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Is it Redschnapps …Or The Players???

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I’m not alone in always having loved the eclectic mix of contributors to this blog. I am after all merely the the first bloke to daub its walls. The best stuff for me has always lay beneath the line.

The last result of the fearless Tottinghams reheated a few chestnuts that if real, the vendor really ought have binned ’em long before then.

SpurredoninDublin raised some very, very good points in some of his recent comments and this is an exercise in debate rather than attempt to brainwash those unconvinced. And so a not inconsiderable ‘thank you’ for this evening’s sermon.

So has Arry run his course? Can you, yes you my highly distinguished reader actually  separate the manager’s failings from the player’s with a cigarette paper?

What I’ve done is C&P a few extracts, added my own thoughts to form a conversation of sorts that some of you might like to add to. No wrongs or rights, just talking…

SpurredoninDublin: Defoe is beginning to make Keane look good, and Pav after three years, has still never been given a run in the team. The January window didn’t produce any improvements, which when you look at the prices that were being paid, was hardly surprising. Look at the England Squad. When players like Nolan can get a game, then you know how poor the quality of strikers are in general.

HH : Do we then sack everyone and ship in at least 2 superstars? Because we simply cannot/will not pay the wages.

SpurredoninDublin: If you then look at our resource base, 12th largest ground in the 4 divisions, and there are approximately 100 teams in Europe that have bigger grounds than ours. Two of the clubs above us at present have “money no object sugar daddies”, and we have the smallest ground of the top seven in the league based on today’s table.

HH: One issue then appears to be we have bought cheap and therefore need to buy twice…

SpurredoninDublin: The injuries to the defenders (and an adequate explanation for Gomes), six different CB’s, three different RB’s and the only one that has remained more or less injury free, tears his hamstring in the game following the best performance by a LB that we have seen in years.

The injuries to the defenders (and an adequate explanation for Gomes), six different CB’s, three different RB’s and the only one that has remained more or less injury free, tears his hamstring in the game following the best performance by a LB that we have seen in years.

HH: I firmly believe that there is not a good goal keeper anywhere in the world stood behind a conveyor belt of defenders.

SpurredoninDublin:The manager: It’s amazing how many of us claim to know his mind. Unfortunately I lack that talent so all I will say, was that when he took over, most of us were expecting relegation. If you had told us when he took over, that we were going to 8th 4th and then 5th or 6th, we would have asked who your dealer was, because that is some powerful sh*t you must be consuming.

HH: I think the stat’s speak for themselves, but many of our fans speak for their expectations.

SpurredoninDublin:I am not happy with where we are at the moment, but on paper we are middleweights fighting super-heavies in terms of resources. Since the star of the PL, only one team smaller than us has won the PL, and they had a sugar daddy.

So this week, the villain was HR, a few days ago, it was Gomes, and before that Crouch. Next week it will probably be someone else. A few weeks ago, it was DL for not buying anyone, unless of course you are on the HR haters, in which case it was HR’s fault for not telling DL who to buy.

HH: ‘Everybody Or At Least Somebody Out!’ Syndrome.

SpurredoninDublin:There is nothing wrong with having high expectations, but these should be tempered with a reality check which says that on paper, we might occasionally win a cup, and every couple of years qualify for the EL, and maybe make the last eight now and again. Anything other than that should not be expected as a right.

In most previous years, the “Sky 4? had more or less guaranteed their places in the CL by Mid-March, but the last couple of seasons, we have competed all the way.

So there’s the start point. From what I hope two pretty decent perspectives.

Talk to me…

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103 comments

  • gaerthkeown says:

    harry hotspur out

  • garethkeown says:

    you spurs fans are all the same. Fickle. You make us gooners look good. In arsene we trust lol. Id rather have a water bottle bashing pedo for a manager than a twitching, self contradicting tax evading self promoting, tactic-less buffoon at the helm. You spurs fans make me sick. It all flies over your little pointy heads. Small minds = small time results

  • Kaiskama says:

    Conundrum.
    With this squad of players should HR be doing better ?

