• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Winning trophies or Champiosn League football?

What do you want to see Spurs achieve, winning trophies or CL football?

  • Winning Trophies

    Votes: 36 83.7%

  • Champions League football

    Votes: 7 16.3%
  • Total voters
    43
braineclipse said:
As a fan I can think that it's more likely that we'll get that glory if we first get regular CL football.
Click to expand...

This.

All of our FA Cup wins (since we joined the Football League) have come during or immediately before/after a season in which a top 4 finish was achieved.

Even before the Champions League existed the best players still wanted to be part of teams that finished near the top of the table and it's no coincidence that such teams win more cups in the long run.

zwev5c.png
 
Last edited:
I think doubling our capacity and our ability to pay wages will have a far more significant effect on our abilities to win honours, than scraping into the CL for a couple of seasons would do.

I think the 'prestige' of playing in the CL is overstated compared to the ability to pay wages. And the financial returns of the CL are overstated compare to those from a big full stadium. Remember of CL season we only spent nominal fees on Gallas and vdV, and only broke even.
 
spurs' magna carter said:
We have the opportunity to do both this season, that's why despite not wanting us to be competition, qualifying for the Europa League this year could be a blessing in disguise.
Click to expand...

I don't think any of us would turn down both winning a trophy and qualifying for the CL.

I am however unconvinced by 2 theories that seem to permeate this board.

It is possible to regularly win trophies without at least putting a dent in your country's CL places every few years. I don't think this is possible at all now and I don't think it was as possible as some people believe in days gone by either. The bigger clubs, the ones that finish the highest in the league, tend to win the most trophies. In reality, we're not going to win trophies on a regular basis unless we're hitting the CL at least once every few years, unless we're led by an exceptional manager. In each domestic cup, we have anywhere between 3-5 better teams than us from the beginning and that is without factoring in all kinds of other factors such as squad depth, injuries, time of matches, luck of the draw wrt away/ home draws etc etc.

The second is that if we just tried a bit harder, especially in the EL, we'd pick up more trophies. Despite some of the negative media around us, I think we have taken the EL seriously when we've reached the knockout stages and I don't think it is to be expected that we'll be knocking out the likes of Benefica, Sevilla, PSV or Shaktar Donetsk more often than not.

If we lived in a world where it is possible to win trophies regularly without being in the CL, then I would go for trophies every time. Unfortunately we don't, and teams outside the CL regularly tend to win very little while teams in the CL do tend to eventually pick up something else.
 
Gutter Boy said:
I think doubling our capacity and our ability to pay wages will have a far more significant effect on our abilities to win honours, than scraping into the CL for a couple of seasons would do.

I think the 'prestige' of playing in the CL is overstated compared to the ability to pay wages. And the financial returns of the CL are overstated compare to those from a big full stadium. Remember of CL season we only spent nominal fees on Gallas and vdV, and only broke even.
Click to expand...

I don't think it is overstated at all, especially as even with an apparent increased ability to pay wages, we'd still be offering significantly lower wages than many other teams who are in the CL.

I'm a bit worried that people have very unrealistic expectations of what the stadium will allow us to do, especially in the short term.

Cl season we only broke even because we were saving for the stadium. A rather large mistake that ensured we haven't qualified for the CL since.
 
Gutter Boy said:
I think doubling our capacity and our ability to pay wages will have a far more significant effect on our abilities to win honours, than scraping into the CL for a couple of seasons would do.

I think the 'prestige' of playing in the CL is overstated compared to the ability to pay wages. And the financial returns of the CL are overstated compare to those from a big full stadium. Remember of CL season we only spent nominal fees on Gallas and vdV, and only broke even.
Click to expand...

Do you think that a realistic and preferred path for us after we complete the stadium is to stay as regular 5-6th placed finishers, but become regular cup trophy winners?

It's all connected. CL football would allow us to pay for the stadium quicker, or it would provide transfer (and wage) funds to spend while we have to be careful because of those stadium payments.

I agree that to push on as a club to where we consistently compete we need a new stadium, but I also think we need regular CL football.

Hootnow said:
I don't think it is overstated at all, especially as even with an apparent increased ability to pay wages, we'd still be offering significantly lower wages than many other teams who are in the CL.

I'm a bit worried that people have very unrealistic expectations of what the stadium will allow us to do, especially in the short term.

Cl season we only broke even because we were saving for the stadium. A rather large mistake that ensured we haven't qualified for the CL since.
Click to expand...

