The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - THE LAST DAY! 1st September 2014

Gedson100 · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
Hoddle - understandable choice, but Hoddle's insistence on buying over 30s and sticking with the 3-5-2 meant he wasn't right for our club. arguably could have been given longer though.
Santini - shit choice by Levy, glad he resigned.
Jol - fruits of Levy's choice of Arnesen, good appointment, lasted three and a half years, let him go when it was clear his coaching wasn't going to push on to the next level.
Ramos - understandable choice, but didn't work out, imo should have been given longer, but most agreed with his sacking.
Redknapp - imo wrong choice for us, but most would disagree with that, lasted three and half years, and imo was sacked because (mainly) Lewis and Levy lost faith that Redknapp's well known penchant for putting his own career first would continue to correlate with success for THFC. Controversial sacking.
AVB - dillied and dallied over sacking Redknapp (perhaps for good reasons) meant we missed out on their number one choice Rogers. went for AVB, who's appointment was a gamble, but an understandable one given our ambition. Was sacked when AVB's brittle personality meant he couldn't adapt to the realities of managing a club our size and with our strategy. Few would argue with the sacking.
Sherwood - interim in all but name, worth a punt and even if he turned out not to be the long-term option, his 2pts per game was as good as we could hope for from anyone we'd have got in.
Pochettino - fingers crossed on this one, the signs from Trix and others is that he gets the club and buys into our philosophy, if that's true and it's good behind the scenes, and his coaching is good, then he'll be given a lot of time to get it right imo, by Levy anyway, if not by some of the fans, who in reality tend to be knee-jerker myopic types.

Nearly all of the managers Levy's hired have gone for really solid reasons as you've shown.

A 5 year contract and an amenable personality should ensure Poch gets a fair crack of the whip

danielneeds · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
Hoddle - understandable choice, but Hoddle's insistence on buying over 30s and sticking with the 3-5-2 meant he wasn't right for our club. arguably could have been given longer though.
Santini - shit choice by Levy, glad he resigned.
Jol - fruits of Levy's choice of Arnesen, good appointment, lasted three and a half years, let him go when it was clear his coaching wasn't going to push on to the next level.
Ramos - understandable choice, but didn't work out, imo should have been given longer, but most agreed with his sacking.
Redknapp - imo wrong choice for us, but most would disagree with that, lasted three and half years, and imo was sacked because (mainly) Lewis and Levy lost faith that Redknapp's well known penchant for putting his own career first would continue to correlate with success for THFC. Controversial sacking.
AVB - dillied and dallied over sacking Redknapp (perhaps for good reasons) meant we missed out on their number one choice Rogers. went for AVB, who's appointment was a gamble, but an understandable one given our ambition. Was sacked when AVB's brittle personality meant he couldn't adapt to the realities of managing a club our size and with our strategy. Few would argue with the sacking.
Sherwood - interim in all but name, worth a punt and even if he turned out not to be the long-term option, his 2pts per game was as good as we could hope for from anyone we'd have got in.
Pochettino - fingers crossed on this one, the signs from Trix and others is that he gets the club and buys into our philosophy, if that's true and it's good behind the scenes, and his coaching is good, then he'll be given a lot of time to get it right imo, by Levy anyway, if not by some of the fans, who in reality tend to be the knee-jerker myopic types.

Hoddle recently was talking about this, and said that he had no money at the time, all he could get was frees and cheapo transfers. He wanted Eto'o and Morientes, but the money wasn't there. Two sides to every story I guess.

SpartanSpur · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
The sale of the club only matters to us insofar as that in order to achieve their objectives the owners need us to be massively successful on the pitch.

I think you probably got that though...

The goals are obviously aligned but it's pretty obvious to me the stadium project is held in much higher esteem in this regard than the on pitch performances.

We keep doing the bare minimum required to be competitive whilst constantly hoping to outperform those with greater resources. Have you ever thought "wow levy has really given the manager the best possible resources to reach his lofty goals here"? I haven't. Plenty of good business, but well within our means.

