Club's Transfer "Comfort Zone"

[eddiev14]

Far cry from the 60s when we were breaking transfer records all the time.

...whilst beating all of those billionaire oligarch/Arab owners to the best players by offering out a load of 200k per week contracts.

We can remember nostalgically but the truth is that the landscape is totally different these days.

 

[TH1239]

There are a lot of posters here that are going to get a reality check this summer when it comes to EPL transfer spending. I don't think many people comprehend how much money teams are now guaranteed from 2016-2019. The top 5 are almost assured of 450 million pounds in just television revenue, which means you'll see United probably spend to a degree that makes 3 of the 4 Champions League spots completely uncontestable for Spurs. The 4th spot will be made much tougher to grab, as Liverpool and Arsenal can each add 2-3 absolute top-class players to their squads that are arguably better than ours already, and can do so every single year for the foreseeable future. How in the world can Spurs stay competitive or finish ahead of those teams over the course of numerous upcoming transfer windows with no net spend, limited wages, and players that can at a maximum cost 15 million pounds? The answer is we likely can't be competitive. This isn't La Liga or the Bundeslgia. This league has 5 teams in the Deloitte top 9 (the others being Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern). Stick 5 teams with far more financial muscle than Atletico in La Liga, and have them all receive triple their current television revenue (while Atletico was forced to sell to buy with no third party ownership) and you'd see them likely struggle too. The same thing goes for Dortmund.

Truthfully, if the club has a strict policy of selling to buy for the next 5+ plus years and will be placing a hard cap on transfer expenditures not to exceed 15 million pounds, supporters need to completely alter their expectations. Expecting us to be competitive going forward with how much money these other teams currently in the top 5 are going to be allocating to transfers is unrealistic. Previously these teams weren't awash in so much television money. Arsenal, I believe, made less than 30 million pounds of television revenue in 2006-2007. A decade later, they will make 5 times that figure, and possibly a lot more once you count overseas renegotiations, and they can spend a ton of it on transfers like Ozil and Sanchez. So, you can't really compare the past with what the imminent future holds, as the EPL has never seen so much money come into the respective clubs' coffers. Like Beats1 has pointed out, even teams below us will be splashing the cash, pushing the market up on more marginal players. West Ham is a club to watch for, as they already have a decent squad and new stadium, so it's not unrealistic for them to spend 40-50 million pounds net each year going forward.

If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say that absent Champions League football earned this season (I've not written this off like many), we'll probably see a repeat of 2011-2013 over the course of the next 2-3 years, where we slowly sell off Vertonghen and Lloris first (and reinvest the money), and subsequently sell off Eriksen and possibly Kane too if an astronomical figure comes in for him within 2 years. The key is, again, going to be how the money from these players in reinvested. That's always been a staple of Levy's strategy. Sell, re-invest that money, sell, re-invest again.... The hope is that each time you sell, you make a profit, and buy even better players. The problem is one or two bad cycles of re-investment leaves you with assets you can't re-sell at prices needed to retool the squad and keep it top 6 competitive.

 

[spurs9]

There are a lot of posters here that are going to get a reality check this summer when it comes to EPL transfer spending. I don't think many people comprehend how much money teams are now guaranteed from 2016-2019. The top 5 are almost assured of 450 million pounds in just television revenue, which means you'll see United probably spend to a degree that makes 3 of the 4 Champions League spots completely uncontestable for Spurs. The 4th spot will be made much tougher to grab, as Liverpool and Arsenal can each add 2-3 absolute top-class players to their squads that are arguably better than ours already, and can do so every single year for the foreseeable future. How in the world can Spurs stay competitive or finish ahead of those teams over the course of numerous upcoming transfer windows with no net spend, limited wages, and players that can at a maximum cost 15 million pounds? The answer is we likely can't be competitive. This isn't La Liga or the Bundeslgia. This league has 5 teams in the Deloitte top 9 (the others being Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern). Stick 5 teams with far more financial muscle than Atletico in La Liga, and have them all receive triple their current television revenue (while Atletico was forced to sell to buy with no third party ownership) and you'd see them likely struggle too. The same thing goes for Dortmund.

