ENIC

[MartyFunkhouser]

Not sure if Bale would have stayed into the second season but i think AVB’s ideal football would have been established at the club with Moutinho, and he wouldn’t have had to make do with the players he had. It was to his credit that he delivered us our record PL points total at the time and got the best out of Bale.

But looking back I think not signing Moutinho was classic Levy and exactly what the club is looking to rectify now. The idea that a player might be more valuable to us because of the system we are trying to create. That we haggled until the last minute and had to post something on our website explaining why we didn’t get him was completely ridiculous. We had a figure in mind based on what we considered a good deal, and didn’t factor how much more likely we would have been to have been successful on the pitch with the signing the manager wanted to make everything tick.

Similar to Jol losing Carrick and getting Zokora as a replacement. I know the argument will be that a good manager can make it work with good players and Jol did ok in that season after Carrick thanks to Berbatov, but my GHod it was frustrating to live so many seasons missing out on key players for relatively minor amounts that could have been difference makers and then seeing those managers get sacked for not delivering results.

I will always thank Levy for the stadium. And if anyone wants to argue that we needed to operate exactly in that way to be sure we could build the stadium (eg not compromising to get key deals over the line) I’d be willing to hear the argument. The retort would be that we’d be more successful and earn more money with those key players - and GHod knows we’ve probably paid enough off to sack coaches and in letting players contracts run down that over rides any savings we supposedly made on not doing these deals.

The Moutinho deal was nothing to do with Levy fcuking up.

He had a 3rd party ownership issues, the whole deal was agreed until Porto came back at the last minute to change the deal structure and demand a higher fee for the buying out of the third party portion of the deal. The paperwork from Porto then had irregularities that had to be sorted at the last minute which couldn't be sorted. So basically Porto fcuked us, which was confirmed by AVB at the time

 

[billyiddo]

Moutinho was 3rd party ownership iirc

Edit : see it's covered

William was no different to Ndiaye this summer or Eze last or Petit way back when - bigger/better club came in to steal the player from under our noses. Happens all the time and something we have benefitted from ourselves on deals

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

The Moutinho deal was nothing to do with Levy fcuking up.

He had a 3rd party ownership issues, the whole deal was agreed until Porto came back at the last minute to change the deal structure and demand a higher fee for the buying out of the third party portion of the deal. The paperwork from Porto then had irregularities that had to be sorted at the last minute which couldn't be sorted. So basically Porto fcuked us, which was confirmed by AVB at the time

I feel like we used to hear about 3rd party issues all the time making deals more or too complicated. ‘Image rights’ was the other one with Dybala.

Obviously I wasn’t in these deals and I don’t know for sure, but I suspect one man’s ’too compilicated’ is another man’s ’just get it done’. Not withstanding we had left it until the last moment which would have given us no time to properly overcome any genuine complexities. I suspect we’ll hear a lot less about image rights and third party issues under VV than DL.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

I feel like we used to hear about 3rd party issues all the time making deals more or too complicated. ‘Image rights’ was the other one with Dybala.

Obviously I wasn’t in these deals and I don’t know for sure, but I suspect one man’s ’too compilicated’ is another man’s ’just get it done’. Not withstanding we had left it until the last moment which would have given us no time to properly overcome any genuine complexities. I suspect we’ll hear a lot less about image rights and third party issues under VV than DL.

You could just say "fair point, I was wrong"

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

You could just say "fair point, I was wrong"

Sorry mate, I know full well what the issues were. I’m just saying that in my opinion, it happened too often under Levy. Leaving things until the very last minute. Not actually backing the manager and going early and hard for the top targets to make the players that they want for their style of football to be effective.

Here are some direct quotes from AVB talking about exactly what I mean. I’d challenge you to read them and still say I was ‘wrong’ versus just offering another perspective:

Tottenham: Andre Villas-Boas on Joao Moutinho

Tottenham: Andre Villas-Boas on Joao Moutinho

www.bbc.com

The data the club’s model ran said Dembele was first choice and Moutinho was 6th. AVB was emotionally drained because he was unable to win the argument that having a player who understands what the coach wants and would adapt quickly to his methods was going to be more valuable than what the model was saying. Dembele was great for us, he was cheaper, but he also wasn’t the same profile as Moutinho. And this is where backing the coach properly comes in. It’s not about spending unlimited sums of money, it’s about quantifying the value of a player based on what the coach thinks they will bring.

