Vinai Venkatesham - CEO

[Lilbaz]

For me it's not spending more it's just spending it more smart. Our big money £45m + rarely seem to work out.

 

[Dicko]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but at Arsenal he also got a lot of credit for investing in the women's side too. I wonder if we will see some improvements there.

 

[SirPercyHotspur]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but at Arsenal he also got a lot of credit for investing in the women's side too. I wonder if we will see some improvements there.

Reckon Spurs already investing heavily in the women with all the plans for Whitewebbs. Vinny just needs to find a manager who can make the most of the players he/she has available and doesn't persist in a style of play that our women were just not capable off like the last one did in continually trying to play out from the back with players who don't have that ability .

 

[markysimmo]

For me it's not spending more it's just spending it more smart. Our big money £45m + rarely seem to work out.

I agree, we've always spent money just 90% of the money spent has been spent badly

 

[Raziel]

I agree, we've always spent money just 90% of the money spent has been spent badly

For me it's not spending more it's just spending it more smart. Our big money £45m + rarely seem to work out.

Depends on era (why it's hard to judge)

Last 3 years (little oddity on timing of some due to loan to buy) -> Danso, Kinsky, Tel (loan), Solanke, Gray, Wilson, Bergvall, Yang, Johnson, Maddison, VDV, Porro, Deki, Dragusin, Vicario, Veliz, Phillips, Solomon, Werner (loan), Richarlison, Romero, Bissouma, Spence, Udogie, Forster, Perisic, Lenglet (loan), Danjuma (loan)

At a top level, that is 28 transfers, 17 of them are regulars in current first team squad, 3 have been out on loan (getting games)
Two of them -> Perisic (injury stopped that from being a great transfer) and Forster played bit parts
Three of the "failures" -> Werner, Lenglet, Danjuma cost nothing but wages and two of those were moved on pretty quickly.

So if you wanted to be super critical, outside of loan deals, Veliz was a flop, jury out on Dragusin, Richi/Solanke probably didn't live up to expectations, Richi killed by injuries, Solanke did ok, still chance for redemption. Hardly a list of disasters and I'd argue the success rate is probably as high as it's ever been.

The big issue is we had to replace so many players, some were always going to be squad players, and the emphasis on youth meant impact would take longer to judge.

What our new CEO has to do is ensure these players, plus future players don't need to be swapped out just because we change the manager (we can't afford that churn), and that we now become much more precise on first 11 upgrades vs. just squad building.

 

[Pandy]

It's so fudging tiresome, just like the media with "if Levy would loosen the purse strings for this manager or that"

23+ fudging years of data, if the money is there, we will spend it.

Difference being that every other club spends to the PSR limit, i.e. £35m per season beyond the money that is 'there'. So we are effectively at at £35m annual handicap.

Not including Chelsea of course who just sell things to themselves to increase the ceiling by tens of millions.

 

[SirPercyHotspur]

I'm not quite sure how many times this needs to be said. We will spend more if we have more, otherwise where is this 'more' coming from. An outside investor is the only other avenue.

There will be some extra money available mainly due to Europa League run whichwill be partly offset by lower PL prize money , next seasons guaranteed CL prize money which can be budgeted in plus I think it's 19 concerts this summer and the usual NFL etc. This is an income that many other clubs do not have. In the last accounts other revenue derived from non football events , stadium tours, membership money etc totalled £64 million up from £55.4 million the previous year.
The club makes a profit but they show a loss in the accounts from what I read that is mostly down to depreciation on the stadium, so there would appear to be room to spend.
We will find out what direction we are going in when the first transfer targets are revealed , we bring in a high profile CEO who is used to spending and put him straight onto the board of directors more significantly what is Charrington doing on the board, is he there to tighten the purse strings or allow the club to be more adventurous.
Find out when the transfer window opens properly.

 

[Raziel]

Difference being that every other club spends to the PSR limit, i.e. £35m per season beyond the money that is 'there'. So we are effectively at at £35m annual handicap.

Not including Chelsea of course who just sell things to themselves to increase the ceiling by tens of millions.

Cash flow mate

We will never have PSR issues, nor will we hit PSR limits because we run the business in exactly the way PSR is trying to enforce (do not spend more than you earn)

We have a high revenue stream, and low wages, but we spend pretty much all of it, so there is nothing more to spend outside of external investment injection, which Levy does not have the personal fortune to do, and Lewis/ENIC have never shown interest in doing.

fudging Chelsea & City just cheat ..

