ENIC

[Raziel]

It is mad that everyone is comparing the modern era to the 50s-90s.

There are so many clubs now who are so much better than every other club due to one or both of PL/CL money (United, Arsenal, Liverpool) and financial doping (City, Chelsea).

You only have to look at the distribution of trophies between clubs over the years to see that they are being shared by a narrower and narrower set of teams. Money has hugely stratified the league and created a gulf between clubs.

And its only getting worse. A lot of people use Swansea, Wigan, Portsmouth etc. as a stick to beat Levy with. But when is the last time that sort of club won a trophy? Leicester are the only ones. Otherwise you have to go back to Wigan/Swansea in 2013. Every single other trophy has been shared between the 5 clubs mentioned above. Frankly its a miracle that we've even been this close.

The same can obviously be said for us being the only European regular outside the elite: we have also benefited from this stratification of the league. But to get to that point was a miracle from where we were in the 90s, whether we won a League Cup in 1999 or not. We could have easily been left in the doldrums like Everton, Leeds, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Villa.

Now we have comparable income streams to those other 5 clubs, which is a testament to Levy's management. He always said that CL under Poch came earlier than planned. The plan was to build the stadium and use that as a base. We now have that base. We have the stadium/revenue streams, the training ground, and the behind the scenes operation in place. We are finally ready to have a crack at the big boys.

Of course, having had the best team in the country and almost winning several trophies, there is a strong argument to say we should have just said 'fudge it' and invested at the top, like Arsenal are doing now.

The flipside is that the margins are fine and, if it backfired, we could have easily squandered all that good work and slipped down the league. We may well have not been in as strong a position on PSR/squad quality now if we'd been overspending like our rivals.

It remains to be seen what happens to (for example) Arsenal or Villa. It is 'brick or get off the pot' time for both of them with regards to finances. A couple of bad years, the top players leave, and its back down the snake to square 1 on the board. (Albeit Arsenal have very strong revenues to fall back on.) That is the risk they have taken, and one we chose not to take when we didn't sign anyone, didn't back Poch, and let that project go stale.

If you deem that risk to be unacceptable within our finances, as the club did, then you are left with 2 options: unheard of largesse from Lewis, or oil money. Neither of these was ever realistic.

I can't be sure whether that under-investment was the right approach or not, but we are in a strong position now to build from. We can (and have) invested in the squad and are making real progress on the pitch.

As is abundantly clear from this post, more money from Qatari investment would have course help. But changing the leadership who have delivered such success in such an unprecedented climate is complete lunacy IMO - regardless of their risk appetite in the Poch years.

Even if it was uncalled for, we are now in a position where the same risk appetite will yield much more investment. If we can get even more investment from selling off a bit of the club, great, but for me it can't mean getting rid of Levy. He built this club to where it is now, including laying the foundations of a footballing operation that is designed to take us to the next level.

In any case, he's staying. He wants to win the league with us and I don't expect him to quit until we do. Of course he has made mistakes but it is a punishing environment and overall I wouldn't want anyone else at the helm. His dedication and knowledge of the club are second to none and, in the long run, he has always managed to reach new heights. He is here to stay and for me has earned my backing over the past 20+ years.

I am hugely proud of what the club has done over my lifetime with all of the odds stacked against us. We have managed to muscle in on one of the most competitive and - frankly - rigged cartels in world sport.

I really do think that we are approaching a period of real promise for this club and I wish everyone would just quit moaning and get behind the fudging boys.

COYS

There is a lot to unpack here, but to me, there is a lot that people don't see/don't want to acknowledge

- The game is fudging broken, the two most successful clubs in England in last 15-20 years are Chelsea, who lost 1M/week for 13 years under RA, and are currently trying to bend every rule they can, plus City who has 115 charges which if you bother to go through shows systematic cheating
- This was post the PL & CL rebrand that gave the sides that happened to be in top 4 around 1991, basically Arsenal, United & Liverpool got a huge advantage for decades to come, only Leeds fudged up that position

on top of that
- Football has always been tribal, always been about banter, however it amazes me about how many people/fans give the main reason as why we have to win a trophy as "I get brick from friends/co-workers/etc." (who gives a brick?)
- In line with that, this idea that you have to support a "winning club" is counter to what I remember of growing up following football, don't be a bandwagon fan, glory hunter?
- Media/lazy narrative is the thing of our times, every pundit is still saying "Spurs can't keep conceding and be successful", we have conceded the same amount of goals as City and 1 more than Arsenal. A lot of the brick that is said about Spurs, the club, the owners, doesn't even stand up to basic review/scrutiny but flies and gets repeated by our own fans because it's a narrative. Deep thoughtful discussion has been replaced by clickbait/sensationalism even when it's supposed to be someone's fudging profession

- And along that view, no one acknowledges, the club has never in it's history been more consistent in the league finishes and European participation that is has in the last 16-18 years.