There is a world in which we move decisively for Moutinho first, learn about all these third party ownership issues and just get the deal done quickly rather than messing it up right at the deadline. And this is my point, these things always seemed to happen under Levy, because he’d rather wait until the deadline than be sure the coach has the type of players he wants.

And it makes sense from Levy’s perspective because as we’ve seen, he would happily have sold AVB for a nice compensation fee. But it was yet another manager whose football project didn’t get off the ground properly.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

Sorry mate, I know full well what the issues were. I’m just saying that in my opinion, it happened too often under Levy. Leaving things until the very last minute. Not actually backing the manager and going early and hard for the top targets to make the players that they want for their style of football to be effective.

Here are some direct quotes from AVB talking about exactly what I mean. I’d challenge you to read them and still say I was ‘wrong’ versus just offering another perspective:

Tottenham: Andre Villas-Boas on Joao Moutinho

Tottenham: Andre Villas-Boas on Joao Moutinho

www.bbc.com

The data the club’s model ran said Dembele was first choice and Moutinho was 6th. AVB was emotionally drained because he was unable to win the argument that having a player who understands what the coach wants and would adapt quickly to his methods was going to be more valuable than what the model was saying. Dembele was great for us, he was cheaper, but he also wasn’t the same profile as Moutinho. And this is where backing the coach properly comes in. It’s not about spending unlimited sums of money, it’s about quantifying the value of a player based on what the coach thinks they will bring.

There is a world in which we move decisively for Moutinho first, learn about all these third party ownership issues and just get the deal done quickly rather than messing it up right at the deadline. And this is my point, these things always seemed to happen under Levy, because he’d rather wait until the deadline than be sure the coach has the type of players he wants.

And it makes sense from Levy’s perspective because as we’ve seen, he would happily have sold AVB for a nice compensation fee. But it was yet another manager whose football project didn’t get off the ground properly.

"I suspect we’ll hear a lot less about image rights and third party issues under VV than DL" third party ownership has been banned since 2015, so yeh, I suspect the same too, because its doesn't even exist anymore FFS.

At the end of the day its all well and good taking swipes making it out every thing is simple, but when you don't even know the third party rules to take a swipe on how much better VV and DL will be, I just think you are trying too hard to process your bias and I can't take your point seriously

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

"I suspect we’ll hear a lot less about image rights and third party issues under VV than DL" third party ownership has been banned since 2015, so yeh, I suspect the same too, because its doesn't even exist anymore FFS.

At the end of the day its all well and good taking swipes making it out every thing is simple, but when you don't even know the third party rules to take a swipe on how much better VV and DL will be, I just think you are trying too hard to process your bias and I can't take your point seriously

I think that’s a bit of a ridiculous reply to be honest mate. Again I’ve engaged in substance and you’re accusing me of bias. What bias? Why am I biased against DL? My original username on here was a tribute to him and I spent years defending him as the best chairman in the league, genuinely thankful for his intellectual horsepower. I have no bias against him. But I got to the point where I felt the club needed to act in a different way to progress. And with the benefit of hindsight we can see how we acted at the time, versus how we are acting now.

It may be that we’ve gone too far in the direction of backing the manager with RDZ. I think we need to give it at least 2 years to really test that. But it’s possible, the spectrum of the argument definitely goes from making club decisions to making manager decisions, and I can see arguments for all sides. Where I am landing though is for us to ever be successful on the pitch, we need to trust in a manager more than we had done. Otherwise we would never be greater than the sum of our parts. We did this for Poch, and at the first real sign of hardship we turned away from it again.

