Summer transfer thread, AvB window wrap up pg 1527

[Ganter]

apart from dodgy newspaper reports (from reporters that read forums and hang on twitter all day) and ITK blabber, there is NOTHING that suggests that Leandro Damaio could be a Spurs player.

I find it amazing that some people think we have signed him

 

[AdamB]

apart from dodgy newspaper reports (from reporters that read forums and hang on twitter all day) and ITK blabber, there is NOTHING that suggests that Leandro Damaio could be a Spurs player.

I find it amazing that some people think we have signed him

Agree - funny thing is that its been going on for 18-24 months

 

[ArcspacE]

Rossi, please confess the truth. GG needs to know

 

[PochettinoPochettinoPochettino]

I bet we arent even in for him. Spurs will never say when they are or when they not. That was Harry's job!!

 

[AdamB]

If you were being cycnical though and thought that we didnt have the cash or intention to sign players, the Leandro stories help given that its does give the impression that we're trying to sign people!!

My view is that we actually cash constrained because of the stadium and Levy is trying to say, sign 3 players when we only have the cash for 2 players

It does puzzle me though why we signed Sigurdsson if we are cash strapped given he plays in a position which was low priority for reinforcement

 

[Ganter]

If you were being cycnical though and thought that we didnt have the cash or intention to sign players, the Leandro stories help given that its does give the impression that we're trying to sign people!!

My view is that we actually cash constrained because of the stadium and Levy is trying to say, sign 3 players when we only have the cash for 2 players

It does puzzle me though why we signed Sigurdsson if we are cash strapped given he plays in a position which was low priority for reinforcement

I think we have NOTHING untill we sell Modric and the whole reason why Ade has been dragging along is that we have been trying to do it as cheap as possible

 

[Ginola99]

No signing? you not read the tweet from Gards44 then? more fool you.

@Gards44 is going out with David Bentley's sister isnt he? Does that make him ITK?

 

[Rossi22]

Rossi, please confess the truth. GG needs to know

You want the truth?

 

[AdamB]

I think we have NOTHING untill we sell Modric and the whole reason why Ade has been dragging along is that we have been trying to do it as cheap as possible

Personally I think the Modric and Ade deals are quite separate. My view is that the Ade deals has been dragging on as we/ManC/Ade (delete as appropriate) havent been able to agree on the terms. I would have expected and still do expect this deal to ahead regardless of what happens

I do think however that the Modric deal is delaying any other deal, whether thats MVila, Moutinho, Leandro, Lloris or whoever else - I cant see Levy committing to any of those deals without clarity on Modric

Am therefore expecting are net spend between now and Aug 31 to be £5m max (ie the Ade fee with other signings not exceeding the Modric fee)

 

[africanspurs]

no I didnt argggggghh!!! who is it?! Blue and yellow?!!!

thought you were going to stay away from this place
lol

 

[thfcsteff]

Really like the depth and thought behind your posts mate, hope you don't mind me joining in to debate a few of them...I'll bold-face my responses to help with the reading flow...

You've just again totally speculated where AVB is concerned. You have know idea at all of his role in player recruitment at his previous clubs. You've then listed a number of players signed by Cheslea, who cost them more money than we could afford to spend on youth recruitment, who are thus far yet to demonstrate they are good signings.

I think it's fair to speculate that AVB was brought into Chelski with a mandate to quickly, and efficiently (!!!!!) turn the staff around from reliance on the old guard to a new younger and more attractive squad. It's what Abramovich hoped Arnesen would do when he inched him, not knowing that Arnesen's method largely relied upon dazzling personal skills, signing a whole crop of promising youngsters and seeing which ones stuck/made it.

Harry didn't hear about Sandro in the newspapers. You haven't read that anywhere, unless Gutterboy made it up and posted it here. Broomfield, Harry's chief scout and thus very much part of our scouting network, was the guy Harry credited.