Not pushing on when 3rd and looking like we were really going places was the big one for a lot of us.

SpartanSpur · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
Hoddle - understandable choice, but Hoddle's insistence on buying over 30s and sticking with the 3-5-2 meant he wasn't right for our club. arguably could have been given longer though.
Santini - shit choice by Levy, glad he resigned.
Jol - fruits of Levy's choice of Arnesen, good appointment, lasted three and a half years, let him go when it was clear his coaching wasn't going to push on to the next level.
Ramos - understandable choice, but didn't work out, imo should have been given longer, but most agreed with his sacking.
Redknapp - imo wrong choice for us, but most would disagree with that, lasted three and half years, and imo was sacked because (mainly) Lewis and Levy lost faith that Redknapp's well known penchant for putting his own career first would continue to correlate with success for THFC. Controversial sacking.
AVB - dillied and dallied over sacking Redknapp (perhaps for good reasons) meant we missed out on their number one choice Rogers. went for AVB, who's appointment was a gamble, but an understandable one given our ambition. Was sacked when AVB's brittle personality meant he couldn't adapt to the realities of managing a club our size and with our strategy. Few would argue with the sacking.
Sherwood - interim in all but name, worth a punt and even if he turned out not to be the long-term option, his 2pts per game was as good as we could hope for from anyone we'd have got in.
Pochettino - fingers crossed on this one, the signs from Trix and others is that he gets the club and buys into our philosophy, if that's true and it's good behind the scenes, and his coaching is good, then he'll be given a lot of time to get it right imo, by Levy anyway, if not by some of the fans, who in reality tend to be the knee-jerker myopic types.

I agree with what you are saying but I still wouldn't put my house on Levy persevering if it didn't go totally to plan. I'm not sure he would have stuck with Rodgers if he was Liverpool chairman, although I really hope he would have, and the same goes for Poch.

sloth · Sep 2, 2014

SpartanSpur said:
The goals are obviously aligned but it's pretty obvious to me the stadium project is held in much higher esteem in this regard than the on pitch performances.

We keep doing the bare minimum required to be competitive whilst constantly hoping to outperform those with greater resources. Have you ever thought "wow levy has really given the manager the best possible resources to reach his lofty goals here"? I haven't. Plenty of good business, but well within our means.

Not pushing on when 3rd and looking like we were really going places was the big one for a lot of us.

It's the old give a man a fish argument...

I agree that the owners have an eye on medium and long term success, and feel the best way to achieve it is to build the stadium with the minimum of debt thus increasing our revenue by about £50m a year regardless of whether we qualify for CL each season.

Against that some fans would like us to go balls deep in trying to qualify for CL now and achieve the extra £30m a year that brings, and risk not actually getting CL - because even if we went all out we'd still be spending less on players than five other clubs most of whom already have better squads - and thus having to go into more debt to build the stadium and deal with a squad full of more expensive players which still wasn't good enough to get CL, thus struggle to get shot of the fat and not have the money to reinvest in the squad.

Leachie · Sep 2, 2014

CowInAComa said:
If you told me a month ago i would see grown men crying over not signing Danny Welbeck I would have laughed at you.

This is where you went wrong.

Sandros Shiny Head · Sep 2, 2014

what I find ludicrous is how people can whinge about us not buying anybody and how we've got no chance after Sunday's game, but say how good Everton are when they get Lukaku. You realise they had him last year and massively overpaid for him, not to mention they actually got beat 6-3 at home this weekend

sloth · Sep 2, 2014

SpartanSpur said:
I agree with what you are saying but I still wouldn't put my house on Levy persevering if it didn't go totally to plan. I'm not sure he would have stuck with Rodgers if he was Liverpool chairman, although I really hope he would have, and the same goes for Poch.

I think he would have, but I agree that on this all we have to go on is rival opinions... this differs from the arguments some have made (not you) re the financial management of the club, where people are just plain ignorant of how stuff works.

Sandros Shiny Head · Sep 2, 2014

shelfboy68 said:
Last year was sixth however we will No chance of competing with the top four they all have at least one world class striker We have None.
We probably couldnt even buy falcao We he gets to 39 let alone try to buy top talent they want big competing clubs and wages leaves us out unless we get än arab or a russian not likely of course.

