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Daniel Levy - Chairman

Jon said:
What does that say about the players he was “offered” then?
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or how unflexible as a manager he is?

I think they were both at fault.

Which manager in world football gets all the players they want, if he manages a top club elsewhere the chances are he will be brought players - he will just be the coach.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Likewise, mate! I admit up front - I don't think I'll change minds, or that mine will be easily changed. But always happy to discuss.



Liverpool didn't push their club into debt - far from it. Owner-financed spending accounting for roughly 200m in the last ten years, most of it written off by FSG at the close of the decade. The only debts Liverpool took out were for the same reason as us - to invest in infrastructure, in their case their new ground.

There's a modicum of risk-taking in Liverpool's strategy, but it's hardly outrageous - it's investing in the future, and speculating to accumulate. Which has gotten them their sixth Champions League, their first league title in 30-odd years, and has cemented FSG as one of the more successful owners in their history.

And remember, their income was lower than ours at multiple points in the last decade. They finished lower than us, and they started off at a worse point in terms of their squad than we did when FSG took over, with a worse team.

Nothing they did was unachievable for a club like ours. It took ambition, however - which Cheap and Cheaper on our end have always lacked. That's the difference between them at the summit of English football, and us scraping around for bargain bins. It's possibly also why we've lost our best staff to them - Michael Edwards, Alex Inglethorpe and so on.

I'd like to think that Klopp got his team to the final because of FSG's support for him - Poch got us to the final *despite* ENIC's crushing lack of support for him. The two self-destructive, willfully suicidal transfer windows of summer 2018 and January 2019 were proof enough of that.



Fine, let's say large scale financing is incredibly difficult - lots of clubs take out low-interest loans for stadium projects, but let's assume it's uniquely difficult to do. What about us taking a loan against our assets and paying it back entirely with our money indicates that ENIC had their skin in the game? They didn't - they put in nothing towards our loans, they just signed off on them. The cheapskates put in about 50m into the club in 20 years, and that includes their initial purchase price.



Not saying we made a lot of money - don't doubt you're right. But we were a historically successful club, one of the biggest in England, with some of the most memorable records in English football, including in the FA Cup - a competition that was once 'our' competition, so dominant were we. All of that self-regard, that history of trophies (and yes, we used to win them fairly regularly) was swept away by 20 years of nothing under cheapskates whose primary aim was and has always been inflating the club's sales price so they can make off with their billion quid, at minimum (or no) cost to them.



Eh. Ashley's worse, but I don't think Levy is good - I think he's utterly mediocre, versus Ashley's actively sub-par. There isn't all that much in it. But fair enough, mate.



Neither of us know, true. But I'm willing to wager that their past 20 years is a good indicator of what their behaviour will be like in the next 20 (and GHod, ENIC being around for another 20 years is a terrifying thought - one League Cup in 40 years?). The funny thing is, it's not like Levy doesn't know what he's regarded as - he even admits in All or Nothing that people think he's an unambitious cheapskate. Sadly, nothing will change because of that admission - at least, that's my guess.



Yep, the 90s were awful - a real destructive bitch of a decade, down to Scholar and Sugar being awful owners. No argument there. The problem is, the 90s were 20 years ago, were only about 10 years long, and still saw us win two trophies, which is about our historical rate per decade. That they are still being used to justify ENIC's mediocrity in 2020 is just baffling to me. FSG turned Liverpool around from a team with Roy Hodgson in charge and Paul Konchesky leading it to European and PL champions in half the time - that's excellence, that's vision. Not whatever muddling ENIC's done on our dime, at utterly no risk to them, for 20 years.



They absolutely did, for all sorts of reasons. Yes, Chelsea and City skewed the game, no one denies that. And maybe ENIC thought they could do it on the cheap until Chelsea and City came along in the span of 5 years and ruined their plans. But the fact that our teams routinely failed at the death, that our managers went unsupported and were then fired, that we acted like a League Two side in the market (setting records for our parsimony - becoming the first club in all England to not buy anyone by choice for a full year, for instance), that we balked at the death when investment could have gotten us over the line...

...our failures are ENIC's, imo - precisely because they believe they can do everything on the cheap. And all that they have done in 20 years pales in comparison to the fact that they've beaten down so many of us into subconsciously believing that our place is here, scrabbling along as trophyless cheapskates, because we can't expect anything better or we'd do a Leeds.

We can expect better. We must. We can dream of more ambition.
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Those using City and Chelsea as excuses seriously need to address both Leicester and Liverpool winning league titles in significantly shorter chairman reigns despite also fighting against the same wealth superpower.

The truth is ENIC have been unambitious on the pitch is bloody obvious, their priority has been ensuring the financial footing of the club which is a great thing, it however is not a model that wins titles. As long as we are happy to accept that we likely won't win much under the current ownership then all is well.
 