Not everything is simple, but I think there’s a lot of ‘it was third party ownership that’s why it’s difficult’ about a lot of the discussion of the DL years, which assumes things just had to be that way, and completely underweighting ‘what if he just acted differently’. I have said, if there is an argument to be made that we acted differently we would not have the stadium, I’m willing to hear it. But there is absolutely a world in which we trusted the manager more in that situation, got his first choice target quickly, were more successful and earned more money as a club that way.

And by the way, obviously I am using image rights, third party ownership and anything else as proxy for all of the ‘difficulties’ we tended to have at the deadline under DL. My point is that we won’t hear about complications as much under a leadership group that clearly tries to move more quickly and get deals done earlier. That you chose to pick upon one item - third party ownership - which was relevant to the deal we are discussing at the time, and ignored image rights (which clearly made it more of a general list of issues) in a way to make me seem less informed and less worthy of debate is just not great.

Again I ask, where is the bias? You’re acting like DL is beyond reasonable criticism. I defended the guy for years! I simply got to the point where I thought with the state of the art stadium built and most expensive tickets that we should be doing more on the pitch. It’s not bias. But it allows me to look back at the time he was in charge and compare to what we are doing now.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

I think that’s a bit of a ridiculous reply to be honest mate. Again I’ve engaged in substance and you’re accusing me of bias. What bias? Why am I biased against DL? My original username on here was a tribute to him and I spent years defending him as the best chairman in the league, genuinely thankful for his intellectual horsepower. I have no bias against him. But I got to the point where I felt the club needed to act in a different way to progress. And with the benefit of hindsight we can see how we acted at the time, versus how we are acting now.

It may be that we’ve gone too far in the direction of backing the manager with RDZ. I think we need to give it at least 2 years to really test that. But it’s possible, the spectrum of the argument definitely goes from making club decisions to making manager decisions, and I can see arguments for all sides. Where I am landing though is for us to ever be successful on the pitch, we need to trust in a manager more than we had done. Otherwise we would never be greater than the sum of our parts. We did this for Poch, and at the first real sign of hardship we turned away from it again.

Not everything is simple, but I think there’s a lot of ‘it was third party ownership that’s why it’s difficult’ about a lot of the discussion of the DL years, which assumes things just had to be that way, and completely underweighting ‘what if he just acted differently’. I have said, if there is an argument to be made that we acted differently we would not have the stadium, I’m willing to hear it. But there is absolutely a world in which we trusted the manager more in that situation, got his first choice target quickly, were more successful and earned more money as a club that way.

And by the way, obviously I am using image rights, third party ownership and anything else as proxy for all of the ‘difficulties’ we tended to have at the deadline under DL. My point is that we won’t hear about complications as much under a leadership group that clearly tries to move more quickly and get deals done earlier. That you chose to pick upon one item - third party ownership - which was relevant to the deal we are discussing at the time, and ignored image rights (which clearly made it more of a general list of issues) in a way to make me seem less informed and less worthy of debate is just not great.

Again I ask, where is the bias? You’re acting like DL is beyond reasonable criticism. I defended the guy for years! I simply got to the point where I thought with the state of the art stadium built and most expensive tickets that we should be doing more on the pitch. It’s not bias. But it allows me to look back at the time he was in charge and compare to what we are doing now.

I have never said that he is beyond reasonable criticism, DL has made bad mistakes and decisions but you literally used a scenario that doesn't exist to have a pop about why a new chairman will be better and handle that scenario.....I am happy to engage on facts and opinions, but using rubbish like "I suspect we’ll hear a lot less about image rights and third party issues under VV than DL" when third party ownership is now banned is as ridiculous as it gets. Thats why it looks like you are trying harder than you need in to put the boot in on DL.

Its not other posters responsibility to understand that a point you make isn't actually about the facts but about making a point in proxy. Thats ridiculous and not obvious

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

I have never said that, DL has made bad mistakes and decisions but you literally used a scenario that doesn't exist to have a pop about why a new chairman will be better and handle that scenario.....I am happy to engage on facts and opinions, but using rubbish like "I suspect we’ll hear a lot less about image rights and third party issues under VV than DL" when third party ownership is now banned is as ridiculous as it gets. Thats why it looks like you are trying harder than you need in to put the boot in on DL.