    Or, is this squad not as good as we (fans) or they themselves think they are ??

    I dont profess to know, I am not a football manager like HR. He is paid a few million a year to know. And, I am not sure DL is getting value for that particular piece of money.

    As I say, conundrum

  • LosLorenzo says:

    I don’t really think we have a problem, honestly. I read SOID’s comments, and was likewise impressed at the thought that went in to them. I agree with a lot of what he said. I believe he was directing a lot of this at ODM. And that’s where the problem lies. I agreed with a lot of what ODM had to say, too.

    Sorry to say it, but this whole ‘debate’ you’re starting here is kind of pointless. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy having my say (as regular visitors will no doubt be aware), so it’s not a waste of time per se. It’s just that there is no conclusion to this debate, just endless rehash of the facts filtered through each participant’s particular worldview.

    Yes, we are missing one or two world class players (forwards?) to genuinely be at the same level as the other top clubs in the PL. True, Daniel Levy is not willing to spend the same money and take the same risks on transfers and wages. Certainly, Harry is not the best manager in the world.

    BUT WE ALL KNOW ALL OF THIS, AND HAVE DONE FOR QUITE A WHILE. So what is the conclusion? Firing Harry won’t help, because there is no better option. Blaming the players (J****) might make you feel better, but it won’t improve anything. Rightly pointing out that DL doesn’t spend money like Abramovich or the Dubai blokes will not attract our own billionaire. So what is the point.

    garethkeown, go fall off a cliff.

  • jfdit says:

    Whilst I agree with some of soid’s points he comes across not as a realist but an apologist or even possibly one of levy’s sycophants. ;-) :whistle:

    I lay my cards on the table – I’ve never been a fan of levy or lewis as owners at spurs. In my humble opinion (and from rather good inside information) their principle ambitions at spurs have always been quite self interested and not necessarily in the best long term interests of the club.

    I start with Levy – positives – steady hand on tiller, tough negotiator, appears to have spurs entwined into his dna,

    negatives – too involved with player trading for sake of it, fails to address weakness in squad despite glaring problems, appears to be disliked by football people due to the fact he dicks around over transfers in and out of the club, interferes with managers role too much.

    Resources – sorry SOID spurs have been in the top 20 european teams in terms of turnover for as long as I can remember, in 2008/9 we were up to 12th in the deloitte list. Our small ground has never been that much of an issue due to very high ticket prices, corporate sponsorship and hospitality rates.

    Whilst we can’t compete with the financial doping of cheatski & the arabs we are one of the wealthiest clubs in the world in terms of our fanbase.

    • SpurredoninDublin says:

      Sycophant? Me? You say the nicest things.

      Seriously, sycophants have an agenda which is usually a reward from the person they are sucking up to. As me and Levy are complete strangers that is hardly going to happen, But if DL is reading this and anybody wants to impersonate me on the off chance, feel free.

      With regard to resources, ever since the start of the Deloittes list, we have always been in the top twenty, but that figure is based on turnover only. It is profit and not turnover that decides your wealth. The Spurs P&L in the past ten years or so have fluctuated between a profit of £5mill and a loss of the same size.

      A much better guide to our value is the Forbes list which ranks us as the 11th most valuable football team in the world (£229 mill), but we have still only made £5 mill in a good year so. On that we pay corporation taxi, and on the last time we paid dividend, of 1p per share, that cost the club £2.2 mill. The money that is left after that is called “retained funds”, so in a good year, after tax and dividends, the clubs bank balance increases by £2 mill. That’s what it means to be the 11th richest club in the world.

      By comparison, Arsenal made a profit before tax of £60 mill (12 times our usual profit when we make one) on a turnover 2.8 times larger than ours.

      http://www.caughtoffside.com/2011/04/23/forbes-2011-list-top-20-most-valuable-football-teams-in-the-world/

      If you earn £10k a week, and you spend £10k a week, you might live rich, but you aren’t getting rich. That is what is happening at Spurs. The money is going out as fast as it is coming in. Once you understand this, you might take a different view about the wisdom of spending £30 mill and a £5 mill a year in wages on a striker that may not work out for you.

