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Daniel Levy - Chairman

billyiddo said:
United have a lot of work to do on their team/squad but getting their attack sorted first isn't the worst way of doing it - they offered no threat last season and teams knew their defense or GK would eventually cough up goals- at least with a potentially dangerous attack it means they have a chance to out-gun their opponents
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I get the logic but they have gambled on 3 players whereas in their position I think they could have spread the money better
Sesko gets injured and Hojljnd leaves as they want…. Who they playing striker… Harry Maguire again
Just smacks of buying names rather than a plan again which is why they are in this mess
 
Bedfordspurs said:
I get the logic but they have gambled on 3 players whereas in their position I think they could have spread the money better
Sesko gets injured and Hojljnd leaves as they want…. Who they playing striker… Harry Maguire again
Just smacks of buying names rather than a plan again which is why they are in this mess
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They've essentially bought a new front 3 - 2 players tried and tested in the league and a top prospect from abroad, I wouldn't say there is no plan there and if they have injuries then they revert to their previous first choice options, given where they were that's not a bad place to be - if we had bought any one of those 3 players we'd have been very happy with them - they are very good players that in other wondkws all could have been bought up top 4 teams. Spreading the budget across more players/position has just as many potential negatives- we've been doing that for the last GHod knows how long and hasn't been plain sailing. Do the same next summer for defence and it could work out
 
billyiddo said:
They've essentially bought a new front 3 - 2 players tried and tested in the league and a top prospect from abroad, I wouldn't say there is no plan there and if they have injuries then they revert to their previous first choice options, given where they were that's not a bad place to be - if we had bought any one of those 3 players we'd have been very happy with them - they are very good players that in other wondkws all could have been bought up top 4 teams. Spreading the budget across more players/position has just as many potential negatives- we've been doing that for the last GHod knows how long and hasn't been plain sailing. Do the same next summer for defence and it could work out
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Can they afford to keep on doing it
These guys are on the never never
They will still need a few more
Everyone will say it’s United but their income is much lower again this season with no Europe and they still carry huge wage bill and the second largest (maybe the largest) debt on transfers
I think they would have even better getting more talent and less names
And I don’t know who
at thw end of the window they will also (if their plan works) have loaned out or sold their back up players
It’s why cunha started as striker
Unless they buy more in those areas
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Poch turned down players
That’s been made quite clear by a lot of people at the club
And it may have been the right choice, impossible to know
Still say the biggest issue at the time was not changing or adding a new coach to the team
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Cool thanks.

I think our DoF was Hitchen, right? I know Levy is always the focus of anything negative but we’re people asking wtf was our DoF doing at the time? Seems to me he wasn’t able to identify the right players. Was that the talk at the time?
 
RunTMC said:
Cool thanks.

I think our DoF was Hitchen, right? I know Levy is always the focus of anything negative but we’re people asking wtf was our DoF doing at the time? Seems to me he wasn’t able to identify the right players. Was that the talk at the time?
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I assumed it was Poch saying that if we’re not going to buy definite upgrades on what we have, he’d rather keep using the players that were up to speed with his methods.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
I assumed it was Poch saying that if we’re not going to buy definite upgrades on what we have, he’d rather keep using the players that were up to speed with his methods.
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Seemed exactly that
But it was naive and highlighted that lack of experience Poch had as a manager (in retrospect)
There have been so many examples of players saying that new blood and new voices in the changing room are driving forces for players
 
billyiddo said:
United have a lot of work to do on their team/squad but getting their attack sorted first isn't the worst way of doing it - they offered no threat last season and teams knew their defense or GK would eventually cough up goals- at least with a potentially dangerous attack it means they have a chance to out-gun their opponents
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Most of it relies on the manager turning out alright....or not.

It has to come together in that sense...to get anywhere worthwhile
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
I think this messaging is SO dumb. It’s a really poor critique of ENIC, that is so easy for ENIC to combat.

Profit over glory just suggests that they are trying to siphon profits out of the club in order to line their pockets, results be damned. That isn’t what is happening, they ARE reinvesting profits. There’s a world in which they line their own pockets more and we’re a consistently bottom 5 team. But that just isn’t what is happening.

I think it’s really confused messaging and not smart. And not going to remotely lead to the outcome they want, or even really worry ENIC. It’s just rubbish. If you had a singular message that they are charging the highest ticket prices but not producing a title challenger, then fine. It’s at least kind of logical. But they aren’t even doing that.

I would always say the actual critique is them not being suited to get us to consistent title contention in the quickest possible timeframe, and other owners would be better for that. But they are great at raising our floor in terms of earnings, and allowing ourselves to spend our way back to being a top 6 club more often than not. So I say again, profit over glory is dumb as a tagline. It’s the wrong critique, and they aren’t going to achieve the outcome they want from it, or even get remotely near to affecting any sort of change. It’s all around crap.
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It may suggest that to you but doesn't necessarily mean that at all. If THFC were consistently a bottom 5 team then the value of the asset would be far lower than it is today. Lewis and Levy have turned a total investment of about £100m into a net worth of around £3b. Their profit is in the value of the asset. Some owners invest some of that increased asset value back into the clubs they own with liquidity injections. Our owners haven't done much of that at all.

