The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - DEADLINE DAY 31st August 2021

[Hakkz]

Well regardless of all that, price has to be taken into account and 50 million is way too much for Traore. Take away the aesthetics of his lung busting runs, and the end product does not justify that price tag at all.

He may go on to have a superb season, but his value will only decrease from here on out unless he signs a new contract, which would be a silly thing to do from his perspective.

It's clear you're only defending this because of the player in question. What if Kounde was suddenly available for 40m on deadline day, then Levy swoops in and says nope because Dier has been great the first three games.

 

[Timberwolf]

And that right there is why you are ok with it. You are completely Ignoring the precedent it sets, how it undermines the senior recruitment team, and the fact it was the only player the head coach wanted. You'll be the first to jump on it when it's a player you like though.

I do think it's possible to have a middle ground though.

No situation is exactly the same, but if we look down the road at how Arsenal have "Trusted the Process" of Arteta and Edu you can see how giving full trust the manager and DoF has caused monumental problems. I'm sure when they signed Willian, gave PEA his new deal and spent 80m combined on White and Ramsdale the general idea was to 'back the manager' but if the DoF and the manager want to spend way too much cash on someone questionable, sometimes it helps to have someone with a red button to say 'you've gone too far here, guys'. I bet you anything a lot of Arsenal fans bloody wished someone had stepped in to veto every one of those decisions. Obviously we have better recruitment than Arsenal and the structure is no doubt different, but I think it's a valid point nonetheless.

Now I'm not saying Levy is the good guy here as he patently isn't, and if he fully agreed to step aside and went back on his word then that's not great as he's undermining the role he gave to Paratici. But equally, I'm not gonna complain too much if Levy shoots down a move that I believe isn't the best move for the football club as a whole moving forward and will mean we have a larger budget down the line to sign more suitable players.

In short: I think the price, position, quality and importance of player DO matter when it comes to a big, expensive signing and it's not awful to have a more stringent process in place for those types of moves.

 

[Thenewcat]

Or maybe when DL really interrogated them prior to signing-off they weren’t convincing in their argument that Traore was significantly better than the existing players to justify the high expenditure (and consequent risk).

It is not be so long ago that Hitchin will have been persuading DL as to how SB was the player the club had to recruit.

All ITK will always be lacking in context, tone and minutiae of specific meetings.

Once again this isn’t the point. Either you appoint football people to make football decisions or you don’t. DL shouldn’t be the final arbiter of how good a player is

 

[sausage]

I do think it's possible to have a middle ground though.

No situation is exactly the same, but if we look down the road at how Arsenal have "Trusted the Process" of Arteta and Edu you can see how giving full trust the manager and DoF has caused problems. I'm sure when they signed Willian, gave PAE his new deal and spent 80m combined on White and Ramsdale the general idea was to 'back the manager' but if the DoF and the manager want to spend way too much cash on someone questionable, sometimes it helps to have someone with a red button to say 'you've gone too far here, guys'. I bet you anything a lot of Arsenal fans bloody wished someone had stepped in to veto every one of those decisions. Obviously we have better recruitment than Arsenal and the structure is no doubt different, but I think it's a valid point nonetheless.

Now I'm not saying Levy is the good guy here as he patently isn't, and if he fully agreed to step aside and went back on his word then that's not great as he's undermining the role he gave to Paratici. But equally, I'm not gonna complain too much if Levy shoots down a move that I believe isn't the best move for the football club as a whole moving forward and will mean we have a larger budget down the line to sign more suitable players.

In short: I think the price, position, quality and importance of player DO matter when it comes to a big deal and it's not awful to have a more stringent process in place for those types of moves.

It seems like it's a "last deal on the last day" situation, rather than a persistent issue, so I have an ambivalent attitude towards it.

I have had 'ebay fever' before, where you say you'll only bid £30 for something and with 30 seconds to go you're typing in a higher number, and if someone stopped me then I wouldn't necessarily see it as an issue - it can be useful to have some grounding.

