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The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - POST MORTEM EDITION

SteveH

BSoDL candidate for SW London
Jul 21, 2003
8,642
9,313
Could you not see the incomplete team we had on Saturday either with your own eyes? The manager isn't the common denominator with this issue,

You don't need ITK to tell you anything. We did the same thing we do in every window, we sold maybe our two best players and we failed to get in the players we wanted at the end. You'll answer with "we don't know who to blame" which is a cop out since it is clear who is running the show and the buck stops with Levy.

AVB doesn't get 3 full games before he is questioned, but we can NEVER question Levy after years of the same problems. Idol worship.

dont do worship of any kind..excepted for my penchant for all things John Lennon
Levy for me is doing a good job, not perfect but hey what is. I'll leave it at that.
 

Franchise60

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2008
912
1,994
And who would these 'players we can buy' be? Seven years ago we were able to beef up the squad with cheapos, freebies and Bosmans (and Jenas, of course). We can't do that now. Pienaar, Charlie and Niko would probably have been nailed-on starters in Jol's side, and dos Santos and Bassong regular squad players. Upgrading isn't easy any more.

Moutinho wasn't supposed to replace VdV; he was supposed to replace Modric. My suspicion is that Rafa just didn't fit into AVB's plans and was therefore sold off as surplus to requirements.

I'd like to know why AVB had to talk to his chum Moutinho about personal terms at 10 o'clock on Friday night, that's for sure.

If the club needs me to scout targets then I fear our problems are greater than I imagined.
 

Bobbins

SC's 14th Sexiest Male 2008
May 5, 2005
21,548
45,031
http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/20...players-daniel-levy?cat=football&type=article

The Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, insists the club will end up going backwards if they sell their top players and Levy agrees.

The Spurs chairman wrote in his end‑of‑season address to supporters: "Our squad has top players at all levels and we shall continue to seek stability and to retain key players this summer and beyond. We are a club that is focusing on growth and moving forward."...

..."Once again we have seen football played at home and away which has shown our brand and style of play around the world and led our competitors to describe us as the most entertaining team in the Premier League."




Hmmmmmmmn....

I love the fact that you managed to completely ignore/miss the following section which should also have some bearing on your general arguments, including this one:

This season has also seen Tottenham make progress in their plans to build a new stadium adjacent to their current home in north London after failing in their bid to take over the Olympic Stadium.
"With a commitment to invest in the area around the stadium from the Mayor and Haringey council, an investment of some £90m in land and planning by the club and with planning applications granted, we are now pushing ahead with what is widely acknowledged to be the single most important development capable of delivering social change in the area – an iconic new stadium at the heart of a true sport-led regeneration scheme, delivering new homes, shops, restaurants, jobs and opportunities," Levy said. "The scale of demolition around the stadium should leave no one in any doubt as to our intent to forge ahead with this project and we shall devote our full attention and energies to it."
 

Franchise60

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2008
912
1,994
So you're basically saying any old crap will do as long as we make up the numbers quickly.

What are you talking about? The club has had MONTHS to find and target players. Are you saying there are no quality cheaper alternatives to Moutinho or replacements for Rafa in Europe that we could afford?

Really?

Everyone goes on and on defending levy because we can't compete for these top expensive players. FINE then. Then stop trying to sign unrealistic expensive targets at the expense of investing in younger potential based players.

Not being able to sign these high priced players isn't an excuse for Levy when he keeps going after and failing to get these high priced players.
 

HappySpur

You Can't Unfry Things Jerri
Jan 7, 2012
7,666
19,601
Levy the good: has steered us into the top tier of clubs with a sound financial policy and has built us a top training facility and is going to get us a stadium. He made some spectacular signings this summer. Vertonghen, Siggy and Dembele are all great young players. Most would add Lloris to that list, although I have my concerns. And Dempsey, if you don't look at it as a replacement for VDV, which he isn't, and don't think "oh we didn't get Llorente, and this our plan D" is a fantastic signing. So overall Levy is a good owner and had some stellar moments this summer.

