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Transfer Rumour Thread

billyiddo said:
Right so on this particular point then you must agree that prior to the recent period of austerity Levy was doing a good job? Oversaw a consistent upward curve in our fortunes, establishing us as a top 6 club and was reinvesting the clubs money in the team. The 'problems' started when there wasn't surplus cash to fund negative net transfer windows year in year - so going back to the initial topic, with that in mind - why do you think he won't reinvest the money once there is surplus cash again? (Stadium finished/bigger revenue firewood-gatherers)

Do you think in that instance we'd see the club posting high profits at the expense of investing in the team?
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We have already seen the club posting profits at the expense of investing in the team, and it's not something Levy is averse to (far from it, imo). The problem arises with the youth team model and Levy's cast iron determination to avoid over extending the club when it comes to chasing players he doesn't see as worth it (because lord forbid, that might mean ENIC actually providing some security for the club using future income to fund the purchase, or funding it themselves): we've seen with Schneiderlin that the most perfunctory effort to get a manager's first choice, followed by a gleeful dash to the 'cheap' option, is something Levy will happily do at any time, to any manager, be it a new one asking for players to implement his vision or an established one asking for those one or two reinforcements to really get stuck into a title challenge.

Now, with a youth team-base recruiting system, the assumption goes from 'the youth team isn't good enough to go straight into the first team' to 'the youth team has players of good enough quality to get into the first team straight away'. The problem with this is that it probably allows for a manager's request for players to be batted away with the new excuse, namely 'the youth team are good enough - use them'.

And I don't trust Levy not to use that excuse at every possible opportunity all the way up to the completion of the stadium, and (this probably is the crux of your question) probably well after its completion as well. And I don't think the fans will trust him with the high profits generated from the sales of our youth team players and their replacement by other youth team players, because that needs a trust between fans and chairman that imo doesn't exist today (a trust that the chairman will spend the profits at the most opportune time to buy who the manager wants).

If you're asking whether Levy will use the stadium funds once it's fully paid off, I don't think he'll be here once it's fully paid off: the whole point of building the stadium is to turn ENIC's relatively small investments into a gigantic profit made off the back of the completion of a financially secure stadium via the sale of the club to somebody else, so ENIC sticking around at that point would hurt their own bottom line to an extent (which possibly gives Joe Lewis far greater chills than anything that happens to us, the club he and Levy own).
 
Re your first paragraph - you're using the years of austerity as proof as to what Levy would do once that period is over, chalk and cheese. Im using the years out of austerity, when we had surplus cash, to show what Levy could do in a similar situation in the future. I feel my reasoning is more accurate than yours on this point as my example period is closer to what we can expect, financially, than where we currently find ourselves.

Yes there is that danger, i guess, but then that would require an about-face from the club in terms of transfer policy. We buy players with high potential (Modric,Bale,Lamela), we buy players with proven ability for high and low transfer fees (Berbatov,VdV,Woodgate,Keane,Soldado) and yes we also buy cheap stop gaps. If we have money to burn, as described previously, then i see no reason why we shouldnt expect the club to continue buying players that fit within our policy, only with the added bonus of having a steady stream of talented youth players making up a good proportion of the squad (meaning less signings required)

I believe when there's money available it ultimately goes back in to the club, signings, stadium, training center whatever - right now we are watching what we spend but i can look at the stadium situation and reason that away quite easily (as outlined in previous posts) and taking all that in i can look to the future and summize that when there's money available it will once again go back in to the club.
 
billyiddo said:
Re your first paragraph - you're using the years of austerity as proof as to what Levy do would once that period is over, chalk and cheese. Im using the years out of austerity, when we had surplus cash, to show what Levy could do in a similar situation in the future. I feel my reasoning is more accurate than yours on this point as my example period is closer to what we can expect, financially, than where we currently find ourselves.

Yes there is that danger, i guess, but then that would require an about-face from the club in terms of transfer policy. We buy players with high potential (Modric,Bale,Lamela), we buy players with proven ability for high and low transfer fees (Berbatov,VdV,Woodgate,Keane,Soldado) and yes we also buy cheap stop gaps. If we have money to burn, as described previously, then i see no reason why we shouldnt expect the club to continue buying players that fit within our policy, only with the added bonus of having a steady firewood-gatherer of talented youth players making up a good proportion of the squad (meaning less signings required)
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http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...enham-claims-players-ate-mcdonalds-drank-coke

"Ramos wanted to bring in the likes of Samuel Eto'o and David Villa to strengthen the forward line. Instead, he was saddled with Roman Pavlyuchenko, of whom he said: "Russian — he didn’t understand anything. He was here for six months and he hardly played. Damien Comolli signed him."

Another striker to come in for criticism was Darren Bent. Again, Ramos was scathing, suggesting that Bent's excellent pre-season form in the summer of 2008 was in fact terrible news that enticed Levy to sell Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United on deadline day.

We won every game and he [Bent] scores 11 or 12 goals and so the chairman thinks, “This guy Berbatov out, this guy Robbie Keane out!”

And then what happens? In December they spent £51m to rectify the mistakes. They say, “It’s the manager who doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know anything. The stupid Spaniard hasn’t got a clue. We’ll blame him”.

The guy that sold Keane and Berbatov wasn’t to blame and yet they had to spend £51m to sort it out!""