Granted we're talking something completely different to buy shite on ebay, but if they'd gone after a player that people were outwardly not keen on (say, Braithewaite from Barca for £40m), it might change the perception

 

[haslemereyid]

Phil posted this yesterday - is it really the case?

‘I trust that you are all ware that we won't be seeing much of Romero, Sanchez, Lo Celso and, possibly, Emerson this season. They will be off playing World Cup qualifiers in red-zone countries in September, October, November, January, February and March. After each visit they face 10 days isolating in a hotel room without exercise/training facilities.’

 

[Dakes]

I was never totally on board with the Traore signing but if Nuno wanted him, surely you have to back him. Especially in his first summer with the club, when you'd think that Levy might want to give him everything he needs. I can't help but feel that if we had a Conte or a higher profile manager and they wanted a specific player, we'd have backed them a bit more and pushed the boat out. Makes me think that even though I'm sure they're all behind Nuno at the moment, maybe there's an element, even if only subconscious, of "well Traore is a Nuno signing and we're not sure how long Nuno will be here" type situation after a less than convincing managerial search.

Nah, I doubt Daniel would let Conte and The Don get on with things their way with a set budget given to him. He would intervene somewhere. We had ITK on Daniel's approach to Conte and how it went down, that is how it would have continued had Conte signed up.

 

[King of the Lane]

funny you should say that. Have the seen the news about what happened this morning?

I hadnt but that makes my post perfect now Lol

 

[King of the Lane]

Cuts both ways

Hence the last thing I said...

 

[Trix]

Not sure if mentioned, but think JJ has deleted his twitter account.



It's not good.

I don't blame him. He's a top bloke and it's getting more and more difficult for him. Twitter is

I do think it's possible to have a middle ground though.

No situation is exactly the same, but if we look down the road at how Arsenal have "Trusted the Process" of Arteta and Edu you can see how giving full trust the manager and DoF has caused monumental problems. I'm sure when they signed Willian, gave PEA his new deal and spent 80m combined on White and Ramsdale the general idea was to 'back the manager' but if the DoF and the manager want to spend way too much cash on someone questionable, sometimes it helps to have someone with a red button to say 'you've gone too far here, guys'. I bet you anything a lot of Arsenal fans bloody wished someone had stepped in to veto every one of those decisions. Obviously we have better recruitment than Arsenal and the structure is no doubt different, but I think it's a valid point nonetheless.

Now I'm not saying Levy is the good guy here as he patently isn't, and if he fully agreed to step aside and went back on his word then that's not great as he's undermining the role he gave to Paratici. But equally, I'm not gonna complain too much if Levy shoots down a move that I believe isn't the best move for the football club as a whole moving forward and will mean we have a larger budget down the line to sign more suitable players.

In short: I think the price, position, quality and importance of player DO matter when it comes to a big, expensive signing and it's not awful to have a more stringent process in place for those types of moves.

You have a point but isn't that the whole point of having budget's and a remit? It stops that happening. You are blaming Arteta and Edu for PEA and Willian contracts but ignoring this is the way they have operated for years prior. Arshavin, Alexis, Ozil all on monster contracts to keep them from leaving. We have a strict wage budget and transfer budget and it was clearly the remit to lower the age of the squad to cut those budgets. FP did exactly that.

 

[Timberwolf]

It seems like it's a "last deal on the last day" situation, rather than a persistent issue, so I have an ambivalent attitude towards it.

I have had 'ebay fever' before, where you say you'll only bid £30 for something and with 30 seconds to go you're typing in a higher number, and if someone stopped me then I wouldn't necessarily see it as an issue - it can be useful to have some grounding.

Granted we're talking something completely different to buy shite on ebay, but if they'd gone after a player than people were outwardly not keen on (say, Braithewaite from Barca for £40m), it might change the perception

Yeah. I suppose this is a bit different as it was clearly a deal we were working on for a few weeks, but given the price and structure allegedly went up a lot more towards the end of the window, it's not like we were always intending to spend 50m, so the goalposts had moved somewhat since we originally set our eyes on Traore.

