ENIC

[milo]

S'pose so, but would you also consider the commenters on the Levy-bashing articles that came out over the past week (Standard, I think, and also the Guardian if I recall correctly) to also be unrepresentative of fan opinion? The people who painted the 'Levy Out' banners that were so gracefully removed nanoseconds after they were hoisted? What would you consider to be an obtainable, reliable barometer of fan discontent? The reason I'm going on the reactions across message boards (here, my old haunt Vital Spurs, and TFC) is because I believe that they provide at least a partially accurate basis to begin gauging the reactions of the fanbase to Levy and ENIC over time. If we cannot rely on that, I don't think we can rely on anything concrete given that the boos that will inevitably ring out across the ground when we next lose at WHL (whether or not they're drowned out by cringe-inducingly obvious loud music being blared a millisecond after the final whistle) will be interpreted in different ways by different people.

I definitely think that the views of our fan base toward ENIC are more moderate than most of the comments posted on newspaper articles or phone in to Talksport. Those kind of fora attract opinionated people who like the sound of their own voice.

Obviously the fans inside the stadium are representative but I think that it would be a mistake to think that a few people with banners are speaking for everyone.

I do not think that our fans expect an owner who will use their own money to subsidise the club. I think that people recognise that Chelsea and City are atypical and that the chance of the same happening to us is slim. I agree that there is a dissatisfaction with the way that the last few years have gone and ENIC should not escape their share of the blame for that but I do not think that the majority of our fans feel as fervently as you.

 

[NWND]

Well said, I honestly don't know what planet some people are on sometimes!

It dilutes their own argument too. I switch off when I see something posted that is just not true no matter what way you look at it. There are legitimate crtiticisms of Levy and how he deals with things, mistakes he's made etc. But to say he hasn't moved the club on significantly from when ENIC took over, is just ridiculous. If anything he's a victim of his own success. We punched above our weight and took advantage of some major club's failings to steal a champions league run. The fans expectations are that we will challenge as such every season when the reality is that our budget is a fraction of many of the clubs that we'd normally see in the top 4 and the ones that let us in were always going to get their act together sooner or later.

 

[spurs' magna carter]

It dilutes their own argument too. I switch off when I see something posted that is just not true no matter what way you look at it. There are legitimate crtiticisms of Levy and how he deals with things, mistakes he's made etc. But to say he hasn't moved the club on significantly from when ENIC took over, is just ridiculous. If anything he's a victim of his own success. We punched above our weight and took advantage of some major club's failings to steal a champions league run. The fans expectations are that we will challenge as such every season when the reality is that our budget is a fraction of many of the clubs that we'd normally see in the top 4 and the ones that let us in were always going to get their act together sooner or later.

Hit the nail on head.

Where we were ten years ago was a REAL crisis, in the relegation zone at xmas, if the calender year of 2003 had been a season we were bottom of the table, back then nothing suggested that we'd ever finish top 6 let alone anything else. In the 10 years prior to all that we'd had two world class players in Klinsmann and Ginola, ten years since we've had four. Also our academy is best its been in decades, we would've been lucky to get 3 or 4 premier league standard squad players over 10 years, since 2010 we've had six (Caulker, Livermore, Townsend, Carrol, Mason, Kane) and there could be more.

The argument that Levy can take us no further is yet to be seen due to the legal wrangling with Archway, a new stadium would put in a position we haven't been in since we bought Gazza, if not better.

Only real complaint so far would be 1 trophy in 13 years, a very poor return, that would be an actual argument in saying that Levy hasn't improved us, bar that the man has been hugely impressive.

 

[Raziel]

But when we are within touching distance of glory.....to see it disappear because our wide-eyed owners quivered in their ermine robes when asked to take a risk and push out the boat to achieve what we were so close to perilously achieving is galling enough to raise the fans from their slumbers and bring forth some uncomfortable questions. Questions like 'what on earth are we paying these outrageous prices for, when the owners have made no equivalent investment into the club on their part?'. And 'will the club actually change in any way if they just weren't there?'.

