• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

ENIC

Conte securing top 4, whether by 'flogging the last bits of Poch's team' or whatever, was an achievement, especially given where we were when he joined. It could be said it was a similar achievement to Arsenal's second place.
Regardless, Arsenal showed ambition, we haven't ever showed similar regardless of circumstance.
The board hired Conte. He diudn';t just land in our laps. You know what hiring Conte means, or at least people who have basic knowledge of football, know it means you need to keep investing big to at least try to push on. And that he needs bonfide wing-back options.

Mourinho throug to Conte (and maybe now) shows the owners want to be seen with the big name managers but are not prepared (or don't know how) to actually wlak the walk with said managers

Yeah i mean I literally just said Conte, Mourinho and that whole period was one big mistake - I don't know what else you want me to say?
 
Richarlison is £175k? Or did you mean he's on more than solanke?

Not sure what you are getting at though. If we paid solanke more we'd be better?
According to the website you posted, Richarlison AND Solanke's wages are dwarfed by those three Liverpool midfielders.
My point is again: we are happy to pay bigger fees but still don't generally pay higher wages since the stadium move
 
Reading through last few pages main takeaway is that there's lots of ways a team can be successful e.g. spending obscene amounts of money, building a squad for the long term, mix and match of that, promoting youth etc.

We've generally spent a decent amount of money in the last few years, some badly and some well but that's the nature of football. I think ultimately timing is critical on when you spend that money and the level of risk you tolerate. The best teams and businesses invest from a position of strength to stay on top - generally the reaction is why did they do that but it tends to look brilliant in hindsight and that's mostly because there was a plan behind it.

For us there's been lots of options to capitalise e.g. Harry title charge, Poch wanting to rebuild, Conte not getting the defenders etc. Over those periods we spent money but didn't risk it at the right time. Overall it's small margins mostly.

What is in our control is getting a manager to believe in our strategy and get the most of our resources and I think that's where we've failed recently - we needed someone more like Poch than proven winners. I think Ange was trying to go back to that but it's obviously the wrong choice - hopefully we stick with that style of manager as that's the level we should be targetting, someone that plays good attacking football and is happy to bring through youth.
 
Yeah i mean I literally just said Conte, Mourinho and that whole period was one big mistake - I don't know what else you want me to say?

My point is that it's mistake after mistake: generally our owners don;t have much footballing nous and are NOT ambitious when it comes to the crunch: they hire these 'top class, win now' manager but still don't change their approach to fit such a change.
Lack of nous and ambition (when it comes to the crunch) for me
 
I would say it was the managers employed that gave us a higher platform to succeed and it was often said managers who failed often (not always) because they came up against peers who had received better backing.

Money has been flowing since the new stadium but we're steadily getting worse. The fact it seems the board are looking at the possibility of going back for Poch says things deep down haven't changed

I just don't think that circle squares for me. More top end finishes consistently than any time in our history along with SF or better showings in the cups over the same period......thats not all on just management overstretching the clubs ambitions/parts/
 
According to the website you posted, Richarlison AND Solanke's wages are dwarfed by those three Liverpool midfielders.
My point is again: we are happy to pay bigger fees but still don't generally pay higher wages since the stadium move

Gravenbach £150k.
Szoboszlai £120k.
McAlister £150k.

Richarlison £175k.

What are you talking about?
 
I just don't think that circle squares for me. More top end finishes consistently than any time in our history along with SF or better showings in the cups over the same period......thats not all on just management overstretching the clubs ambitions/parts/

Those 'top end finishes'; i have to wonder if only the top 2 got Europe, whether we'd have 'elevated' ourselves that way. I also wonder if only the champions and the cup winners got to play in Europe whether we'd have more cups to our name now (or even whether ENIC would even still be here).

The 'ambition' at the club is set from the top, see our wage and bonus structures. However we want to look at the 'oil club's' their ambitions are to do whatever they do to get trophies and all the finances, dodgy 'sponsorship' that stems from actually winning.

I'm interested to hear from anyone who can show a counter situation under ENIC to the 'sacked Jose just before the cup final' one. And no, having Ange continue in the job for me doesn't count
 
Ok, if we, somehow, secure CL via an EL win, do you honestly expect the club this summer to "go in to the market and get those top class ready made players"?