Graham Carr, now Saudi Sportswashing Machine's chief scout, was once ours. Twice. Harry let him go in 2010 to get in Ian Broomfield; that in and of itself is worthy of a whole other debate...but anyway, the fact is that Harry hadn't paid much attention to Sandro and had, as you said, relied on Broomfield's recommendation. Solely. I think to deny that Harry prefers to work with a certain set of agents would be foolish. He has his friends, and by and large, that's who he relies on. I'm sure the same can be said for a few other managers such as Allardyce.

You say there is value outside the UK, which is obvious. However, you seem to think this means AVB will improve players recruitment. I'll demonstrate, why this is a classic example of unfair and unrealistic expectation:

You aren't happy with our transfer market activity under Harry and think AVB can take us forward in this department. Arsene Wenger is famous for his world wide scouting and transfer market brilliance. So to see how realistic your expectations are, lets have a look at the players signed by Wenger during Harry's reign, to see how far lagging behind the best in the business we were under and Harry and see how easy it is to be better than Harry. Of course it should be noted than Arsenal are a bigger, more prestigious club, who pay more and have always had CL football. But we'll ignore these huge advantages.

Andrei Arshavin - was 27 at the time, cost a lot and is considered a flop
Mikel Sylvestre- cost £750,000 hardly kicked a ball and was crap
Sol Campbell - free, short term, no harm done, but hardly inspired and would be seen as a "typical Harry" signing.
Thomas Vermaelen - Good signing, the sort you are hoping for.
Seabastian Squillaci - was 30, cost £4 million and was brick.
Koscielny - Good signing, the type you want to see
Per Mertesacker - Average signing at best and bit of a waste of money.
Arteta - Would be seen as a typical Harry
Santos - £6 million and pretty poor
Park - £3 million and poor
Alex Ox - Good, but expensive and everyone wanted him.
Gervinho - Expensive and disappointed in general.
Henry - Typical Harry.

So the guy with the best reputation in the Prem, didn't exactly set the world a light with his signings during Harry's reign. Most of his foreign buys weren't really all that great at all and only Koscielny and Vermaelen were successes. I don't think it's biased to say that during Harry's time at the club the players we bought, helped us make much greater strides than Arsenal.

It is a fair point in some senses and a bunk point in others (as these things tend to be). I think what's as salient is to discuss the levels of responsibility each manager took during their respective eras. Whereas Wenger never came out and said anything about the Arse finances/lack of money for players, Harry didn't ever waste an opportunity! I think Harry made some brave and brilliant signings, most notably bringing Keane back when we had absolutely no rudder whatsoever, bringing Crouch in, bringing Parker in and signing Walker (a great signing for sure). But it would be foolish to ignore the parameters; Crouch was someone he'd bought before, Keane was someone the chairman had been good friends with and someone who still had friends in the dressing room, and Parker was his son's best mate. Again, all managers rely on friends and old ties to a degree, of course they do, and again, I think a couple of the safe signings there were excellent. But if it went wrong/when it wrong, we would always hear a complaint about 'money' and 'wages' and what have you.



However, instead of focusing on the fact our safety first (ie Prem proven) strategy proved superior to that of the great Arsene Wengers,

Sorry, the bottom line is that we still have not finished above Arsenal since 1995. So that's not especially true IMHO.


many of our fans see it as a reason to criticize and expect AVB to improve on it. It just goes to show that expectations are unrealistic. This is further enhanced by the fact you make a comparison with money bags Cheslea! How are we supposed to be able to throw money at young foreign talent like that? It's even unfair to compare with Arsenal as they can afford to invest far more in scouting and recruitment. Our fans compare with ideals and not with reality. If Wenger can't do it, then don't expect AVB, who as far as we know has very little experience with player recruitment and developing scouting networks. Part of the reason we progressed well under Harry was his ability to make the changes to the team he felt necessary and with players he knew could handle this league. Our fans might have hated it, but it needs to be acknowledged that it was an effective way for us to move forward and to develop a more effective player recruitment policy will be very challenging for AVB, given the constraints he'll have as Spurs coach.


