I fear you speak truth, shyboy. I’m wasted in the spittle and bile of this world
That's not really a fair reflection of the situation, City can spend quadruple what we can even if we go all out.
Long post alert.
First off, lets ignore the usual fan bollocks of 'this was the summer we needed to go for it', that's been said every summer for about 8 years nowI read a lot of posts on here and across social media and they seem to come across as that if we did win a title then that's the finish line, and everything stops. Time stands still. That one big targeted investment and then things are completed..... Ignoring what happens after that, that there would be even more pressure on us and more demands as sugar daddy clubs splurged even more money to catch up, and pressure on us to respond. It is always an ongoing process, and I believe has to be built sustainably.
There are multiple factors at work. The stadium being one of them. Fans need to engage their brains - As much as Levy/board will say for PR reasons it doesn't impact on spending (and that is probably true, relevant to our 'normal' levels of spending), we aren't even in the new gaff yet to enjoy any benefit of extra revenues and are still in the delicate phase of trying to finance/refinance and cover the costs. This wasn't the point where we would go on some mega money splurge, I'd have been amazed if we had. IIRC Poch himself even gave it to us straight not to expect big money signings just because we got a new stadium. Now I don't think anyone took that as no signings at all, and maybe there are other factors that have led to a sense of expectation of bigger spends such as an increase in ticket prices, but I think the fanbase by and large have constructed some fantasy narrative as to what was going to happen this summer.
Another factor is that the club seems to prioritise, pretty much annually going on their record of giving contracts, keeping the squad together, keeping those here who have contributed rewarded, and staying ahead of the game in terms of the players futures. There is a current issue with Alderweireld (who from the very start though, given the rumoured clauses in his contract, I suspect has largely seen us/this contract as a stepping stone to bigger things) but on the whole we never have contract issues and the club benefits from this. Yes people could point out (numerous) transfer duds and it hasn't all been perfect, but on the whole this environment has, especially recently, provided a platform where we have a stable core with players giving many years service and growing both themselves and as a team.
As an example, Kane this summer has gone from a rumoured circa 100k a week to 200k. Throw in no doubt bigger bonuses, signing on fees, agent fees, image rights stuff etc. then we might well be committing something like an extra 10m expenditure just by giving out that one contract. Now that is the biggest and most obvious example, but start giving new contracts across the squad and that's a decent chunk of resources committed, just on existing players rather than any new ones.....
And I haven't even got to the crux of it yet, how the club is set up to operate and what is Levy's way. Most of football - fans, media, even the players and people who run clubs themselves - are conditioned to the thought that whoever splashes the most money wins. Now that will likely be the case always, especially when everyone follows this same model, but that's never been ENIC's way. Levy isn't prepared, nor has the resources, to compete in this way, so tries to do it differently - and across his tenure has taken us on an upward trajectory. Firstly with the buying of young players who will grow the team, as individuals, and in value if they then leave. With that becoming harder and harder in the present market there's been investment in the academy and a rise in homegrown players after years of drought, and now the stadium.
I suspect Levy's ultimate aim is to compete, and win, by developing our own players and then supplementing them with high quality imports. We might not be able to buy a whole team of stars, but if we only have to buy half of it and the rest is developed in house...... Now that takes time, and I think there will be a lot of people, particularly youth watchers etc, who would say that if this is the vision and aim then the initial good work needs building on even further, and there will be a lot of fans who fair enough don't believe this approach is possible, or have the patience to wait for that to bear fruit or think they should have to wait that long, but to get to the very top up against petrodollar clubs then we will have to do something different. As our manager says, be brave, and forge a unique path.
As for this summer, and on the transfer front and how our squad now is, yes a bit disappointing/concerning but we are not in a disastrous position. Unique factors such as World Cup participation, and a few injuries don't help, but there aren't many holes in the squad. I don't know what's happened in terms of our main targets, but if we have adopted a policy of just shutting up shop rather than acting in desperation then I can understand that and actually don't mind it - how often has Plan D squad filler for the sake of it signings actually worked, or contributed anything? I'm not panicking about falling away as of now..... Quite honestly spending zero could see us fall out of the top four, but I think spending 200 million that could also happen. There are six teams and it's fine margins every year.
Personally I thought we needed two signings - a central midfielder who can dictate/run the game, and a Number 9 focal point striker that Poch loves and always has in his team. For the CM I do think it is a deficiency, but it does give Winks (on a more consistent basis) and hopefully Onomah a chance to establish themselves. If they do, great, and I think taking a chance on what we already have is much more logical than 'taking a punt on some young midfielder' as I have seen numerous times this week. As for the striker, it seems Poch is giving Llorente another chance, he hasn't banished him a la Janssen and others he hasn't rated (even ones he himself has signed), he's earned that right as manager. We will see.....
I don't believe we will be going away from 4-2-3-1, Poch always goes back to it, so we have enough attacking midfielders and Moura is a new signing effectively. Links to Martial and Zaha made no sense to me. I have concerns about Toby and especially Rose, but I'm ok with giving them the opportunity to get back to 100% (plus slowly transitioning out Dembele).
Ultimately it's how you see it. Overall I'd say it's a constant, rather slow, sustainable build within certain parameters and following a different path to the norm. Mistakes are made along the way, I'd do some things differently, but also come many good things. Some people, like me, wont mind that - the hard challenge of building something, hopefully developing our own players and style of play etc and then hopefully winning, appeals to me. Others, perfectly reasonably, have no time for all that, just want money spent and the best players and trophies ASAP. I think they have a while to wait for that though.....
If you mean Jim Ratcliffe, then no, I don't want that **** anywhere near this club. Let him have Chelsea, and run that into the floor.
