- Jul 4, 2020
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I really wish we could quote individual parts as its hard to have a conversation this way.I understand your frustrations mate, but to me, your anti-enic sentiment is lost on me when you just so blatantly ignore any positive from the last 20 years. Be pissed off with them for now, or for the things they have done that wind you up, but all hyperbolising does is make your points seem a bit petty.
As a fan, the last 20 years have been much, much more enjoyable than the previous. We have seen some incredible players brought in, incredible teams, been entertained throughout the Jol, Redknapp and Poch era's, brought consistent European football without completely breaking the bank, something many others trying to compete with the financially elite teams have tried and failed at doing.
That doesn't excuse them from their shortcomings but I feel any assessment of them requires balance and honesty. I don't subscribe to any good thing that happens to spurs is in spite of them. Credit where credit is due and all that.
We have not just had 'countless humiliations on the pitch' - we have had some more the most memorable moments on the pitch in my lifetime - Taking the sword to Real Madrid, beating other teams in the top 5/6 regularly - smashing teams by 4/5 goals constantly. Have you grown that used to doing that those moments don't count anymore? Your line about the football might ring true the last couple of seasons and during the AVB times but really, the football under ENIC has been consistently much better than anything I can remember.
Since they took over we have been in many semi-finals and quite a few finals too. We even has a couple of seasons where we made a pretty fucking good go of challenging for the league title. There have been more than a few occasions where we have been let down on the pitch in situations that had very little to do with ENIC and maybe those 2/3/4 extra trophies would have changed things in a lot of peoples minds.
Before we hired a 'Mid-table' manager we hired, incorrectly, one of the single most decorated managers in the game which may have been a poor decision but it certainly wasn't cheap or scraping the barrel was it when you consider how else was available at the time. Most peoples favourite manager from the last 20 years was hired as just a mid-table manager too so if you think we have outgrown hiring someone that isn't considered an elite manager then fair enough - I'm personally not too bothered about what manager x or y has done before - it matters what they when they are here.
I'm also not sure who has stripped the wage bill? We let go of Bale this summer, the only significant reduction I believe? We have players on our books making £200,000's a week. In fact, a few seasons ago where people were lamenting that we don't pay our players enough and we will surely lose them all, we stepped up and increased our wage bill quite dramatically to keep 90% of our prime players at the club, to our detriment and now people just complain players are on too much and it's impossible to shift the deadwood. We have the 6th highest wage bill I'm pretty sure is on par with us having the 5th highest revenue - the discrepancy being that Arsenal have less revenue but spend like idiots on wages....
We are in a state of flux right now, trying to find our feet like most teams go through when they have a couple of rocky seasons trying to rebuild. Man U had to go through it, Chelsea, Arsenal has struggled, even Liverpool struggled for a bit during the rogers and the first season of Klopp when we consistently were finishing above them. We have purchased smartly this summer bar a couple of necessary additions which I believe we will continue to make over the next couple of seasons.
So I guess it just brings me back to the actual question of the thread - Have you ever felt more disconnected from the club? It seems as if the last period of ENIC has pushed you to the brink.
Your last paragraph is telling. I've long thought that enic don't care about the football. But it can ( and this is my balance here) be a marriage of compromise. They want to bulk up the investment to sell, we want a successful football team and these two things can go hand in hand. They're clever people who act far more thoughtfully than the arsenal and West ham owners. And you said this latest situation has taken me to the brink. Well yes and no.
I think Lewis and Levy are are purely for the money. I dont like them, dont want them and think levy as a FOOTBALL chairman is an idiot by and large but when it works there isn't much I can say it there? Under poch we were great for most of it. You could argue it was despite of Levy but we were so what's the point in moaning? I enjoyed having poch here and a great team. Since then though from not backing poch, to appointing the poison that was mourinho and then not backing him to the degree he wanted which of course just caused more issues and then the summer was genuinely indefensible. From the bullshit speech to the chase it was awful and now we have nuno. Someone nobody wanted, including the club and yes a mid table manager.
One that by the way I'm pretty supportive of, he is clearly a good coach but levys actions from the speech to the chase to leaving him really short squad wise has given the poor guy such an uphill task as we have a fanbase ready to explode .
After a few years in the champions league, a final , competing for titles and now that the stadium is done you would think we would have moved on but the club haven't have they.
We don't compete for the best players, for some reason don't think we need more than one striker, have the lowest wage to turnover in the league and look a million miles off competing. That's not good enough is it?
20 years , always an excuse, never a trophy. People on twitter are arguing about the fight tomorrow but I see why folks are negative about it. They can boast about the events all they want, I've given up believing they will ever seriously invest in the reason that they should be here for - the team.
I enjoy the debate and I enjoy watching the team but I care less and less about it every year. Football should be about your tribe, your community if you will not defending greedy billionaire's using us to build entertainment complexes