Bishop said:
Those using City and Chelsea as excuses seriously need to address both Leicester and Liverpool winning league titles in significantly shorter chairman reigns despite also fighting against the same wealth superpower.

The truth is ENIC have been unambitious on the pitch is bloody obvious, their priority has been ensuring the financial footing of the club which is a great thing, it however is not a model that wins titles. As long as we are happy to accept that we likely won't win much under the current ownership then all is well.
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How long has the ensuring the financial footing and multiple income stream stadium project been completed?
 
Bishop said:
From your response am I to take that you think Levy's entire attitude and behaviour regarding market operations will have changed?
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If he gets more money he will spend more money...it should run at percentages similar to our peers. Could be a pipe dream but I see no reason why not.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
If he gets more money he will spend more money...it should run at percentages similar to our peers. Could be a pipe dream but I see no reason why not.
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We've never run at the same percentage as others whether that be wages as a percentage of turnover or transfer fees as percentage of turnover. We have always been one of the most stringent clubs when it comes to feeling comfortable to spend.

I don't believe a larger turnover will change Levy's attitude in that respect, none of his behaviour up to this times supports that notion.
 
Bishop said:
Those using City and Chelsea as excuses seriously need to address both Leicester and Liverpool winning league titles in significantly shorter chairman reigns despite also fighting against the same wealth superpower.

The truth is ENIC have been unambitious on the pitch is bloody obvious, their priority has been ensuring the financial footing of the club which is a great thing, it however is not a model that wins titles. As long as we are happy to accept that we likely won't win much under the current ownership then all is well.
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Leicester is a fluke and to bring it up is just being cheeky mate, you know it (it will be a fudging trivia question in 10 years). and Leicester won because Poch's side imploded under pressure (brick show at Bridge and the draw/loss before), stretch to blame that on ENIC.

Pool is a very complicated story, people forget they were an established side competing for title and in CL for a long time, they dropped and we caught them for a number of years and then via a bunch of owner chaos (buyouts fudging previous owner with debt) , plus a few huge sales (and some new owner investment) that they took the money and re-invested were able to put themselves back where they have spent the majority of the last few decades. Can waste the time and do the numbers, but reality is we over a 20 year period have not been in Pool's income bracket (they and United truly have a global fanbase). And Pool's success this year came down to both Chelsea (same number of losses in season as us) and City underperforming .. and the CL was us fudging choking harder than a serial choker (Klopp had failed in 6 or 7 finals before that).
 
Bishop said:
We've never run at the same percentage as others whether that be wages as a percentage of turnover or transfer fees as percentage of turnover. We have always been one of the most stringent clubs when it comes to feeling comfortable to spend.

I don't believe a larger turnover will change Levy's attitude in that respect, none of his behaviour up to this times supports that notion.
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I actually agree here, we will always run a tighter ship .. but if our income goes up enough (and it has pre covid), it will be enough.
 
Raziel said:
Leicester is a fluke and to bring it up is just being cheeky mate, you know it (it will be a fudging trivia question in 10 years). and Leicester won because Poch's side imploded under pressure (brick show at Bridge and the draw/loss before), stretch to blame that on ENIC.

Pool is a very complicated story, people forget they were an established side competing for title and in CL for a long time, they dropped and we caught them for a number of years and then via a bunch of owner chaos (buyouts fudging previous owner with debt) , plus a few huge sales (and some new owner investment) that they took the money and re-invested were able to put themselves back where they have spent the majority of the last few decades. Can waste the time and do the numbers, but reality is we over a 20 year period have not been in Pool's income bracket (they and United truly have a global fanbase). And Pool's success this year came down to both Chelsea (same number of losses in season as us) and City underperforming .. and the CL was us fudging choking harder than a serial choker (Klopp had failed in 6 or 7 finals before that).
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Didn't Leicester also have some dodgy FFP stuff when they were in the Championship that seemed to fade and die away?
 
Raziel said:
Leicester is a fluke and to bring it up is just being cheeky mate, you know it (it will be a fudging trivia question in 10 years). and Leicester won because Poch's side imploded under pressure (brick show at Bridge and the draw/loss before), stretch to blame that on ENIC.

Pool is a very complicated story, people forget they were an established side competing for title and in CL for a long time, they dropped and we caught them for a number of years and then via a bunch of owner chaos (buyouts fudging previous owner with debt) , plus a few huge sales (and some new owner investment) that they took the money and re-invested were able to put themselves back where they have spent the majority of the last few decades. Can waste the time and do the numbers, but reality is we over a 20 year period have not been in Pool's income bracket (they and United truly have a global fanbase). And Pool's success this year came down to both Chelsea (same number of losses in season as us) and City underperforming .. and the CL was us fudging choking harder than a serial choker (Klopp had failed in 6 or 7 finals before that).
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I feel we were underinvested at times and that was the difference in the key moments in matches when we lacked a key quality in a certain area. It could have been another creative player to help Eriksen for example.

