I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree again. If Moutinho is your evidence of Levy not putting in bids in the best way, then I am not sure that is substantive in any way. Because we have VdV, Sissoko and a number of other players that we have signed as evidence of Levy signing a good player. The truth is with regards to Moutinho that no one knows why that broke down. One set of fans believe it is because Levy negotiated everything down to the nth degree and spent ages (on the last day) thus jeapordising the transfer. On the other, it could just have been that the other club, Moutinho's agent were just asking for too much, and more than we were willing to pay. Yet Levy wanted to try and make it work and spent ages discussing the transfer rather than coming out and saying "Sorry, couldn't sign the player because he wanted twice what I was willing to pay and the club wanted far more money than I was led to believe".
Yes, no one knows why Moutino broke down, but I'm not sure your objections to my use of his transfer as an example buttress your point, either. You say that it could have been because Porto were asking for too much, or Moutinho's agent was asking for too much - fair enough, but in that case, that makes the prospect of us being willing to spend on Aguero back in 2011 even *more* unlikely, don't you think? Aguero would have asked for more by way of wages than Moutinho would have - we were also apparently trying to trigger his release clause of *38.5m*, which would have been a) a British transfer *record* back then, and b) all payable up front, because that's how release clauses work.
And all that would have had to happen in one day, much like the Moutinho transfer. If Levy had to *stretch* himself to accomodate a bid of 24m pounds plus whatever wages Moutinho asked for, and that approach *still* failed - it's hard to see him being equally willing to suddenly pay 38.5m upfront, no questions asked, plus obediently acquiesce to Aguero's wage demands. Especially since, to take the point even further, Levy haggled so much over Moutinho *after* a summer in which he'd sold our best player to Real Madrid (no choice, really) and needed a playmaker to replace him - in this case, he wouldn't even have been filling a hole using money earned from previous transfers, he would be spending over and beyond previous acquisitions without much by way of incoming money from sales to balance it out.
Still *very, very* difficult to make that point with any degree of conviction, imo.
Now when we talk about the deadline day of Jan 2011, a season where it was our first in the Champions League, Our strikers were Crouch, Defoe and Pavlyuchenko. Levy had just the transfer window before picked up VdV on the last day of the transfer window. A relatively iconic player at least as far as what we had been able to attract thus far. Redknapp was saying he needed a top quality player, someone who would lift the club and really make us challenge for the title. So what does Levy need to do? If he were to buy a relative unknown, it would be a serious "lack of ambition". No, he thinks he can get another last minute purchase (like he had already done). Because it is last minute, he puts in bids for 3 of the top strikers that could potentially come to us. Now, I don't believe that you ever go into the last day without having got an indication from the players that they are willing to come like the secret footballer laid out as to how a transfer works, but let's go with it. They don't come off, and because fans are so bitterly disappointed that a top player was not signed they accuse Levy of dragging out negotiations. It's all HIS fault that we didn't sign anyone, and actually in this case they were completely fake bids, designed to placate the fans and show that we were at least trying.
Again, I refer you to the Moutinho - Aguero dynamic above. Levy balked over paying 24m after a summer in which he'd banked quite a bit money from sales anyway, and left the window without filling a hole in the squad. Yet, a couple of years earlier, he apparently he saw fit to sanction not one, not two, but *three* simultaneous bids of over 30m on the same day, for players who wouldn't fill a hole but actually *add* to the side, smashing our previous transfer record (and the British transfer record as a whole up to that point) - and was apparently 100% prepared to enter into negotiations on all three bids in good faith at the same time, were they to be accepted or negotiated.
Is it fair to make the argument that those bids were in good faith, given those circumstances?
Quite how we get to it is a fake bid is quite ridiculous. It's based on a premise that a set of fans think that he believes fans are so stupid that they will be happy with a "at least we tried approach". You and I both know this is not the case. The fans are not so forgiving. If anything it makes them more angry than if he didn't make a bid in the first place.
But that's the point here - our fans are actually pretty divided on being forgiving, to the point where people are *perfectly willing* to believe that he did make those bids - whether or not that's actually the case. You, for instance - and I know your view is shared by many others here, in that you believe that he did try and they do too. So clearly, it *does* work on many of our fans - so why wouldn't he try it when faced with simmering discontent over a miserly January transfer window in 2011?
I'm sorry, but in these situations where there is NO evidence to know exactly what has happened, I would prefer to believe that Levy is just trying to do his best. In negotiations and attempts, things work out or they don't. In his case they work out more often than not, so that leaves me to believe that he does have out best interests at heart. You, on the other hand, would rather believe that he is is a penny pincher. He has no intention of actually going through with a bid for 3 strikers. He was just putting on a show.
Yes. At least, he was then. I do not believe that, given the circumstances, those bids were anything other than shows designed to placate a fanbase upset that we hadn't strengthened from a position of superiority when we had the chance. That ties into the other point I'm trying to make, which is that you *prefer* to believe that he made a good-faith bid back then, but when arguing on what little information we have, that position ends up being based more on your preferences than the little data available to us - *imo* (and only in this instance - no allusion made to any other arguments we may have had, which exist on their own merits.
).
And this goes back to my point. With that belief, the guy cannot win. He puts in a bid, it is a fake bid. He doesn't put in a bid (or at least we don't find out that he puts in a bid) he is not showing enough ambition. A player refuses us, Levy is not paying enough wages. If Chelsea, Emirates Marketing Project, Liverpool or Arsenal can do it, why can't we.
No club wins all of the time when it comes to transfers and our record speaks for itself. We probably have the most successful transfer strategy when it comes to value for money than any other club. Yet because we cannot compete with clubs that have at least one and a half times our turnover, Levy is to blame.
Levy is to blame for what happened in January 2011. That is 99% the case in my mind - I mentioned in the initial post that you made reasonable posts elsewhere, and that holds true too. Levy's overall strategy from 2001 to 2017 is far more multifaceted than a simple case of 100% failure or 100% success, and I personally don't think I've claimed the contrary no matter how stupid the strawmen conjured up by *certain posters* (Cough,
@parklane1, cough
) are. But in this one particular case, in January 2011, I think it was a case of Levy being to blame. Absolutely.
