Like I said, fair play to them for recognizing how long it took, and the video's a bit amusing (although it's a copy of the stuff Arsenal's been putting out on their own Twitter about those blokes they signed yesterday). Doesn't preclude the possibility that the Guardian's allegations are right, and that, consequently, their unconvincing implicit reliance on the 'power shift' argument is just a bunch of horsesh*t.
http://www.skysports.com/football/n...delayed-tottenhams-georges-kevin-nkoudou-deal
An equally reputable reporter says that it is not horsebrick. The Guardian is no more a paragon for truthful reporting than Sky Sports.
Whether it is penny-pinching, power shifts, Poch not being convinced that he wanted to lose N'Jie, N'Jie having trouble getting a visa for France because of the terror attacks, it doesn't really matter. Your assumption is that having him in earlier could have improved results to an extent that the £1.6m saved could be a false saving. By all accounts, GKN is not one for now and my guess is that he will not start for a while until he gets use to the Poch press/tactics. So, why does it matter if he arrived today, yesterday, last week, last month or 2 months ago?
I get the point you are making. Of course it is ideal that all signings are in on time for pre-season. No arguments there. But, sometimes, just sometimes, other parties don't want to play ball. If Levy was a penny pinching bastard who had no regard for footballing matters and just wanted to save on fee, then we would not have signed players early. He'd have renegotiated Wanyama's fee 3 times over and then the payment terms 3 times as well. Janssen could easily have been dragged out to save a penny or two. I think Levy has shown plenty of examples of deals done early.
Even the mighty Chelsea have had to resort to doing deals on the last day. Just look at the number of deals that have been done in the last couple of days. Are all those chairmen "penny-pinchers" as well? Or is that just for Levy.
It is too simplistic to run with the narrative that Levy penny pinching is the reason for all of our delays. His hard negotiating stance has also meant we have made some early signings. There are so many variables that will result in the delay of any transfer and I think the fact that you always resort to blaming Levy just makes it appear that you don't rate him at all. His record (and I know we have gone over this before) speaks for itself. Even if I grant you the others that have done better (which I don't). he would still be in the top 10 chairmen in Europe no?
He has backed Poch, and we are now a net spender!! Credit to you for recognising this at least with regards to the Sissoko transfer. Also credit to you for saying what you think.