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Daniel Levy - Chairman

First time I've seen it admitted (never mind so explicitly) that that was Chelsea's strategy. Deprive your rivals.

Oh, they still do it. See @Spur of the moment 's post -

There are other ways to do it of course. Remember Willian?

..their habit is to hoard all of the young talent or available quality on the market, and then loan most of those players out or sell them after a while. Prevents the buying club from getting their targets, and doesn't really impact Chelsea's bottom line given Abramovich and the fact that their 'buy-and-loan-out' operation actually generates profits a lot of the time.

Y'know, I have a pet theory of my own regarding Isco in this regard. From my perspective, I think we'll make another move for him this summer, for a multitude of reasons - he's just rejected a new contract at Madrid, he'll be down to a year left on his deal come July 2017 (so the fee won't be extortionately high, although still probably 30m or thereabouts), he's only on about 60k a week (so well within our newly enhanced wage range), Poch is known to have been interested this past summer, Bale and Modric would presumably have good things to say about us were Isco to ask them, and his personal relationship with Nike (he's sponsored by 'em, iirc) meshes well with our future kit sponsors and possible stadium naming rights holders.

It's still incredibly unlikely that we'll land him given his quality and the fight there will be for his signature, but I'd be very interested in seeing what happens if it comes down to him preferring us and it becoming apparent that he was Spurs-bound. My wager in that scenario would be on Chelsea launching a last-minute spoiling bid to disrupt our move, for *no* reason whatsoever except to prevent us getting him (and it really would be for *no* reason, given that they have a surplus of attacking midfielders that they're struggling to fit into their 3-5-2 anyway). And that would prove that such tactics are still alive and well.
 
That's my point, you can't suppress an equal footing club anyway, that never really happened, for all of their success dortmund are still a poor relation to bayern, you can only punch down with such tactics, and I don't think the increased tv money in the game changes that, it's still a viable tactic to stop a limited club building something.

Levy's win was in realising that you couldn't stop it so you had to make sure you maximised the opportunity, many of the fans (myself included at times) were aghast to lose certain players, unable to see the bigger picture, look at all the talent that we've sold, yet we unquestionably have the strongest squad we've ever had under ENIC.

Well, you can punch sideways in certain circumstances. But those circumstances are becoming increasingly rare, which is the point Mou was trying to make, I think.

As for Levy, I dunno about him *maximising* the opportunities caused by Berbatov, Modric and Bale's departure. We spent the Berbatov money on Pav and Fraizer Campbell in on loan (as well as Defoe in January, possibly). We spent the Modric money on Dembele (who, despite his qualities, wasn't a replacement for Modders, and didn't gel with AVB/Sherwood's style of play very well apart from some individual instances) and Dempsey, and tried to go for Moutinho, failing at the last minute. We spent the Bale money on the Magnificent Seven - although we're near-guaranteed to come out of it with a profit overall, I can't truthfully say that we did *well* there - we failed to give AVB many of the players he wanted, and instead gave him Capoue, Soldado, Chiriches and co. Only Eriksen, Chadli and Lamela were worth the money we paid for them, imo.

I think Levy deserves credit for refusing to sell domestically in the first place - he made it a point to sell abroad for lower fees, and he deserves credit for that.
 
Without a doubt, for me he is and always has been the best thing that has happened to us for decades.

In an era where a lot of clubs have faded away and struggled if they couldn't play the money doping card, and with us having to play against the money cheaters, he has made us into a genuine top club again. And we have kept our class & style.

Well done Daniel
 
Credit to Levy for building our new stadium but not sure if it is the right time to move. After being a "Cup" team for so long, we are looking like a team capable of fighting for league title now. But the move to the new stadium, especially to Wembley where we don't have a good record next season, might affect the momentum we have now.

As for Levy, he has been Chairman since 2001. During the 16 years since then, we have had 10 managers, won 1 League Cup, lost 3 League Cup Finals, lost 4 FA Cup semi finals and qualified for CL 2 times. Until we win a major trophy, don't think the history books will rate Levy favourably.

Will never forgive Levy for sacking George Graham before the FA Cup semi final in 2001. We have been jinxed in the FA Cup since then, with even Arsenal and ManU overtaking us as the most successfull team in the FA Cup..
 
what if we'd won that FA cup in 2001 but have no plans to move in to a new stadium and poch is manager of arsenal today?
 
Levy had become a bit of a genius in my opinion. He's managed to learn from his mistakes and now there few and far between. We could argue about buying the odd extra player to give us a little more at times etc.

But.

He does owe us an apology for bringing the biggest fudging macaron that ever set foot inside the lane. Take a bow Timmy fudging Sherwood. Most have obviously choose to ignore Tim's numerous comments over the past few days, having a pop at the fans over Kane/Soldado etc. to this mornings Alli to Real comments. Since the first day he set foot inside our club with his buddy redknapp, the gooner has been nothing but bile too the club.

When you consider that Daniel had a bit of a thing for Timmy and warned him not to take the coaching role and remain his right hand man. Timmy continues to show he was a poison at our club.
 
what if we'd won that FA cup in 2001 but have no plans to move in to a new stadium and poch is manager of arsenal today?

If we had won the FA Cup in 2001, we would have won the FA Cup in 2011 as well, continuing our proud tradition of winning a trophy when the year ends in "1". And maybe GG would have made us fighting for the league title and Rebrov would have gone on to score more goals instead of becoming an expensive flop. Remember, Rebrov had just scored 2 wonder goals when we beat West Ham 3-2 in the FA Cup quarter finals of 2001. Levy simply changed history by sacking GG untimely.
 
If we had won the FA Cup in 2001, we would have won the FA Cup in 2011 as well, continuing our proud tradition of winning a trophy when the year ends in "1". And maybe GG would have made us fighting for the league title and Rebrov would have gone on to score more goals instead of becoming an expensive flop. Remember, Rebrov had just scored 2 wonder goals when we beat West Ham 3-2 in the FA Cup quarter finals of 2001. Levy simply changed history by sacking GG untimely.

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If we had won the FA Cup in 2001, we would have won the FA Cup in 2011 as well, continuing our proud tradition of winning a trophy when the year ends in "1". And maybe GG would have made us fighting for the league title and Rebrov would have gone on to score more goals instead of becoming an expensive flop. Remember, Rebrov had just scored 2 wonder goals when we beat West Ham 3-2 in the FA Cup quarter finals of 2001. Levy simply changed history by sacking GG untimely.
i conceded that its possible.
but where we are now - new best stadium, a bevy of young stars, and chasing the league title - was something i didn't dare dream about way back then when we going into that FA cup semi in 2001.
 
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