thfcsteff
Garth Crooks
In fairness, this is a healthy way to view things. I generally tend to run that rule, except I end up knowing all the brick I cannot control too!!!!
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Daniel Levy - Chairman
- Thread starter Howard Webb
- Start date
In fairness, this is a healthy way to view things. I generally tend to run that rule, except I end up knowing all the brick I cannot control too!!!!
Little Luka
John Scales
http://www.theguardian.com/football...o-tottenham-spurs-daniel-levy-manchester-city
Pragmatic player trading. It was a wonderful catch-all phrase, conceived and delivered by Daniel Levy, the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, on 2 September – the day after the transfer window closed – but one that concealed a vast expanse of nuance.
PPT is the policy upon which Levy has built his tenure, which holds the key to the club’s immediate future and which, it can be said with certainty, has polarised the opinions of the fan base and other figures within the game.
Take Sir Alex Ferguson, for example, who traded on a few occasions with Levy during his time at Manchester United – most infamously, the £30.75m deal that took Dimitar Berbatov from White Hart Lane to Old Trafford in 2008. “That whole experience was more painful than my hip replacement,” Ferguson said.
Levy is hardly noted for his public pronouncements but he was forced to address and defend PPT after the summer window, with an element of his club’s support in mutinous mood, following the Saido Berahino saga and the failure to sign an out-and-out striker to support Harry Kane. “Our pragmatic player trading has been important in the way we have run the business of the club and in getting us to the position where we have now been able to start work on a new stadium – the one thing that has the ability to take this club to the next level of competitiveness,” Levy said in a statement.
It was the first time that Levy had made the connection between the recent low net spends on transfer fees [£5.7m in this past window] and the funding required for the new stadium – it will cost between £400m-450m – and it seemed to confirm what many fans have long suspected: there will be little or no speculating to accumulate until the stadium is finished. The club intend it to be ready for the 2018-19 season.
It has, in turn, raised a series of questions that relate to the club’s ambition in the short term and, indeed, the levels of expectation. With the Premier League leaders, Emirates Marketing Project, due at White Hart Lane for Saturday’s early kick-off, the focus has sharpened.
There was a time when a Champions League finish was the be-all and end-all for Levy and the failure to deliver imperilled his manager. André Villas-Boas was sacked in December 2013 when it became clear that he was not the man to lead Tottenham into the top four, and Harry Redknapp was dismissed despite finishing fourth in 2012. Tottenham, of course, were denied Champions League qualification when Chelsea won the competition. Going further back, Martin Jol was fired in 2007 after he could not build on successive fifth-place finishes.
There does not seem to be the same gun-to-temple imperative for Mauricio Pochettino. The manager finished fifth in his first season at the club, without ever truly threatening fourth, and nobody can say with any conviction that his team will come in higher next May.
There was plenty to like about Tottenham’s performance in defeat at home to Arsenal in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday and Pochettino wants to see the same tempo against City. But they will begin as the underdogs for good reason, and not only because City – and the striker Sergio Agüero – have had the upper hand against them of late.
The gap to City and the rest of the established top four seems as though it has widened and a consequence of Tottenham’s summer transfer business and the approach that Levy, through Pochettino, has implemented, which features a heavy accent on youth, is that realism is on the rise.
Pochettino’s team have proved that on their day at White Hart Lane they can topple the big guns; the wins over Chelsea and Arsenal last season were stand-out moments. There is a boldness about the project and it tends to be more enjoyable when a young team succeed; half of the squad is aged 23 or under. But elite-level consistency over a 38-game season is another matter altogether.
In many respects, Pochettino is Levy’s perfect manager for this period. He is flexible and he works with what he is given, without complaint. Only Kane up front? No problem. The wide attacker, Son Heung-min, who was signed from Bayer Leverkusen for £22m, can provide the back-up. No new defensive midfielder? No problem. Pochettino has converted the defender Eric Dier – and to eye-catching effect.
The profile of signing has changed during Pochettino’s three transfer windows, with young, ideally British, talent with potential resale value prioritised. The net spend on fees during his first two windows was zero. It has not been a problem to him.
Pochettino likes to work with hungry, young players, to promote from within, and there is a dynamism about his team when it clicks. Dele Alli, the 19-year-old midfielder who cost £5m from MK Dons, has been a revelation this season while Son, who is still only 23, has hit the ground running. Fast.