Levy the bad: He has an ego unbecoming of his modest resources. He chases Llorente when he knows he can't get him. This is the second time he's done this and he knew the price tag both times. He's wasted too much time of Leandro. I think Hulk, Moutinho and that Shaktar kid were the same, mid 20 players with too high a price that he wasn't going to get. And it's strange how he likes players from clubs with chairman who are equally adept at negotiating....like it's a challenge. I don't know if he's playing games or if he actually is delusional enough to think he can land these players, but he can't. So he needs to stop it.

And I think that's him reading the supporters wrong. While we would be ecstatic if he bought Messi, we're fairly level headed, and most of us are happy with the Dembele's and Siggurdson's. Most of us accept that we can't compete with the financial juggernauts of football and are willing to get young players and hope they develop into Bales and Modrices (sp?). But by having these crazy wheelbarrow moments, such as we've had recently, he sets the fans up to be insane and start booing the club in the 3rd match. Holy crap. That really is Levy's fault, I believe. Not because he didn't land Llorente and Moutinho, but because he chased them. If we had just chased kids and bargains then everybody would have much more reasonable views on the summer. We don't replace Modric, we get a bunch of young kids and hope one turns into Modric. We can do that and still compete as a top six side, with occasional forays into the CL, until the stadium allows us pay higher wages.

So my hope is not that he learns to get things done early. My hope is that he learns that this little agenda of chasing big names or the big negotiation for his ego, is only hurting him. He now has set too many supporters with too high expectations. Things turned ugly because he was too busy with his ego rather than building a side to fit AVB's system. When he was doing that, he did a spectacular job. When he got off track and started thinking he could land big fish, it went tits up. And now everybody has in their mind that we should have had all these 20 million pound players and they are turning on our otherwise very good squad.
 

penfold_99

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2006
697
604
Anyone know what happened to all this talk about massive investment? Did it happen or was it more overhype nonsense?
 

Hoopspur

You have insufficient privileges to reply here!
Jun 28, 2012
6,332
9,703
Who is better than Luka who we could afford?

Sorry, been busy. Yep, see the post below - I was answering Otters post about Dembele being a direct replacement. It should be in addition instead of being a replacement. Hopefully if we had bought Moutinho then I think we would maybe have increased the quality of the squad overall. (y)
 

$hoguN

Well-Known Member
Jul 25, 2005
26,626
34,700
Levy the good: has steered us into the top tier of clubs with a sound financial policy and has built us a top training facility and is going to get us a stadium. He made some spectacular signings this summer. Vertonghen, Siggy and Dembele are all great young players. Most would add Lloris to that list, although I have my concerns. And Dempsey, if you don't look at it as a replacement for VDV, which he isn't, and don't think "oh we didn't get Llorente, and this our plan D" is a fantastic signing. So overall Levy is a good owner and had some stellar moments this summer.

Levy the bad: He has an ego unbecoming of his modest resources. He chases Llorente when he knows he can't get him. This is the second time he's done this and he knew the price tag both times. He's wasted too much time of Leandro. I think Hulk, Moutinho and that Shaktar kid were the same, mid 20 players with too high a price that he wasn't going to get. I don't know if he's playing games or if he actually is delusional enough to think he can land these players, but he can't. So he needs to stop it. And I think that's him reading the supporters wrong. While we would be ecstatic if he bought Messi, we're fairly level headed, and most of us are happy with the Dembele's and Siggurdson's. Most of us accept that we can't compete with the financial juggernauts of football and are willing to get young players and hope they develop into Bales and Modrices (sp?). But by having these crazy wheelbarrow moments, such as we've had recently, he sets the fans up to be insane and start booing the club in the 3rd match. Holy crap. That really is Levy's fault, I believe. Not because he didn't land Llorente and Moutinho, but because he chased them. If we had just chased kids and bargains then everybody would have much more reasonable views on the summer. We don't replace Modric, we get a bunch of young kids and hope one turns into Modric. We can do that and still compete as a top six side, with occasional forays into the CL, until the stadium allows us pay higher wages.