Does it occur to you that maybe you thought/think we were within "touching" distance (define? what, two 40M players, another 15M/yr in salaries) of something (challenging for title, CL place).

Perhaps ENIC/Levy/Management at the time, sat down and did a risk analysis, and felt even with that, the likelihood of success was to small (in current climate) and risk to club too big?

Very easy to make armchair business comments when we don't have all the details and don't really know the business. Look at the Scum, how many years have their fans been saying a very similar song? yet look at the last two years, spend money, get very good players and has their league position changed? City/Cheat$ki/Manure simply spend on another planet, so the "reward" is a very small shot at 1 spot most seasons.

 

[braineclipse]

Does it occur to you that maybe you thought/think we were within "touching" distance (define? what, two 40M players, another 15M/yr in salaries) of something (challenging for title, CL place).

Perhaps ENIC/Levy/Management at the time, sat down and did a risk analysis, and felt even with that, the likelihood of success was to small (in current climate) and risk to club too big?

Very easy to make armchair business comments when we don't have all the details and don't really know the business. Look at the Scum, how many years have their fans been saying a very similar song? yet look at the last two years, spend money, get very good players and has their league position changed? City/Cheat$ki/Manure simply spend on another planet, so the "reward" is a very small shot at 1 spot most seasons.

Excellent post!

 

[Parklaner81]

Fair point, although I would quite like to see the extra percentage ENIC gained in the club for what cost each time. To see what sort of value we/they got.

As an aside (but related to this thread) I'm not TOO disappointed with the players we have missed out on over the years under ENIC. Some really were just too expensive (Moutinho/Hulk for example) and others we got beaten by a bigger (paying) boy. I was annoyed the window when we signed Saha and Nelsen as we missed an opportunity then to improve from a position of strength. However our problem hasn't really been signing players it has been signing them for the sake of it, as on too many occasions we have replaced and outgoing player with one coming in who is no better than the one we lost.

Very true, and a point often overlooked in discussions like this IMO.

 

[Modric THFC]

Very true, and a point often overlooked in discussions like this IMO.

The club makes money off little gambles on squad players as investments to sell on.
We end up with a lot of average players who aren't any better than those who have left or the young players coming through who are loaned out.

 

[Modric THFC]

The club makes money off little gambles on squad players as investments to sell on.
We end up with a lot of average players who aren't any better than those who have left or the young players coming through who are loaned out.

Look at who we've bought in the last 2 years

Benjamin Stambouli - investment in a young player
Federico Fazio - squad player
DeAndre Yedlin - investment in a young player
Eric Dier - investment in a young player
Ben Davies - investment in a young player
Michel Vorm - squad player
Christian Eriksen - young talent last year contract not sure where we'll play him
Erik Lamela - meant for first team but will get resale value because of talent
Vlad Chiriches - squad player
Eitenne Capoue - investment in a young player
Roberto Soldado - meant for first team
Nacer Chadli - investment in a young player
Paulinho - meant for first team?
Lewis Holtby - investment in a young player
Zeki Fryers - investment in a young player

 

[DubaiSpur]

Does it occur to you that maybe you thought/think we were within "touching" distance (define? what, two 40M players, another 15M/yr in salaries) of something (challenging for title, CL place).

Perhaps ENIC/Levy/Management at the time, sat down and did a risk analysis, and felt even with that, the likelihood of success was to small (in current climate) and risk to club too big?

Very easy to make armchair business comments when we don't have all the details and don't really know the business. Look at the Scum, how many years have their fans been saying a very similar song? yet look at the last two years, spend money, get very good players and has their league position changed? City/Cheat$ki/Manure simply spend on another planet, so the "reward" is a very small shot at 1 spot most seasons.

Scum have won an important trophy far more recently than us, I would argue as a direct consequence of finally pushing the boat out when it comes to transfers. And don't kid yourself: they'll still be up there this season. They'll probably splurge on a world-class CB/DM in January, and their defensive problems will be duly sorted. They have the cash reserves to do so,and also the pressing need to do so.

