The ousting of Daniel (COYS)

[alfie103]

Not really. The idea is to be better than your rivals. I couldn’t give a toss about winning a trophy specifically designed for serial losers.

You’re being realistic about our failures. You criticise ENIC and Levy for all their many shortcomings, and that’s all perfectly legitimate because shit, we failed to qualify for any European competition, and played the worst, most boring, unadventurous, dull, inept and unambitious football I ever remember Spurs playing. So your criticism is perfectly valid.

But West Ham were worse.

They won a genuinely tin-pot competition and the fact that it was their best day out in a lifetime just tells you how shite they’ve been for a lifetime.

To be better than your rivals? When has the game been about that?

If it was, we should just have leagues with only your rivals in it, don't bother with national and international competitions. Our UEFA Cup and Cup winners cups successes are meaningless as well then.

 

[alfie103]

Winning a cup better teams aren’t eligible for (on account of them being better) is a very odd concept.

who won the Papa Johns Trophy btw?

I don't see why it is odd. Should we cast our UEFA cup and cup winners' cup successes as meaningless?

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

To be better than your rivals? When has the game been about that?

If it was, we should just have leagues with only your rivals in it, don't bother with national and international competitions. Our UEFA Cup and Cup winners cups successes are meaningless as well then.

No

Our rivals are all the teams we play against.

 

[alfie103]

No

Our rivals are all the teams we play against.

Isn't one of the easiest ways to show you are better than your rivals is to win competitions which involve said rivals?

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

Isn't one of the easiest ways to show you are better than your rivals is to win competitions which involve said rivals?

This is getting silly though isn’t it?

We weren’t competing in their competition because we were in the Champions League.

We didnt win the league-two play offs either … does that make Rochdale or whoever the fuck won it better and more successful than all the teams in the Premiership who won fuck all?

Have we lost all our sense of proportion and relativity?

 

[SirNiNyHotspur]

I agree the net spend isn’t really a great marker of ENIC at the moment, they have spent more since the stadium, that is clear, but this does ‘t factor so has everyone, the market has become seriously inflated.

It’s what’s actually keeping the likes City and somewhat even Chelsea’s net spend down (comparatively) because yes they continue to pay big fees for the best, but they are also cashing in on their failures or players the manager wants to move on, much easier to do as they are often successful and established stars.

Our problem since the stadium isn’t how much we’re spending, it’s our failure to offload, and that largely comes from constantly changing the manager never knowing what players the next wants or needs and Levy being hesitant to take losses on the dross he’s gambled on as he doesn’t dine at the top table so these aren’t established successful stars he can cash in on.

I’d be interested to see gross spend the last 5 years as I believe our net spend is high mainly due to the inflated market and our inability to offload players the manager doesn’t want…

 

[skaz04nik]

Net spend is not half as relevant as people think anymore, it's about strategy and execution. I would rather £30m on BIssouma than £115m on Caicedo or £60m on Lavia. For further comparison, Chelsea's midfield three of Lavia, Caicedo and Enzo costs north of £250m but ours of Bentancur, Maddison and Bissouma only costs £85m - I know which I'd rather have.

The reality is that we have been among the highest spenders in the Premier League since 2019 but we have no idea what the fuck we're doing with that money.

Some examples:

• In the summer of 2021 we signed Gil, Emerson and Sarr (amongst others) for roughly 70-80m each, only to sack a manager we never should have hired and replace him with someone who wanted a totally different player to Emerson; didn't care for Sarr last season because he was too raw despite being talented; and hated Gil because he has the body of a child. That's a high net spend but a total fucking waste of money because we have no idea why we buy these players and for what manager.
  
  
• Last year we spent £12.5m on a right-back our manager never asked for and then £43m on a specialist RWB in January when it was clear at that point our manager was headed out sooner rather than later. Now we've spent £55m quid on two right-backs who might be useless in this system - a totally self-inflicted wound because we don't have an identity.
  
  
• Lo Celso, signed in 2019 for a very high price (circa 50m+ all told) is about to maybe finally have his breakthrough season with us four years on at the age of 27.

