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Daniel Levy - Chairman

I don’t think he considered it a gamble at the time, I think most people are amazed at how poor our performances have been this season.

I’m more amazed by people who think this is all a shock, look at the facts before a ball had kicked.

World Cup, injury prone players, mopos lack is rotation and the holes in the squad.

The whole “best 11 can’t be improved” is a ridiculous as well.

A. It can
B. It never plays.
 
It is quite reasonable to assume that if he did make money available it was not enough to buy the players Poch needed.

Maybe Levy will find out karma is a bitch, playing Thursday night in a billion pound stadium

But it should be up to the recruitment team to work within that budget.

To say levy didn’t supply the needed funds if the needed funds is 100 million and 200k a week is unrealistic.

What I would say is he should have just taken the hit on Janssen and N’Koudou
 
Why does the figure have to be 70 million to improve the squad?

Brooks went for 11 million, Maddison 20 etc etc

Don’t think levy can be blamed alone for the lack of signings. I would however question the transfer policy that couldn’t identify one player that could have improved us. It’s nonsense to suggest there isn’t anyone out there who could improve us, were not Barcelona. And yes i accept that not all signings work out and they are always a risk. But I don’t get why fans have totally bought into the line the club sold us I.e. signings aren’t a guarantee for success.

One thing that is clear to me is the club are too picky when it comes to identifying players.

It was painfully obvious we were light in midfield and Dembele, our best midfield player was crocked.

Sign a Fabinho or Torreira. Take a chance on a Tielemans or Brooks.

Don’t lowball Villa and go and get Grealish.

We did none of the above.

Players do come at all price levels...and it's nice to pick out some successes with the c.ould of/should have hindsight goggles on.

Just for balance :)
Jahanbaksh
Seri
Traore
Elyounoussi
Mina
Lerma (the clam)
Soyunco

All in the £18m-30m bracket.
 
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Feels like we want to make the perfect signing nowadays. Whether that’s because we’ve been burned with Janssen, GkN, Njie etc or whatever reason, we seem overly cautious and now could pay the price.

Can’t wait til this season is over, and fingers crossed we somehow fall over the line and get a CL place for next year


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
Go up to the Lane, the training centre, take a look around. He's getting a whole load more right than he gets wrong.

'YOu really don't believe' ....more like, you really don't know..that's the truth. Furthermore when we didn't buy anyone the stadium was not finished, not open and no gauranteed revenue streams were yet on line.
Still a time (financially) of uncertainty. If you phoned the man himself and he said spending £60/70 net on transfers was too risky at that point in time, would you accept that or would you behave like my daughter in the sweet shop on a Saturday morning?

Winks and Kane were not rushed back from injury.

Well I know we had the money in the bank. We have had a huge chunk of money in the bank for the last few years (up to £200m IIRC). We've also just announced a record profit. So the indications, based on what I've seen of our accounts, are that we could have afforded a couple of very good players.

The stadium was always going to be open by the start of next season. That's guaranteed revenue. You don't need to wait for it to open before you start spending against the money it'll generate.

If Levy could explain to me why he thought it was wrong, I might accept it. But here's the thing. There isn't a right and wrong answer here. This is a question of risk and how much he was willing to take. I think Levy was too cautious. Unless he could say to me that "If I spent, we'd have been in the brick" then I think he got it wrong.

We're allowed to criticise Levy on here. He has been phenomenal for the club and the stadium is incredible. What a bloody legacy. So yes he gets more right than wrong but he gets stuff wrong. And, in my opinion, he very much got the last summer transfer window wrong.

Incidentally, Kane went right back in the team after his last injury. Winks has been getting injured very regularly over the last 2-3 seasons.
 
Players do come at all price levels...and it's nice to pick out some successes with the should have/should have hindsight goggles on.

Just for balance :)
Jahanbaksh
Seri
Traore
Elyounoussi
Mina
Lerma (the clam)
Soyunco

All in the £18m-30m bracket.

Yeah - at the same time Mahrez/Fred/kepa
 
Because Poch clearly wanted players and wasn’t given enough to buy them for whatever reason. Poch is our long term manager, I hope, so he should be trusted with the playing side of things. Poch didn’t go telling Levy how to build a stadium or run the club.
He has been given more trust than any other manager in the league by being allowed to do whatever he wants with the players we already have. Levy could barely give him a penny but Poch could sell whomever he wished, no questions asked. That was the 'brave' plan.
We will try this exact same plan this summer...with added cash from Levy ... hopefully.
 