The basic problem was that what Harry wanted to do transfer-wise versus what Levy thought was best, were at odds. Harry has always been able/had funds to make one or two big signings (the fact he hasn't would be something worth asking him about), but if you look at his transfer record over the years, he rarely, rarely takes an expensive punt on a player. He prefers to either stick with home grown talent or get fed young prospects from overseas via his network.


Be honest, had you even thought of it like that? I say fans compare with ideals and not reality and I think that's very true. It's the same with the whole tactics argument, which falls flat on its ass when you start comparing Harry with other managers, instead of some un-testable ideal fans have. Arsenal-mania is awash with fans who are sure of Wengers utter tactical incompetence. Yet I wonder how tactically incompetent both Harry and Wenger would look with the budget Mancinni has!

I genuinely, genuinely believe that Harry could've been an SAF figure (which is actually what makes that whole situation even sadder/more frustrating). When he wanted to, he had the gift of the gab. And when he concentrated fully on the task at hand, he was pretty good. The problem was, IMHO, that Harry never ever loved his job enough to simply do it. He wanted more, always. He was always looking to see how much further his own legend and rep could be enhanced/supplemented. And I firmly believe that if he could've rid himself of those demons, he's have absolutely been one of our finest ever managers. His other great weakness, was not preparing properly in the business end of the season. Smart work-outs, smart conditioning training and smart fitness maintenance; it simply didn't figure, along with a lack of rotation the last two seasons.

Your final question about Mancini's budget is prudent. Neither Wenger or Harry are particularly known for big money signings as both are known to like to be "safe" on such matters i.e. not get stuck marshaling reputation over a multi-million pound flop. Let's be honest; Mancini very nearly blew it last season because there were too many big names!

It's too early to say what AVB's policy is. I know one thing; he wants a tight-knit squad who will work together and work for him. I suspect this will mean he won't be afraid of a big name signing so long as they know who's boss! I doubt we will ever see a player like Kaka at the Lane under him, but someone like Moutinho (who is a big name but also somewhat of an acolyte), absolutely! I'd guess that the reason we've been a bit slow in the market is partially Levy's prevaricating (some very interesting stories about Damiao which basically suggest had we not buggered about with small print prior to the Olympics, he'd be ours now) but also (in Ade's case) partially AVB wanting to be sure he has players who will be good for the squad unity. We shall see of course.

Great debate, hope it doesn't re-ignite some old arguments, but I think its worth taking a chance because your discussion-points were excellent.
Look forward to another discussion, but if this post gets perceived/used as a re-ignition point, I'll delete it for the good of everyone.

 

[Rorschach]

Personally I think the Modric and Ade deals are quite separate. My view is that the Ade deals has been dragging on as we/ManC/Ade (delete as appropriate) havent been able to agree on the terms. I would have expected and still do expect this deal to ahead regardless of what happens

I do think however that the Modric deal is delaying any other deal, whether thats MVila, Moutinho, Leandro, Lloris or whoever else - I cant see Levy committing to any of those deals without clarity on Modric

Am therefore expecting are net spend between now and Aug 31 to be £5m max (ie the Ade fee with other signings not exceeding the Modric fee)

I think the Ade deal will be announced soon. Hopefully in time for Saudi Sportswashing Machine but probably not. I'm not too worried about this one. I feel it will happen at some point.

I would be surprised if the Modric deal is holding everything else up though, except maybe deals to replace Modric himself. The fact that some players/agents are turning down bids from Spurs, and saying so in the media, leads me to believe that there is plenty of activity in the background. And there's probably more stuff going on that we'll never hear about.

There is no pot of gold that Levy dips into. Deals are complicated structured agreements with some money up front, instalments, add ons, blah blah and Levy will pay for the right players if they meet his (rather stringent) criteria.

 

[SUIYHA]

What I don't get is that there's been a big media campaign about how Madrid want Modric and how greedy little Spurs are asking for too much money for him and that we should lower our demands so that we can reach the inevitable, whereas when we went to Porto to enquire about Moutinho they said they wanted over £30m for him and that's apparently reasonable?