We know ENIC are not going to fund us. We will make our own way and I respect that. It's how it should be, I'm a football romantic in that sense. It will be all the sweeter if we win something because we did it the hard way, the true way.

The realism is though that you don't win titles that way. We have to constantly improve, if you standstill you're actually going backwards. The 18/19 transfer window hurt us massively and the chairman, the man in charge allowed that to happen. His responsibility is for all elements of the club. The finance and the sure footing is incredible but not signing any players shows where his ambitions lie.

He is the Chairman. If we go into a season with one striker, a player we know will get an injury at some point in the season not having a backup come in when lo and behold that injury period occurs is negligence. [emoji28]

It's not even surprising, we all, every single one of us on this board would have said in the summer we needed a backup striker.

Yet, Levy the Chairman did not.

Some might say Poch couldn't pick a good striker or his targets were too lofty. I don't know and I don't really care. Levy is the Chairman he is in charge, he is the boss of this organisation. It's his job to ultimately make the best decisions for the club. So convince Poch he has a certain amount of money, there must have been a body we could have signed, anyone.

I'm hopeful now that with Mourinho who I believe has too much sense to let the squad be thin in obvious areas Levy will be focused and will complete transfers in a timely manner. [emoji1545]
 
Bishop said:
We've never run at the same percentage as others whether that be wages as a percentage of turnover or transfer fees as percentage of turnover. We have always been one of the most stringent clubs when it comes to feeling comfortable to spend.

I don't believe a larger turnover will change Levy's attitude in that respect, none of his behaviour up to this times supports that notion.
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Er....possibly (logically:)) he ran at those percentages as he had a golden goose to build.

Part deux has barely started? So things a far from definite.

We will see.
 
Raziel said:
Leicester is a fluke and to bring it up is just being cheeky mate, you know it (it will be a fudging trivia question in 10 years). and Leicester won because Poch's side imploded under pressure (brick show at Bridge and the draw/loss before), stretch to blame that on ENIC.
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Nothing is ever so black and white even though you love to create a dichotomy between managers and the board.

Do you remember the season before Leicester's win, Poch wanted a ball winner and someone to move the ball quickly from defence to attack? He wanted Schneiderlin but instead we signed stambouli. You might also remember that in the preseason before Leicester's win, Poch wanted striker cover for Kane. He asked for Berahino, he got ...no one. So going into that season he took on a Leicester team that had no European committments with no proper cover for Dembele or Kane - 2 key players. Add to this requiring a threadbare squad to play X2 a week. While Leicester only played once.

Now you cannot say this was entirely the fault of those responsible for signings but to say they are completely blameless while the manager shoulders the lot is ridiculous imho.
 
Bishop said:
We've never run at the same percentage as others whether that be wages as a percentage of turnover or transfer fees as percentage of turnover. We have always been one of the most stringent clubs when it comes to feeling comfortable to spend.

I don't believe a larger turnover will change Levy's attitude in that respect, none of his behaviour up to this times supports that notion.
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Incorrect - prior to the stadium build our spend as a percentage was up there with most in the league. Someone on here whose username escapes me done a handy breakdown of this recently. It really is only the years in which funding/focus has been diverted to the stadium build that our spend came down (which coincidentally is exactly what happened to the only other club which we can compare circumstances to, those down the road)

I'm no financial expert but I'd imagine being able to secure funding of the size required to build a stadium is somewhat dependent on showing the business is on sound footing and able to survive/compete whilst being able to meet any future repayments? Football clubs don't generally have high profit margins afterall so asking for a loan with repayments in the 20-30m ballpark whilst not showing you can afford that doesn't really stack up imo
 
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Robspur12 said:
Nothing is ever so black and white even though you love to create a dichotomy between managers and the board.

Do you remember the season before Leicester's win, Poch wanted a ball winner and someone to move the ball quickly from defence to attack? He wanted Schneiderlin but instead we signed stambouli. You might also remember that in the preseason before Leicester's win, Poch wanted striker cover for Kane. He asked for Berahino, he got ...no one. So going into that season he took on a Leicester team that had no European committments with no proper cover for Dembele or Kane - 2 key players. Add to this requiring a threadbare squad to play X2 a week. While Leicester only played once.

Now you cannot say this was entirely the fault of those responsible for signings but to say they are completely blameless while the manager shoulders the lot is ridiculous imho.
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That season didn’t we sign Jansenn as striker
And he was one who Poch wanted?
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
If he gets more money he will spend more money...it should run at percentages similar to our peers. Could be a pipe dream but I see no reason why not.
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This is spot on and IF he then refuses to do so then that will be the time to slag him off not now (imo), sad to say though i suspect no matter how much he allows for new players the same fans will still bitch about how he has held us back. Mad.
 
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