Truthfully, if the club has a strict policy of selling to buy for the next 5+ plus years and will be placing a hard cap on transfer expenditures not to exceed 15 million pounds, supporters need to completely alter their expectations. Expecting us to be competitive going forward with how much money these other teams currently in the top 5 are going to be allocating to transfers is unrealistic. Previously these teams weren't awash in so much television money. Arsenal, I believe, made less than 30 million pounds of television revenue in 2006-2007. A decade later, they will make 5 times that figure, and possibly a lot more once you count overseas renegotiations, and they can spend a ton of it on transfers like Ozil and Sanchez. So, you can't really compare the past with what the imminent future holds, as the EPL has never seen so much money come into the respective clubs' coffers. Like Beats1 has pointed out, even teams below us will be splashing the cash, pushing the market up on more marginal players. West Ham is a club to watch for, as they already have a decent squad and new stadium, so it's not unrealistic for them to spend 40-50 million pounds net each year going forward.

If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say that absent Champions League football earned this season (I've not written this off like many), we'll probably see a repeat of 2011-2013 over the course of the next 2-3 years, where we slowly sell off Vertonghen and Lloris first (and reinvest the money), and subsequently sell off Eriksen and possibly Kane too if an astronomical figure comes in for him within 2 years. The key is, again, going to be how the money from these players in reinvested. That's always been a staple of Levy's strategy. Sell, re-invest that money, sell, re-invest again.... The hope is that each time you sell, you make a profit, and buy even better players. The problem is one or two bad cycles of re-investment leaves you with assets you can't re-sell at prices needed to retool the squad and keep it top 6 competitive.

I look at Falcao, Ozil, Blind and then I look at Kane, Eriksen and Bentaleb and I'm not as worried.

 

[DaSpurs]

There are a lot of posters here that are going to get a reality check this summer when it comes to EPL transfer spending. I don't think many people comprehend how much money teams are now guaranteed from 2016-2019. The top 5 are almost assured of 450 million pounds in just television revenue, which means you'll see United probably spend to a degree that makes 3 of the 4 Champions League spots completely uncontestable for Spurs. The 4th spot will be made much tougher to grab, as Liverpool and Arsenal can each add 2-3 absolute top-class players to their squads that are arguably better than ours already, and can do so every single year for the foreseeable future. How in the world can Spurs stay competitive or finish ahead of those teams over the course of numerous upcoming transfer windows with no net spend, limited wages, and players that can at a maximum cost 15 million pounds? The answer is we likely can't be competitive. This isn't La Liga or the Bundeslgia. This league has 5 teams in the Deloitte top 9 (the others being Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern). Stick 5 teams with far more financial muscle than Atletico in La Liga, and have them all receive triple their current television revenue (while Atletico was forced to sell to buy with no third party ownership) and you'd see them likely struggle too. The same thing goes for Dortmund.

Truthfully, if the club has a strict policy of selling to buy for the next 5+ plus years and will be placing a hard cap on transfer expenditures not to exceed 15 million pounds, supporters need to completely alter their expectations. Expecting us to be competitive going forward with how much money these other teams currently in the top 5 are going to be allocating to transfers is unrealistic. Previously these teams weren't awash in so much television money. Arsenal, I believe, made less than 30 million pounds of television revenue in 2006-2007. A decade later, they will make 5 times that figure, and possibly a lot more once you count overseas renegotiations, and they can spend a ton of it on transfers like Ozil and Sanchez. So, you can't really compare the past with what the imminent future holds, as the EPL has never seen so much money come into the respective clubs' coffers. Like Beats1 has pointed out, even teams below us will be splashing the cash, pushing the market up on more marginal players. West Ham is a club to watch for, as they already have a decent squad and new stadium, so it's not unrealistic for them to spend 40-50 million pounds net each year going forward.

