Standing still while rivals improve

Tom Pops said:

http://www.transferleague.co.uk/pre...tables/premier-league-table-last-five-seasons

Shows the amount of money spent by every current premier league club over the past 5 years, and ranks the clubs from 1 (most spent) to 20 (least spent). We are 19th.

Goes to show how expensive this stadium is!

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Tom Pops said:

http://www.transferleague.co.uk/pre...tables/premier-league-table-last-five-seasons

Shows the amount of money spent by every current premier league club over the past 5 years, and ranks the clubs from 1 (most spent) to 20 (least spent). We are 19th.

Goes to show how expensive this stadium is!

Click to expand...

ginola99 said:

I'm doing a masters in Town Planning atm and did a Development Finance module earlier this year, we were tasked with building on a plot in London and the costs were eye watering and on a knife's edge.

A stadium is no different.

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Spurger King said:

You only have to look at the stats to tell how much of a difference he makes. Have a go if you like, but with respect maybe you don't really understand the game all that well. Dembele makes a massive difference because he creates space and opportunities for our attacking players further up the pitch. He's virtually impossible to win the ball back from, and he carries it into spaces that allow a simple pass to be dangerous.

Sorry if you don't get that!

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Flashspur said:

Missing the point completely. I am not arguing that he does not change things. The point is that we are totally reliant on one player to change our game around. That is bloody foolhardy if not risky considering we have CL on top of the PL and are competing in both to win.

And don't be condescending dude. I've been watching football at WHL and other places since 1960 and seen a lot more football than you I wager. I think I understand the game pretty fricken' well.

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Spurger King said:

Apologies for the condescending tone. Completely unnecessary on my part. I was in a foul mood at the time and generally being a bit of a twat for no good reason.

I agree. It's not good to be so reliant upon one player. Unfortunately he's a pretty unique type of player. What we need is a solid plan B when he's not available.

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lukespurs7 said:

I really disagree mate sorry.

The only players from that list id take to swap in would be: Hazard, Coutiniho, Mane(you missed him out),possibly Sanchez and KDB and also Mikataryen(You also missed him out). That having said last year Eriksen and Alli scored and assisted in the top 5 midfielders in fact I think only Marhez and Ozil were better. It's also about find the right player, I don't think many of the above you've mentioned would actually be that good a fit for our system however the ones I've listed probably would.

You could also easily flip this around and say that how many of the top teams would take most of our back 4, dembele and Kane.

So it's apples and oranges mate, yes some of the top teams have some outstanding individual players but we have a very effective TEAM which Leicester proved is what wins things.

The issue is twofold, 1 we've not clicked into gear yet and a lot of our players who were excellent last year are under par so far, especially the attacking ones and n.o 2 we still lack a little bit of pace in our front 3 which makes transitioning difficult.

Also we have played Everton, Liverpool(who battered Arsenal away!) and c.palace, not exactly the easiest start compared to the current top3.
Let's just wait and see as the season progresses shall we. I do worry about our slightly lack of goal scoringthreat at the moment though.

The only players we could really get to improve us would cost £50mil + and be on mega wages which given were funding a spanking new stadium we cannot commit to those signings now.

So be patient with the team we have.

One other thing is I actually think Potch needs to have a little look at his tactics as against Liverpool this year and Dortmund last year I think we were actually outplayed but also tactically got it slightly wrong.

The team and manager are still learning. We won't win the league this year I just hope we can scrape top 4 and build from there + Mabye have a good CL run and win a cup.

COYS.

Perspective please people!!

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lukespurs7 said:

I really disagree mate sorry.

The only players from that list id take to swap in would be: Hazard, Coutiniho, Mane(you missed him out),possibly Sanchez and KDB and also Mikataryen(You also missed him out). That having said last year Eriksen and Alli scored and assisted in the top 5 midfielders in fact I think only Marhez and Ozil were better. It's also about find the right player, I don't think many of the above you've mentioned would actually be that good a fit for our system however the ones I've listed probably would.

You could also easily flip this around and say that how many of the top teams would take most of our back 4, dembele and Kane.