If ENIC/Levy really took the monumentally short-sighted decision to fling Nelsen and Saha at Redknapp (and make no mistake, the 'management' was unlikely to have been happy about that prospect) because they believed the risks involved in backing the manager were too great....then, as I said before, their decision-making is worse than most people give them credit for, considering that ultimately we fell through every single floor on our way into the abyss that the second half of the season became, and considering that they presumably would have felt mightily stupid watching us fail to even qualify for the CL as Saha and Nelsen struggled to be the players Redknapp needed them to be.

They also proceeded to learn nothing from that debacle, and subsequently have taken dumps on both AVB and Poch's wishlists and subsequently watched them struggle in adjusting the cheap bargain buys they didn't ask for to the tactical structure they were trying to implement. Again, terrible decision-making from owners who, in the end, have very little else to contribute to this club save for good decision-making: so again, what are they here for?

They can do risk-analyses that favor their own preferred position (spending no money of their own/taking no risks), and they can sack manager after manager for not delivering on the objectives they set with the substandard tools they proffer to them every transfer window. Ultimately, they're doing it almost entirely with the money of the fans, via hugely puffed up, inflated prices, and neither they nor their supporters on various forums should be the least bit surprised or annoyed when the fans themselves start asking questions about what exactly they are there to do: when we actually compete for trophies, they determinedly avoid spending any money to secure that aim, and when we're in a slump, they determinedly avoid spending any money to get us out of it. Our managers take the fall so they can laze comfortably in the executive boxes, looking down on the 'customers' below struggling to make sense of another setback, watching cheap bargain basement buys struggle to perform the standard expected by the coach (who had someone completely different in mind to fill that role in the field) and calling for his head when things get too bad: upon which, like the Emperors of Rome, ENIC will rise and issue a thumbs down to the unfortunate man, carting him off and replacing him with another rube who fell for all the bare-faced lies about 'ambition' whispered into his ear by Levy and Lewis.

But of course, arm-chair business comments are the problem. I'm sorry, that angle didn't occur to me: must just be a bit dim,what was I thinking? Clearly, arm-chair business comments have no place in this discourse, and if ENIC proceed to fling Saha-Nelsen combos at us for the entirety of the remaining time they spend at the club while making net profit after net profit in transfer windows, we should just shut up and pony up for the 1,900 pound season tickets and the over-priced tat, because we mortals don't know how they run the business and have no right to judge them.

Edit: Perhaps unnecessarily aggressive with that last bit...but seriously, 'armchair business comments'. Forsooth.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Look at who we've bought in the last 2 years

Benjamin Stambouli - investment in a young player
Federico Fazio - squad player
DeAndre Yedlin - investment in a young player
Eric Dier - investment in a young player
Ben Davies - investment in a young player
Michel Vorm - squad player
Christian Eriksen - young talent last year contract not sure where we'll play him
Erik Lamela - meant for first team but will get resale value because of talent
Vlad Chiriches - squad player
Eitenne Capoue - investment in a young player
Roberto Soldado - meant for first team
Nacer Chadli - investment in a young player
Paulinho - meant for first team?
Lewis Holtby - investment in a young player
Zeki Fryers - investment in a young player

He's about to hit 25. Not exactly a young 'un in football terms. Chadli's already 25, as is Chiriches. Other than that, the list is largely accurate.

 

[Mumorn]

Chadli was 23 when we signed him though, is that really still considered young? I saw Chadli as a young replacement for Dempsey.

Stambouli is just class, so he's more of an investment to replace Sandro and to sell Capoue as he's not in his level.