According to transfermarkt we had a £20m net spend that season (not counting agent fees I think). We also most likely had significant bonus payments and player contract clause payments as well as a somewhat inflated squad iirc.

That was most likely more or less funded by the CL money. You're saying that on top of that we should have spent even more thus putting the club into (more) debt?
 
braineclipse said:
According to transfermarkt we had a £20m net spend that season (not counting agent fees I think). We also most likely had significant bonus payments and player contract clause payments as well as a somewhat inflated squad iirc.

That was most likely more or less funded by the CL money. You're saying that on top of that we should have spent even more thus putting the club into (more) debt?
Click to expand...

Where did I say anything like that? Some investment when you've qualified for the CL and in important windows subsequently would most likely have brought about at least 1 or 2 more qualifications for the CL.

Not to mention that that season was preceded by a season and followed by 3 consecutive seasons of profits made in transfers, of a total of 37 million.

Nobody is saying go on a Leeds style spree but targeted spending would have increased our chances significantly over the past few years.
 
Champions League without any doubt...this will then allow us to become a better team, meaning more likely to win trophies !
 
milo said:
You don't become an elite club by winning the League Cup either.

I hate to say it but Arsene Wneger is right when he says that when you go to sign a player they want to know if you are in the Champions League.
Click to expand...

No they don't ... they want to know if you can PAY CL wages, that's all ...
 
Hootnow said:
Where did I say anything like that? Some investment when you've qualified for the CL and in important windows subsequently would most likely have brought about at least 1 or 2 more qualifications for the CL.

Not to mention that that season was preceded by a season and followed by 3 consecutive seasons of profits made in transfers, of a total of 37 million.

Nobody is saying go on a Leeds style spree but targeted spending would have increased our chances significantly over the past few years.
Click to expand...

You said we broke even, and that we only did so because we were saving for the stadium.

What did you mean if you didn't mean that we should have spent money that would put the club into (more) debt? Surely spending over and beyond breaking even means some debt?
 
Top 4 managers don't much care about cups. When a smaller club wins the League Cup, the Top 4 don't lose any sleep. Wenger has said CL is much more of a priority. Man Yoo and Fergie even withdrew from the FAC one year. Come to think of it, the bottom clubs - some who have never even won a cup - don't much care about cups either, they'd rather retain their PL place. Some years ago, there were some fans who thought FAC was actually better than the league because of day out at Wembley. Remember the Sat of cup final when TV started at 9am for build up, what all the players wives were doing that day, etc. Well, we now have the PL and CL and clubs/managers know where the priorities lie. Isn't that the case across most of Europe now? Is the Italian Cup still a huge deal and as big as it once was? You often hear managers in a cup final say 'well, its great for the fans'. And so it is.
 
Last edited:
If we're comparing one season in the CL against a trophy then I'd take the trophy, especially after ARsenal's FA Cup win.

If we're linking Champions League qualifications together then I'd take that because of the ammount of money we'd get.
 
Gutter Boy said:
I think doubling our capacity and our ability to pay wages will have a far more significant effect on our abilities to win honours, than scraping into the CL for a couple of seasons would do.

I think the 'prestige' of playing in the CL is overstated compared to the ability to pay wages. And the financial returns of the CL are overstated compare to those from a big full stadium. Remember of CL season we only spent nominal fees on Gallas and vdV, and only broke even.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more, there's a reason a load of star players ended up in Anzhi, and it wasn't the sunny beaches or champions league football.
 
NorwegianSpursFan said:
Couldn't agree more, there's a reason a load of star players ended up in Anzhi, and it wasn't the sunny beaches or champions league football.
Click to expand...

I don't think that anyone has argued that some footballers aren't attracted by high wages. There are also some players that are attracted to playing in top leagues and if we are competing against Champions League clubs for their signatures, we are at a distinct disadvantage. Winning a domestic cup would not change that.
 
play champions league regularly, cups will folllow.

look at all the cup finalists and winners who aren't regular cup winners during the EPL era... its like a lottery ...POrtsmouth, Hull etc...
 
The end goal should be to win trophies. Champions League qualification is just something that supposedly will help us do that.
 
billyiddo said:
The end goal should be to win trophies. Champions League qualification is just something that supposedly will help us do that.
Click to expand...

yeah, but specifically, the end goal should be to win the champions league, thats the pinnacle of european football
 
galeforce said:
yeah, but specifically, the end goal should be to win the champions league, thats the pinnacle of european football
Click to expand...

Nah, end goal is to win the Premier League.. I don't care for a crooked league run by people only out to fill there own pockets.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back