Come, come, mate. You know and I know that this stuff isn't only from the last five years. This behaviour of Levy's was present from the time he took over: it only became completely detrimental once austerity began. But let's not pretend that he was any more prone to listening to his managers and backing them with what they wanted (instead of telling them to make do with what they had) prior to the start of the whole stadium kerfuffle.
 
The debate we're having is whether money will go back in to the club when it's making money, your post above doesn't really relate to that. We can save the does he always buy the right players/back the right person debate for another night i think :lol:

The answer to that is no, imv, btw (but ultimately more wrong than right) ;)
 
billyiddo said:
The debate we're having is whether money will go back in to the club when it's making money, your post above doesn't really relate to that. We can save the does he always buy the right players/back the right person debate for another night i think :lol:

The answer to that is no, imv, btw (but ultimately more wrong than right) ;)
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Point being, we ended with a profit that window, after selling Berba and Keane because Levy thought Bent and Pav were good enough to cover it. Had we not been stuck in the relegation zone come January, he would have gotten away with that bit of cheapness: as it stood, he had to guarantee our PL survival, so he spent enough to make it a net spend overall. But I don't think for one second that his intention wasn't to start banking profits from that season onwards, instead of from 2010 onwards: and with regard to that aim, I believe we did make a small profit on player trading in the 2009 summer window to start it off.

Still, we're wandering miles off the old farm now. :p
 
Tottenham Hotspur are said to be backing off signing Fabian Delph for now, report The Mirror.

This is despite their claims the England international midfielder is available for a bargain £4 million.

The paper claim Spurs are not yet willing to agree to his wage demands, but may change their mind: "Spurs are not believed to be willing to meet Delph's £60,000-a-week wage demands but may revisit the possibility in the final days of the window, especially if they manage to off-load more players from their wage bill."
 
lot of talk of our club/levy "being cheap" or going through "austerity" etc here. but is that really the case?

minus Chel53a and Emirates Marketing Project, we've been one of the teams that have spent the most in the transfer market over the last few years (in the premier league). the problem is, in football, fans always want to match the spending of the clubs directly above them. hence some of the "accusations" against our management in this thread re spending. considering how much risk the owners take on with owning a football club, and the overall value of the business, i personally dont think we can ask for much more from enic.

the fact is if Chel53a started spending a bit less. and say, made a loss of only 5m p/a instead of 50m p/a, and started winning less, football is such a crazy industry that abramovic would probably be accused of being "cheap". as their fans would be totally oblivious to the fact that their owner is still subsidising their club.

basically, i think some of the accusations being laid at enic in this thread is simply a result of our fans comparing our spending to other clubs in the mad world of football. when you consider how much money we are spending on transfer fees and wages in a vacuum, i don't think our club is doing too bad. when you think about it, its quite funny how we complain about ticket prices, and hope that the price comes down following new tv deals or stadium expansions. but then have a go at our owners for not spending many millions more on transfers. ie. fabien delph is only a few million, but a ticket price increase of 5% is a calamity.
 
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minus Chel53a and Emirates Marketing Project, we've been one of the teams that have spent the most in the transfer market over the last few years (in the premier league).

When talking net that is simply not true.
 
I bet if you take player wages in to account we spend as much, if not more, than anyone outside the top 4 (wages+transfers)

Better players = higher wages, the higher in the league you are the better the player you attract and your wage bill goes up. Unless you equally raise your revenue to match that rise, transfer spending will come down. Iirc our wage budget has almost doubled since we first finished 4th

wages aren't glamourous like transfer fees so often get overlooked by supporters, but it all comes from the same place and if you think the club is going to plunge itself in to overall debt each season when it's trying to finance a stadium build you need a bit of a wake up call
 
WestBerkshire said:
minus Chel53a and Emirates Marketing Project, we've been one of the teams that have spent the most in the transfer market over the last few years (in the premier league).

When talking net that is simply not true.
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When talking net, we're rock bottom of the EPL over the past decade.
 
Transfer fee alone is pointless, need to include wages, signing bonuses and agent fees into the equation.
 
Stoke%2BCity%2BWages%2B2014.jpg


If Stoke have a 20m net spend on new signings, we still outspend by about 20m.
 
WestBerkshire said:
Exactly. And it's all been off set against selling our best players. And yet still people believe levy has ambitions to win trophies etc.
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Do you think he goes around trying to sell them? Or in modern football do players have more power to engineer moves than ever befor.

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DubaiSpur said:
Update? How'd he do? What does he play like?
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Didnt make it yo the second half, Mrs turned the TV off as I was blowing out some ZZZzzz's

what I saw, he played all three forward spots, slight frame, decent pace. would be surprised if he was valued over 5m though. More likely to pass it than take players on. So not an out and out winger.

overall nothing special from the first half really. Thought Kazim Richards outplayed him
 
We need a striker simple as that. No doubt be let down again tho. Cue the levy apologists spitting the dummy. Adebayor and soldado should be nowhere near a club with supposed aspirations to compete with the best.
 
WestBerkshire said:
And yet still people believe levy has ambitions to win trophies etc.
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this shouldnt count against levy though. there are 2 owners in this league who are willing to post absurd levels of financial losses in order to win titles. its no wonder that clubs like us find it difficult to compete with them for the league title.

fwiw, i think levy does have ambitions to win trophies, and rightly so. we are a top 4 contender, and as such, we are naturally up there as one of the favourites for domestic competitions.
 
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