If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say that absent Champions League football earned this season (I've not written this off like many), we'll probably see a repeat of 2011-2013 over the course of the next 2-3 years, where we slowly sell off Vertonghen and Lloris first (and reinvest the money), and subsequently sell off Eriksen and possibly Kane too if an astronomical figure comes in for him within 2 years. The key is, again, going to be how the money from these players in reinvested. That's always been a staple of Levy's strategy. Sell, re-invest that money, sell, re-invest again.... The hope is that each time you sell, you make a profit, and buy even better players. The problem is one or two bad cycles of re-investment leaves you with assets you can't re-sell at prices needed to retool the squad and keep it top 6 competitive.

Southampton have proved this season that prudent buying and more importantly balance is an effective weapon even against outright quality. We will never compete in an arms race with the clubs above us, so I appreciate that the club is actively devising alternative methods to doing so, and I happen to believe what appears to be the current plan is a good model.

That having been said, we really do need to get a few transfers right this summer to establish that balance or we will be left behind. We don't have to spend much to do it, but we've got to round out a few areas of need.

 

[SHaRD]

This is great news. All our best signings of the past decade (except Rafa) have been under 25 and (in most cases quite a bit) under £15m:
- Carrick
- Bale
- Walker
- Berbatov
- Modric
- Verts
- Lloris
- Eriksen
- Chadli

 

[SHaRD]

We need to scout better, and evaluate compatibility better. In 2013, we scouted/analyzed very poorly, and we gave very poor consideration to compatibility of the parts. I think that is the fault of having a disjointed transfer policy with multiple people pulling in their different concepts of players for the same listed positions. Just a terrible idea.

With Poch, Mitchell, and Broomfield all on the same page I expect the results to be far better.

I don't think Broomfield works for us anymore. He runs his own consultancy and we contract him in at times, but he doesn't work significantly/exclusively for us.

Baldini, Mitchell and Rob Mackenzie (recently recruited from Leicester) is the new scouting team.

 

[SHaRD]

There are a lot of posters here that are going to get a reality check this summer when it comes to EPL transfer spending. I don't think many people comprehend how much money teams are now guaranteed from 2016-2019. The top 5 are almost assured of 450 million pounds in just television revenue, which means you'll see United probably spend to a degree that makes 3 of the 4 Champions League spots completely uncontestable for Spurs. The 4th spot will be made much tougher to grab, as Liverpool and Arsenal can each add 2-3 absolute top-class players to their squads that are arguably better than ours already, and can do so every single year for the foreseeable future. How in the world can Spurs stay competitive or finish ahead of those teams over the course of numerous upcoming transfer windows with no net spend, limited wages, and players that can at a maximum cost 15 million pounds? The answer is we likely can't be competitive. This isn't La Liga or the Bundeslgia. This league has 5 teams in the Deloitte top 9 (the others being Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern). Stick 5 teams with far more financial muscle than Atletico in La Liga, and have them all receive triple their current television revenue (while Atletico was forced to sell to buy with no third party ownership) and you'd see them likely struggle too. The same thing goes for Dortmund.

Truthfully, if the club has a strict policy of selling to buy for the next 5+ plus years and will be placing a hard cap on transfer expenditures not to exceed 15 million pounds, supporters need to completely alter their expectations. Expecting us to be competitive going forward with how much money these other teams currently in the top 5 are going to be allocating to transfers is unrealistic. Previously these teams weren't awash in so much television money. Arsenal, I believe, made less than 30 million pounds of television revenue in 2006-2007. A decade later, they will make 5 times that figure, and possibly a lot more once you count overseas renegotiations, and they can spend a ton of it on transfers like Ozil and Sanchez. So, you can't really compare the past with what the imminent future holds, as the EPL has never seen so much money come into the respective clubs' coffers. Like Beats1 has pointed out, even teams below us will be splashing the cash, pushing the market up on more marginal players. West Ham is a club to watch for, as they already have a decent squad and new stadium, so it's not unrealistic for them to spend 40-50 million pounds net each year going forward.