Our issue isn't money anymore and focusing on it misses the point. The issue is actually much, much worse because all we've proven is that whether we spend loads or little we're fucking clueless. The idea that if we suddenly chucked £200m more on this team we'd be competitive is detached from the facts. All more money would make us is a worse version of what United have been under Ed Woodward until recently; aimless and directionless with a schizophrenic approach to managers, structure and recruitment leading to sub-par results relative to the investment made.

There is plenty to criticise Levy for but we should at least be accurate in that criticism because focusing on net spend just makes our arguments against him lose credibility because they haven't been valid for many years.

i do agree with some of your points

yet our lack of high profile cbs has been clear for 4 years or so. what is the rationale? either we think they’re too expensive or we fail to attract top talent… or we overreached our budget, proxy of which is a net spend

 

[13VanDerBale13]

He just always has to make everything difficult for everyone

 

[KingNick]

I don't see why it is odd. Should we cast our UEFA cup and cup winners' cup successes as meaningless?

You are missing the point by a considerable distance.

 

[Darth Vega]

i do agree with some of your points

yet our lack of high profile cbs has been clear for 4 years or so. what is the rationale? either we think they’re too expensive or we fail to attract top talent… or we overreached our budget, proxy of which is a net spend

I mentioned it already, we have no plan and we spend money without thinking. I agree with you completely, how it took us 3 and 3.5 years to replace Vertonghen and Eriksen is beyond me. Why did we do it? Because we have no plan or strategy or vision, not because we didn't spend. We did spend but we spent on random positions for no reason, there's a reason we have five left-backs and three right-backs at the club but only now do we have a LCB and a no.10 .

 

[Albertbarich]

I mentioned it already, we have no plan and we spend money without thinking. I agree with you completely, how it took us 3 and 3.5 years to replace Vertonghen and Eriksen is beyond me. Why did we do it? Because we have no plan or strategy or vision, not because we didn't spend. We did spend but we spent on random positions for no reason, there's a reason we have five left-backs and three right-backs at the club but only now do we have a LCB and a no.10 .

I still would have not triggered the Porro option

Ange is going to struggle to get him in and for 40 million that money could really have gone elsewhere.

 

[vegassd]

...our squad looks like someone turned up to a Chinese buffet massively shitfaced and filled their plate with duck and ice cream and covered it all in mustard - I like all these things individually but together it doesn't make much sense.

It doesn't matter how much we spend for dinner if we don't actually know what we want to eat.

Such a great analogy!

I wouldn't necessarily agree with you about the spending levels between 2001-19 being open for criticism at any time... at least not in the context of the overall club position. There were periods in there where I think we actually played things quite well.

What I personally think has been Levy's biggest failure, is the notion that once the stadium is open all we had to do was open the financial taps. It appears to me that he wanted to hire a "trophy" manager, spend a bit of money on players, then everything else would just fall into place. I think that approach failed to appreciate how successful modern clubs really pick a philosophy and go balls deep with it, which falls in line with your analogy.

Taking that approach has undermined the "game changer" nature of the stadium, and probably undermined a lot of the scrimping and saving that came before the stadium build. I wouldn't go as far as saying there was no strategy/vision in place, more that the strategy has been flawed and importantly not had the flexibility to adapt. That causes the reactive transfer/manager dealings and lies squarely at Levy's door in my opinion.

Something like net spend is only ever a symptom of transfer dealings at a club - an incredibly simplistic snapshot that cannot be used to make any sort of point. I think something like the Kane situation, and even Conte going a bit postal, is more indicative of the strategy failures of the past years.

 

[-Afri-Coy-]

Regarding net spend, who says it's low? It's lower this summer but that's because

a) we just received £100m for one player
b) it isn't over yet and there's a half-decent chance we bring in a couple more players anyway

When measured over a period of five years we are among the top four or five highest net spenders in the league which is exactly where we should be. We can't outspend Liverpool or City or Chelsea or Man United because these clubs make more money than us, whether that's organic or through dodgy means is neither here nor there.

