I’m a broken record on this, but oh how I’d love to have the kind of shit season the likes of Arsenal, City, United, Liverpool and Chelsea have. United have been rubbish for a decade and they’ve won two EFL Cups, a Europa League and now an FA Cup.
One other advantage of Manure winning the FA Cup is that means one less competition that Chelsea can beat us in.
Btw, was there not some bizarre Uefa ruling earlier this season that Manure would be banned from Europe if Nice also qualified for the same competition (Sir Jimmy Rad also owns Nice)?Meaning the team that was placed higher in its domestic league would get precedence? Nice finished 5th in Ligue 1 and Manure 8th in the PL.
And Chelsea have to play in the qualifying round on August 22 and 29 - the PL starts on Aug 17. They may also have trouble meeting Uefa's financial requirements.
So Rodon will return from his loan there, rather than them buying him? And Walker-Peters may want to stay at Southampton. This is not the outcome we wanted.
If we want to improve, players like Walker-Peters are not going to help. We need to start bringing in proven quality or we are just spinning our wheels.
... er ... not sure what's going on with the Walker-Peters chat, here, but he's been off our books for a good three years now. Am I missing something? edit: as an aside ... actually, he might be pretty decent in Ange's system. Do we have dibs on him or something?
There's been speculation we could go for him as a homegrown backup to the fullbacks, that's all. But apparently he's not good enough, so what do I (or anyone else that's mentioned him) know?
KWP was always pretty good, but people started saying he wasn't good enough when he got rinsed as a youngster by Messi, of all people. Some players are really good in certain systems. Spurs need to buy players who can play in Ange's system. No point buying someone who's more of a jack-of-all-trades. We've been doing that for years and it only seems to work out well for other teams who buy our expensively acquired players on the cheap. Really got to back the managers system now.
Yes. We were all laughing at Chelsea for their season, but they finished only 3 points below us and got to a cup final. And yet we're explaining away our misfiring with excuses. 'I just want to win mate' is a perfect mindset to have. Eff all the other teams and what they're doing. Just concentrate on us winning. There has been a malaise at Spurs for decades. It's not a lack of money, it's an attitude that infects the entire organisation on the footballing front. That of 'This is good enough.' Some players when they arrive don't progress and seem happy to be at a 'big club' and pick up an above average football wage. The truly world class players (Berbs, Bale, Modric, Kane) rise above it and move on to better pastures. Even the players who don't rise above it move on and win things. I don't buy the theory that it's Levy. There are other elements at play here. Aside from not having the budget of entire countries oil reserves behind us, Spurs are set up to be a winning team and organisation.
N'dombele goes on loan to Napoli 2022-23, Napoli wins the league. N'dombele goes on loan to Galatasaray 2023-24, Gala wins the league. (and Napoli finish 10th).
Unfortunately with Levy it`s a case of the devil you know. I am resigned to the fact he is going nowhere - it will take 5-6 billion pounds to pry his 29% stake in the club from his bony hands. As dismal as his record has been, would you want to trade him for the folks who are running Chelsea and Man U? He has been excellent running his real estate racket on a huge salary while filling the coffers of Enic and his cronies on the board. Look, the guy is an investment banker and he and Uncle Joe realized that the football club was a cash cow waiting to be exploited. On the footballing side, he has been an unmitigated disaster, marred by a litany of horrible decisions in player purchases and managerial selections. One trophy in 23 years of chairmanship tells the story. Going forward, it appears that there is finally some sense of cohesion at the club, with a competent director of football in place and some more sensible signings in recent times. As long as Herr Levy is not involved in the football decisions there may be some hope for the future.