If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say that absent Champions League football earned this season (I've not written this off like many), we'll probably see a repeat of 2011-2013 over the course of the next 2-3 years, where we slowly sell off Vertonghen and Lloris first (and reinvest the money), and subsequently sell off Eriksen and possibly Kane too if an astronomical figure comes in for him within 2 years. The key is, again, going to be how the money from these players in reinvested. That's always been a staple of Levy's strategy. Sell, re-invest that money, sell, re-invest again.... The hope is that each time you sell, you make a profit, and buy even better players. The problem is one or two bad cycles of re-investment leaves you with assets you can't re-sell at prices needed to retool the squad and keep it top 6 competitive.

Well argued post. But IMO:

1) I don't think other clubs will spend big on transfer fees. FFP has taken hold and theirs is a much more sense of sustainability around the game than of late. Most clubs have battled hard these past few years to get on top of their finances again (with a few exceptions like QPR, West Ham and Newcastle). I think more clubs will either copy Chelsea and buy then loan about 30 16-21 year olds, or copy us, City and Southampton and build an incredible academy of their own. The age of big money signings has passed - it's all about systems and system players now

2) I don't think it is a reality check for most. We've been breaking even/making a profit on transfers for 6 years now. We're more than half way through our decade of austerity to pay for the stadium. If people still haven't noticed, then Levy is doing an even better job than we thought. I think everyone should by now be clear that we won't have net spend on transfer until after summer 2018

3) I think we absolutely can be competitive utilising our academy and smart signings.

4) Whatever happens, we're by a long distance the 6th richest club in the country and won't fall any lower than that. Teams like Southampton and Swansea will trundle along punching above their weight, but our main competitors from the past 20 years (Everton, Villa, Newcastle and Leeds) have all dropped off the pace massively.

 

[jambreck]

There are a lot of posters here that are going to get a reality check this summer when it comes to EPL transfer spending. I don't think many people comprehend how much money teams are now guaranteed from 2016-2019. The top 5 are almost assured of 450 million pounds in just television revenue, which means you'll see United probably spend to a degree that makes 3 of the 4 Champions League spots completely uncontestable for Spurs. The 4th spot will be made much tougher to grab, as Liverpool and Arsenal can each add 2-3 absolute top-class players to their squads that are arguably better than ours already, and can do so every single year for the foreseeable future. How in the world can Spurs stay competitive or finish ahead of those teams over the course of numerous upcoming transfer windows with no net spend, limited wages, and players that can at a maximum cost 15 million pounds? The answer is we likely can't be competitive. This isn't La Liga or the Bundeslgia. This league has 5 teams in the Deloitte top 9 (the others being Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern). Stick 5 teams with far more financial muscle than Atletico in La Liga, and have them all receive triple their current television revenue (while Atletico was forced to sell to buy with no third party ownership) and you'd see them likely struggle too. The same thing goes for Dortmund.

Truthfully, if the club has a strict policy of selling to buy for the next 5+ plus years and will be placing a hard cap on transfer expenditures not to exceed 15 million pounds, supporters need to completely alter their expectations. Expecting us to be competitive going forward with how much money these other teams currently in the top 5 are going to be allocating to transfers is unrealistic. Previously these teams weren't awash in so much television money. Arsenal, I believe, made less than 30 million pounds of television revenue in 2006-2007. A decade later, they will make 5 times that figure, and possibly a lot more once you count overseas renegotiations, and they can spend a ton of it on transfers like Ozil and Sanchez. So, you can't really compare the past with what the imminent future holds, as the EPL has never seen so much money come into the respective clubs' coffers. Like Beats1 has pointed out, even teams below us will be splashing the cash, pushing the market up on more marginal players. West Ham is a club to watch for, as they already have a decent squad and new stadium, so it's not unrealistic for them to spend 40-50 million pounds net each year going forward.