Said it previously, regardless of ENICs/Levy's final football legacy, they have protected the club's future by getting the business side right, and there are very few clubs in European football that have that ensured, so there has to be some credit in bank there.

 

[Raziel]

Looking at football history as a whole to try and plot trends is a bit of a folly imv due to the CL/PL/Sky TV led shift - really should be looked at pre/post PL era or more accurate still, to when the CL places were extended to 4 in the PL.

The footballing landscape has changed dramatically in my lifetime. In my youth, Spurs were regarded as one of the league's big spenders and it was not uncommon for the club to break the British transfer record.

The Greaves (AC Milan) transfer was a bit before my time but at £99,999 19s 11d it must have been a record, if only because Bill Nick insisted the fee would be less than £100k to reduce the pressure on Greaves.

Off the top of my head, I can remember big Chiv being bought for £125,000 from Southampton, which I think was a record at the time, while that man Greaves again was involved in what I think was another record transfer, namely Martin Peters coming in (a fee of £240k rings a bell).

I can also remember us tinkling away £110,000 on Roger Morgan but that's another story and was only a "record" in terms of being a N'dombele style waste of money, although at least the lad tried hard and he looked a bit like George Best (and played with his shirt outside of his shorts - this was a BIG BIG bone of contention way back when with the Daily Mail crowd).

Er ... what was my point?

Mainly to agree with Raziel that ENIC have been competing in a particularly tough era in terms of level playing fields (and I'm not talking about Yeovil's pitch, here). That being said, Arsenal and Liverpool are the clubs I can think of who have probably done better than THFC over ENIC's timeline without (too much) financial doping but whether they have, in Raziel's words, "improved their position more in the same timeline and kept it there" (both clubs were both previously massively successful) is arguable.

As you can tell from my Grandpa Simpson references, I can remember a time when Leeds were the top club in the country for around a decade or so. Sometimes risking all to restore the glory days does not come off.

View attachment 17859
Roger Morgan - not to be confused with his twin Ian

Yes, was writing my bit when you both posted ..

Modern success of Pool, Arsenal & United is heavily linked to their ability to participate in the first decade of the new PL/CL model, basically out earning every other club in the country by significant margins year on year. Some of that is good work on their part, a lot of it was just timing.

It also makes the money doping of Chelsea more personal to us, without a Chelsea (and later City), we could have stepped into that gap and probably been 10 years ahead of our current project

 

[Raziel]

Nice post

We have had glory glory nights, the 80s were class but I will say it again one of my earliest memories for Spurs was the 87 capitulation and my old man saying "this is Spurs".

Yes the years recently have been lean but 15 odd SFs and Finals and the responsibility not being on the players to get over the line for me is a joke of an excuse, there has to be collective blame on not crossing the line, its not all on Levy and Enic as some would have you believe. I am sure someone will trot out the "ohhh but we were underdogs" like underdogs never win cup finals (90/91 & 07/08 anyone).

Ultimately yes trophies are what clubs are judged on, has our drop off been one of dynasty of the Uniteds to nothing, absolutely not, as you say success was sporadic AND lets be really honest, the 90s really sucked for us so turning that tide of nearly relegated laughing stocks into what we are now whilst contending with oil money and criminal investment, you can't deny they have done well for us.

This is a separate and to me, very interesting conversation

- In ENIC's ownership, my last count was >23 times, we have made QF, SF, Finals, 2nd, 3rd place in league but only converted 1
- To your point, we should have at least "fluked" 2-3 more of them

One day, I'll go back through each of those and try to analyze, how many were we really underdogs, how many should we have done better, how many we just brick the bed on the day ...