 

[billyiddo]

Dubai, using Arsenal as an example - how would you have felt being in their shoes the last 10 years or so - scraping by in the position finances dictate they should with a negative net spend year after year, replacing their stars with free transfers or young players with potential despite having huge cash reserves and charging their supporters high ticket prices at the same time? Even now the stadium has been paid off the owners don't put anything in to the club outside of what it generates, in fact (without even looking at cash reserves) they are still turning a profit each season - despite spending more money in they are still a way off the teams above them so i would assume you would be of the opinion the owners aren't doing enough financially to close the gap?

 

[braineclipse]

Scum have won an important trophy far more recently than us, I would argue as a direct consequence of finally pushing the boat out when it comes to transfers. And don't kid yourself: they'll still be up there this season. They'll probably splurge on a world-class CB/DM in January, and their defensive problems will be duly sorted. They have the cash reserves to do so,and also the pressing need to do so.

If ENIC/Levy really took the monumentally short-sighted decision to fling Nelsen and Saha at Redknapp (and make no mistake, the 'management' was unlikely to have been happy about that prospect) because they believed the risks involved in backing the manager were too great....then, as I said before, their decision-making is worse than most people give them credit for, considering that ultimately we fell through every single floor on our way into the abyss that the second half of the season became, and considering that they presumably would have felt mightily stupid watching us fail to even qualify for the CL as Saha and Nelsen struggled to be the players Redknapp needed them to be.

They also proceeded to learn nothing from that debacle, and subsequently have taken dumps on both AVB and Poch's wishlists and subsequently watched them struggle in adjusting the cheap bargain buys they didn't ask for to the tactical structure they were trying to implement. Again, terrible decision-making from owners who, in the end, have very little else to contribute to this club save for good decision-making: so again, what are they here for?

They can do risk-analyses that favor their own preferred position (spending no money of their own/taking no risks), and they can sack manager after manager for not delivering on the objectives they set with the substandard tools they proffer to them every transfer window. Ultimately, they're doing it almost entirely with the money of the fans, via hugely puffed up, inflated prices, and neither they nor their supporters on various forums should be the least bit surprised or annoyed when the fans themselves start asking questions about what exactly they are there to do: when we actually compete for trophies, they determinedly avoid spending any money to secure that aim, and when we're in a slump, they determinedly avoid spending any money to get us out of it. Our managers take the fall so they can laze comfortably in the executive boxes, looking down on the 'customers' below struggling to make sense of another setback, watching cheap bargain basement buys struggle to perform the standard expected by the coach (who had someone completely different in mind to fill that role in the field) and calling for his head when things get too bad: upon which, like the Emperors of Rome, ENIC will rise and issue a thumbs down to the unfortunate man, carting him off and replacing him with another rube who fell for all the bare-faced lies about 'ambition' whispered into his ear by Levy and Lewis.

But of course, arm-chair business comments are the problem. I'm sorry, that angle didn't occur to me: must just be a bit dim,what was I thinking? Clearly, arm-chair business comments have no place in this discourse, and if ENIC proceed to fling Saha-Nelsen combos at us for the entirety of the remaining time they spend at the club while making net profit after net profit in transfer windows, we should just shut up and pony up for the 1,900 pound season tickets and the over-priced tat, because we mortals don't know how they run the business and have no right to judge them.

Edit: Perhaps unnecessarily aggressive with that last bit...but seriously, 'armchair business comments'. Forsooth.

Yeah. Clearly something wrong with the decision making at the club.

We reached what was the pinnacle so far under Levy and since we've experienced some pretty harsh regression to the mean. This is hardly unexpected. This essentially happens with everyone that's performing beyond their means over a bit of time. Of course mistakes have been made, everyone makes mistakes. But I really don't think we would have gotten as far as we have with the kind of decision making you describe above.

I would much rather continue with someone that has lead us to performing over financial expectations fairly consistently rather than go for someone new and unknown. Because someone new is most likely only going to be average, unsurprisingly.

Levy clearly sets his aims high. He tries and he's probably aware that it will take something a bit special to see us achieve those goals. We've only occasionally gotten enough things right to get there. He keeps trying to bring in people that will be able to do it again.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Yeah. Clearly something wrong with the decision making at the club.