Could the club have had more glory if the owners had invested some of their asset value increase back into the club as liquidity and/or diluted their ownership for a liquidity injection? I suspect so. I think it depends on whether owners are in it for the prestige and glory of owning a winning team or in it to maximise their net worth as much as possible. In the premier league we have, and have had, owners right across the spectrum there. I think our owners sit nearer to the 'net worth' end of the scale to the 'owning a winning team' end of the scale, especially our primary owner - Joe Lewis or, as it now is, the trust he has moved his shares into.
 
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Gazza Dazzla said:
I think not having a proper DoF at the time was a big issue as well. If we’d had a Paratici back then just flipping a few players for a zero net spend it would have all helped.
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Indeed. We had a period where we were terribly run from our academy structure all the way up to our first team. Things had been stripped to the bone. We had a very good first team coach and pretty much nothing else. We're only just starting to come out of that period now, after massive help from Paratici (who by some accounts couldn't believe a premier league club could have such a terrible structure in place).
 
SirPercyHotspur said:
Watched our bit on MOTD for the Burnley game, even Jonathon Pearce coming to the defence of Levy and quoting Spurs nett transfer spend for the last three seasons.

Does spending fortunes guarantee goals, Manure three signings this window to produce goals cost 225.7 million euros(transfermkt) , goals scored so far 000.
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Not if you've got a really poor structure in place deciding which players and managers to bring in.
 
RunTMC said:
Cool thanks.

I think our DoF was Hitchen, right? I know Levy is always the focus of anything negative but we’re people asking wtf was our DoF doing at the time? Seems to me he wasn’t able to identify the right players. Was that the talk at the time?
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I think the question at the time (and since) is how on earth do a club as big as THFC have a person as poor as Hitchen running their recruitment department.

A similar question could be asked when Munn was as the club.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Seemed exactly that
But it was naive and highlighted that lack of experience Poch had as a manager (in retrospect)
There have been so many examples of players saying that new blood and new voices in the changing room are driving forces for players
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There were a whole bunch of gettable players that Pochettino wanted and the club didn't deliver. I can understand why the manager eventually starts to turn down the alternative choices. The big problem back then was that we had zero investment in data, zero investment in decent scouting and zero investment in bringing in/keeping really good under 19 talent. Couple that with somebody clearly out of his depth in Hitchen as head of recruitment and it is no surprise what happened really.
 
SirPercyHotspur said:
According to Wiki, Hitchen did help bring Modric to Spurs and Suarez to Liverpool so did recruit a couple of good players.

Steve Hitchen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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Hitchen was a part time scout at Spurs when Modric came in. It was Damian Comolli who was key to that deal (and lots of other good deals that Spurs did). I think it was also Commoli who was running Liverpool's transfers when they signed Suarez.
 
Finney Is Back said:
There were a whole bunch of gettable players that Pochettino wanted and the club didn't deliver. I can understand why the manager eventually starts to turn down the alternative choices. The big problem back then was that we had zero investment in data, zero investment in decent scouting and zero investment in bringing in/keeping really good under 19 talent. Couple that with somebody clearly out of his depth in Hitchen as head of recruitment and it is no surprise what happened really.
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And a very inexperienced manager
Blame a many people but no one ever seems to remember that was Poch 6th year in management
 
Finney Is Back said:
Hitchen was a part time scout at Spurs when Modric came in. It was Damian Comolli who was key to that deal (and lots of other good deals that Spurs did). I think it was also Commoli who was running Liverpool's transfers when they signed Suarez.
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It was
Hitchens was way out of his depth
Comoli is now at Juve
 
Finney Is Back said:
Hitchen was a part time scout at Spurs when Modric came in. It was Damian Comolli who was key to that deal (and lots of other good deals that Spurs did). I think it was also Commoli who was running Liverpool's transfers when they signed Suarez.
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Comoli was dof for modric. Comoli couldn't get the deal done. Levy flew out and secured it. There were pictures at the time.
 
Finney Is Back said:
It may suggest that to you but doesn't necessarily mean that at all. If THFC were consistently a bottom 5 team then the value of the asset would be far lower than it is today. Lewis and Levy have turned a total investment of about £100m into a net worth of around £3b. Their profit is in the value of the asset. Some owners invest some of that increased asset value back into the clubs they own with liquidity injections. Our owners haven't done much of that at all.

Could the club have had more glory if the owners had invested some of their asset value increase back into the club as liquidity and/or diluted their ownership for a liquidity injection? I suspect so. I think it depends on whether owners are in it for the prestige and glory of owning a winning team or in it to maximise their net worth as much as possible. In the premier league we have, and have had, owners right across the spectrum there. I think our owners sit nearer to the 'net worth' end of the scale to the 'owning a winning team' end of the scale, especially our primary owner - Joe Lewis or, as it now is, the trust he has moved his shares into.
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You’ve probably missed some of my other posts around this subject because otherwise you’d know I absolutely agree with you when it comes to our owners. Almost word for word in fact.

What frustrates me about the CFT slogan is that I don’t think it actually attacks ENIC on this point. If they found a sharper way to do that, it would be harder for ENIC to combat. Instead, they play into a stereotype / caricature of Levy that shows they haven’t thought very deeply about it at all.
 
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