 

[braineclipse]

There is a lot to unpack here, but to me, there is a lot that people don't see/don't want to acknowledge

- The game is fudging broken, the two most successful clubs in England in last 15-20 years are Chelsea, who lost 1M/week for 13 years under RA, and are currently trying to bend every rule they can, plus City who has 115 charges which if you bother to go through shows systematic cheating
- This was post the PL & CL rebrand that gave the sides that happened to be in top 4 around 1991, basically Arsenal, United & Liverpool got a huge advantage for decades to come, only Leeds fudged up that position

on top of that
- Football has always been tribal, always been about banter, however it amazes me about how many people/fans give the main reason as why we have to win a trophy as "I get brick from friends/co-workers/etc." (who gives a brick?)
- In line with that, this idea that you have to support a "winning club" is counter to what I remember of growing up following football, don't be a bandwagon fan, glory hunter?
- Media/lazy narrative is the thing of our times, every pundit is still saying "Spurs can't keep conceding and be successful", we have conceded the same amount of goals as City and 1 more than Arsenal. A lot of the brick that is said about Spurs, the club, the owners, doesn't even stand up to basic review/scrutiny but flies and gets repeated by our own fans because it's a narrative. Deep thoughtful discussion has been replaced by clickbait/sensationalism even when it's supposed to be someone's fudging profession

- And along that view, no one acknowledges, the club has never in it's history been more consistent in the league finishes and European participation that is has in the last 16-18 years.

Said it previously, regardless of ENICs/Levy's final football legacy, they have protected the club's future by getting the business side right, and there are very few clubs in European football that have that ensured, so there has to be some credit in bank there.

Doing what Chelsea and City were doing is looking increasingly difficult. Saudi Sportswashing Machine are trying, but not finding the kind of quick success City and Chelsea got. More competition and FFP.

Levy/ENIC has put us in a position where we can spend significantly and sustainably, even without CL football. Getting there for sure came at a cost, perhaps cost us some trophies along the way. But for longer term success to be viable the way football is I think this was probably the only way.

Levy obviously cares about trophies. Why else would he have gone for Mourinho and Conte. It didn't work, but not because he doesn't care. It's really fudging difficult.

I can understand the wish for cash injection owners. I don't want that, but that's more individual preference, not a rationality thing imo.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Doing what Chelsea and City were doing is looking increasingly difficult. Saudi Sportswashing Machine are trying, but not finding the kind of quick success City and Chelsea got. More competition and FFP.

Levy/ENIC has put us in a position where we can spend significantly and sustainably, even without CL football. Getting there for sure came at a cost, perhaps cost us some trophies along the way. But for longer term success to be viable the way football is I think this was probably the only way.

Levy obviously cares about trophies. Why else would he have gone for Mourinho and Conte. It didn't work, but not because he doesn't care. It's really fudging difficult.

I can understand the wish for cash injection owners. I don't want that, but that's more individual preference, not a rationality thing imo.

Pochettino told Levy we needed (an expensive) rebuild. Mourinho told him that we didn't need a rebuild and he would win the league with the existing squad. Mourinho was therefore the cheaper option. Conte came a quarter of the way through the season after a we'd sacked Nuno Espírito Santo (a cheap option to replace Mourinho).

 

[braineclipse]

Pochettino told Levy we needed (an expensive) rebuild. Mourinho told him that we didn't need a rebuild and he would win the league with the existing squad. Mourinho was therefore the cheaper option. Conte came a quarter of the way through the season after a we'd sacked Nuno Espírito Santo (a cheap option to replace Mourinho).

We had definitely started that rebuild by the time Pochettino was sacked. Spending the CL money, but still spending money, seemingly spending more or less whatever Levy thinks it's feasible/sustainable.

If Levy thought Mourinho and Conte would be cheaper in terms of what they would demand on the transfer market he was deluded. I don't think he was or is deluded. Under every manager since Pochettino we've spent significantly. Even during covid we spent money.

And again under Ange we've kept spending.

One thing Levy won't do is spend so much that we end up hamstrung and unable to operate in the coming windows/seasons. But within that parameter we seem to spend more or less what we can, and that's been the case for imo a long time.

 

[DubSpur]

Pochettino told Levy we needed (an expensive) rebuild. Mourinho told him that we didn't need a rebuild and he would win the league with the existing squad. Mourinho was therefore the cheaper option. Conte came a quarter of the way through the season after a we'd sacked Nuno Espírito Santo (a cheap option to replace Mourinho).

