Free transfers

[Yiddo]

Vlahovic can't hold the ball up, can't link up play, is poor on the ball, makes poor decisions. He's Richy without the running

You seem to go to extreme lengths to dismiss players you don’t rate while massively overrating the ones you do. That kind of bias is probably why a lot of people struggle to take your opinions seriously.

 

[Surfless]

Richy has a terrible injury record with us, that's different to having a terrible injury record.

As for being guaranteed to score two a season, I'm not going to check stats but I'm pretty sure he exceeds that every time. But I appreciate Richy is our top scorer, which means we need to denigrate his efforts and output. It's an interesting recent trend.

If you spend some time reviewing my comments on this site, you will find I am overwhelmingly positive about our players, so to suggest I'm part of a trend of knocking our best performing players, is off the mark.

I can't however hide the fact that Richarlison is not good enough to be with Spurs, based on his ability and also his recent injury record.

If we aspire to be a top 6 side, we need better than him. Its not a dig at him, its a fact of life. I would say similar about Danso, Davies, Dragusin and a few more in the team, if they were deemed to be first choice.

To give you the stats to back this up:

All time at Spurs:
Goals per appearance: 0.23
Goals per game match started: 0.40

This season:
Goals per game: 0.34

He might be our best but he's the 13th best when looking at the top scorer per club.

 

[Surfless]

View attachment 22653

Bastad!

 

[Mr Gogolak]

See I saw it the other way, our run of really good form was from the strategy of buy young, buy hungry, no perceived scars or Spurs wounds, then sell and reinvest. The issue came IMO when we thought we earned the right to spend bigger on the likes of Ndombele and others who basically turned up knowing their ego was bigger than the club and that hunger was taken over by a sense of entitlement (not just Ndombele BTW). Also with the idea you buy bigger is that when they fail they are expensive mistakes and you can't get rid, its a double threat in that respect.

Currently we are somewhere stuck between the two, IMO the youngsters are out performing the elders with with egos. Except for Palhinha but he is a throw back

It's always interesting to look at a situation from an different viewpoint. Of course, I don't know who's correct, but I'd add a couple of things.

First, the club paid zero attention to squad building. Most signing were opportunitic, leaving us with a very unbalanced squad, both in terms of positions and profiles. What happened in January is but the most recent example of that trend.

Next, players data (or whatever the actual name is) is all the rage at the moment and we, as a club, joined the party late. We also did so in an incredibly amateurish way. It takes more than Thomas Frank to replicate Brentford's success on our scale, just like signing Brighton's sporting director (if we do) won't be enough. I'm not particularly keen on it, but if you want to go down that way, it has to be a real commitment, and not a whim.

Last, regarding younger players, I agree that Gray, for instance, out performed a lot of established players. However, I'm pretty sure that if we had persevered with Frank or Tudor, relegation was a certainty. It would take the input of a high-level manager to know for sure, but I do believe experience counts for something in football. Rigid systems tend to reduce the impact of leadership on the pitch with more focus on physical ability but a football match's dynamics are quite unpredictable. Players down tool because they don't like the manager. They receive a red cards minutes after scoring a goal because they can't control their nerves. They give up because there's 10 minutes left on the clock and they can't get a win at relegated Wolves. That's when you want someone like Paulinha on the pitch and that kind of determination and commitment - in my opinion, it's not a fact - only comes from having 'seen it all'.

Very few players are born with that - Ronaldo, maybe - but that's a trait you can acquire.

 

[Bishop]

This is a direct quote from the Lewis family

We also take responsibility for rebuilding Spurs. Our ambition is to recapture the spirit of the Club and bring back the excitement, the fearlessness and the bold football we have always felt defined us. That means football comes first. The Board and Executive team have laid out their plans to meet this ambition.

This will require investment – in our teams, the academy, our backroom functions and more - and we are fully committed to this. We are not selling the Club. We are all in. We are investing in it. You will see more of this in the coming months.

How you, or others on this board translate that into "it's ok to spend less money than we have in the last 5 years" is beyond me. This isn't about wanting anyone to fail, when it comes to Spurs, may everyone prove me wrong and may we be the most successful club in the world, I'll eat all the humble pie I can get.

Reality is (so far)
- They fired Levy and made statements about investment very conveniently when the last window closed (so they couldn't be held accountable to those statements)
- In January when we were in a desperate position (not hyperbole to say the future of club was at risk), somehow it didn't make sense to buy players and the only business was effectively a swap (Johnson for Gallagher)
- Now, after the worst season in our history in the PL and probably in 50 years, the early business is "free transfers" and rumoured business looks like another swap/net zero scenario (Romero, Vic, Dragusin out, Savino, JVH in)

My issue is I have spent all of my career in much bigger companies than Spurs or ENIC, and I smell flimflam PR, someone on board takes the bullet, all nice statements made, nothing fudging changes. And as always, it's amazing how well PR works.