Why should a player of similar age to Modric with no experience of playing in a major league be priced at the same amount? So why is nobody either having a go at Porto for charging ridiculous prices, or at least accepting that this is what the market is now and that you don't get a player like Modric for £20m when any decent replacement will cost more than that and you can only get a Jordan Henderson for that price.

 

[Kennyboy]

Because we are Tottenham... Simple as that.

 

[AdamB]

I think the Ade deal will be announced soon. Hopefully in time for Saudi Sportswashing Machine but probably not. I'm not too worried about this one. I feel it will happen at some point.

I would be surprised if the Modric deal is holding everything else up though, except maybe deals to replace Modric himself. The fact that some players/agents are turning down bids from Spurs, and saying so in the media, leads me to believe that there is plenty of activity in the background. And there's probably more stuff going on that we'll never hear about.

There is no pot of gold that Levy dips into. Deals are complicated structured agreements with some money up front, instalments, add ons, blah blah and Levy will pay for the right players if they meet his (rather stringent) criteria.

Precisely. And thats why I think the Modric deal is holding everything else up ie if we get the £30m - £40m in for Modric then Levy is prepared to buy M'Vila, Lloris etc. If we dont sell Modric then it drastically reduces what we'll be spending

 

[AdamB]

What I don't get is that there's been a big media campaign about how Madrid want Modric and how greedy little Spurs are asking for too much money for him and that we should lower our demands so that we can reach the inevitable, whereas when we went to Porto to enquire about Moutinho they said they wanted over £30m for him and that's apparently reasonable?

Why should a player of similar age to Modric with no experience of playing in a major league be priced at the same amount? So why is nobody either having a go at Porto for charging ridiculous prices, or at least accepting that this is what the market is now and that you don't get a player like Modric for £20m when any decent replacement will cost more than that and you can only get a Jordan Henderson for that price.

Its not 'because we are Tottenham' however the media, Uefa (esp Platini) would all love a European Super-League and would love to see the best players playing for Real, Barca, Milan etc

 

[Rorschach]

Precisely. And thats why I think the Modric deal is holding everything else up ie if we get the £30m - £40m in for Modric then Levy is prepared to buy M'Vila, Lloris etc. If we dont sell Modric then it drastically reduces what we'll be spending

Well my point was that in my opinion the Modric money will not open the flood gates. That money is more or less ear marked for Modric replacement, Moutinho I guess. There may be some spare but it won't significantly affect who else we will purchase.

Other player purchases will be funded based on their own merits. Levy will buy if it makes sense from a need for playing staff and financial perspective. Sometimes one overrides the other if the need is critical (like now with our strikers), but otherwise I imagine it is a complicated calculation based on return on investment.

 

[Spursalot]

Well my point was that in my opinion the Modric money will not open the flood gates. That money is more or less ear marked for Modric replacement, Moutinho I guess. There may be some spare but it won't significantly affect who else we will purchase.

Other player purchases will be funded based on their own merits. Levy will buy if it makes sense from a need for playing staff and financial perspective. Sometimes one overrides the other if the need is critical (like now with our strikers), but otherwise I imagine it is a complicated calculation based on return on investment.

This is the feeling that i have, though there is little proof for it. Though i feel other purchases may be a little dependant upon clearing some of the 'deadwood' players off the wage budget..

 

[clevelandspur]

The annoying thing is we have moved on Kranjcar, Pienaar and Corluka who could have still been useful squad players and are still left with Bentley, Jenas, Khumalo and Bassong. Not a very good window all around if you ask me.

 

[Spursalot]

The annoying thing is we have moved on Kranjcar, Pienaar and Corluka who could have still been useful squad players and are still left with Bentley, Jenas, Khumalo and Bassong. Not a very good window all around if you ask me.

He's gone out on loan.


Plus i doubt his wage packet is really breaking the bank..