Giroud is a million times worse than Adebayor

SpartanSpur · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
The point you make here is the point many of us have been making for days. I talk down when people act like spoilt brats and pretend they know the answers to these questions and that they must be negative, and when they clearly haven't a fucking clue about how our club is run, funded, or what the strategy is and yet feel completely free to shout their ignorance ad infinitum. Sometimes this place is less a community and more a creche full of screaming toddlers.

Firstly I assume you are not including me in that (as I've aired my frustrations in here too).

I appreciate your need to speak out against some unjust criticism, but your tone almost comes across as if the board should not be questioned (i.e. The polar opposite), which can also aggrieve people like myself who appreciate the board we have, but also have valid concerns and frustrations at this side of the business.

Which begs the question, do you have any criticisms of our approach to transfer activity in the past few seasons at all?

Mr Pink · Sep 2, 2014

tom4s said:
I agree with you, but wages have to be added to know the full cost of the transfer. If cesc is on 200 k a week and the contract is for 4 years the cost of the transfer is in the region of 71 million, for example. When arsenal took on Welbeck and his 100k a week, the cost is almost 40 mil.

Moreover MS's wages were low.

I agree with the principal of the point that was being made but its a bit simplistic.

The wages constitute a massive part of the overall financial package.

Sandros Shiny Head · Sep 2, 2014

jair1970 said:
Nearly all of the managers Levy's hired have gone for really solid reasons as you've shown.

A 5 year contract and an amenable personality should ensure Poch gets a fair crack of the whip

he also has a better starting point than AVB by not having any truly world class players imo. This way he hasn't got to lean on one player i.e. Bale and will start from scratch which was obviously something AVB couldn't do

SpartanSpur · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
I think he would have, but I agree that on this all we have to go on is rival opinions... this differs from the arguments some have made (not you) re the financial management of the club, where people are just plain ignorant of how stuff works.

Fair enough. Like I said I'd hope so, and I like levy as a chairman and I'm convinced he wants the best for spurs. He is human though and has flaws like all of us.

I just can't back him too much as whenever I've put faith in him recently I've ended up disappointed (even if that faith was optimistic)

CowInAComa · Sep 2, 2014

Levy's problem has never been an itchy trigger finger. Its the inability to pick a decent manager either in terms of ability or understanding of the clubs strategy in the long run.

Most managers (apart from Sherwood) have been gladly accepted by the fan base at the time of their appointment.

thebetamaxboy · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
It's the old give a man a fish argument...

I agree that the owners have an eye on medium and long term success, and feel the best way to achieve it is to build the stadium with the minimum of debt thus increasing our revenue by about £50m a year regardless of whether we qualify for CL each season.

Against that some fans would like us to go balls deep in trying to qualify for CL now and achieve the extra £30m a year that brings, and risk not actually getting CL - because even if we went all out we'd still be spending less on players than five other clubs most of whom already have better squads - and thus having to go into more debt to build the stadium and deal with a squad full of more expensive players which still wasn't good enough to get CL, thus struggle to get shot of the fat and not have the money to reinvest in the squad.

I don't think anyone would object to us being frugal if we knew its all going on the stadium and we saw progress there and a concrete timetable.

GeorgeTink · Sep 2, 2014

Thing is, if deadline was last monday, the QPR result and performance would be fresh in our minds and the need for singings would not be so apparent.

I think the performance of the players against Liverpool (A very good side) has distorted the quality of our team and made it seem like we need more additions. Looking at the other results this weekend of the top sides, losing to a Liverpool doesn't seem as bad as we think.

oxfordyidd · Sep 2, 2014

Sandros Shiny Head said:
what I find ludicrous is how people can whinge about us not buying anybody and how we've got no chance after Sunday's game, but say how good Everton are when they get Lukaku. You realise they had him last year and massively overpaid for him, not to mention they actually got beat 6-3 at home this weekend

I agree people on here have new car syndrome me thinks any team in this league can beat anyone you don't need a team of superstars to win games you need a team of players who are all pulling in the same direction and that's what poch is trying to do and given time he will succeed , stoke beating man city last weekend is a prime example and no one on here would say stoke have any players that are good enough for our team . teamwork attitude and application go a long way .

