I don't hate him, I just wish very much he sells his stake ASAP. The feeling grows every year .
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I don't hate him, I just wish very much he sells his stake ASAP. The feeling grows every year .
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Do you think we have been in an indefinite period of moving in the wrong direction for 20 years or something?
IMV the set backs have generally been short lived and are bookended by periods of improvement, that's why patience/leeway/whatever you want to call it, for the owners is there.
Shows how fudged football is. Clubs should be self sufficient and not rely on owners money.I don't hate him, I just wish very much he sells his stake ASAP. The feeling grows every year .
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But he’s the minority owner. You’d still have Joe Lewis’ family trust owning the lion’s share. And that’s where the lack of additional investment sits, not with Levy.I don't hate him, I just wish very much he sells his stake ASAP. The feeling grows every year .
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Maybe but so are many other top team sports with global appeal. Its also money that drives football players to even higher performances and stopovers per match.Shows how fudged football is. Clubs should be self sufficient and not rely on owners money.
Levy has 30% and is chairman so sets financial targets, which has kept Lewis hanging on. In a reverse way Levy could also make THFC spend more on football, be less profitable overall and Lewis would carry a heavier burden into the future.But he’s the minority owner. You’d still have Joe Lewis’ family trust owning the lion’s share. And that’s where the lack of additional investment sits, not with Levy.
I think that has changed somewhat at least as our spending power has increased. There probably was a time when he felt he had to try everything to get a deal somewhat cheaper. That no longer seems the case, at least not to the same extent.It has been documented in both Modric and now Lloris autobiographies that it is Levy's stupid games that has procrastinated deals. We probably should have never had Lloris in a Spurs shirt based on the way Levy messed the deal up. He ultimately had to pay the transfer fee anyway after losing the negotiation, he stopped the player from having a pre-season with AVB, and he created a scenario where Aulas had to save the day. Hugo admitted himself that Aulas told him it was completely up to him if he didn't want to head to Spurs. Aulas had schooled Levy and told the player he would happily keep him, implying that he'd find other ways to cover the money he was expecting, and needed.
I personally don't think that there is anything special about Levy's negotiation skills. In fact, guys like Modric and Lloris have been clear that Levy goes back on his word. He breaks promises, which breaks relationships. That is a big no, no in sales.
I think we do have to realise that the pattern of late deals in our club did unfortunately come from the top. It was a choice, and not necessarily to do with other parties or admin processes.
I will state again, in Levy's head he was and is always working in our best interests.
I think that has changed somewhat at least as our spending power has increased. There probably was a time when he felt he had to try everything to get a deal somewhat cheaper. That no longer seems the case, at least not to the same extent.
I agree that it would have been good if Solanke for example came in earlier, but it wasn't left until deadline day or really late in the window. Our deadline day dealing in general has seemingly lessened somewhat.
That's just my impression, may be wrong. No doubts there have been negatives with that. But I also think there have been positives in that some money has been saved that could then go to other deals.
The mad thing is that Levy didn't need to do everything in his power to get cheaper deals. He was penny wise, pound foolish with nobody alongside him explaining to him that bad purchases have a much bigger negative impact on the P&L in the long term. He just kept finding out the hard way. We just needed to buy quality over quantity and use the available budget better.
I do agree that the model has improved though. Is it perhaps the case that we are a much more attractive proposition to players and their agents nowadays. We're moving from the cruiserweight to heavyweight divisions.
What profit do we make?Levy has 30% and is chairman so sets financial targets, which has kept Lewis hanging on. In a reverse way Levy could also make THFC spend more on football, be less profitable overall and Lewis would carry a heavier burden into the future.
I would believe in Levy more if we have less ffp headroom.
Dragusin and Bergvall immediately spring to mind.What evidence is there that we are a much more attractive proposition nowadays?
What evidence is there that we are a much more attractive proposition nowadays?
Tbf Poch inherited a great squad. Ange inherited a mess, which was always going to take a lot of investment to fix.I've thought about this one a lot. I've made this quite easy for myself.
Firstly, I just want to get back to 2016/17 levels and....secondly, I want to stay there and.....thirdly, go beyond in the next phase.
Right now, how would you feel if I said that Spurs could finish 2nd in the league with 86 points, only conceding 26 goals and scoring 86 goals? Putting the game of chance that is cup competitions to one side, if I said that we now had that as our PL baseline. However, this time it won't start to immediately fall apart with a summer of zero net spending and gradual decline down to 60 points over 2-3 years.
For me, 16/17 was my favourite season under Poch and I genuinely believed we had arrived. Then I watched in disbelief at the next set of transfer activities and knew that it was going to be our pinnacle for a long time. By the way, that includes the CL final season where the players only turned up for their manager on midweeks and collected their CL bonuses. The only agenda through those next few years was the stadium and unfortunately COVID. Tough years, and bad decisions by Levy on the footbal ops side.
It's also because I believe that if we can get to 16/167 levels again, this time we can sustain them based on the financial model we now operate under. I also know that if we sustain those levels, we will win cups as a consequence of being at that level. We won't be in the lap of the footballing gods (and dodgy referees) as much as we've been recently in the semi-finals and finals.
My big question is whether Ange has the managerial smarts to get us back to 86 points? Poch did with way less resources. Poch's 16/17 would be Ange's 25/26 season so we just have to be patient. However, if this time next season we can see that we're not going to have the 16/17 season again I'm not against making the manager switch in the new year of 2026. Ange has had the most expensively assembled squad of my lifetime. It started in before his tenure in 21/22 and has just continued now for 3 years. He's a luckier man than any manager before him.
HmmmmTbf Poch inherited a great squad. Ange inherited a mess, which was always going to take a lot of investment to fix.
As has already been mentioned, a lot of the fixes have been young players.
I'd hope we will be in a position to add fewer high quality additions come the summer.
Tbf Poch inherited a great squad. Ange inherited a mess, which was always going to take a lot of investment to fix.
As has already been mentioned, a lot of the fixes have been young players.
I'd hope we will be in a position to add fewer high quality additions come the summer.
Agreed. Think he inherited a squad with some really good players, some players with quite a lot of potential and of course a (in hindsight) really special talent in Kane. But also a squad with a lot of problems. He did great work with a lot of those players already here, but they did also have that potential in them.I'm not quite sure that stands up to close scrutiny mate.
They talk about it on the athletic this weekI'm not quite sure that stands up to close scrutiny mate.