If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say that absent Champions League football earned this season (I've not written this off like many), we'll probably see a repeat of 2011-2013 over the course of the next 2-3 years, where we slowly sell off Vertonghen and Lloris first (and reinvest the money), and subsequently sell off Eriksen and possibly Kane too if an astronomical figure comes in for him within 2 years. The key is, again, going to be how the money from these players in reinvested. That's always been a staple of Levy's strategy. Sell, re-invest that money, sell, re-invest again.... The hope is that each time you sell, you make a profit, and buy even better players. The problem is one or two bad cycles of re-investment leaves you with assets you can't re-sell at prices needed to retool the squad and keep it top 6 competitive.

At the risk of repeating myself over multiple threads, I don't think we should get too hung up about the club returning to a general policy of signing players in the region of £10-15m. It is unlikely to be an unbreakable rule. The club isn't going to paint itself into a corner. If the right player comes along who is worth more, we will still be in for him. This is no different to what has happened in the past.

As to the notion of having to sell before we buy, where did you read that? It wasn't in the THST minutes. The club made no mention of it when the latest financial results were published. Of course Spurs will continue to operate within their means. But that's not the same thing.

You're right that it is going to be difficult to finish ahead of those clubs that have greater income than us. But what has changed in that respect? They will indeed be richer as a consequence of the new TV deal. But so will we. And as others have mentioned, we have now established a pathway for our excellent academy to show what it can contribute to the first team. And that could, in the long term, be our leveller.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

How an earth can you call Jenas a waste of money. He cost us around 7m, made about 200 appearances for us, which coincided with us becoming a consistent top 5 team, played a major role in us winning our only cup in the last 15 years, and was the player who's performance dragged us (though Bale naturally took all the plaudits) back into the CL against Inter away when we were down to ten men.

He was one of the most consistent performers and most productive CM's we've had in recent years, despite the fact that he wasn't really supposed to be playing as a CM2.

I actually wrote not long after that that I never had a problem with Jenas.
in Fact I used to stick up for him a lot way back when.

He was only on they list because when we bought him £7-8m was a fair amount of money and we didn't cut him loose when we should (for both our sakes) and he ended up leaving on a free.

 

[THFCSPURS19]

I think people need to bear in mind that the club can go outside their comfort zone if an opportunity arises. They're not saying that they will ONLY by young players that cost £10m-£15m.

 

[SFCS]

I look at Falcao, Ozil, Blind and then I look at Kane, Eriksen and Bentaleb and I'm not as worried.

It's difficult for us to keep repeating the trick though.

What more money gives you, apart from the ability to give players bigger contracts to keep them, is that they can afford to take the hit if big money moves don't work out and then go and do the same again and again until they get it right. We have to be consistently much smarter with our money to get above these sides and stay above them. It's not easy, Everton did that last season with us and United that both spend much more, Villa threatened to do it for a time, as did Newcastle. It's a very difficult thing to do across a number of seasons though and that's why we're doing pretty well to even stay competitive across the last 5 seasons.



I think the club are just managing expectations with what they said at the meeting though. The best way to look at it is what if they had said "yes, we're all set to spend big again", that's the kind of desperate stuff Arsenal come out with after every season when their fans are disappointed they've gone nowhere again. There's no point talking about big spending then finding they're not able to get the players they want and just spending big for the sake of living up to the talk they gave to the fans. If we believe the players are there and the deal is right then I'm sure the money is there but if not it's better to sign a couple of decent players for £8mill than £20+mill on a player we're not totally convinced about.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I think people need to bear in mind that the club can go outside their comfort zone if an opportunity arises. They're not saying that they will ONLY by young players that cost £10m-£15m.

Agree. I think everyone is getting a bit hung up on the quote. The vast majority of our purchases have always been within the 5-15m parameters anyway. I think Lamela is the only major step outside our normal comfort zone, and that was only because we had Bale's 85m to burn and Baldini strongly recommended him to be the next big thing.

