?

At one time, everyone seemed to speak really highly of our youth prospects, but only Kane and Winks have emerged with any credit. Poch seemed reluctant to use Edwards, Onyama, Skipp, Pritchard, CCV, KWP. He never gave any of them a decent run in the side to assess their potential properly. He seemed to switch between keeping youth players as just squad members to make up the numbers , to sending them out on loan. Why we bought Clarke and loaned him back to Leeds, who then barely played him, is mystifying.

Anyway , all mainly speculation on my part, but I think interesting discussion points nevertheless.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

An interesting forensic analysis of the key points I am putting forward for discussion. At least you have bothered to read and understand my points. ( unlike some who go into some diatribe about me saying Poch didn't improve the first XI - which of course I did not!) . Adreesing each of the three areas in turn:

Recruitment: this has been an abject failure imo. Only Son has really improved our established First XI. When we were at our zenith, the team virtually picked itself with only rotation of full backs, a choice between Dier or Wanyama and the discussion at that time of whether Son was better than Lamela! The team was:

Lloris

Walker(Trips)
Toby
Verts
Rose (Davies)

Dembele
Wanyama/Dier

Son/Lamela
Eriksen
Dele

Kane

Our recruitment showed two areas most of us were alarmed at the lack of cover. A viable alternative to Eriksen and Kane. Our strange insistence on buying unproven wingers ( the N'twins, Sess, Clarke etc) which really didn't fit in with Poch's preferred style of play. Even those we spent ( relatively ) big money on were underwhelming - Sanchez, Sissoko, Moura, Aurier . And, while early days, our latest recruits, haven't exactly hit the ground running ( to be polite to them!)

While I agree this is principally the scouts problem, I don't think you can entirely absolve Poch from this area. During our transfer drought, he was quoted as saying something like, 'there is no point in buying players if the aren't better than the ones we have'. Furthermore, our recruitment of three Argentinians under him ( i.e. Gazza, Foyth and LoCelso) inclines me to believe he had a distinct influence on who we bought. No one outside the club knows for sure, and it is all speculation, but given Levy's close relationship with Poch ( until the final days) , I choose to believe Poch's fingerprints were all over our recruitment policy. I would suggest that others who think he didn't have any say are being naive.

Coaching of squad players: The key point you make is that some squad players were good "in the first three years". Coming into a settled side at the top of their game, doesn't surprise me that they looked 'decent' . However, when asked to make the final step up to regular first teamers, they have all almost universally failed. Dier and Sanchez have regressed alarmingly, Davies is, and always was, a limited attacking full back, Moura is inconsistent, Aurier is awful at defending, Winks has not consolidated his opportunities ( and I don't think anyone would have him as first choice when everyone is fit). By all accounts, Trippier and Edwards have found form away from us.

Youth players: I haven't studied other teams youth players in depth, but haven't TAA, Gomes and Origi all progressed from Liverpools youth team? Origi in particular, has made important contributions in key games. TAA and Gomes have established themselves as key members of the Liverpool team - even though they have bought many expensive players ( as you point out!). Seeing Liverpool's youth side beat a full Everton first team in the FA cup last week, surely you would have been impressed with their talent coming through?

At one time, everyone seemed to speak really highly of our youth prospects, but only Kane and Winks have emerged with any credit. Poch seemed reluctant to use Edwards, Onyama, Skipp, Pritchard, CCV, KWP. He never gave any of them a decent run in the side to assess their potential properly. He seemed to switch between keeping youth players as just squad members to make up the numbers , to sending them out on loan. Why we bought Clarke and loaned him back to Leeds, who then barely played him, is mystifying.

Anyway , all mainly speculation on my part, but I think interesting discussion points nevertheless.

Pool brought Origi and Gomes.
They youth team also has been poor until last season when they won the youth cup
Let’s judge that when a few are playing first team. I genuinely believe clubs don’t have room anymore to gamble on their youth unless the player is genuinely exceptional due to the expectations