At the time of writing the net spend table in the past five years looks like this:

1) Manchester United: £-614.92m
2) Arsenal: £-582.91m
3) Chelsea: £-567.95m
4) Newcastle: £-418.28m
5) Tottenham: £-402.16m

Again, a week ago our number would have been £502m, massively above Newcastle in 4th and a handful behind Chelsea and Arsenal but it isn't every day you receive £100m for a single player. This is where I think your argument falls apart - you say we've not spent a lot but the numbers betray that argument. How much more should we spending exactly, what is the acceptable figure? £600m? £700m?

If we signed Bissouma for £50m instead of £30m and Maddison for £60m instead of £40m would that make you happier because it would show more ambition and the net spend is even higher and overtaking Chelsea and Arsenal?

The point I'm making here is why is the focus not on the quality of who we sign? You're right in that spending = success in the modern day but again, we have spent, it's right there in black and white. You can't argue with maths even if it doesn't align with how you feel.

And on our recruitment, I actually think it's been pretty good overall. Discounting loan players and Forster we've signed around 21 players since the summer of 2021... 21. Not only is that an entirely new squad but the quality of them is surprisingly pretty good overall. I think almost everyone is happy with at least ten of those in Maddison, Bentancur, Romero, Bissouma, Van de ven, Kulusevski, Porro (maybe), Emerson, Sarr, Udogie, with a lot still possibly turning good with the likes of Richy, Solomon, Perisic, Vicario, Veliz and others.

I mean no disrespect but I don't understand your argument. The reality is that we have spent loads, more than the majority of teams in Europe and in line with what you expect a club of our revenue to be spending, the recruitment has mostly been good so far and in some cases excellent, and we have (finally) a manager in place to make the most of it.

As far as I see it Levy could have been totally and justifiably criticised at any time from 2001 through to 2019 for not spending enough, including during the stadium build. People have understandably been unable to remove themselves from this thinking because it has gone on for so long and it's something that has remained as a criticism even if it is demonstrably false. It's a boy who cried wolf situation, he's finally spent a shit ton of money and nobody believes him even if the evidence is a five minute Google search away.

We've spent a lot, we've mostly spent it well, we're just fucking clueless because we hire random managers that don't align with our vision (because said vision doesn't exist) so our squad looks like someone turned up to a Chinese buffet massively shitfaced and filled their plate with duck and ice cream and covered it all in mustard - I like all these things individually but together it doesn't make much sense.

It doesn't matter how much we spend for dinner if we don't actually know what we want to eat.

again, you’ve made very valid points but some have nothing to do with my initial post.

You are arguing for our net spend over the last 5 years, I posted our current net spend for this window only. That’s what we’re supposed to be focusing on here. But to that point, had we had better luck with our outgoings, we would have a significantly lower net spend over the same amount of time. Our rivals, such as Chelsea and Arsenal, have had much higher value outgoings than us over the same period(last 5 years). But in essence this strengthens your argument against our net spend over that period so I digress, you’ve got me there.

You have to change the narrative over a longer period of time to have a valid argument but it doesn’t have anything to do with the original point I made though. Let’s focus on this Window’s net spend as that’s what I originally brought up to discuss.

I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding here. We’ve sold Kane this window, this impacts us on the pitch way more than it benefits us financially. Given that we’ve lost a huge chunk of goals and assists, you would expect our net spend to be higher than zero. (Taking Kulusevski and Porro out of the equation here) You simply have to go out and get players in to bolster the squad with such a huge loss. The outgoings can come later in the window. Levy seems to be taking time to get those incomings in, and the longer it takes, the longer it affects our squad overall. New players need time to bed in. The more time they have the better.

I think your overarching assessment here is actually very good and I can’t argue with it. I would prefer we spend smarter, but that also means in modern terms we have to be WILLING to spend and therefore risk a bit more.

Just so you know, I would never feel disrespected by someone challenging my views in a concise manner like you have. It’s incredible to see such a well thought out perspective that somewhat contradicts mine. We both have very valid points here but we’ve lost it a bit in terms of the main subject matter. Either way, it’s an enjoyable debate for me so don’t worry about me feeling disrespected. If anything it shows you respect my point of view enough to make a proper argument and I can only appreciate that.