We reached what was the pinnacle so far under Levy and since we've experienced some pretty harsh regression to the mean. This is hardly unexpected. This essentially happens with everyone that's performing beyond their means over a bit of time. Of course mistakes have been made, everyone makes mistakes. But I really don't think we would have gotten as far as we have with the kind of decision making you describe above.

I would much rather continue with someone that has lead us to performing over financial expectations fairly consistently rather than go for someone new and unknown. Because someone new is most likely only going to be average, unsurprisingly.

Levy clearly sets his aims high. He tries and he's probably aware that it will take something a bit special to see us achieve those goals. We've only occasionally gotten enough things right to get there. He keeps trying to bring in people that will be able to do it again.

And then never backs those people, while charging the second-highest ticket prices in the league just to keep the club hovering around fifth or sixth place. Stunningly self-contradictory.

Look, basic point is this: you charge 1,800-1,900 pounds for season tickets, overcharge fans ('customers') for club tat, and milk every pound out of commercial sponsors who look at the sheepish fans shuffling into the stadium and go 'jackpot'.....then you too can fairly easily achieve 5th to 6th place in the league on average with the 5th - 6th highest revenues, while winning one solitary League Cup in fourteen years and blowing your once-in-a-decade chance to go above and beyond that level, all without spending more than the minimum amount of your own money required to look credible in the eyes of the fans.

Will ENIC keep us around 5th-6th place? Likely, they will given that the revenues support that position and they are barely competent when it comes to decision making. Will we get another shot at the big time? Likely, we will given that football is cyclical and the next opportunity will come at some point over this coming decade. Will we utterly, horrifically squander that shot like we did in 2011/2012? Almost certainly, we will, because ENIC were tight-fisted and risk-averse then, and they haven't learned a thing since.

I would much rather find someone who is willing to spend to push us above that glass ceiling that we are now doomed to bump against, because over the past few seasons I have seen absolutely nothing from ENIC that reassures me that they are willing to take any risks or (lord forbid) spend any of their own money to push us over the line when we are in with a shot. They are likely competent enough to spend the club's own money to keep us where we should be, revenue-wise. They have brought us up to this revenue level, complete with horrendous ticket prices to watch the products of their bad decisions stumbling around the pitch while the manager looks on in despair. They have improved us from the days of Sugar.

They cannot improve us anymore, because their tight-fistedness and extreme risk aversion will destroy us when we get the chance to make a jump for the spotlight again, just as it did in 2011/2012: their actions over the past few years cannot countenance a different conclusion. So, given that ENIC has shown zero desire to change, I'd rather they just finish the stadium project (which the club will of course mostly pay for by itself), take their enormous profit and leave, hopefully selling up to an owner who lowers the prices in recognition of where we are as a club while being a little less averse when it comes to showing the managers the 'ambition' that they believed they were signing up to when they fell for ENIC's honeyed words and signed on the dotted line. In other words, showing the same commitment to the club that the fans show every year.

 

[billyiddo]

1800 is the high end west stand seats, mine is 850 and the majority are sub 1000. Works out between 40-50 quid a match - not what id call extortionate.

You really need to tone down the hyperbole mate, i mean Jeez at worst we look like being in our 'rightful' position of 6th, is that really the end of the world? Sometimes we'll punch above and sometimes we'll regress. Is it really something to throw your toys out of the pram over?

If you believe Levy gets us where we should be then i don't see why you have it in for him so much? There's a real venom to your posts about him and if i didn't know the facts then it'd come across like you're talking about someone running the club in to the ground, which clearly isn't the case - as you say he'll likely have us where we should be based on our finances so when the stadium money rolls round and we have revenue higher than Pool and not far behind Arsenal then we'd likely be in the mix for where we want to be (and using our current trend of punching above that position several times in the past decade we would possibly have a proper crack at the title

 

[DubaiSpur]

Dubai, using Arsenal as an example - how would you have felt being in their shoes the last 10 years or so - scraping by in the position finances dictate they should with a negative net spend year after year, replacing their stars with free transfers or young players with potential despite having huge cash reserves and charging their supporters high ticket prices at the same time? Even now the stadium has been paid off the owners don't put anything in to the club outside of what it generates, in fact (without even looking at cash reserves) they are still turning a profit each season - despite spending more money in they are still a way off the teams above them so i would assume you would be of the opinion the owners aren't doing enough financially to close the gap?