Robbie Keane said Levy chased four players and felt they were too expensive.

He has a history of trying to squeeze every penny out of every deal.

It’s fairly well known he lowballed Villa on Grealish.

Levy has form in this area so it’s more likely in my view, based on what’s known, that Levy kept the purse strings tightened rather than Poch wanted unobtainable targets.
You know what happened with the Grealish deal? The new owners bit?
 
Yep but it was fairly well known he lowballed originally. He still could have got him with a good offer even after the new owners came in.
Yes sensibly lowballed a club in a financial corner, who would have had to accept.....

Then the new owner came along and the playing field changed. Will still offered good money if comparing with Madison. ie top level championship midfielder.

There is nothing to beat him with here.
 
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Yes sensibly lowballed a club in a financial corner, who would have had to accept.....

Then the new owner came along and the playing changed. Will still offered good money if comparing with Madison. ie top level championship midfielder.

There is nothing to beat him with here.

We'll agree to disagree so. The chances of Villa being taken over were always high. Levy is a successful businessman so he should have built that into his transfer strategy. He could still have got the player if him and Poch believed the player was worth having and for a price that would have been relatively low by today's standards.
 
Well I know we had the money in the bank. We have had a huge chunk of money in the bank for the last few years (up to £200m IIRC). We've also just announced a record profit. So the indications, based on what I've seen of our accounts, are that we could have afforded a couple of very good players.

The stadium was always going to be open by the start of next season. That's guaranteed revenue. You don't need to wait for it to open before you start spending against the money it'll generate.

If Levy could explain to me why he thought it was wrong, I might accept it. But here's the thing. There isn't a right and wrong answer here. This is a question of risk and how much he was willing to take. I think Levy was too cautious. Unless he could say to me that "If I spent, we'd have been in the brick" then I think he got it wrong.

We're allowed to criticise Levy on here. He has been phenomenal for the club and the stadium is incredible. What a bloody legacy. So yes he gets more right than wrong but he gets stuff wrong. And, in my opinion, he very much got the last summer transfer window wrong.

Incidentally, Kane went right back in the team after his last injury. Winks has been getting injured very regularly over the last 2-3 seasons.
If you don't understand the financials please don't base your argument around it.

Sorry if that sounds rude.
 
Haha go on then, please explain.

Well I know we had the money in the bank. We have had a huge chunk of money in the bank for the last few years (up to £200m IIRC). We've also just announced a record profit. So the indications, based on what I've seen of our accounts, are that we could have afforded a couple of very good players

The £200m we had in cash is an extended lending facility to draw down on to complete the stadium.

The overall debt (Inc the above) is circa £650m. We will need to re-finance this in 2/3 years (when the current arrangement ends).

When it comes to re-financing, much like when you trot up for a mortgage, the 'finacial institution s' are going to want to know, who you are, what you are, and what you've got.

We 'were' a football club with revenue in the £120-140m a year bracket and we wanted to build (a now) £850m infrastructure project. That in itself is pretty mad for a 'company' our size. What we have done is increased our revenue thru the 200's to £309m and now£380m per year. This is vital as it looks like we're going in the right direction and are in 'rude health', rubber stamped by the £113m profit announced in the last accounts. Just like you, with your good job and prudent personal finances :D, re-financing should be easy (and probably on good terms as we look less if a risk).

The fly in the ointment, as has been stated by the club, is 2019 is not going to look as pretty (stadium delays, renting Wembley etc). Now we don't want to compound that by allocating, say £70m net, to transfers, with no gaurantees to the outcome of those transfers ie not spending £70m is less risky.

Besides there is some logic/evidence that Poch could get us over the line with what he has. Furthermore, this didn't mean we couldn't buy anyone, Levy had given Poch carte blanche to sell whomever he wanted and that income was ring fenced into his transfer account. Llorente Jansen GNK Wanyama Lamela Rose Toby Dembele all had the potential to be sold. Why none went? Levy asked too much? Players didn't want to go? Or the phone never rang? Could be a mixture of all these.