The "Arnesen" model of seeking value in potential or inherent value retaining/increasing players has stood us in good stead, seen us get better value from the transfer market than most, and seen us achieve consistent football results.

Our strategy isn't broke, it doesn't need fixing.

Would love swap Baldini for Monchi though. Really hard to see what advantage we are getting from Baldini. Whereas Monchi has a proven track record for providing value for money for his club.

 

[SHaRD]

Agree. I think everyone is getting a bit hung up on the quote. The vast majority of our purchases have always been within the 5-15m parameters anyway. I think Lamela is the only major step outside our normal comfort zone, and that was only because we had Bale's 85m to burn and Baldini strongly recommended him to be the next big thing.

The "Arnesen" model of seeking value in potential or inherent value retaining/increasing players has stood us in good stead, seen us get better value from the transfer market than most, and seen us achieve consistent football results.

Our strategy isn't broke, it doesn't need fixing.

Would love swap Baldini for Monchi though. Really hard to see what advantage we are getting from Baldini. Whereas Monchi has a proven track record for providing value for money for his club.

Baldini's record at Roma and Madrid was comparable to Monchi's

 

[DaSpurs]

I don't think Broomfield works for us anymore. He runs his own consultancy and we contract him in at times, but he doesn't work significantly/exclusively for us.

Baldini, Mitchell and Rob Mackenzie (recently recruited from Leicester) is the new scouting team.

I doubt that we would have signed Broomfield right from the jaws of Arsenal signing him (meaning undoubtedly a strong offer), and then turned around to relieve him less than a year later, regardless of the coaching change. Hell, we haven't even been able to get rid of Baldini in twice the time.

My impression is Broomfield runs the scouting on the ground, but McKenzie is part of the technical assessment team along with Mitchell.

 

[spursfan77]

Well argued post. But IMO:

1) I don't think other clubs will spend big on transfer fees. FFP has taken hold and theirs is a much more sense of sustainability around the game than of late. Most clubs have battled hard these past few years to get on top of their finances again (with a few exceptions like QPR, West Ham and Newcastle). I think more clubs will either copy Chelsea and buy then loan about 30 16-21 year olds, or copy us, City and Southampton and build an incredible academy of their own. The age of big money signings has passed - it's all about systems and system players now

2) I don't think it is a reality check for most. We've been breaking even/making a profit on transfers for 6 years now. We're more than half way through our decade of austerity to pay for the stadium. If people still haven't noticed, then Levy is doing an even better job than we thought. I think everyone should by now be clear that we won't have net spend on transfer until after summer 2018

3) I think we absolutely can be competitive utilising our academy and smart signings.

4) Whatever happens, we're by a long distance the 6th richest club in the country and won't fall any lower than that. Teams like Southampton and Swansea will trundle along punching above their weight, but our main competitors from the past 20 years (Everton, Villa, Newcastle and Leeds) have all dropped off the pace massively.

There's two schools of thought on this that I'm caught between. Either now the stadium is a go we will go back to spending more than we bring in during the summer, but it won't be loads it will be something like £10 million or something or it will be like you say, a net spend until we are in the stadium or possibly, if you look at how financing their stadium effected Arsenal, a couple of seasons after that....and thats without us getting the CL money they had, although you could say thats now been replaced by the increased PL TV revenue.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Baldini's record at Roma and Madrid was comparable to Monchi's

Could you back that up with some evidence, then take into account the respective budget's that Baldini had at Roma and Madrid and MOnchi has had to work with at Seville ?

 

[jambreck]

There's two schools of thought on this that I'm caught between. Either now the stadium is a go we will go back to spending more than we bring in during the summer, but it won't be loads it will be something like £10 million or something or it will be like you say, a net spend until we are in the stadium or possibly, if you look at how financing their stadium effected Arsenal, a couple of seasons after that....and thats without us getting the CL money they had, although you could say thats now been replaced by the increased PL TV revenue.