I don't totally disagree with many of the points you have made, but I have to say I do not buy the stadium excuse whatsoever. It may be true that the end cost wound up being something like 250% of what had been planned for initially, but it's also true that a huge amount of that cost is going toward the ancillary developments and not strictly the stadium itself. Those projects should be seen as investments completely separate from the rest of the club's budget. The notion that we've deprived ourselves of a desperately needed central midfielder so that the club can finance a massive profit-seeking venture into selling flats and hotel rooms is an absolute slap in the face to the supporters.Long post alert.
First off, lets ignore the usual fan bollocks of 'this was the summer we needed to go for it', that's been said every summer for about 8 years now
There are multiple factors at work. The stadium being one of them. Fans need to engage their brains - As much as Levy/board will say for PR reasons it doesn't impact on spending (and that is probably true, relevant to our 'normal' levels of spending), we aren't even in the new gaff yet to enjoy any benefit of extra revenues and are still in the delicate phase of trying to finance/refinance and cover the costs. This wasn't the point where we would go on some mega money splurge, I'd have been amazed if we had. IIRC Poch himself even gave it to us straight not to expect big money signings just because we got a new stadium. Now I don't think anyone took that as no signings at all, and maybe there are other factors that have led to a sense of expectation of bigger spends such as an increase in ticket prices, but I think the fanbase by and large have constructed some fantasy narrative as to what was going to happen this summer.
Another factor is that the club seems to prioritise, pretty much annually going on their record of giving contracts, keeping the squad together, keeping those here who have contributed rewarded, and staying ahead of the game in terms of the players futures. There is a current issue with Alderweireld (who from the very start though, given the rumoured clauses in his contract, I suspect has largely seen us/this contract as a stepping stone to bigger things) but on the whole we never have contract issues and the club benefits from this. Yes people could point out (numerous) transfer duds and it hasn't all been perfect, but on the whole this environment has, especially recently, provided a platform where we have a stable core with players giving many years service and growing both themselves and as a team.
As an example, Kane this summer has gone from a rumoured circa 100k a week to 200k. Throw in no doubt bigger bonuses, signing on fees, agent fees, image rights stuff etc. then we might well be committing something like an extra 10m expenditure just by giving out that one contract. Now that is the biggest and most obvious example, but start giving new contracts across the squad and that's a decent chunk of resources committed, just on existing players rather than any new ones.....
And I haven't even got to the crux of it yet, how the club is set up to operate and what is Levy's way. Most of football - fans, media, even the players and people who run clubs themselves - are conditioned to the thought that whoever splashes the most money wins. Now that will likely be the case always, especially when everyone follows this same model, but that's never been ENIC's way. Levy isn't prepared, nor has the resources, to compete in this way, so tries to do it differently - and across his tenure has taken us on an upward trajectory. Firstly with the buying of young players who will grow the team, as individuals, and in value if they then leave. With that becoming harder and harder in the present market there's been investment in the academy and a rise in homegrown players after years of drought, and now the stadium.
I suspect Levy's ultimate aim is to compete, and win, by developing our own players and then supplementing them with high quality imports. We might not be able to buy a whole team of stars, but if we only have to buy half of it and the rest is developed in house...... Now that takes time, and I think there will be a lot of people, particularly youth watchers etc, who would say that if this is the vision and aim then the initial good work needs building on even further, and there will be a lot of fans who fair enough don't believe this approach is possible, or have the patience to wait for that to bear fruit or think they should have to wait that long, but to get to the very top up against petrodollar clubs then we will have to do something different. As our manager says, be brave, and forge a unique path.
As for this summer, and on the transfer front and how our squad now is, yes a bit disappointing/concerning but we are not in a disastrous position. Unique factors such as World Cup participation, and a few injuries don't help, but there aren't many holes in the squad. I don't know what's happened in terms of our main targets, but if we have adopted a policy of just shutting up shop rather than acting in desperation then I can understand that and actually don't mind it - how often has Plan D squad filler for the sake of it signings actually worked, or contributed anything? I'm not panicking about falling away as of now..... Quite honestly spending zero could see us fall out of the top four, but I think spending 200 million that could also happen. There are six teams and it's fine margins every year.
Personally I thought we needed two signings - a central midfielder who can dictate/run the game, and a Number 9 focal point striker that Poch loves and always has in his team. For the CM I do think it is a deficiency, but it does give Winks (on a more consistent basis) and hopefully Onomah a chance to establish themselves. If they do, great, and I think taking a chance on what we already have is much more logical than 'taking a punt on some young midfielder' as I have seen numerous times this week. As for the striker, it seems Poch is giving Llorente another chance, he hasn't banished him a la Janssen and others he hasn't rated (even ones he himself has signed), he's earned that right as manager. We will see.....
I don't believe we will be going away from 4-2-3-1, Poch always goes back to it, so we have enough attacking midfielders and Moura is a new signing effectively. Links to Martial and Zaha made no sense to me. I have concerns about Toby and especially Rose, but I'm ok with giving them the opportunity to get back to 100% (plus slowly transitioning out Dembele).
Ultimately it's how you see it. Overall I'd say it's a constant, rather slow, sustainable build within certain parameters and following a different path to the norm. Mistakes are made along the way, I'd do some things differently, but also come many good things. Some people, like me, wont mind that - the hard challenge of building something, hopefully developing our own players and style of play etc and then hopefully winning, appeals to me. Others, perfectly reasonably, have no time for all that, just want money spent and the best players and trophies ASAP. I think they have a while to wait for that though.....
He's essentially an English Mr Burns. Owns Petrochemical giant Ineos. Not remotely a football man and would use us as a brand promoter and tax write off, as he does with Lausanne FC, which he owns so he can stay in Switzerland and dodge further tax, while voting for brexit.
Firstly that’s unnecessarily aggressive, play the ball not the man. We’re all spurs fans aren’t we?