 

[Lilbaz]

Depends on era (why it's hard to judge)

Last 3 years (little oddity on timing of some due to loan to buy) -> Danso, Kinsky, Tel (loan), Solanke, Gray, Wilson, Bergvall, Yang, Johnson, Maddison, VDV, Porro, Deki, Dragusin, Vicario, Veliz, Phillips, Solomon, Werner (loan), Richarlison, Romero, Bissouma, Spence, Udogie, Forster, Perisic, Lenglet (loan), Danjuma (loan)

At a top level, that is 28 transfers, 17 of them are regulars in current first team squad, 3 have been out on loan (getting games)
Two of them -> Perisic (injury stopped that from being a great transfer) and Forster played bit parts
Three of the "failures" -> Werner, Lenglet, Danjuma cost nothing but wages and two of those were moved on pretty quickly.

So if you wanted to be super critical, outside of loan deals, Veliz was a flop, jury out on Dragusin, Richi/Solanke probably didn't live up to expectations, Richi killed by injuries, Solanke did ok, still chance for redemption. Hardly a list of disasters and I'd argue the success rate is probably as high as it's ever been.

The big issue is we had to replace so many players, some were always going to be squad players, and the emphasis on youth meant impact would take longer to judge.

What our new CEO has to do is ensure these players, plus future players don't need to be swapped out just because we change the manager (we can't afford that churn), and that we now become much more precise on first 11 upgrades vs. just squad building.

You didn't bold the last bit when quoting me. I said the £45m+ players rarely seem to work out.

 

[Raziel]

You didn't bold the last bit when quoting me. I said the £45m+ players rarely seem to work out.

- Solanke (ok), Ndombele (disaster), Richarlison (miss but not disaster), Johnson (success regardless of opinions), VDV (success), Romero (success), Sanchez (miss but not disaster), Gray (success), Porro (success), Maddison (ok verging on success)

So if you take by caveat of era (i.e. in last 3-4 years), really it's Richi. But I do get the point that we probably wanted one or two of those to really kick on.

 

[Lilbaz]

- Solanke (ok), Ndombele (disaster), Richarlison (miss but not disaster), Johnson (success regardless of opinions), VDV (success), Romero (success), Sanchez (miss but not disaster), Gray (success), Porro (success), Maddison (ok verging on success)

So if you take by caveat of era (i.e. in last 3-4 years), really it's Richi. But I do get the point that we probably wanted one or two of those to really kick on.

How many of those players have increased in value? Romero. (vdv was not £45m).

 

[Pandy]

Cash flow mate

We will never have PSR issues, nor will we hit PSR limits because we run the business in exactly the way PSR is trying to enforce (do not spend more than you earn)

We have a high revenue stream, and low wages, but we spend pretty much all of it, so there is nothing more to spend outside of external investment injection, which Levy does not have the personal fortune to do, and Lewis/ENIC have never shown interest in doing.

fudging Chelsea & City just cheat ..

Well yes of course, but it isn't just City and Chelsea. Forest, Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Arsenal, United, they all spend beyond their means to maximise outlay within PSR restrictions.

Whether the ownership can do it or not, it's what all of our competitors do, which is why the media asks why Levy doesn't 'loosen the purse strings,' even if the purse is in fact empty.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Well yes of course, but it isn't just City and Chelsea. Forest, Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Arsenal, United, they all spend beyond their means to maximise outlay within PSR restrictions.

Whether the ownership can do it or not, it's what all of our competitors do, which is why the media asks why Levy doesn't 'loosen the purse strings,' even if the purse is in fact empty.

Many of those clubs don't have anywhere near the income we do. So less income in the equation equates to less spending required to push up to your PSR limits.
Furthermore, we can spend all we can and be running quite a large loss but then have a stadium depreciation cost/loss (currently circa £70-75m pa I believe) to deduct from those losses...hence giving us the headroom, but not the cash to make use of it.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Many of those clubs don't have anywhere near the income we do. So less income in the equation equates to less spending required to push up to your PSR limits.
Furthermore, we can spend all we can and be running quite a large loss but then have a stadium depreciation cost/loss (currently circa £70-75m pa I believe) to deduct from those losses...hence giving us the headroom, but not the cash to make use of it.

Cash is king
We have a huge transfer debt to pay
Those clubs mentioned above in the thread have sold players
Some even to Arab clubs for massively over inflated prices
We havent done that so far

 

[Pandy]

Many of those clubs don't have anywhere near the income we do. So less income in the equation equates to less spending required to push up to your PSR limits.
Furthermore, we can spend all we can and be running quite a large loss but then have a stadium depreciation cost/loss (currently circa £70-75m pa I believe) to deduct from those losses...hence giving us the headroom, but not the cash to make use of it.

Yes but they would be spending beyond their means at a higher level if they could was my point. I'm actually pretty pro Levy as far as things go but the reality is that we need a benefactor of some sort to dump in cash to compete as aggressively as other clubs do relative to their income.

Did not think about the stadium financing and impact on cashflow vs PSR - makes a lot of sense thank you (and perhaps what @Raziel was also getting at!)