Liverpool; it should have been us.
That’s what I’m hearing and reading; that because we were ahead of the Reds for much of the 2010s that it should have been us and not them, partying in the streets this week, lifting the Premier League title next.
But it wasn’t our time. It felt like it was; we had the best striker, the best defence, the best young manager. That was in 2017, when we finished two places and 10 points ahead of Liverpool. This season the new champions of England might finish 50 points clear of us. How has this happened?
The simple answer is player recruitment. While we sat on our laurels, Liverpool signed the best player available in every position that needed strengthening. Alisson, Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho, Mohamed Salah, et al. According to transfermarkt.com, Liverpool spent £320.29million over the 2017 and 2018 summers compared to Tottenham’s £109.35million. And that difference in transfer expenditure is reflected in the table, as it almost always is.
As much as we might have wanted Daniel Levy to commit to the same spending, that was not possible within our business model while simultaneously financing the new stadium. And you can argue until the cows come home that the business model is wrong, but it is that investment in the stadium and training ground which means we will have our time.
Liverpool have always been a club with a massive revenue capacity and Spurs have been somewhere in the middle. Even during the years that we were finishing ahead of Liverpool, this was the case, and we were defying logic to perform as well as we were, better than we had any right to be.
We largely lucked into Harry Kane who we had cast to the loan market forever, and Danny Rose who was a failed left-winger. Dele Alli was signed as a midfielder and turned into a league-leading No.10 because we had so few goalscoring options. We even lucked into Christian Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld, and other signings who we got for far below the market value.
That was never going to be sustainable. Without installing an infrastructure which would allow us to match the revenue capacity of Liverpool and the countries’ other trophy hoarders, we could have fallen off in the same way that Everton, Newcastle, and Leeds did after they each broke into the top four – for the latter that was far as League One. Levy’s investment off the pitch has all but guaranteed this will never happen to us. We’re now a big club, economically, and the trophies will come. There is no club in Europe that has had the money-making power we now do that hasn’t won trophies, eventually. So next time it looks as though our time has come it might actually come, because then we will be generating the revenue with which to take those significant final steps that Liverpool did this time, and we didn’t. And that success will be sustainable and we’ll keep winning; it won’t be a flash in the pan trophy which any silverware in recent years, however desperately we’ve wanted it, might have been. That is Levy’s vision for us.
So I’m not here to tell you it should have been us, but to tell you that it will be us. When? I don’t know. And if you want to curse Levy for the choices he’s made every day until it happens, be my guest. But it will happen.
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That’s pretty much what the article says James. The money-making machine that is the new stadium will eventually allow us to pay market rates for transfers and wages, and then we’ll get sustained success rather than one FA Cup or League that we might have got under Poch – ahead of Liverpool – before dropping off again like so many teams have who have won trophies without the infrastructure behind them to keep backing it up.
I obviously understand the cynicism around Levy delivering this but simply there’s been no club to have everything in place that we have off the pitch never to have their time at the top on it.
Haha maybe I do live in a nut job utopia it sounds fun right?!
All plans to build a new stadium at Chelsea have been put on hold,they also got a transfer ban for( 150 )breaches of rules involving (69 )academy players,which explains why their scouting system seemed to be a success.In real terms they have been cheating for years and got off very lightly.
Based on just the headline….. We won’t win naff all whilst ENIC along with Levy are at the helm.
It’s not in their DNA. If making money was a competition We’d win that hands down.
How do you compete with the Qatari oil and the Sovereign Wealth fund of Saudi Arabia?
Arsenal fans were sold the same fairytale, or in the unparliamentary language I heard an ex player use on 5Live, “they were lied to”.
I totally agree, a very good read that.
Strike oil then we’re talking.
Plan B is being very optimistic for the manager ,i think D or E fits the bill more fittingly.
Perfectly put .
More chance of finding a natural spring in my allotment
I’ll make this very clear Joe, we will win The Premier
League, FA Cup, League, Cup, Champions League, Europa League when we pay market rate for transfers and wages. It will not happen until those things happen, yes we might win. an FA Cup or League Cup as a one off without major investment, but so what? We won the League Cup in 2008, Wigan Athletic won an FA Cup. The special Tottenham way so often spoken of by Poch and Daniel Levy will never deliver long term success.
Wait for me, I’m just off to buy some flood damaged fireworks
Fleeting?
Danny I have no idea how minds like yours work. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with how humans work, but nobody gets out alive.