I mean, if we look at the deadline day Sissoko signing as a comparison, I'd argue that it actually set us back a huge amount as he was the wrong type of player, in the wrong position, signed for quite a large fee who prevented us buying more, desperately needed players in CM/CAM for a year or two "because we had Sissoko". While he was a consummate pro and had some good spells, I still see that signing as one of the main catalysts that led to us fading under Poch and ultimately dropping out of the top 4.

Ironically that deal actually came from Levy, but it demonstrates how one poorly thought out signing can have a big negative knock on effect for a number of years.

 

[chrissivad]

Levy just couldn't sit back and watch...
Next window Paratici needs to down load football manager on to Levy's phone and let him get his fix.

Or stick winks Infront of him to keep him distracted

 

[funkycoldmedina]

Hence the last thing I said...

Should read to the end?

 

[Dakes]

It doesn't matter how much the money was. The only info we had was that the money required was available and Levy blocked it.

Exactly, whether it was 5m or 100m is irrelevant. There seems to be ITK consensus that money was made available, so a sanctioned amount is a sanctioned amount, no matter the actual figure.

 

[thekneaf]

Exactly, whether it was 5m or 100m is irrelevant. There seems to be ITK consensus that money was made available, so a sanctioned amount is a sanctioned amount, no matter the actual figure.

That's not really true though is it? It's not that simple.

You can have a budget with a process that says under £25m fill your boots, over £25m requires sign off.

Not defending Levy here, just saying it's not uncommon for there to be different levels of sign off for different levels of risk or expenditure

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

Phil posted this yesterday - is it really the case?

‘I trust that you are all ware that we won't be seeing much of Romero, Sanchez, Lo Celso and, possibly, Emerson this season. They will be off playing World Cup qualifiers in red-zone countries in September, October, November, January, February and March. After each visit they face 10 days isolating in a hotel room without exercise/training facilities.’

Yes and no.

The players do have to isolate for 10 days after leaving a "red" country.

The plan is for them to do so in Croatia, where they will be permitted to train on their own. That should allow them to maintain fitness, to some degree, but it will pose a problem when it comes to team training/tactics.

 

[Pat Rice Spurs fan]

Thanks for everything.

Love to all ❤

 

[Dakes]

That's not really true though is it? It's not that simple.

You can have a budget with a process that says under £25m fill your boots, over £25m requires sign off.

Not defending Levy here, just saying it's not uncommon for there to be different levels of sign off for different levels of risk or expenditure

Just going by what Trix said, there was a final day agreed fee to go in for Traore that morning, which Levy would then have been aware of. Why not block it before? Why not call off the Traore chase? It tells me that Levy and the rest were clear on an offer to go with that morning.

 

[vegassd]

Yeah. I suppose this is a bit different as it was clearly a deal we were working on for a few weeks, but given the price and structure allegedly went up a lot more towards the end of the window, it's not like we were always intending to spend 50m, so the goalposts had moved somewhat since we originally set our eyes on Traore.

I agree that there is a certain justification to blocking a move based on potential knock on effects, but it seems like part of the problem here was the "pulling of the rug" and how it appears to undermine Fab's authority. Outside of Traore being a Spurs player or not, it would be raising a question in Paratici's mind (possibly) about the full extent of his own influence at the club.

I would love for Paratici to actually dig his heels in and lay down a bit of his own law. I get the impression that he isn't one for holding back his opinions and I think it's to the benefit of the club to hand him as much leeway as possible.

 

[thekneaf]

Just going by what Trix said, there was a final day agreed fee to go in for Traore that morning, which Levy would then have been aware of. Why not block it before? Why not call off the Traore chase? It tells me that Levy and the rest were clear on an offer to go with that morning.

Yeah, like I said, it's not good. I was only picking up on the side of how other companies sign off big costs.

Would also explain all the loans with obligations and avoiding big cash purchases - but that's complete conjecture on my part.

 

[EJWTartanSpur]

Never fully understood why JJ left the relatively protected and safe environment of here for Twitter anyway. Well, he never fully left here I suppose, but Twitter has always attracted unwanted attention. Hopefully, he still pops back on to here from time to time