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ENIC

ricky2tricky4city said:
Yes, he'd have an opinion on the football side of it BUT Poch would have final say. Jeez

I've agreed he is close to the football side of things, and so he should be at that time.
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And that's the point. He's closer and more involved than most football chairmen. Is that a good thing? You may think it is. Others don't believe it is and that underpins their argument about getting him out.

Bedfordspurs said:
Webb doesn’t even have a job currently
So why should we trust a guy who is now trying to build his profile publicly?
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Listen to the guy. He has no axe to grind. He didn't even voluntarily go to Levy, Jordan lead him there and he answered the questions honestly but diplomatically. He's hardly going to go on national radio and lie about Daniel Levy unless he was looking to destroy his reputation and never wanted to work in the industry again. He's as trustworthy a source as I've seen on this topic.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
I've largely answered above but the 'not spending enough' is just wanting a sugar daddy Saudi Sportswashing Machine/City type owner (and realistically that's what it might take these days). ENIC have never pretended they'd be that, so they're not breaking any promises. They're actually doing what they say. Increased revenues will increase investment in the football team. It still doesn't put us on a level playing field with 3 or 4 teams but we can contend with being smarter.

The lazy tropes will continually be used all the time we don't win something.
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It's really not about wanting a sugar daddy. Grealish would have cost an amount that we could have afforded by all accounts. Levy wanted to squeeze Villa as they were in a position of weakness. The circumstances changed and he lost his leverage. It's turned out that Grealish would likely have been a success here and, in hindsight, we were penny wise and pound foolish on that one.

Jose wanted Skriniar. He was a player we probably could have afforded but decided against it and he got Joe Rodon. Conte wanted Bastoni. Again, we likely could have afforded it but decided not to and Conte got Lenglet.

It's those sorts of decisions that his detractors point to. And there is validity in their arguments because they can always point to the tangible results - no trophies and Conte/Mourinho both combusted here without a trophy when they've won everywhere else. Likewise, there is validity in your argument. But it's foolish for anyone to pretend that Levy doesn't have a bigger say in our transfer activity than most other chairmen.
 
DeanoAustin said:
And that's the point. He's closer and more involved than most football chairmen. Is that a good thing? You may think it is. Others don't believe it is and that underpins their argument about getting him out.



Listen to the guy. He has no axe to grind. He didn't even voluntarily go to Levy, Jordan lead him there and he answered the questions honestly but diplomatically. He's hardly going to go on national radio and lie about Daniel Levy unless he was looking to destroy his reputation and never wanted to work in the industry again. He's as trustworthy a source as I've seen on this topic.
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Honestly
He came across to me as a bit of a pleb
 
DeanoAustin said:
It's really not about wanting a sugar daddy. Grealish would have cost an amount that we could have afforded by all accounts. Levy wanted to squeeze Villa as they were in a position of weakness. The circumstances changed and he lost his leverage. It's turned out that Grealish would likely have been a success here and, in hindsight, we were penny wise and pound foolish on that one.

Jose wanted Skriniar. He was a player we probably could have afforded but decided against it and he got Joe Rodon. Conte wanted Bastoni. Again, we likely could have afforded it but decided not to and Conte got Lenglet.

It's those sorts of decisions that his detractors point to. And there is validity in their arguments because they can always point to the tangible results - no trophies and Conte/Mourinho both combusted here without a trophy when they've won everywhere else. Likewise, there is validity in your argument. But it's foolish for anyone to pretend that Levy doesn't have a bigger say in our transfer activity than most other chairmen.
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How do fans know what we can’t and can’t afford?
We do know we did talk to Bastoni but he didn’t want to come
 
Bedfordspurs said:
How do fans know what we can’t and can’t afford?
We do know we did talk to Bastoni but he didn’t want to come
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On Grealish, from memory, we were talking 25m-30m. We could have afforded that at the time. I know the stadium build was going on but we could have afforded it. We signed GLC and Ndombele for over 100m the following summer.

On Skriniar, he was unlikely to cost 100m. Again, we could have afforded him. It would have been possible for us to sign him but we decided not to. Within 12 months we were signing Romero for 40m and Royal for 25m.
 
DeanoAustin said:
But it's foolish for anyone to pretend that Levy doesn't have a bigger say in our transfer activity than most other chairmen
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Foolish? When you simply don't know that. How intently do any of us follow other clubs?.