So my hope is not that he learns to get things done early. My hope is that he learns that this little agenda of chasing big names for his ego, is only hurting him. He now has set too many supporters with too high expectations. Things turned ugly because he was too busy with his ego rather than building a side to fit AVB's system. When he was doing that, he did a spectacular job. When he got off track and started thinking he could land big fish, it went tits up. And now everybody has in their mind that we should have had all these 20 million pound players and they are turning on our otherwise very good squad.

I disagree with some of this bad part, which I believe you are over-exaggerating. Levy clearly does have an ego, but this is not as detrimental as some claim, he clearly likes to get the best possible deal and it has worked out for us a lot. I think Levy bids for these players expecting them to ask for realistic wages, we pay Bale around 100K a week, and would be willing to give Llorente similar deals with signing on fees. Unfortunately, their agents seem to think asking for 150-200K minimum a week is OK as Chelsea and City pay those sort of pages, but they do this while asking for insane signing on fees too. There is nothing wrong with Levy pursuing these targets, as some work out like Lloris and VDV, by all account we even agreed the Moutinho deal (just a little too late). I also believe that the later transfers are a symptom of the transfer window rather than something Levy enjoys, as the signings of Dembele, Vertonghen and Siggy all show he will do the deal as early as he can, providing clubs are reasonable.
 

Paolo10

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2004
6,179
7,621
I love the fact that you managed to completely ignore/miss the following section which should also have some bearing on your general arguments, including this one:

I included the link, sorry but it's been said a million times that the stadium investment (still no ground broken btw) has nothing to do with transfer funding and it certainly has fuck all to do with Levy's brinkmanship and the ever familiar series of events of the window and indeed the manager change.

Jol out, Ramos in - Tactical genius in for manager that had 'taken us as far as he could', the cusp of CL.

Berbatov & Keane - Won't be sold... Sold grudgingly. Failure to replace properly - Frazier Campbell. Then Pav in at a fraction of the cost. Later revealed that Levy had 'promised' Berbatov a move.

Anything sounding familiar?

I hope it doesn't go the same way, but this stinks of someone who clearly has not always made the right decisions not learning from mistakes.

Then there were the Aulas comments on Lloris, we've also been here before with DL...last year the Rossi - January story came out from one of the more respected Itk's that went something awfully like the same way.


Quote - Mr Pink said: ↑
Somebody said they had it from the horses mouth (Harry) that the Rossi deal was good to go, all but sewn up, and Levy dropped the offer at the last minute derailing the deal...and then returned at the end of the window with his suitcase of cash...:grin:

Paolo10
It was at the tail-end of last night, was from someone on another forum and was backed up by A&C and a couple of others but the guy had his figures wrong. Either way, it would very much appear that it was agreed, and DL tried to lowball them, which pissed them off something rotten and left us with no movement in that crucial January window (which ultimately may well have cost us our CL place).



I'll say it again...

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN...This smells of Levy and it's a stench at the moment.

JJ said farcical. FARCICAL. Work it out.
 

SpurSince57

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2006
45,213
8,229
I included the link, sorry but it's been said a million times that the stadium investment (still no ground broken btw) has nothing to do with transfer funding and it certainly has fuck all to do with Levy's brinkmanship and the ever familiar series of events of the window and indeed the manager change.

Jol out, Ramos in - Tactical genius in for manager that had 'taken us as far as he could', the cusp of CL.

Berbatov & Keane - Won't be sold... Sold grudgingly. Failure to replace properly - Frazier Campbell. Then Pav in at a fraction of the cost. Later revealed that Levy had 'promised' Berbatov a move.

Anything sounding familiar?

I hope it doesn't go the same way, but this stinks of someone who clearly has not always made the right decisions not learning from mistakes.

Then there were the Aulas comments on Lloris, we've also been here before with DL...last year the Rossi - January story came out from one of the more respected Itk's that went something awfully like the same way.