I don't ever want to be put into an Arsenal fan's shoes. :red:

In all seriousness, their fans are pretty ****ed off about the way they're run, although that has somewhat decreased as their spending has increased in recent seasons. Their highest-in-the-league prices are always something their fan trust complains about to the board, but on the whole, their anger is somewhat assuaged by the fact that they routinely compete at the top regardless of whether they spend or not. Wenger's a far better manager than any we've had (He's up there with Fergie, although Fergie had less to deal with in terms of restrictions and self-imposed austerity due to big stadium projects), and he's compensated for their lack of spending admirably by keeping them winning trophies on a semi-regular basis (two FA Cups in nine years, a Community Shield) while also playing attractive football and preserving their status as one of England's big clubs. True, he's become a bit of a self-parody now, but that's but a small impediment to their forward momentum in recent years.

They're now on an upward trend in terms of spending, and that cash reserve they've built up finally seems to be something they're using. Yes, their owners are still the kinds of non-contributing decision-makers that I wouldn't want near our club (although they seem to want to own Arsenal more for the prestige that for the future profits), but on the whole they compete at the top, and are poised to do so more readily now that they've actually got a team that can compete with City and Chelsea (barring the defensive positions, which Wenger will probably be forced to address in January).

What I am worried about is that we are well on our way to becoming a poorer, paler parody of them, charging the same prices they do and attempting the same ambitious stadium project that they embarked on, but from a much, much weaker base (one League Cup in thirteen years, one CL campaign) and with much less backing to our managers than they gave to theirs, which isn't helped by our owners possibly being even more tight-fisted than Arsenal's ever were.

 

[Raziel]

DubaiSpur .. a few things

- The armchair business comment wasn't aimed directly at you, I include myself in it, its second guessing a large business decision with a subset of the facts, nothing personal meant
- I disagree re Scum, they prove the point that ENIC (and Everton as second example) is right. The Scum have vastly outspent us in wages, they now are buying big and they squeaked a FA cup win where the draw was extremely kind to them.
- I don't see an opportunity for us to improve that much (from 5th/6th, not the last two years poor efforts) and that's because where I think you and I disagree is what is the investment required.

So lets define that

I think for spurs to own a top 4 spot

- You need a Kompany level defender, a Modric type in Midfield, a Suarez/Aquero/RVP level striker and potentially a quality wide/pacey player
- And with that, you still are hoping they all stay fit/form for season.

You will have to overpay as its spurs, and it will have a knock on effect on wages.

I think you are looking at 120M outlay (most of it not covered by sales), a 25-30% uptick in wages, and your reward might be a CL run, which you would have to do well in to get out of group (Citi has failed several times) to return maybe 40M?

Maybe I'm missing something, but where is the business logic?

 

[DubaiSpur]

1800 is the high end west stand seats, mine is 850 and the majority are sub 1000

You really need to tone down the hyperbole mate all this talk of 'destroying us' and so on - i mean Jeez at worst we look like being in our 'rightful' position of 6th, is that really the end of the world?

'Destroying' our chances of making the leap from being perennial also-rans to title-challengers and top four regulars. I maintain that 'destroying' is an accurate description of what they did in January 2012, and in the summer of 2013: worse, what they did this year probably destroyed Poch's chances of even making a decent start, which was the last straw as far as I was concerned.

