Our transfer policy

[SNAFU_Clarke]

I think we are seeing the rewards of our long term strategy. We've finished in the top five 5 times in the last 7 seasons. The fact that for some that isn't progress enough doesn't take away from the fact that it very blatantly is progress.

i think it might be useful to know who these people are that don't see the past few seasons as progress. do they post on here?

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

We're comparable to City in terms of our revenue. However we all know it's not a level playing field in terms of finances and that City are actually not a club we can benchmark against in terms of performance. Realistically the only club we can compare performance against is Liverpool who still enjoy a not insignificant revenue advantage.

Domestically, Villa have the 7th highest revenue in England, though this is highly misleading. It’s once again a case of mind the gap, as Villa’s £92 million is a long way below the leading six clubs. After significant growth in the last couple of years, Tottenham (£164 million) and Manchester City (£153 million) are more than 50% higher, while Arsenal (£227 million), Chelsea (£226 million) and Liverpool (£184 million) all generate at least twice as much as Villa. Manchester United are out of sight with £331 million.

 

[r_baker]

The transfer windows used to be one the best things about supporting spurs, back when we did exciting deals like ginola, klinsmann, edgar davids (to an extent), berbatov, bale etc

now its the opposite. the last 10 windows have been nothing but depressing, almost always weakening our squad then bringing in players on loans and free transfers which dont actually solve the problem, they just put it off until the next window.

despite what everyone may say, levy has had what, 4 years now to sign a striker worthy of being our #9 and he just hasnt done it. since we sold berbatov and brought in pav, we have 'made do' up front. with everyone else strengthening, thats not enough to sustain a top 4 finish. every other top club has a talisman striker
city - tevez, aguero, balotelli, dzeko
utd - rooney
chelsea - torres (drogba until this season)
arsenal - rvp (+ decent signings in podolski and giroud)
liverpool - suarez and carroll

our 'policy' clearly needs to be addressed. People will moan at this with the usual 'it helps our club be sustainable waa waa its all we can manage' but we have enough cash to spend 20m on a player. we supposedly bid 38 on aguero didnt we?

 

[StockSpur]

There are no ceilings in how much clubs can pay for players they want, which means the same for the seller. Levys strategy is sound.

 

[sloth]

We're comparable to City in terms of our revenue. However we all know it's not a level playing field in terms of finances and that City are actually not a club we can benchmark against in terms of performance. Realistically the only club we can compare performance against is Liverpool who still enjoy a not insignificant revenue advantage.

Domestically, Villa have the 7th highest revenue in England, though this is highly misleading. It’s once again a case of mind the gap, as Villa’s £92 million is a long way below the leading six clubs. After significant growth in the last couple of years, Tottenham (£164 million) and Manchester City (£153 million) are more than 50% higher, while Arsenal (£227 million), Chelsea (£226 million) and Liverpool (£184 million) all generate at least twice as much as Villa. Manchester United are out of sight with £331 million.

​

I think you've benchmarked the season we qualified for CL, which is clearly a high water-mark. I understand why as it's the year of our most recent accounts, however we made £35m from CL that season, you need to subtract that to see a more realistic benchmark for us in relation to those others.

A better benchmark, imo, is a wages + net transfer spend figure, in which circumstance you see we're much closer to Villa, and City and Chelsea occupy the proper place in the list as regards spending power.

 

[sloth]

Following on from Snafu's idea of benchmarking, I did a little investigation myself this morning. I wanted to see how we've done in the ENIC years, performance-wise, benchmarked against our rivals. To do this, I looked at the points difference between us and each benchmark club, for each season ENIC has been in charge, and also the season just before they took over. In the next few posts I show you the results. I added a basic linear trend-line, if it goes up we've done better than the benchmark. If it goes down then we've done worse. First up is Man City, from the downward trendline, you can see that as the years have gone by they've got better in respect of us.

 

[sloth]

Next up Chelsea, where despite their millions the trend is narrowly in our favour:

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

2010/11 revenues show we had twice as much as Villa through the gates, twice as much as Villa on the commercial side and about £30m more for TV. The CL money? Take out the £30m CL money and we had revenue of £134m against Villa's £92m. Lerner has invested hugely in the club, loans which will not be paid off, in fact he's stopped charging the interest. That investment has run dry. Villa are not a comparable club really, in terms of their finances. They had a go, finished 6th, and backed away. Their wages/turnover ratio was, and still is, scary.

Levy's prudent approach is a similar one to Villa's was, but stops way, way short of getting involved in a wages/turnover ratio anything like Villa were trying to sustain. Pay what we can and get the best deals possible. It's not rocket science and it's not a model that is unique to Spurs/Levy. We just happen to be the 5th/6th 'biggest' club in a league where 4th is rewarded disproportionately to 5th/6th. Villa are about 7th, thus the temptation to benchmark against them, especially as that comparison would be favourable in recent years. However, in those years their strategy has changed hugely off the pitch.

 

[StartingPrice]

i look at the players some clubs have bought over the last few years like cabaye, cisse, etc, and 1) i cant remember the last time we went out and unearthed someone that has given more than his price tag said he would. Maybe Walker, but 2) wasnt it naughton that we were interested in?
3) Having sold the likes of pav, niko, pineaar, berbatov we have never fully replaced what we sold with someone that could do a job in their place.
It did however seem like this summer we were going to pro active in the summer signing vertonghen and gylfi sigurdsson, but what we the fans have wanted for years is one maybe 4) two strikers, then 5) a winger to cover lennon and bale, and 6) maybe a young gk.