Its not other posters responsibility to understand that a point you make isn't actually about the facts but about making a point in proxy. Thats ridiculous and not obvious

fudge me it is exhausting trying to have a normal debate on this forum now. You have never said he hasn’t made mistakes but by accusing me of bias for making reasoned arguments (including being at pains to put aside the other side of the argument in the same post) then you are acting like he is without criticism.

I am not having a pop. I think it’s reasonable and completely obvious, because deals happened much more quickly this summer, that we will see less complications meaning deals don’t conclude at the last minute.

By going out of your way to paint me as biased you went straight to assuming I was talking purely about third party ownership when the context of the discussion was obvious, as was the point being made. Why would I also mention image rights? Because the point is about ‘complications’ arising on deadline day and deals not getting done. It’s pretty obvious and if you were interested in engaging in reasoned debate you’d get there.

I am not trying any harder than I need to, to put the boot into DL. I’ve spent plenty of my life defending him and calling him the best chairman in the league. I also think times changes and the needs of the club changed.

I suggest you mute me and I’ll now be doing the same to you. Clearly whatever way I try and debate just does not jive with you, but I’m not here to be in a camp, or stick the boot in.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

fudge me it is exhausting trying to have a normal debate on this forum now. You have never said he hasn’t made mistakes but by accusing me of bias for making reasoned arguments (including being at pains to put aside the other side of the argument in the same post) then you are acting like he is without criticism.

I am not having a pop. I think it’s reasonable and completely obvious, because deals happened much more quickly this summer, that we will see less complications meaning deals don’t conclude at the last minute.

By going out of your way to paint me as biased you went straight to assuming I was talking purely about third party ownership when the context of the discussion was obvious, as was the point being made. Why would I also mention image rights? Because the point is about ‘complications’ arising on deadline day and deals not getting done. It’s pretty obvious and if you were interested in engaging in reasoned debate you’d get there.

I am not trying any harder than I need to, to put the boot into DL. I’ve spent plenty of my life defending him and calling him the best chairman in the league. I also think times changes and the needs of the club changed.

I suggest you mute me and I’ll now be doing the same to you. Clearly whatever way I try and debate just does not jive with you, but I’m not here to be in a camp, or stick the boot in.

Mate, you literally wrote what you wrote?? How am I responsible for reading that and assuming you mean something else? You literally were only talking about third party and image rights in a response to the point I made about why a specific deal failed, it is there in black and white, below is your OP

I feel like we used to hear about 3rd party issues all the time making deals more or too complicated. ‘Image rights’ was the other one with Dybala.

Obviously I wasn’t in these deals and I don’t know for sure, but I suspect one man’s ’too compilicated’ is another man’s ’just get it done’. Not withstanding we had left it until the last moment which would have given us no time to properly overcome any genuine complexities. I suspect we’ll hear a lot less about image rights and third party issues under VV than DL.

How the hell is that not about third party deals or image rights and how the hell am I suppose to know this is a proxy about other issues?

It literally makes it impossible to date the point when the entire point you make is claimed not to be the point you make. Thats not about not being able to "jive" its about not being a mind reader

I am not putting anyone on ignore, I addressed he point you made as I will with any other post by any other poster

Glory Glory forum, where telepathy is optional but certainly helpful

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

For the record we had 3 deals "fail" because of complexities of third part ownership in 26 years.

The season Moutinho failed we got Dembele and still tried for Moutinho who had a large % of his ownership held in Amsterdam, the fee was agreed before they reneg'd on it and wanted more at the 11th hour, that was on them, not us. They then ironically bought out the 3rd party ownership once the window was closed.

DL messed up many a deal, this wasn't one of them.

Also good to remember back in old WHL we had to operate a spend what we make window which we did that summer getting Jan, Lloris & Demebele amongst others.

It was actually a decent summer. And the manager got every penny of what we made that summer.

All well and good reflecting on failures, but also good to remember that many who highlight them wanted us to over pay for the likes of Berahino and actually blamed DL for ruining his career.