How precisely is your nutjob utopia mapped out? I mean will there be angels playing trumpets each time we score in this fantasy of a sustainable future under ENIC?
Liverpool are European Champions and the Champions of England, call me odd, call me a fool, but they have PROVED that Levy’s business model does not include you, me or your crazy pipe dreams.
Hehehe let the celebrations begin!
This time next year Rodders.
You make a good point. I have already expressed a similar opinion that as the transfer market is currently in disarray, a good businessman would take advantage and gamble by rebuilding his squad at half the price it would have cost him in previous overinflated years. Joe Lewis has always made his living by taking risk, but Levy is an overrated bean counter who does not understand risk. You are de risking by recruiting good players at muchly reduced prices. Timo Werner looks cheap to me. Levy is the wrong man for this job. It is asinine to think Lewis could not make a loan to the club.
Joe you say it will happen. I say it won’t. I hope you are right but I know you aren’t.
Agree with you. I’d love to see us take a risk and spend this summer.
Some people need a dose of reality. Why did we get top 4 under Poch? Was it because we were that damn good? Or was it because in that period Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United all let it slip and we were just a bit more stable? A little bit of the former, but the latter stands out for me. The Prem was boring and predictable when it was the same 4 year in, year out getting Ch Lg. Just as we were getting our house in order with Arsenal and Liverpool falling away, Man City joined the party, you couldn’t make it up! For the past 2 seasons we have been the team in decline. How we got top 4 last season was unbelievable, thankfully and miraculously Man Utd made a bigger hash of the run in than us, and we were soooooo bad. So, we have now dropped out the running and we will be replaced. Could be by Leicester who haven’t been special, just better than the chasing pack up until now. 4 wins in the last 15 tells you they are not that good.. We have been rubbish, but could still get top 4 (not that I think we will). How disjointed is this League, so many teams in transition it was great for Wolves and Leicester who had a semblance of stability to take advantage. How will we get back back in amongst it and at whose expense? Until Pep and Klopp leave they are set to make top 4 above us. Man Utd seem to have got their act together, bit like Chelsea but their managers are just figureheads with no real experience of managing. These 2 will always be able to outspend us but could easily become unstable again in the near future. Leicester can’t seriously stay top 4, not if Chelsea and Man Utd improve and I think they will. I’d be disappointed if we don’t overhaul Leicester next season. Wolves will sooner or later lose some of their top players, you’d think, but I like the look of them and their manager. With a fully functioning squad, top 4 is not out of reach for us next season, but that stadium money is coming right? So, why doesn’t Levy take a risk or two then and stretch the transfer budget before we are left behind? If Utd and Chelsea do become stable again, it will be tough to win those trophies you believe we will win. Considerably tougher than when we ‘should’ have won something tangible.
Always tomorrow, like an oasis mirage that appears and then the closer you get fades away. 20 years and one league cup to show. A football club is determined by its success on the pitch. That success is determined by the desire of the owners. A land and development company determines its success by its property portfolio. That success is determined by the desire of its owners. Which do you think is running this once great club? Despite the sickening use of historic club slogans around the new stadium forged on real endeavour and deeds on the football pitch such as “To dare is to Do” ENIC since they attached themselves like parasites to THFC have never dared to do anything remotely geared towards real success in football terms. Pre the new stadium the supporters were always told that it was the lack of a new stadium and the increased capacity that prevented us from reaching for the stars.During the construction of that new stadium we were constantly told by Pochettino that we were unique to all the other top clubs and in a “different project”. Now the new stadium is delivered we are still being fed soundbites by ENIC and Levy that we are not at the same level as the bigger clubs financially. We are starting to get drip fed the mantra that we have now to pay for the new stadium and other clubs do not have that issue to manage. We will be fed on top of that the “new normal” has changed things yet again and we are not able to compete for the type of players that other top clubs appear able to do. Chelsea who have slipped down the pecking order are rebuilding and go out and buy Timo Werner who destroyed us in the CL tie. He will not need a six month fitness programme and bedding in process. He will go straight into the first eleven and make a difference. We dismantled Liverpool a few seasons ago at Wembley. What happened after? Their owners looked at what they needed to do to get football success and brought in the right manager and players and have since won the CL and the EPL. Levy and ENIC have done nothing to bring us football success but have built a new property asset. The gulf between the two clubs is huge now. Man Utd and Chelsea slumped and we stood still. Now they are rebuilding and we will fall behind them as well. I truly hope that this pandemic and its economic fallout causes ENIC to feel so much financial pain around the stadium that they decide to cut loose and sell out because until these pariahs leave our club we are going absolutely nowhere in football success terms for the foreseeable future.