 

[Albertbarich]

Such a great analogy!

I wouldn't necessarily agree with you about the spending levels between 2001-19 being open for criticism at any time... at least not in the context of the overall club position. There were periods in there where I think we actually played things quite well.

What I personally think has been Levy's biggest failure, is the notion that once the stadium is open all we had to do was open the financial taps. It appears to me that he wanted to hire a "trophy" manager, spend a bit of money on players, then everything else would just fall into place. I think that approach failed to appreciate how successful modern clubs really pick a philosophy and go balls deep with it, which falls in line with your analogy.

Taking that approach has undermined the "game changer" nature of the stadium, and probably undermined a lot of the scrimping and saving that came before the stadium build. I wouldn't go as far as saying there was no strategy/vision in place, more that the strategy has been flawed and importantly not had the flexibility to adapt. That causes the reactive transfer/manager dealings and lies squarely at Levy's door in my opinion.

Something like net spend is only ever a symptom of transfer dealings at a club - an incredibly simplistic snapshot that cannot be used to make any sort of point. I think something like the Kane situation, and even Conte going a bit postal, is more indicative of the strategy failures of the past years.

Chelsea have 2 director of footballs with assistants and god knows who else running things.

We have Levy his board of football no nothings and maybe Scott munn

We should have recruited the best very best in football staff once that stadium was finished and gone from there. There was no reason we couldn't set up a scouting network like Brighton, no reason why we couldn't have spent some money on a feeder club to send talent that isn't ready, no reason that all that couldn't have been backed up with 2 or 3 first team signings per summer .

Instead we have lurched from disaster to disaster, using the transfer market like an 80' s game show hoping we win the big prize and employed managers like a 12 year old picking chocolate at the shop - oh that one mum it's the biggest'.

I have empathy for a business trying to compete with oil states but that empathy has gone because they're not only so frugal it hurts their business but they're actively holding us back with the lack of strategy and structure.

 

[SUIYHA]

What the fuck have I just read

 

[vegassd]

You are arguing for our net spend over the last 5 years, I posted our current net spend for this window only. That’s what we’re supposed to be focusing on here.

This is exactly why net spend is such a useless metric - at least when taken over such a short period of time.

If we were looking at the same numbers just 7 days ago they paint a very different picture. If we look at those numbers 7 days from now it will be a different picture again. And different again by the end of the window.

I suspect that you posted those numbers when you did because it would portray a story that you want to tell. You didn't post them 7 days ago because we would have been at the top of the list and it wouldn't tell the story you wanted. That is exactly why a cherry picked net spend is so pointless.

 

[Albertbarich]

What the fuck have I just read

I hate Daniel Levy more than I hate Sol Campbell. A lot more

 

[-Afri-Coy-]

This is exactly why net spend is such a useless metric - at least when taken over such a short period of time.

If we were looking at the same numbers just 7 days ago they paint a very different picture. If we look at those numbers 7 days from now it will be a different picture again. And different again by the end of the window.

I suspect that you posted those numbers when you did because it would portray a story that you want to tell. You didn't post them 7 days ago because we would have been at the top of the list and it wouldn't tell the story you wanted. That is exactly why a cherry picked net spend is so pointless.

No metric is useless. If used in context (not cherry picking) then it's a perfectly valid metric to use to strengthen ones argument.

If you feel it's a useless metric then don't get involved in the discussion when it's being used within a specific context.

And ofcourse I posted it to support my argument, I then gave reasons and a better breakdown of why I brought it up in the same post you quoted.

 

[only1waddle]

I still would have not triggered the Porro option

Ange is going to struggle to get him in and for 40 million that money could really have gone elsewhere.

It wasn't an option though, it was an obligation.

 

[Albertbarich]

It wasn't an option though, it was an obligation.

I remember people saying at the time it was optional but you're probably right

Either way it feels like 40 million very much in the balance of being wasted.