I understand we need to do better business (even though @Bishop doesn't think I grasp it), but we also need to spend more, both, not one or the other. City is going to spend 120M on single midfielder, United is rumoured to be in for another 300M, Liverpool is expected to buy heavily again after spending 400M last season, Arsenal as well on top of a PL winning and CL final side. Chelsea same.

We spend 120M - 180M net per season for last 5 years. Please, please explain to me why with the situation the club is in, with the flimflam "we are all in, we are investing" from the owner's mouth, the club should spend less than average of last 5 years?

West Ham (related as reminder), Wolves (relegated), Brighton, Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine all spend ~>100M-120M a season (some do better jobs at offsetting the spend via sales than others, Brighton obvious example), those are clubs we need to aim to be above, and right now, for two seasons we have been the worst club in the PL to survive, which to me means we need to spend to catch up, and then to improve beyond what other clubs will do.

I'm literally at a point where I probably going to just step away from these conversations because the dissonance is insane
- There is another thread right now on this board, where people are insistent that the club was cheap, didn't invest appropriately in the 2017-2019 era (when we had the small matter of a 1B+ stadium being constructed)
- And in other threads like this one, with the completed stadium, with Covid done, with proven revenues in (5 years of data), with a struggling team, now, now is the time to be fiscally smart? and not overspend

I don't understand your argument. When Levy was in charge and people argued for us to spend more you defended him now he's not in charge you're shouting for more spend, which is it can you be consistent? It does come across like you just want to defend first Levy's position and secondly criticise the replacements of the man you rated.

Look, in terms of spending I don't actually care and never have. I didn't rate Levy not because he didn't spend £60m, £80m or £150m on any one player. I criticised him because of how long he took negotiating, for how often those same negotiations fell through, for how consistently we were undercooked going into every season. The figures weren't the issue it was the rationale behind them. We could spend a headline amount but rather than placing that on a specific player it was diluted and spread across a number of inferior players, that's why he got criticised. That is when people were asking for him to "pay up" we always actually spend enough overall Levy just had a fear or an unwillingness to spend it all on a key addition.

The numbers themselves aren't the important part. Yes spending more is certainly a good plan to improve your squad but if circumstances means that isn't a viable option taking the 2016-2018 period for example. If our cash flow was a concern then at the time I suggested selling players to fund reinforcement, the likes of Dele, Eriksen and Toby were all viable sales at the the time who could have been used to re-infuse the squad with fresh legs and quality instead he sat on his hands and let the squad stagnate. That's is why he gets criticised and that is why yes, the current leadership could spend less than before and still come out the other side looking rosey if and it's an important if they spend what be funds are available well and in a timely manner. That's literally all it's ever been about and you're either being disingenuous by not understanding this or stuck in a binary thought pattern where; spend more = success.

In the simplest terms we do not need to spend £300m+ to build a good team if you can use the market intelligently and I see lots of clubs outside of Spurs doing so I have not and will never accept the argument that it cannot be done. It seems to me that the only thing that will please you is if we had instead spent £50m on Senesi so that you could then respect his recruitment. Why is getting good players for less a problem?

I don't actually want to spend more, I want to spend less but I want to spend well. The end of this window will tell us whether we have done that or not.

 

[Raziel]

I don't understand your argument. When Levy was in charge and people argued for us to spend more you defended him now he's not in charge you're shouting for more spend, which is it can you be consistent? It does come across like you just want to defend first Levy's position and secondly criticise the replacements of the man you rated.

Look, in terms of spending I don't actually care and never have. I didn't rate Levy not because he didn't spend £60m, £80m or £150m on any one player. I criticised him because of how long he took negotiating, for how often those same negotiations fell through, for how consistently we were undercooked going into every season. The figures weren't the issue it was the rationale behind them. We could spend a headline amount but rather than placing that on a specific player it was diluted and spread across a number of inferior players, that's why he got criticised. That is when people were asking for him to "pay up" we always actually spend enough overall Levy just had a fear or an unwillingness to spend it all on a key addition.

The numbers themselves aren't the important part. Yes spending more is certainly a good plan to improve your squad but if circumstances means that isn't a viable option taking the 2016-2018 period for example. If our cash flow was a concern then at the time I suggested selling players to fund reinforcement, the likes of Dele, Eriksen and Toby were all viable sales at the the time who could have been used to re-infuse the squad with fresh legs and quality instead he sat on his hands and let the squad stagnate. That's is why he gets criticised and that is why yes, the current leadership could spend less than before and still come out the other side looking rosey if and it's an important if they spend what be funds are available well and in a timely manner. That's literally all it's ever been about and you're either being disingenuous by not understanding this or stuck in a binary thought pattern where; spend more = success.