But there was the potential there to raise plenty to spend. That said if Toby and Rose went for £100m combined, would you want £100m or Toby and Rose?...I'd choose the latter. Plus it was a numbers game ie one in one out (probably more out than in) so it's not like we would have had more bodies, and if you look at my list above (another post), better quality is not gauranteed either.

This is not an easy period for us, Poch has been wonderful at getting us consistently punching above our weight. This has already helped us pay down £200m of the stadium costs. Levy WILL need to let the pendulum start to swing back to the playing side, Poch deserves this. I'm convinced it will happen, 2018 was not that time.
 
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Levy has to take responsibility here.

We finished ahead of Liverpool. They invested wisely and are challenging for the league.

Had we invested in even 1-2 players, we’d be in the CL by now. And this is where the “but stadium debt” argument has a massive hole.

If we miss out on CL, it’ll likely cost us more than 1-2 good players would have cost. Therefore, Levy’s failure to invest in the squad may ultimately cost us money.

We may still make it and, stupidly maybe, I still think we will. But what a fudging risk we’ve taken.

More importantly, the next 8 days will be hell for all of us.

Isn’t it obvious we’ve invested in the club in a different way? Rightly or wrongly, depending on your view.
 
Why does the figure have to be 70 million to improve the squad?

Brooks went for 11 million, Maddison 20 etc etc

Brooks I like and would have liked him here.

But I think it’s also true to say that unless he turned out to be some Alli-style phenom, he’d likely have had fewer minutes with us than he has Bournemouth.

He may well have gone for more minutes at a club that size, and at his age I think that was the right decision.

Same with Sessegnon at Fulham. And interestingly, not a huge amount of clamour for him now after a full season in the top flight.

I’ve not seen enough of or enough from Maddison to conclude that he’d improve us.
 
The £200m we had in cash is an extended lending facility to draw down on to complete the stadium.

The overall debt (Inc the above) is circa £650m. We will need to re-finance this in 2/3 years (when the current arrangement ends).

When it comes to re-financing, much like when you trot up for a mortgage, the 'finacial institution s' are going to want to know, who you are, what you are, and what you've got.

We 'were' a football club with revenue in the £120-140m a year bracket and we wanted to build (a now) £850m infrastructure project. That in itself is pretty mad for a 'company' our size. What we have done is increased our revenue thru the 200's to £309m and now£380m per year. This is vital as it looks like we're going in the right direction and are in 'rude health', rubber stamped by the £113m profit announced in the last accounts. Just like you, with your good job and prudent personal finances :D, re-financing should be easy (and probably on good terms as we look less if a risk).

The fly in the ointment, as has been stated by the club, is 2019 is not going to look as pretty (stadium delays, renting Wembley etc). Now we don't want to compound that by allocating, say £70m net, to transfers, with no gaurantees to the outcome of those transfers ie not spending £70m is less risky.

Besides there is some logic/evidence that Poch could get us over the line with what he has. Furthermore, this didn't mean we couldn't buy anyone, Levy had given Poch carte blanche to sell whomever he wanted and that income was ring fenced into his transfer account. Llorente Jansen GNK Wanyama Lamela Rose Toby Dembele all had the potential to be sold. Why none went? Levy asked too much? Players didn't want to go? Or the phone never rang? Could be a mixture of all these.

But there was the potential there to raise plenty to spend. That said if Toby and Rose went for £100m combined, would you want £100m or Toby and Rose?...I'd choose the latter. Plus it was a numbers game ie one in one out (probably more out than in) so it's not like we would have had more bodies, and if you look at my list above (another post), better quality is not gauranteed either.

This is not an easy period for us, Poch has been wonderful at getting us consistently punching above our weight. This has already helped us pay down £200m of the stadium costs. Levy WILL need to let the pendulum start to swing back to the playing side, Poch deserves this. I'm convinced it will happen, 2018 was not that time.

This post should be stickied or pinned somewhere.
 
Feels like we want to make the perfect signing nowadays. Whether that’s because we’ve been burned with Janssen, GkN, Njie etc or whatever reason, we seem overly cautious and now could pay the price.