This really is a great nonsense. The club that Levy/ENIC took over was literally, on the pitch, no better than a midtable (at best) Premier League team, having finished as high as 7th only once in the preceding decade, with European qualification coming only in the singular occasion of League Cup success* - qualifying for Europe via the League was seldom a consideration beyond November. Had you offered Spurs supporters in 2003 what the next 20 years would bring on the pitch, virtually every one of them would've snatched your hand off. 16 European campaigns, including six in the Champions League, a Champions League final, 2nd and 3rd place League finishes ... these would've been considered pipe dreams in the ten years prior to Levy's stewardship. Now, rather than comparing Levy's Spurs to the Spurs teams prior, let's compare them to English clubs of similar size and stature when Levy took over: Everton, Aston Villa, and Newcastle - similar crowds, similar resources, similar results**. Er ... is close examination even necessary? They've all been comparably shit, won nothing, and gone down at least once (or, in Everton's case, been within a hair's breadth). It goes without saying that we've never been close to that. Everton had some decent seasons under Moyes, but what most considered decent for them was worse than a typical Spurs season over the last 15 years. Villa have thrice been in Europe*** during the Levy era, reaching the UEFA Cup 2nd round once, and getting knocked out in qualifying rounds twice. All of those clubs, and their fans, would gladly swap on-the-pitch results with Spurs over the last 20 years - in a heartbeat. An 'unmitigated disaster'? Unmitigated hyperbole. We haven't won as many trophies as we'd've liked. That's Spurs shortcoming over the Levy era. "One trophy in 23 years of chairmanship tells the story." I suppose it does, if that's the only story you care to tell. But let's be honest - there's a bit more to it than that. And if you refuse to see the daylight between 'not as good as I'd like' and 'unmitigated disaster', there's not much else to say. Herr Levy? Reel it in, man. *and one-time participation in the Intertoto Cup (where we lost to Koln 0-8), the mention of which is more embarrassing than its omission would've been. **actually, Newcastle were clearly in better condition on the pitch (the Bobby Robson years) when Levy took over. But Everton, Villa, and Spurs were all bouncing around each other in the tables back then. ***And, to be fair, just edged us to the Champions League for next season.
Leeds are fooked. Apparently they owe 190m quid in outstanding transfer fee payments, with some 73m coming due by June - or in other words, now. Their most marketable players they still owe money on, so much of the proceeds from the fire sale that's coming won't even be applicable to new transfers and wages. They loaned out some of their biggest earners, hoping to bounce back up, but will now make even less on them. James, Ampadu, Kamara, etc., are on fat wages, so shifting them will be more difficult. You'd think them among the promotion favorites going into next year, but maybe not. They've got their work cut out for them upstairs.
I am not quite sure how you qualify success on the football side, but voici les faits: We are 0 for our 16 European campaigns as you say, have only gone beyond the quarterfinals once, AND did not even get out of the Conference group stage the one year we were in it. We are 1 for 46 in our combined domestic cup appearances under Levy. And 0 for 23 in the league. So a combined 1 trophy in 85 attempts. That is abysmal by any standards. I don't care about what Villa have done in the same time. I don't care what Everton have done. And I don't give a flying about Newcastle. Comparing us to those clubs to explain away Levy's failures is what Ange was talking about when he criticized the culture at the club. We have a chairman who is raking in over 6 million quid a year and a hefty bonus. That kind of record is unacceptable.
An old work colleague of mine bought a stake in Leeds recently. He’s done well for himself, but not Ryan Reynolds/Rob McLeheny well. I wonder if he got taken for a ride?
Non, 'voici quelques faits'. But whatever. You either don't know what 'disaster' means or are willfully misusing it. Either way, its application to Daniel Levy's tenure at Spurs is absurd.
As is your definition of success. If one trophy in 23 years, going through more managers than my wife goes through shoes, and being better than Aston Villa, Newcastle and Everton is success to you, congratulations, we are the greatest club on the planet. From 1961 to 1984 (another 23-year period), we won 11 major honours under Billy Nick and Keith Burkinshaw. That is what I call success. If we are a famous club, it is for that period, not for anything Enic has done (unless you count building hotels, and holding concerts and NFL games as being successful). These are THE facts, not some facts, and they are undisputable.