      This year will be exceptional. We will probably make a profit of £20 mill thanks to the CL run, but that still won’t pay for one the world class strikers we crave, let alone two.

      Am I an apologist for Levy? No. Just a realist.

      The truth is that we are punching well above our weight, but recently, we seem to have pulled our punches. I am praying for a final push, but am getting ready to accept that this has a been great season and that we failed to make it memorable.

      If we do make it this season, I predict next season will be even harder for us, because City can easily spend another £100-200 mill, and Liverpool will be spending big next year. They can afford it, because the new owners effectively stole the club for what they paid for it.

      • jfdit says:

        levy’s the reason we’ve not made the profits, he the one who keeps buying shit players and paying them fortunes in wages ;-)

        Joking aside some of deals we’ve done are silly, bentley @ 16.5 + 20 million in wages over 5 years plus bonuses, PSB @ 10 + 16 million in wages plus bonuses – and they’re just two of the players we’ve got out on loan.

        I’ve owned successful businesses in the past so have a fairly robust grounding when commenting about the commercial side of the club, I wouldn’t take a lot of notice normally of lists like deloitte or forbes, they’re pretty irrelevant IMO. If you want to get down to the nitty gritty have a look at the spurs accounts.

        They don’t look too grim despite some of our horrendous losses on players. The way clubs amortise player fees & values tends to erase profits in the accounts.

        My main point is that spurs are by no means paupers, we are a very wealthy club with a loyal fanbase most clubs would love to have. Our current squad is on a similar level to any in the top 4 and it’s our underperforming strikers which are the cause of our failure to push on this season. If they had converted the chances they’ve missed we’d be looking down on manure at the moment.

        My view is that instead of wasting money on the likes of keane, bentley, pienaar, crouch, …… we could go on all night, we should just be buying the best younger players like bale, huddlestone & lennons. Add to them experienced players who will actually deliver and we’ll get where we want to get to.

        Liverpool spent 20 million on torres, we spent 16.5 on bent, they sold for 50, we sold for 10. Top quality always wins through in any business.

        • SpurredoninDublin says:

          It is clear that you and I will never agree.

          Nevertheless, one of the problems you mention is overpaying players, yet there are others who complain that we can’t get decent players because we don’t pay them enough. I don’t know what Bentley earns, but most of us thought he was going to be a susperstar when we got him, and he has turned into a Turkey. That’s one of the the points I have been making. You can spend all that money, and there is no guarantee they will perform for you.

          You go onto say that we are one of the 20 richest clubs in Europe, which must be the Deloitte list you are relying on, and when I point out the fallacies of this list, you tell me to ignore it.

          Want to talk about Torres? They paid £20 mill and sold for £50 mill. We bought Carrick and Berba for £15.9 mill and sold for £52.

          You claim to have run a business, and then you ignore the fact that amortisation is recognition of a depreciating that will eventually need to be replaced, so there is no financial advantage gained from this.

          Spurs accounts: Losses last year.

          Going off topic slightly: Darren Bent, he was unwanted when he got here and many thought overpriced. Now some of the same people who are questioning why why we paid so much for an unwanted player, are asking why we sold him, and why we sold him so cheaply? Incidentally, Stoke were prepared to pay £2mill more than Sunderland, but Bent refused to sign for them.

      • TMWNN says:

        I take it their new owners aren’t ‘asset strippers’ then?

    • Cilla Black says:

      Arsenal and Maun Utd earn over £100 million more than us, they get £2 million more per home game plus the merchandising from more supporters in the ground.

      Chelsea get £1 million more than us. We can’t compete with our small stadium, we can’t increase our corporate revenue which we need to do, so come on Boris, give us the tax breaks and regeneration money from Europe so we can build and develop the area.

      The article is spot on and it’s good to hear some common sense for a change.

      Nobody is asking why we sold Darren Bent, he didn’t fit into our system, simple as that. He needs a team to play to give him all the chances and that’s not us. We need a top quality striker or two and Bent does not fit the bill.

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