Can’t wait til this season is over, and fingers crossed we somehow fall over the line and get a CL place for next year


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
Had you asked me last season, I would have had problems finding areas to greatly improve. We could have improved the fullbacks, but since then Rose has picked up his form, while Aurier has been somewhat of a letdown. Other than that, I felt there was few players available that would have improved what we had. What we should have done however, is signing squad players with premiership experience, if what we have at the academy won't cut it. There has to be a middle ground between Kane and Llorente, who wasn't even that good way back when we hoped to sign him the first time. Although Son has done well in Kane's absence, he is no striker and we are effectively playing without one. He won't and shouldn't stay up front, like you wouldn't stick Messi up front even if he's deadly in front of goal.

Llorente is an example of a signing made for the sake of signing. We needed to sign some mid-PL level squad players on moderate wages for situations when we faced bottom-PL level teams with bottom-PL level players (of which Llorente is one), so that we could rest some players, injuries notwithstanding. We have failed to do so, in the pursuit of the new Alli, the new Eriksen and not least the new Bale. We didn't necessarily need that, and that has cost us. The Dembele situation is inexcusable.
 
The £200m we had in cash is an extended lending facility to draw down on to complete the stadium.

The overall debt (Inc the above) is circa £650m. We will need to re-finance this in 2/3 years (when the current arrangement ends).

When it comes to re-financing, much like when you trot up for a mortgage, the 'finacial institution s' are going to want to know, who you are, what you are, and what you've got.

We 'were' a football club with revenue in the £120-140m a year bracket and we wanted to build (a now) £850m infrastructure project. That in itself is pretty mad for a 'company' our size. What we have done is increased our revenue thru the 200's to £309m and now£380m per year. This is vital as it looks like we're going in the right direction and are in 'rude health', rubber stamped by the £113m profit announced in the last accounts. Just like you, with your good job and prudent personal finances :D, re-financing should be easy (and probably on good terms as we look less if a risk).

The fly in the ointment, as has been stated by the club, is 2019 is not going to look as pretty (stadium delays, renting Wembley etc). Now we don't want to compound that by allocating, say £70m net, to transfers, with no gaurantees to the outcome of those transfers ie not spending £70m is less risky.

Besides there is some logic/evidence that Poch could get us over the line with what he has. Furthermore, this didn't mean we couldn't buy anyone, Levy had given Poch carte blanche to sell whomever he wanted and that income was ring fenced into his transfer account. Llorente Jansen GNK Wanyama Lamela Rose Toby Dembele all had the potential to be sold. Why none went? Levy asked too much? Players didn't want to go? Or the phone never rang? Could be a mixture of all these.

But there was the potential there to raise plenty to spend. That said if Toby and Rose went for £100m combined, would you want £100m or Toby and Rose?...I'd choose the latter. Plus it was a numbers game ie one in one out (probably more out than in) so it's not like we would have had more bodies, and if you look at my list above (another post), better quality is not gauranteed either.

This is not an easy period for us, Poch has been wonderful at getting us consistently punching above our weight. This has already helped us pay down £200m of the stadium costs. Levy WILL need to let the pendulum start to swing back to the playing side, Poch deserves this. I'm convinced it will happen, 2018 was not that time.

Some fair points. Just looked through the previous annual reports and the cash position is down to the stadium which, hands up, I didn't realise the extent of that.

However, it was still possible for us to fund a couple of transfers in the summer. Granted 2019 won't look pretty but we won't look to go and re-finance our loans until 2022 as I understand it by which time we'll be over the 2019 hump (delays and rent) and be realising the increased revenue the stadium is built to deliver without the brick that'll impact our profits this year. Our financials at that time should look pretty good for 2020 and 2021 which will give the banks some comfort that we're not much of a risk. Also, hasn't ENIC given us a £50m loan facility of some sort that we haven't utilised. We also have naming rights that will materialise eventually. We could have spent last summer and didn't.

Let's say 2019 isn't pretty. And then we don't have CL football. Toby and Eriksen want to go and Toby is off for £25m while Eriksen won't command a massive fee as he only has one year on his contract. Jan's getting older. Winks' injury problems continue. Dier's also continue. It doesn't take much for the squad to seriously decay. How long do we hold off spending serious money at that stage because revenue has fallen with no CL?
 
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