Quote - Mr Pink said: ↑
Somebody said they had it from the horses mouth (Harry) that the Rossi deal was good to go, all but sewn up, and Levy dropped the offer at the last minute derailing the deal...and then returned at the end of the window with his suitcase of cash...:grin:

Paolo10
It was at the tail-end of last night, was from someone on another forum and was backed up by A&C and a couple of others but the guy had his figures wrong. Either way, it would very much appear that it was agreed, and DL tried to lowball them, which pissed them off something rotten and left us with no movement in that crucial January window (which ultimately may well have cost us our CL place).



I'll say it again...

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN...This smells of Levy and it's a stench at the moment.

JJ said farcical. FARCICAL. Work it out.

Only time to comment on this, but this is the Aulas who invented our interest in Fred in January 2009 in an attempt to set off an auction between us and PSG (I think), and who on 15th May made a public statement that Lloris was 'untransferable' before proceeding to whore him out 10 days later. He upped his asking price from €15m to €20m, and then after we pulled out came back to us when no-one else showed interest, expecting us to help him out of the colossal financial fuck-up he's made at Lyon. So, yes, a really believable source.

As for the Rossi/Aguero/Llorente and the wheelbarrow of used euros story, I thought that was bollocks then and I think it's bollocks now.
 

Paolo10

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2004
6,179
7,621
Yeah your version of events must be what happened, it's not like Levy's as bad as (or worse than) Aulas or anything.

Recent events at Tottenham would indicate otherwise, including comments from people who are very close to the club.
 

SpurSince57

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2006
45,213
8,229
Not my version, buddy, it's what was reported in l'Equipe and by several ITKs. If you can't be bothered to check out as many sources as you can, that's really not my problem.
 

spud

Well-Known Member
Sep 2, 2003
5,850
8,794
Levy the bad: He has an ego unbecoming of his modest resources. He chases Llorente when he knows he can't get him. This is the second time he's done this and he knew the price tag both times. He's wasted too much time of Leandro. I think Hulk, Moutinho and that Shaktar kid were the same, mid 20 players with too high a price that he wasn't going to get............But by having these crazy wheelbarrow moments, such as we've had recently, he sets the fans up to be insane and start booing the club in the 3rd match. Holy crap. That really is Levy's fault, I believe.
I see your point, but don't agree.

First, not everybody reads this and similar forums and is aware that we are allegedly chasing these apparently unattainable players. Secondly, it was widely reported that Juve's low bid was accepted by Bilbao and their relatively low wages offer was accepted by Llorente. Given those circumstances, I would've been disappointed if Levy hadn't tried to get him.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I don't think you can blame the Chairman for the reactions of emotionally and intellectually retarded pond life who choose to boo our team. He has raised expectations by the improved status of our club. The reaction of spoilt children to a performance below the standards that they think that they deserve is beyond his control.
 

HappySpur

You Can't Unfry Things Jerri
Jan 7, 2012
7,666
19,601
I see your point, but don't agree.

First, not everybody reads this and similar forums and is aware that we are allegedly chasing these apparently unattainable players. Secondly, it was widely reported that Juve's low bid was accepted by Bilbao and their relatively low wages offer was accepted by Llorente. Given those circumstances, I would've been disappointed if Levy hadn't tried to get him.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I don't think you can blame the Chairman for the reactions of emotionally and intellectually retarded pond life who choose to boo our team. He has raised expectations by the improved status of our club. The reaction of spoilt children to a performance below the standards that they think that they deserve is beyond his control.


Yes perhaps you're right. While I will stick to my opinion that there are negative elements to his methods, it is quite wrong to blame him for the idiot fans. I think I will rescind that comment.
 

HappySpur

You Can't Unfry Things Jerri
Jan 7, 2012
7,666
19,601
Yeah your version of events must be what happened, it's not like Levy's as bad as (or worse than) Aulas or anything.

Recent events at Tottenham would indicate otherwise, including comments from people who are very close to the club.

Not my version, buddy, it's what was reported in l'Equipe and by several ITKs. If you can't be bothered to check out as many sources as you can, that's really not my problem.


I actually think if you swapped Levy and Aulus from Spurs to Lyon and visey-versey, the history of both clubs would be exactly the same. The two are almost identical in the way they run their clubs. :D
 
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