Our situation isn't entirely comparable to Arsenal's for a number of reasons:

a) Even without any Champions League money, by the time that we embark upon our stadium build, our income will be £50m+ p.a. more than theirs was at the time that they embarked upon the Emirates construction.

b) Arsenal had to spend £60m on relocating Islington's waste and recycling plant before gaining possession of Ashburton Grove. We have already completed the land assembly for our stadium build (including Archway) yet we remain debt free.

c) We have already completed site preparation on half the land required.

d) Interest rates are far lower now than when Arsenal went to the banks. There has never been a better time to borrow for those companies and individuals deemed to be a safe bet (as Spurs, Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy will undoubtedly be).

e) Spurs will not make the same mistake as Arsenal when agreeing a naming rights (and shirt sponsorship) deal. It is commonly acknowledged that they massively undersold themselves.

So I'd be more inclined to go with your first scenario. We will have more to spend on player wages and transfers but it won't be a silly amount more until we have reduced the stadium debt significantly or until we add CL income to our revenues.

 

[Mullers]

Agree. I think everyone is getting a bit hung up on the quote. The vast majority of our purchases have always been within the 5-15m parameters anyway. I think Lamela is the only major step outside our normal comfort zone, and that was only because we had Bale's 85m to burn and Baldini strongly recommended him to be the next big thing.

The "Arnesen" model of seeking value in potential or inherent value retaining/increasing players has stood us in good stead, seen us get better value from the transfer market than most, and seen us achieve consistent football results.

Our strategy isn't broke, it doesn't need fixing.

Would love swap Baldini for Monchi though. Really hard to see what advantage we are getting from Baldini. Whereas Monchi has a proven track record for providing value for money for his club.

And Soldado a player with no resale value. Whether it was 16 million or 28 million we should have never bought this player, not because of the way he has performed but because he has no resale value.

As for swapping Baldini for Monchi I don't see the point in that. Baldini had a good track record before he come here but no one knows what he does and he has never given a interview. Monchi would just be probably shoehorned into the same role.

 

[spursfan77]

Our situation isn't entirely comparable to Arsenal's for a number of reasons:

a) Even without any Champions League money, by the time that we embark upon our stadium build, our income will be £50m+ p.a. more than theirs was at the time that they embarked upon the Emirates construction.

b) Arsenal had to spend £60m on relocating Islington's waste and recycling plant before gaining possession of Ashburton Grove. We have already completed the land assembly for our stadium build (including Archway) yet we remain debt free.

c) We have already completed site preparation on half the land required.

d) Interest rates are far lower now than when Arsenal went to the banks. There has never been a better time to borrow for those companies and individuals deemed to be a safe bet (as Spurs, Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy will undoubtedly be).

e) Spurs will not make the same mistake as Arsenal when agreeing a naming rights (and shirt sponsorship) deal. It is commonly acknowledged that they massively undersold themselves.

So I'd be more inclined to go with your first scenario. We will have more to spend on player wages and transfers but it won't be a silly amount more until we have reduced the stadium debt significantly or until we add CL income to our revenues.

Yep, in a way with the new tv deal and the foreign tv deal to be renegotiated (I think) before we move in we could almost be in a better position. Plus arsenal struggled with selling off their flats because of the downturn in 2008 and this also hit their income stream.

I'd be massively surprised if enic screwed up making money on the stadium development, they've had so much time to plan for every eventuality by now.

The full accounts are yet to be published, once we see those it might point to what's going to happen in the summer as well.

 

[beats1]

I doubt that we would have signed Broomfield right from the jaws of Arsenal signing him (meaning undoubtedly a strong offer), and then turned around to relieve him less than a year later, regardless of the coaching change. Hell, we haven't even been able to get rid of Baldini in twice the time.

My impression is Broomfield runs the scouting on the ground, but McKenzie is part of the technical assessment team along with Mitchell.

I think McKenzie is just a scout that uses more modern methods and perhaps imo the scout to replace David Magrone who served us well