You forgot Chelsea who are also going to build a new stadium. They are also making up for lost time in the transfer market having been banned. Their transfer strategy has been ahead of ours for years. They get their business done quickly and early. We have the equivalent Steptoe and Son doing our negotiating. By the time Levy has made up his mind, he’s pi**ed off the selling club by offering well under the odds, offering payment terms over ten years and throwing in a packet of crisps. Being the most hated operator in European football is not a smart move. Being smart is getting your targets over the line with the minimum of fuss, as other proper clubs do. Patting yourself on the back as a hard headed negotiator who generally fails to attain his target, and certainly not the target his manager wants, only to fall back on a Plan B which normally consists of some no mark from the French League whom we have to Google is not the answer. Instead of locking himself in his bat cave at Spurs on the last day of the transfer window, hoping at the last moment he can take advantage of some selling club’s financial position does not cut it anymore. These tactics are out of date and unproductive. Instead, the club should employ people who know what they are doing as Levy’s track record amply demonstrates, he does not.
You make some good points. Levy’s transfer record is patchy at best. How can we ever be confident that he will make good recruitment decisions? This is one aspect of Levy’s tenure and one I believe he’s been found wanting.
The strategy to build this stadium in order to generate the revenue we need to compete with the best should be judged on its own merits.
We all have our reservations over whether or not this will really make a difference but we will find out for sure before too long
Levy has always maintained his goal is to make Spurs financially competitive with the biggest clubs in order to allow us to compete on the pitch. Some of us believe him, some of us don’t but this is his stated position.
It’s always jam tomorrow with Levy. Remember when he told us that the new stadium expenditure would not affect our ability to spend in the transfer market. This was a downright lie. It was Levy who went 100% over budget on the new stadium, thereby depleting the club’s transfer fund. We could have also extended WHL at a fraction of the cost of the new stadium. In your utopian tomorrow, what makes you think that even if the new stadium brings in extra revenue, that this money will be even spent in the transfer market, let alone wisely. Levy has already admitted he makes all the decisions on transfers. Well, that’s gone well. He’s also responsible for the scouting department and the analysis team for new players, both of which are a shambles. Then he is responsible for choosing the managers, yes, that’s all ten of them so far and shortly to be eleven. We have had twenty years of Levy’s mismanagement. Even if the new stadium turns out to be a money machine, and it hasn’t gone well at the Emirates, his time as CEO should be terminated.
I believe this blog post is spot on. We can argue – and with good reasons – on both sides about which strategy is the best, but the one Levy choose was this one. We might not see the benefits for a few seasons but we will see them soon. And like Joe says, when the success does come, we have a good chance of sustaining it rather than it being fleeting.
‘Will happen’ When is this, in another 20 years? This planning
for the future has been going on for over 20 years under Levy.
If he thinks another League Cup in the next couple of seasons will do the trick,
then he can f**k off.
Such optimism is surely based on the idea that the owners intend to use this
projected increase in revenue to improve our lot on the pitch rather than line
their own pockets.
Woolwich promised their fans exactly the same when they built their place
and they have gone backwards on the pitch since leaving Highbury.
I can see no fundamental difference between theirs and our ‘business model’
regarding the new stadium. They finished paying for their place about five seasons
ago and still no delivery on the promises made to their fan base 12 years on.
They are just one example that goes against the idea that new bigger stadia ‘eventually’
brings with it trophies. Also, why would any sane individual think it will play out differently
under ENIC?
So what we can deduce then after that list of ‘underpriced’ players is that Poch
worked absolute wonders and ended up sacked. Jose will end up sacked too,
it’s what Levy does. Tries to make it all look like someone else’s fault and the
thick mug fans suck it up…
Liverpool will expand Anfield in the next few seasons to above our capacity, Old Trafford is
already bigger, City Of Manc Stadium well big enough. Eventually all of the top 10 will have
50k plus venues. Of which ours built 10 years before will be end up being just another glass
and concrete ‘modern’bowl. The sad reality is that we will only be keeping up,
not surpassing anyone at all.
This is about ambition to win trophies in the present, all the other stuff is just about as
relevant as window dressing in the club shop…
Sorry if the truth hurts.
#ENIC OUT