- Jun 7, 2004
- 18,106
- 45,030
From what one reads here, finishing outside the top 4 is either an indictment of the club ownership for lack of ambition, or it's an inevitable product of economic determinism (sugar daddy syndrome - our lack of one), or it's the result of not having broken the bank to sign a new striker back in January. I don't agree with any of those diagnoses, but I'd rather focus for a minute on the prognosis and what it means for the league, not just for Spurs.
I'd like to propose a way of looking at this which involves stepping outside Spurs World for a minute. For over a decade, four clubs collectively monopolised the Champions League places, which essentially relegated everyone else to economic inferiority and progressive decline. We'll ignore Everton's brief moment in the sun for this purpose, because, crucially, it didn't actually exclude anyone, it just added two matches to Everton's following-season schedule.
What we did in 2009/10 was to break the quadropoly, despite our economic inferiority. Just as importantly, Man City have exploited their economic superiority to do it again in 2010/11. It would have been nice for us to do it again, but in the wider picture, what's important is that someone did it, because what this season and last season have achieved is that no club can now rely on being in the CL every season, because there's no big gap between the top 4 and everyone else. That will affect the business plans of the other 5 clubs with realistic aspirations to be in the CL. They can't bank on it anymore.
We all know how Man City have done it. What's less clear, especially if you read the relentless whining here, is how we did it and how we came close to doing it again, had it not been for a period of bad form and bad fortune at a bad time.
Somehow, ENIC (not Harry Redknapp) have managed to assemble, steadily over a period of seven years, by methodical stages and starting from a position where the footballing side of the club was entirely moribund and fossilised, a squad that is almost as good as the best in the league and can do itself proud in the Champions League. And they've done it with a minuscule stadium, paying relatively modest wages and without incurring barmy levels of debt.
Had it not been for an unfortunately-timed lending crisis, they'd also be well on the way to building both a top-notch training ground and a modern, larger stadium.
If I step outside my personal hunger for Spurs success on the pitch and just look at it, that's a really good business plan - the evidence is plain, the moment one compares our resources with what we have achieved in the past five years and then compares the rest of the "top 6" clubs' resources with that they've achieved. By contrast, what Abramovich and Mansour have done isn't really a business plan at all, it's an expensive hobby. If you want us to be a plutocrat's hobby, then I can't really argue with you, except to intone "Financial Fair Play Regulations" several times in the course of the discussion.
Outside of the constant-subsidy-by-a-disgustingly-rich-bastard option, ENIC seem to have found the best (only?) option. It won't turn us into a club that qualifies for the CL every year and wins consecutive league titles - that's not realistic - but it's well on the way, if they don't fuck it up by sacking the manager when we hit a patch of bad form or by selling key players, to delivering a team that competes for the CL every year, qualifying for it sometimes, and is part of a new order in the Premiership: a league with 6-8 clubs that have a realistic chance of finishing in the top 4 every season.
With a fair wind, it might even win us one league title before our key players get too old.
I'd like to propose a way of looking at this which involves stepping outside Spurs World for a minute. For over a decade, four clubs collectively monopolised the Champions League places, which essentially relegated everyone else to economic inferiority and progressive decline. We'll ignore Everton's brief moment in the sun for this purpose, because, crucially, it didn't actually exclude anyone, it just added two matches to Everton's following-season schedule.
What we did in 2009/10 was to break the quadropoly, despite our economic inferiority. Just as importantly, Man City have exploited their economic superiority to do it again in 2010/11. It would have been nice for us to do it again, but in the wider picture, what's important is that someone did it, because what this season and last season have achieved is that no club can now rely on being in the CL every season, because there's no big gap between the top 4 and everyone else. That will affect the business plans of the other 5 clubs with realistic aspirations to be in the CL. They can't bank on it anymore.
We all know how Man City have done it. What's less clear, especially if you read the relentless whining here, is how we did it and how we came close to doing it again, had it not been for a period of bad form and bad fortune at a bad time.
Somehow, ENIC (not Harry Redknapp) have managed to assemble, steadily over a period of seven years, by methodical stages and starting from a position where the footballing side of the club was entirely moribund and fossilised, a squad that is almost as good as the best in the league and can do itself proud in the Champions League. And they've done it with a minuscule stadium, paying relatively modest wages and without incurring barmy levels of debt.
Had it not been for an unfortunately-timed lending crisis, they'd also be well on the way to building both a top-notch training ground and a modern, larger stadium.
If I step outside my personal hunger for Spurs success on the pitch and just look at it, that's a really good business plan - the evidence is plain, the moment one compares our resources with what we have achieved in the past five years and then compares the rest of the "top 6" clubs' resources with that they've achieved. By contrast, what Abramovich and Mansour have done isn't really a business plan at all, it's an expensive hobby. If you want us to be a plutocrat's hobby, then I can't really argue with you, except to intone "Financial Fair Play Regulations" several times in the course of the discussion.
Outside of the constant-subsidy-by-a-disgustingly-rich-bastard option, ENIC seem to have found the best (only?) option. It won't turn us into a club that qualifies for the CL every year and wins consecutive league titles - that's not realistic - but it's well on the way, if they don't fuck it up by sacking the manager when we hit a patch of bad form or by selling key players, to delivering a team that competes for the CL every year, qualifying for it sometimes, and is part of a new order in the Premiership: a league with 6-8 clubs that have a realistic chance of finishing in the top 4 every season.
With a fair wind, it might even win us one league title before our key players get too old.