Mister Jez · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
Hoddle - understandable choice, but Hoddle's insistence on buying over 30s and sticking with the 3-5-2 meant he wasn't right for our club. arguably could have been given longer though.
Santini - shit choice by Levy, glad he resigned.
Jol - fruits of Levy's choice of Arnesen, good appointment, lasted three and a half years, let him go when it was clear his coaching wasn't going to push on to the next level.
Ramos - understandable choice, but didn't work out, imo should have been given longer, but most agreed with his sacking.
Redknapp - imo wrong choice for us, but most would disagree with that, lasted three and half years, and imo was sacked because (mainly) Lewis and Levy lost faith that Redknapp's well known penchant for putting his own career first would continue to correlate with success for THFC. Controversial sacking.
AVB - dillied and dallied over sacking Redknapp (perhaps for good reasons) meant we missed out on their number one choice Rogers. went for AVB, who's appointment was a gamble, but an understandable one given our ambition. Was sacked when AVB's brittle personality meant he couldn't adapt to the realities of managing a club our size and with our strategy. Few would argue with the sacking.
Sherwood - interim in all but name, worth a punt and even if he turned out not to be the long-term option, his 2pts per game was as good as we could hope for from anyone we'd have got in.
Pochettino - fingers crossed on this one, the signs from Trix and others is that he gets the club and buys into our philosophy, if that's true and it's good behind the scenes, and his coaching is good, then he'll be given a lot of time to get it right imo, by Levy anyway, if not by some of the fans, who in reality tend to be the knee-jerker myopic types.

Could not find any flaw in that at all.

SpartanSpur · Sep 2, 2014

sloth said:
It's the old give a man a fish argument...

I agree that the owners have an eye on medium and long term success, and feel the best way to achieve it is to build the stadium with the minimum of debt thus increasing our revenue by about £50m a year regardless of whether we qualify for CL each season.

Against that some fans would like us to go balls deep in trying to qualify for CL now and achieve the extra £30m a year that brings, and risk not actually getting CL - because even if we went all out we'd still be spending less on players than five other clubs most of whom already have better squads - and thus having to go into more debt to build the stadium and deal with a squad full of more expensive players which still wasn't good enough to get CL, thus struggle to get shot of the fat and not have the money to reinvest in the squad.

I appreciate that, and it's all about finding the sweet spot. Currently I think we are too close to the former, which is much safer and more sensible, but we also have to be very effective in what we do or we'll end up getting diminishing returns on the pitch, which personally I believe is starting to happen, and it's going to take our biggest overachievement of all for us not to continue that come next summer.

We can't afford to let the team slip too much, or that extra stadium income is not fully guaranteed. And based on how we've gone from Bale/VDV/Modric/King to Lloris/Eriksen/Vertonghen (which is a downgrade), I fear the trend continuing next time our top players move on, which is likely due to the probable CL lockout you mentioned.

This could all change by being more committed with our top targets come January however. If we aren't going to back our transfer committee fully then what is the point of paying for one?

HW61 · Sep 2, 2014

JUSTINSIGNAL said:
I know alot of you had your knives out ready for Levy as soon as we didn't sign X, Y or Z but I think the most important piece of ITK came from Trix last night. He said Poch was happy with the squad, thought that Schneiderlin was overpriced at the £27m Saints were asking, he also had a say in all our signings and wanted to wait for Rodriguez in Jan rather than sign Welbeck.

So surely this is all that matters? That the manager and chairman are on the same page?

A very fair comment, if that is the true reality. Think most of us have seen early signs of Poch's talents which we should be positive about. If he did have a major say in our key signings, and maybe even recommended them himself, then we can be fairly satisfied.

It's natural that we see our nearest rivals heavily investing and be fearful of it though.

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