In the simplest terms we do not need to spend £300m+ to build a good team if you can use the market intelligently and I see lots of clubs outside of Spurs doing so I have not and will never accept the argument that it cannot be done. It seems to me that the only thing that will please you is if we had instead spent £50m on Senesi so that you could then respect his recruitment. Why is getting good players for less a problem?

I don't actually want to spend more, I want to spend less but I want to spend well. The end of this window will tell us whether we have done that or not.

I'll separate this into pieces to try to make myself clear as I appreciate you putting your position clear.

People confused my defense of Levy (as some sort of general thing) with my defense of him in the financial structure he had (which is what I understood). The club operated (enforced by the people who still own the club) a self-funded policy that Levy had to operate within. There is 25 years of financial data to support, if the club had money, we spent it under him. And yes, maybe you didn't but lots of people on this board have advocated for the "spend like Charlie Sheen in a brothel approach" for a long time, and usually with "if the owners can't do that, then sell up" add on.

I do not defend the brick 2016-2019 quality of players bought, it's poor and our hit ratio (again, nobody gets all transfers right) was way off. I can give a logical view of what the club tried but it didn't work out. The Paratici era of buys is actually not bad quality of player wise (probably a little short of experience) but had gaps and balance issues (probably exasperated by the switches of managers, which yes, rests on DL/ENIC)

But to the question of what we need to do
- Yes, we need to buy better, we need to be more intelligent, we need to get more bang for the dollar we spend. And yes, Senesi on a free is good, just like Kane having come through the academy didn't devalue his contribution.
- That said, the manager has said he has 10-12 players at the right level (and yes, some of that is manager talk but it's probably directionally correct), and this is a point you usually push, squad isn't good enough. Let's say Vic, Dragusin, Souza, Sarr, Tel, Richi, Solanke aren't good enough, Xavi and Odobert are out till next season, Bissouma left and we haven't replaced Johnson. That 10+ players to replace.

That is always going to be a prioritization challenge, as well as who now, vs. next summer. We also have one year where we can spend more (not being in Europe allows us more headroom on SCR), so it actually makes sense to front load some spending this summer (it's a 15% difference, not insignificant).

I genuinely believe the club has to correct fast to reduce the damage of last 2 seasons, this means improving the squad, it also (my opinion) means we probably need to make a statement (and that's where we differ from the well-run mid table sides, they are ok being in the food chain, we need to aim higher).

For that reason, and the owner's comments, I believe what we spend (not just how we spend it) is an indicator of if we are serious, if anything has changed, or even if things will be worse (it is a possibility quite a few posters are refusing to acknowledge, that the owners are just here to sell an until then, spend will be very limited). There is no upside to the club not spending at least what is available via the model (we don't get cheaper tickets or merch), and ideally beyond that to match their words with actions.

Look it may well be

- They are doing the smart/quick business early, stuff they had in pipeline and we will have Robertson, Senesi, Savino, Harry Wilson & JVH in door in next two weeks, and they will spend the real money on elite level midfielder and strikers

Time will tell, and in September we can have this conversation again

 

[spurspinter1]

If you spend some time reviewing my comments on this site, you will find I am overwhelmingly positive about our players, so to suggest I'm part of a trend of knocking our best performing players, is off the mark.

I can't however hide the fact that Richarlison is not good enough to be with Spurs, based on his ability and also his recent injury record.

If we aspire to be a top 6 side, we need better than him. Its not a dig at him, its a fact of life. I would say similar about Danso, Davies, Dragusin and a few more in the team, if they were deemed to be first choice.

To give you the stats to back this up:

All time at Spurs:
Goals per appearance: 0.23
Goals per game match started: 0.40

This season:
Goals per game: 0.34

He might be our best but he's the 13th best when looking at the top scorer per club.

View attachment 22663

I'm not suggesting you're an overly negative poster or anything like that!

It's a chicken and egg situation, people might find it tedious me jumping to Richy's defense in the same way I find it odd how folks really seem to enjoy laying into him. It's a forum so it makes sense to discuss topics and share opinions, what's key is what RDZ wants and commitment and workrate seem high up on his list. So if he's here come the start of the season, hopefully people won't be too disappointed.

For his stats, the first season was an absolute write off, Conte's assessment of it being total brick was a fair one. Often playing on the left and assisting a decent amount, there'll be plenty of worse options but the price tag was too much, especially when Richy didn't hit the ground running.

I've not seen enough of Vlahovic to comment.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

I've not seen enough of Vlahovic to comment.

No one really has, no one is having Serie A watch raves and know really

Fifa and FM Manager I reckon (I don't even joke based on comments recently)