I don't think you understand why Arsenal were willing or able to buy a player like Rice - they had a manager in place for several seasons who had helped rebuild the team to a point that they were matching City in a 90 point plus season, Arteta knew what he wanted at that point and had earned the right to make that decision to go big on one player as he felt it was their best option to have them cross the line, they had a quality first XI and decent depth. Us winning the EL and qualifying for the CL does not put us in that position - we will have a new manager, we will have several positions that need strengthening and potentially a couple of wantaway players to throw in to the mix, it would be a dereliction of squad building to spend the bulk of a budget on 1 player at this juncture imv - unless we could supplement a big signing with several free or low cost transfers maybe
 
Not according to this. First hit on google search though.


Comparison

Capology is so wrong it's painful.

From both clubs audited accounts.


Liverpool £377m
Tottenham £220m

Given how far off they are from the audited wage numbers I doubt their weekly wages are anything but a guess and not one based on anything real.
 
I don't think you understand why Arsenal were willing or able to buy a player like Rice - they had a manager in place for several seasons who had helped rebuild the team to a point that they were matching City in a 90 point plus season, Arteta knew what he wanted at that point and had earned the right to make that decision to go big on one player as he felt it was their best option to have them cross the line, they had a quality first XI and decent depth. Us winning the EL and qualifying for the CL does not put us in that position - we will have a new manager, we will have several positions that need strengthening and potentially a couple of wantaway players to throw in to the mix, it would be a dereliction of squad building to spend the bulk of a budget on 1 player at this juncture imv

I totally understand why Arsenal were wiling to buy a player like Rice. It was the same reason they were prepared to buy Jesus and Zinchenko when they missed out on CL to us: ambition.
Also, it's not like Rice was the only player they bought that summer too.
If we, somehow, make CL this summer, there is no reason for us to not show ambition. We have indeed got positions to upgrade, but as you say "we now have the money from the new stadium" and we can surely use it. Especially if we also have CL.
 
Capology is so wrong it's painful.

From both clubs audited accounts.


Liverpool £377m
Tottenham £220m

Given how far off they are from the audited wage numbers I doubt their weekly wages are anything but a guess and not one based on anything real.

Those figures are for the club as a whole not first team.

I'm not saying they don't pay more wages on a whole. I'm focusing on the fact we could have bought the likes of gravenbach and szoboszlai without breaking our wage structure.
 
I don't think you understand why Arsenal were willing or able to buy a player like Rice - they had a manager in place for several seasons who had helped rebuild the team to a point that they were matching City in a 90 point plus season, Arteta knew what he wanted at that point and had earned the right to make that decision to go big on one player as he felt it was their best option to have them cross the line, they had a quality first XI and decent depth. Us winning the EL and qualifying for the CL does not put us in that position - we will have a new manager, we will have several positions that need strengthening and potentially a couple of wantaway players to throw in to the mix, it would be a dereliction of squad building to spend the bulk of a budget on 1 player at this juncture imv - unless we could supplement a big signing with several free or low cost transfers maybe
We had the opportunity under Harry but instead we brought in Nelson and flipping OAP Saha on short term loans. We had the opportunity under Poch but instead we didn't bring in a single face for 18 months and before you talk about the stadium build there was absolutely nothing stopping us from selling Dele/Eriksen etc and reinvesting the money into strengthening the squad apart from the lack of football nous and the innate caution that is ENIC's model.
 
Those figures are for the club as a whole not first team.

I'm not saying they don't pay more wages on a whole. I'm focusing on the fact we could have bought the likes of gravenbach and szoboszlai without breaking our wage structure.
They are for the entire club but let's be real, player wages are going to be by far the majority of the money spent on wages. That Capology's figures are so far off tells you that there is something very wrong with their methodology and the reality it's pure guess work on their part.
 

No i think you'll find he's 3rd highest earner.

Ok, so which source do we go with for wages?
Also, it doesn't detract from my general point: compared to our peers, we are prepared to match them on fees but NOT match them on wages: see that our main striker who we bought after missing out on 5th is earning less than midfielders bought by Liverpool in similar circumstances
 
Back