Through it all, Levy cuts the divisive figure. His critics wish that he could push the boat out a little more; to have a real crack at what seems like a glass ceiling above the club. But Levy can stare them down with his record. In the past six seasons, starting with the most recent, Spurs have finished fifth, sixth, fifth, fourth, fifth and fourth. It is their most sustained level of achievement since the 60s and, do not forget, the team play out of a ground that generates revenue from only 36,000 seats.
Levy does not forget. Until the new stadium move, pragmatism has to hold sway.
Pragmatic player trading. It was a wonderful catch-all phrase, conceived and delivered by Daniel Levy, the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, on 2 September – the day after the transfer window closed – but one that concealed a vast expanse of nuance.
PPT is the policy upon which Levy has built his tenure, which holds the key to the club’s immediate future and which, it can be said with certainty, has polarised the opinions of the fan base and other figures within the game.
Take Sir Alex Ferguson, for example, who traded on a few occasions with Levy during his time at Manchester United – most infamously, the £30.75m deal that took Dimitar Berbatov from White Hart Lane to Old Trafford in 2008. “That whole experience was more painful than my hip replacement,” Ferguson said.
Levy is hardly noted for his public pronouncements but he was forced to address and defend PPT after the summer window, with an element of his club’s support in mutinous mood, following the Saido Berahino saga and the failure to sign an out-and-out striker to support Harry Kane. “Our pragmatic player trading has been important in the way we have run the business of the club and in getting us to the position where we have now been able to start work on a new stadium – the one thing that has the ability to take this club to the next level of competitiveness,” Levy said in a statement.
It was the first time that Levy had made the connection between the recent low net spends on transfer fees [£5.7m in this past window] and the funding required for the new stadium – it will cost between £400m-450m – and it seemed to confirm what many fans have long suspected: there will be little or no speculating to accumulate until the stadium is finished. The club intend it to be ready for the 2018-19 season.
It has, in turn, raised a series of questions that relate to the club’s ambition in the short term and, indeed, the levels of expectation. With the Premier League leaders, Emirates Marketing Project, due at White Hart Lane for Saturday’s early kick-off, the focus has sharpened.
There was a time when a Champions League finish was the be-all and end-all for Levy and the failure to deliver imperilled his manager. André Villas-Boas was sacked in December 2013 when it became clear that he was not the man to lead Tottenham into the top four, and Harry Redknapp was dismissed despite finishing fourth in 2012. Tottenham, of course, were denied Champions League qualification when Chelsea won the competition. Going further back, Martin Jol was fired in 2007 after he could not build on successive fifth-place finishes.
There does not seem to be the same gun-to-temple imperative for Mauricio Pochettino. The manager finished fifth in his first season at the club, without ever truly threatening fourth, and nobody can say with any conviction that his team will come in higher next May.
There was plenty to like about Tottenham’s performance in defeat at home to Arsenal in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday and Pochettino wants to see the same tempo against City. But they will begin as the underdogs for good reason, and not only because City – and the striker Sergio Agüero – have had the upper hand against them of late.
The gap to City and the rest of the established top four seems as though it has widened and a consequence of Tottenham’s summer transfer business and the approach that Levy, through Pochettino, has implemented, which features a heavy accent on youth, is that realism is on the rise.
Pochettino’s team have proved that on their day at White Hart Lane they can topple the big guns; the wins over Chelsea and Arsenal last season were stand-out moments. There is a boldness about the project and it tends to be more enjoyable when a young team succeed; half of the squad is aged 23 or under. But elite-level consistency over a 38-game season is another matter altogether.
In many respects, Pochettino is Levy’s perfect manager for this period. He is flexible and he works with what he is given, without complaint. Only Kane up front? No problem. The wide attacker, Son Heung-min, who was signed from Bayer Leverkusen for £22m, can provide the back-up. No new defensive midfielder? No problem. Pochettino has converted the defender Eric Dier – and to eye-catching effect.
The profile of signing has changed during Pochettino’s three transfer windows, with young, ideally British, talent with potential resale value prioritised. The net spend on fees during his first two windows was zero. It has not been a problem to him.
Pochettino likes to work with hungry, young players, to promote from within, and there is a dynamism about his team when it clicks. Dele Alli, the 19-year-old midfielder who cost £5m from MK Dons, has been a revelation this season while Son, who is still only 23, has hit the ground running. Fast.