We had one of our biggest transfer windows the summer before Poch left. There was no intention of sacking Poch until the poor performances continued and when it was obvious Poch's heart was no longer in it.

 

[parklane1]

We had one of our biggest transfer windows the summer before Poch left. There was no intention of sacking Poch until the poor performances continued and when it was obvious Poch's heart was no longer in it.

That is how i remember it as well.

 

[Finney Is Back]

We had one of our biggest transfer windows the summer before Poch left. There was no intention of sacking Poch until the poor performances continued and when it was obvious Poch's heart was no longer in it.

How many times did Pochettino get to use the grand total of 3 new players that he had got after getting nobody for 18 months prior to that?)

 

[DubSpur]

How many times did Pochettino get to use the grand total of 3 new players that he had got after getting nobody for 18 months prior to that?)

4 new players, Lo Celso was on loan but with a view to being made permanent. Again, the amount of time that he got was down to him.
He would've continued to get new players if he hadn't checked out by that stage.

 

[Grays_1890]

Ahhh the annual "Poch wasn't backed" "what about Mane and Grealish" never misses

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Pochettino told Levy we needed (an expensive) rebuild. Mourinho told him that we didn't need a rebuild and he would win the league with the existing squad. Mourinho was therefore the cheaper option. Conte came a quarter of the way through the season after a we'd sacked Nuno Espírito Santo (a cheap option to replace Mourinho).

Silly Daniel. Cost him £160m just to keep Poch for another 4 months. should have gone straight to Jose in the summer and kept that £££ in his back pocket. Strange behaviour from someone so frugal.

 

[Lemonade Money]

Ahhh the annual "Poch wasn't backed" "what about Mane and Grealish" never misses

Annual??? Monthly!

 

[DeanoAustin]

It is mad that everyone is comparing the modern era to the 50s-90s.

There are so many clubs now who are so much better than every other club due to one or both of PL/CL money (United, Arsenal, Liverpool) and financial doping (City, Chelsea).

You only have to look at the distribution of trophies between clubs over the years to see that they are being shared by a narrower and narrower set of teams. Money has hugely stratified the league and created a gulf between clubs.

And its only getting worse. A lot of people use Swansea, Wigan, Portsmouth etc. as a stick to beat Levy with. But when is the last time that sort of club won a trophy? Leicester are the only ones. Otherwise you have to go back to Wigan/Swansea in 2013. Every single other trophy has been shared between the 5 clubs mentioned above. Frankly its a miracle that we've even been this close.

The same can obviously be said for us being the only European regular outside the elite: we have also benefited from this stratification of the league. But to get to that point was a miracle from where we were in the 90s, whether we won a League Cup in 1999 or not. We could have easily been left in the doldrums like Everton, Leeds, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Villa.

Now we have comparable income streams to those other 5 clubs, which is a testament to Levy's management. He always said that CL under Poch came earlier than planned. The plan was to build the stadium and use that as a base. We now have that base. We have the stadium/revenue streams, the training ground, and the behind the scenes operation in place. We are finally ready to have a crack at the big boys.

Of course, having had the best team in the country and almost winning several trophies, there is a strong argument to say we should have just said 'fudge it' and invested at the top, like Arsenal are doing now.

The flipside is that the margins are fine and, if it backfired, we could have easily squandered all that good work and slipped down the league. We may well have not been in as strong a position on PSR/squad quality now if we'd been overspending like our rivals.

It remains to be seen what happens to (for example) Arsenal or Villa. It is 'brick or get off the pot' time for both of them with regards to finances. A couple of bad years, the top players leave, and its back down the snake to square 1 on the board. (Albeit Arsenal have very strong revenues to fall back on.) That is the risk they have taken, and one we chose not to take when we didn't sign anyone, didn't back Poch, and let that project go stale.

If you deem that risk to be unacceptable within our finances, as the club did, then you are left with 2 options: unheard of largesse from Lewis, or oil money. Neither of these was ever realistic.

I can't be sure whether that under-investment was the right approach or not, but we are in a strong position now to build from. We can (and have) invested in the squad and are making real progress on the pitch.

As is abundantly clear from this post, more money from Qatari investment would have course help. But changing the leadership who have delivered such success in such an unprecedented climate is complete lunacy IMO - regardless of their risk appetite in the Poch years.