As for being fifth - sixth forever, no f*cking thanks. I don't want to see our London rivals win CLs, FA Cups and league titles, driving us into the dirt of obscurity next to the likes of West Ham and Palace: that 'first in London' CL win Chelsea pulled off scarred me more than you can imagine. I want to be up there competing with them, winning those trophies, beating them to the punch, reclaiming our spot as one of London's top dogs. And I want to see risks taken to achieve that dream. If we fail and fall, at least we'll have tried, as opposed to serenly drifting up to sixth and then bumping that glass ceiling forevermore while slowly being forgotten in the wider football world, our achievements eroded by time and by neglect.

We have had twenty years of stagnation while our rivals have zoomed far, far out ahead of us in the grand scale of things. Whatever you spin ENIC's tenure as (slow recovery, possibly), it is still stagnation when compared to our glory period, or even the 80's. At some stage we need to do one of two things: either push forward in our ambitions to the be the best in London again....or lower prices to a level suitable to where we are as a club, let the youngsters and the deprived fans back into the game, and focus on being a community club as opposed to one with ambition.

 

[billyiddo]

I edited my post, looks like you missed it

 

[DubaiSpur]

DubaiSpur .. a few things

- The armchair business comment wasn't aimed directly at you, I include myself in it, its second guessing a large business decision with a subset of the facts, nothing personal meant
- I disagree re Scum, they prove the point that ENIC (and Everton as second example) is right. The Scum have vastly outspent us in wages, they now are buying big and they squeaked a FA cup win where the draw was extremely kind to them.
- I don't see an opportunity for us to improve that much (from 5th/6th, not the last two years poor efforts) and that's because where I think you and I disagree is what is the investment required.

So lets define that

I think for spurs to own a top 4 spot

- You need a Kompany level defender, a Modric type in Midfield, a Suarez/Aquero/RVP level striker and potentially a quality wide/pacey player
- And with that, you still are hoping they all stay fit/form for season.

You will have to overpay as its spurs, and it will have a knock on effect on wages.

I think you are looking at 120M outlay (most of it not covered by sales), a 25-30% uptick in wages, and your reward might be a CL run, which you would have to do well in to get out of group (Citi has failed several times) to return maybe 40M?

Maybe I'm missing something, but where is the business logic?

You're using a completely hypothetical scenario, though. Which is a bit unrealistic when you have a real-life scenario to draw on.

January 2012, we had two of the four elements you describe as being necessary to nail down a top four spot: we didn't just have a Modric type in midfield, we had Modric himself. We didn't just have any pacy wide player, we had Gareth f*cking Bale. All we needed was a top class striker and a defender. Top class striker (Tevez) and a CB were exactly what Redknapp asked for. Not even a real world-class CB, mind: Harry asked for one of either Cahill or Samba, hardly the same as running out and buying Pique from Barca.

We were closer then to a real title challenge (never mind the top four) than at any other point in the PL era: all we needed was a bit of risk, a bit of belief, a bit of backing from our owners to make the final step, to get the final two pieces in the jigsaw. If we didn't win the league, we would almost certainly have nailed down a top four spot, and the revenues from that subsequent run (plus the commercial interest that Spurs acquiring a player of Tevez' calibre would have generated) would have covered a lot of what we would have spent. Cahill went to Chelsea for 7 million in the same window, with Tevez going to Juve in 2013 for around 12 million . Assuming 50 percent markups because Spurs, that would mean spending a total of roughly 30 million pounds plus wages, which were the real kicker. Not un-achievable, not even particularly unusual for owners to make that speculative investment to provide the real backing that a team needed to go all the way. Even with the 'knock-on' effect. And again, we could have made a lot of that back just through the CL run alone.

That is what taking a risk in pursuit of a dream involves. And that is how close we were.

But history took its course. We threw Saha and Nelsen at Harry with a dismissive sneer. He f*cked up the second half of the season. Chelsea won the CL. We ended up 20 points off the title, and without even a CL spot to show for our troubles. Harry was sacked. Modric left. AVB came in. Bale left. AVB was sacked. And now Poch is here, trying to glue together the sad pieces of what was once an ambitious team trying to go places.

Business logic, d'you think?