Through it all, Levy cuts the divisive figure. His critics wish that he could push the boat out a little more; to have a real crack at what seems like a glass ceiling above the club. But Levy can stare them down with his record. In the past six seasons, starting with the most recent, Spurs have finished fifth, sixth, fifth, fourth, fifth and fourth. It is their most sustained level of achievement since the 60s and, do not forget, the team play out of a ground that generates revenue from only 36,000 seats.
Levy does not forget. Until the new stadium move, pragmatism has to hold sway.
Yid (Israel)
Carlo Cudicini
If that is indeed the case I wonder (and I'm not criticising Levy over this, just thinking) if Lloris, Kane etc will be there for the opening of the new stadium in 18/19. I as a supporter accept that it might be hard for us to challenge for anything until the new stadium, but the big players surely aren't happy about it if they understand it too
thfcsteff
Garth Crooks
Kane will be for sure. Hugo? could be a stretch but I hope...look, man ute are going to lose De Gea and nearly did this season but no-one's talking about that here!
That's because they will just buy another class keeper (probably Lloris) for 40mil.... and we wont
SpursNorway
Ilie Dumitrescu
I may well be a bit naive, but my feeling is that Hugo actually is becoming at bit of a Spurs man, a player who loves the club. I am in no doubt that Hugo, as a captain, knows a lot more of what is going on inside the club. Maybe he sees the project and a future that could become very bright?
I could very well be clutching at straws, but I've got a feeling Hugo could become a true club legend.
alekaras
The ITK of IDK
I'm thinking the same. Who knows. Maybe there are players who, if happy at their club, don't get swayed by money thrown at them.
I
indianspur
Guest
you/we can only hope, but there is no surety.
StephenH
David Ginola
What continues to shocks me is the amount of Spurs fans who still act like it's the 70s,80s or even 90s. They still go around spouting "the game is about glory" "the game is about glory" like automatons. They live in a nostalgic buble and deride all efforts to move the club forward.
Today we are playing a team that have such a financial advantage over us it is untrue. Our only hope is to increase the clubs income and the thus financial standing so we compete on a nearer level of playing field as conceivably possible.
But still they will talk about 'putting reserve teams out for derby cup games' and 'Levy showing no ambition in the transfer market' I despair at their negativity!
Today we are playing a team that have such a financial advantage over us it is untrue. Our only hope is to increase the clubs income and the thus financial standing so we compete on a nearer level of playing field as conceivably possible.
But still they will talk about 'putting reserve teams out for derby cup games' and 'Levy showing no ambition in the transfer market' I despair at their negativity!
I
indianspur
Guest
the full quote...
"The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."
the glory aspect to me was always about doing things in style, with panache, and thats exactly what Danny B meant when he said the above
StephenH
David Ginola
It's a very nice sentiment but the game is and has always been about 'winning'. The 'glory' is something that follows!
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
But yet we don't want to win when we play Arsenal in the Cup. How odd, eh?
Also, that article by Hytner is crazily hagiographic, but also just plain wrong in places. First off, our net spend wasn't 5m: it was 0-0.5m after Lennon's sale, something I don't think Hytner (or the editors at the Guardian) noticed. Secondly, 'pragmatic player trading' didn't prevent us (seeminggly) trying desperately to take that net spend back up in 25m territory with our bids for Berahino's on deadline day (an admirable goal, even if 'trying' needs to be replaced by 'doing' in cacases like that).
That part is just plain wrong.
StephenH
David Ginola
When did I say anything of the sort - You are just a plank
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
A stunningly well-crafted, polished plank, but I take your point.
...nevertheless, if the game is all about winning, then we didn't really live up to that, did we? So, logically, you shouldn't be happy with the way we half-assed it on Wednesday. So, you were telling a bit of a fib, since you were fine with us resting players against our arch-rivals, no?
nayenezgani
Jimmy Neighbour
A stunningly well-crafted, polished plank, but I take your point.
...nevertheless, if the game is all about winning, then we didn't really live up to that, did we? So, logically, you shouldn't be happy with the way we half-assed it on Wednesday. So, you were telling a bit of a fib, since you were fine with us resting players against our arch-rivals, no?
Jesus Chris Dubai let it go man.. We've jusy had an amazing victory, enjoy it for crying out loud.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
I am. If I had been in any less of a joyous mood, I would have taken offence at that.