As I said previously, from the era the Webb guy was referring too, things have changed. What any rational person would do is consider how things have changed (actual things that have happened btw, not coulda woulda shoulda) and evaluate if it changes their conclusion/opinion of a person or situation by improving some of the negatives they perceived. If it doesn't, then fair enough.
 
LemonadeMoney said:
I'd like to see actual proof of any situation where Levy has made a decision knowing it was detrimental to THFC.
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This is a silly and irrelevant point. Why would him knowing it was detrimental have any relevance? Do you think the argument is that Levy is actively trying to sabotage Spurs or something? No. the argument is that his decisions, taking with all the good will in the world, have had negative effects on the pitch. Its really that simple. You can agree or disagree with that, but no one thinks he did it on purpose, they just think he has poor judgement, just like you likely think he has good judgement.
 
DeanoAustin said:
It's really not about wanting a sugar daddy. Grealish would have cost an amount that we could have afforded by all accounts. Levy wanted to squeeze Villa as they were in a position of weakness. The circumstances changed and he lost his leverage. It's turned out that Grealish would likely have been a success here and, in hindsight, we were penny wise and pound foolish on that one.

Jose wanted Skriniar. He was a player we probably could have afforded but decided against it and he got Joe Rodon. Conte wanted Bastoni. Again, we likely could have afforded it but decided not to and Conte got Lenglet.

It's those sorts of decisions that his detractors point to. And there is validity in their arguments because they can always point to the tangible results - no trophies and Conte/Mourinho both combusted here without a trophy when they've won everywhere else. Likewise, there is validity in your argument. But it's foolish for anyone to pretend that Levy doesn't have a bigger say in our transfer activity than most other chairmen.
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You realise you've just presented a load of straw man arguments you really have no real knowledge of?
 
DeanoAustin said:
Jose wanted Skriniar. He was a player we probably could have afforded but decided against it and he got Joe Rodon. Conte wanted Bastoni. Again, we likely could have afforded it but decided not to and Conte got Lenglet..
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How do you know Jose wanted Skriniar or Conte wanted Bastoni? How do you know we didn't try for those players but couldn't get them?
Going by the media? The same media that changes what manager we are after on a daily basis?
 
LemonadeMoney said:
You realise you've just presented a load of straw man arguments you really have no real knowledge of?
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You look at what’s out in the public domain and make a judgement on it. Grealish in particular said he expected to be a spurs player and Steve Bruce, who was manager at the time, said we could have had him but lowballed Villa.
 
DubSpur said:
How do you know Jose wanted Skriniar or Conte wanted Bastoni? How do you know we didn't try for those players but couldn't get them?
Going by the media? The same media that changes what manager we are after on a daily basis?
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Theres a lot of smoke out there.

Even supposing they weren’t the managers’ targets, do you think Joe Rodon and Clement Lenglet were the players they wanted or were anywhere near first choices?
 
DeanoAustin said:
You look at what’s out in the public domain and make a judgement on it. Grealish in particular said he expected to be a spurs player and Steve Bruce, who was manager at the time, said we could have had him but lowballed Villa.
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Maybe, but you stated he would have been a success.
 

I’m sure you can see why that quote isn’t as definitive as you thought. I didn’t definitively say he WOULD have been a success.

I said it was likely which, based on his career before and after his transfer from Villa, is not unreasonable.
 
I would say the Mane example is more relevant than Grealish. Grealish deal has seen him made a poster boy for the Levy arguments but as I said before, knowing ex Villa player Michael Standing who I met at Grays and lately when he coached my son in Sussex, he was clear to me that it was Grealish and his dad who kyboshed that deal after soul-searching and pressure from fans.

The thing is, these stories are obviously surfacing now because they compound our situation and seeing as Levy has undoubtedly made mistakes he has to live and die by that, but lets not pretend that we are the only club that makes mistakes or he is the only Chairman that has that sway over the operation. There is also the underhand actions of those who we know undoubtedly are the villains of any piece.....agents
 
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DeanoAustin said:
That's not the argument. Levy would never do that. However, he makes decisions weighing up lots of factors. Two of those factors are the economics of a deal and the football benefits of a deal. A lot of the time, they are conflicting factors so Levy has to decide which one he gives more weight to.

The argument is that he too often puts economic considerations above football considerations.
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Yep, that is exactly the real criticism (with merit)

The piece that is wrong is people portray that as "penny pinching" (politest version of it), vs. understanding this is a business/risk management decision (very normal, not that you always get it right but is done every day in large companies and every day employees of those same companies don't always agree with it)
 
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