Even if it was uncalled for, we are now in a position where the same risk appetite will yield much more investment. If we can get even more investment from selling off a bit of the club, great, but for me it can't mean getting rid of Levy. He built this club to where it is now, including laying the foundations of a footballing operation that is designed to take us to the next level.

In any case, he's staying. He wants to win the league with us and I don't expect him to quit until we do. Of course he has made mistakes but it is a punishing environment and overall I wouldn't want anyone else at the helm. His dedication and knowledge of the club are second to none and, in the long run, he has always managed to reach new heights. He is here to stay and for me has earned my backing over the past 20+ years.

I am hugely proud of what the club has done over my lifetime with all of the odds stacked against us. We have managed to muscle in on one of the most competitive and - frankly - rigged cartels in world sport.

I really do think that we are approaching a period of real promise for this club and I wish everyone would just quit moaning and get behind the fudging boys.

COYS

That's a great post but on the bolded part...

If you look over the last 20 years (since RA came in) and the 20 years preceding that, there is no difference in terms of the number of PL winners and FA Cup winners.

There has been a narrowing of the winners of the League Cup however.

 

[Lilbaz]

That's a great post but on the bolded part...

If you look over the last 20 years (since RA came in) and the 20 years preceding that, there is no difference in terms of the number of PL winners and FA Cup winners.

There has been a narrowing of the winners of the League Cup however.

Go back pre champions league/pl.

 

[DeanoAustin]

Go back pre champions league/pl.

Ah f**k off, it took me long enough the time I did 1983-2023. And I was trying to prove the point that the trophy winners had narrowed so imagine my disappointment when I "proved" the opposite

 

[Finney Is Back]

4 new players, Lo Celso was on loan but with a view to being made permanent. Again, the amount of time that he got was down to him.
He would've continued to get new players if he hadn't checked out by that stage.

3 new players, Clarke was immediately loaned out (and surely you'd agree that Pochettino did not loan out players he actually wanted)

 

[Finney Is Back]

Silly Daniel. Cost him £160m just to keep Poch for another 4 months. should have gone straight to Jose in the summer and kept that £££ in his back pocket. Strange behaviour from someone so frugal.

You are right, it was strange behaviour. Spending a bunch of the club's money on new players for a manager who had proven himself for 4+ years and then sacking that manager before he'd even had a chance to use his new players, only to them replace him with a new manager with a completely different footballing philosophy.

 

[Raziel]

You are right, it was strange behaviour. Spending a bunch of the club's money on new players for a manager who had proven himself for 4+ years and then sacking that manager before he'd even had a chance to use his new players, only to them replace him with a new manager with a completely different footballing philosophy.

It's not, hindsight does weird takes

- Levy did not "want" to fire Poch, the fact that he spent that much money (record fees) on players for him show that, despite the previous season tail off.
- The logical view was the club expected Poch to reset himself, reset the team and go again, this time with two very talented midfielders and one of the most promising FB/WBs around (FWIW, I think Poch in long run might have got a tune out of GLC, fudge Ndombele). He didn't, he spiraled, he got himself fired (like Conte).
- Post that, the choices were simple, either scrap the team and completely rebuild, or take a chance that someone could get one last tune out of a team that still had Kane, Son, Lloris, Eriksen, Toby, etc ..

History may show those to be wrong decisions, but there is logic/strategy there.

So we waited 3 more years for the full rebuild, and we are there now

 

[Finney Is Back]

It's not, hindsight does weird takes

- Levy did not "want" to fire Poch, the fact that he spent that much money (record fees) on players for him show that, despite the previous season tail off.
- The logical view was the club expected Poch to reset himself, reset the team and go again, this time with two very talented midfielders and one of the most promising FB/WBs around (FWIW, I think Poch in long run might have got a tune out of GLC, fudge Ndombele). He didn't, he spiraled, he got himself fired (like Conte).
- Post that, the choices were simple, either scrap the team and completely rebuild, or take a chance that someone could get one last tune out of a team that still had Kane, Son, Lloris, Eriksen, Toby, etc ..

History may show those to be wrong decisions, but there is logic/strategy there.

So we waited 3 more years for the full rebuild, and we are there now

Then he should've actually allowed Pochettino to have some time coaching and using those new players.

Some of us said at the time it was the wrong decision.