I can see why levy would be holding out, 7) but that does us no good, having to integrate them into the squad etc. and with the handicapped footing we find ourselves at the start of the season.

1) VDV?

2) Evidence? I think we were interested in both? Does it really matter which one we were most interested in, they've been decent purchases afaiac.

3) Pav has only just gone, Niko and Pienaar - get outta here, sold this summer, bought Sigurdsson, you're talking about Berbatov, aren't you? Oh, lord, we're back to the we haven't replaced Berbatov, in't we...I've answered that 4 posts above yours, did you read it?

4) Again, 4 posts above yours.

5) Maybe have one of those in Townsend - personally, didn't think we should have sent him out on loan last Christmas.

6) Maybe. But it was only last year RatKNip decided the Octopus wasn't the answer. We have a highly thought of goalkeeper in Button, just not quite ready. Friedel was meant to be a stop-gap and worked satisfactorily last season. Would be nice to see, I agree.

7) It does do us good. It is the single most important factor in Dan Levy's ability to balance the books. It has enhanced our status as we are no longer just seen as selling club (in terms that we would just roll over whenever a so called bigger club wanted our best players). We are not seen as a soft touch in negotiations. You have to weigh the pros against the cons. Afaiac, the pros outweigh the cons. Also, this mythos about integrating the players has already been trotted out dozens of times this summer - we didn't have time to integrate Adebayor, who hadn't had a proper pre-season, hadn't had time to mingle with the players and didn't know what to expect from the fans due to his Goons connections - did he or did he not hit the ground running?

With all of this wailing and gnashing of fecking teeth, I think you lot need to remember than we did actually finish 4th last season - and would be in the CL but for the most improbably CL final (and semi-final) victories of the tournaments history. it's not like we finshed 15th and that is why the whole transfer policy needs to be pulled to pieces, is it!

<DEEP BREATHS, SP, DEEP BREATHS>

 

[sloth]

We see a similar story with Utd.

 

[sloth]

When it comes to Arsenal our progress starts to become pronounced. Remember, in each and every year Arsenal have had CL revenues to draw on and spent far more on players than us, possibly as much as £100m net more on players over the period.

 

[sloth]

The Liverpool story is almost the same as the Arsenal one, except for the first time in their case we move into a positive points difference by the end. They've spent maybe £200m net more than us on players over the period:

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

The Liverpool story is almost the same as the Arsenal one, except for the first time in their case we move into a positive points difference by the end. They've spent maybe £200m net more than us on players over the period:

i would advise you not to get into a discussion with any liverpool fans about net spend. there are also mountains of caveats that need to be applied to these figures.

 

[sloth]

Next up we get Newcastle. Now we're benchmarking against clubs of similar size and access to resources as us. Not a lot of CL money sloshing about at these clubs, so the playing field is level, income is only generated by performance on the pitch and the ability of the owners to make the best deals, whether that be on sponsorship, player contracts, or transfers. Remember though, our stadium is smaller than all those I'm benchmarking against:

 

[sloth]

With Villa we see virtually the same story:

 

[sloth]

Everton are the one club who have managed to hold onto our coat-tails over the period. And although they're of a similar size, their owners haven't managed to eke as much out the resources at their disposal as ours have, and so they've done so spending less on players. A small trend in our favour, but negligible, and probably meaningless/random:

 

[sloth]

And finally, a brief look at Leeds. I maxed out the points difference at 35 so it would fit on the graph, but it's the old lesson of Icarus - a fair few Icarus' on this board I reckon!:

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

when you say that stadium sizes of villa and newcastle are bigger than ours you need to take into account that we charge more per seat. in fact we made more per game than both in 2010/11 and had near enough double the income from match day revenue in 2010/11:

spurs per game £1.6m - match day revenue total - £43.3m
newcastle per game £1.0m - match day revenue total - £20.9m
villa per game £0.9m - match day revenue total - £21.4m

 

[sloth]

So that's it, against any benchmark you like, barring City, and before you even take into account club size, resources etc. we've done well out of ENIC. On a season by season basis, there have been ups and downs, fluctuations, and no doubt there will be again in the future, but that's why you have to look at trends of a period of time, rather than over-react to every little peak or trough imo.

 

[sloth]

when you say that stadium sizes of villa and newcastle are bigger than ours you need to take into account that we charge more per seat. in fact we made more per game than both in 2010/11 and had near enough double the income from match day revenue in 2010/11:

spurs per game £1.6m - match day revenue total - £43.3m
newcastle per game £1.0m - match day revenue total - £20.9m
villa per game £0.9m - match day revenue total - £21.4m

Agreed. Our fans are more affluent than their's which makes a big difference. What also makes a difference to the prices you can charge is success on the pitch. If people want to come and see the team because they're performing well, you can charge more: supply and demand.

However, it should be added that there's no reason on earth why Villa, Newcastle, Everton et al, can't secure similar sponsorship deals as us; no reason except they don't have Levy making the deals for them.