So it's apples and oranges mate, yes some of the top teams have some outstanding individual players but we have a very effective TEAM which Leicester proved is what wins things.

The issue is twofold, 1 we've not clicked into gear yet and a lot of our players who were excellent last year are under par so far, especially the attacking ones and n.o 2 we still lack a little bit of pace in our front 3 which makes transitioning difficult.

Also we have played Everton, Liverpool(who battered Arsenal away!) and c.palace, not exactly the easiest start compared to the current top3.
Let's just wait and see as the season progresses shall we. I do worry about our slightly lack of goal scoringthreat at the moment though.

The only players we could really get to improve us would cost £50mil + and be on mega wages which given were funding a spanking new stadium we cannot commit to those signings now.

So be patient with the team we have.

One other thing is I actually think Potch needs to have a little look at his tactics as against Liverpool this year and Dortmund last year I think we were actually outplayed but also tactically got it slightly wrong.

The team and manager are still learning. We won't win the league this year I just hope we can scrape top 4 and build from there + Mabye have a good CL run and win a cup.

COYS.

Perspective please people!!

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RichieS said:

True, but we were close to signing all of those Chelsea ones before they played their favourite game of gazumping us. We also had a deal in place for Martial before United said they'd pay nearly 3 times as much as we'd agreed. We are at a level where in order to improve our first team they are the players we need to be targeting (and we do) but they also happen to be the same players that the clubs that pay 2-3 times as much in wages as we can afford have on their shopping lists.

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Flashspur said:

Missing the point completely. I am not arguing that he does not change things. The point is that we are totally reliant on one player to change our game around. That is bloody foolhardy if not risky considering we have CL on top of the PL and are competing in both to win.

And don't be condescending dude. I've been watching football at WHL and other places since 1960 and seen a lot more football than you I wager. I think I understand the game pretty fricken' well.

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am_yisrael_chai said:

That's fine but it can't mean we buy nobody we should be competing with the next tier of clubs in Dortmund and Athletico. Just look at the young talent Dortmund purchased this summer.

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Xeeleeyid said:

I haven't read through all the posts in this thread, but these kind of sentiments do my nut in. We've always been relatively tight in recent years, we've always looked for a bargain under Levy. We've rarely signed players for the sake of signing players.

Yet are we standing still while rivals improve? We've finished pretty much consistently top 5 bar one or two seasons and last season we finished 3rd, our highest ever PL finish. So surely we are the ones improving while others are standing still?

Even in the transfer market, our first XI was very hard to improve on. To improve on any position in the XI from last year would require a monster-level player, like a Pogba. What was obviously lacking was DM cover for Dier and CF cover for Kane. Both were secured with good signings early on.

The rest of this window therefore has been an exercise in only needing to buy if the right player is available at the right price. There is no need IMO for any further signings, particularly due to the quality coming through the youth academy.

Which brings me onto the 3rd point about why we're improving while rivals are standing still. We have the best youth academy and training facilities, possibly in world football. Or it's got to be up there at least in terms of facilities. We are also building a brand new world-class FOOTBALL stadium. These infrastructure improvements are developing the club hugely off the pitch, but people like to forget about this.

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Xeeleeyid said:

We're not "totally" reliant on one player. We have got acceptable results in our first 3 games without him. Draw away at Goodison will not be sniffed at this season, neither will a point against Liverpool. We beat Palace, should have beaten them by more.

BUT, he does make a big difference. It's not foolhardy to only have one Dembele type player because how many of them are there out there? Just as Man U's midfield starts to look pretty mundane and one-dimensional if you took Pogba out of it, Man City used to struggle and have struggled badly to replace Yaya Toure.

Being without your top players affects any club, not just us. If you're as good as Dembele you're not going to come to Spurs to sit on the bench. Hence why you can't generally have back-ups that are as good as your first XI.

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slartibartfast said:

Well aint you just a ray of sunshine lol.
We're not Man U, Citae or Chelski and never have been.
We CANNOT compete with their finances so why get upset when we don't?

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