Jol/Comolli - Like we didn't know already...

[Bus-Conductor]

SS

Exception that proves the rule - bollocks. That is one of lifes stupider sayings as well you know. Chimbonda is an exception that proves levy will make an exception (or will make the type of purchase that Joey suggests he won't). And if you think there is a rule (that Chimbonda proves the exception to) maybe you can answer joeys question above because I think I have explained all I need to explain to qualify the points that I was making (that basically Joey is taliking articulate bollocks)

Joey
You are the one who tried to suggest that Levy with his degree in economics would not examine a profit loss sheet before assessing future budgetary considerations and development investment. I merely pointed out that I think this is incorrect. And that your figures didn't add up (you were only 20 mil out) and that your hypothetical player purchase outcome had several other hypothetical outcomes which had downsides.

Now unless you can prove to m that levy doesn't read a profit and loss sheet or that you can gaurantee me that lucas neil would have got us into the CL and won us a trophy then there's realy fuck else you can say that will make a difference to this argument is there ?

 

[joey55]

I really can't be bothered to keep arguing with you. You simply haven't got a clue what you are talking about. I don't want to be unnecesrty rude but you are just arguing for arguments sake.

Yes, obviously what i should have said was "yes Joey you are right posting 10 times our previous 3 year average profit will have no bearing on our near future purchases and keeping Carrick and buying Petrov and Lucas neil would have guaranteed us CL football and the UEFA cup" of course stupid of me. Far be it from anyone to challenge your "FACTS".

I made an edit to my post before as the terminology I used is slighlty confusing. I think we also made a profit from player trading, but excluded that by saying "after purchases", which could be confused with meaning that was profit including what we made or lost from player trading. I doesn't appear that this has confused your argument at all, but i thought I should point that out.

I think you've missunderstood something I've said. When I say subtracting the cost of the player we replace them with, it means, for example, those profits will include the salary of say Malbranque. But why would we buy Malbranque and pay him wages if we've bought Petrov?

I didn't misunderstand this. You did not state that we buy anyone instead of someone else. For example None of the players you suggest play in malbranques (proper) position so why woul I assume otherwise ?

As for what i said being rubbish? Do you understand what profit is? In simple terms it's just revenue - costs. If we can spend what we have been in the transfer market and still show both a player trading and operating profit, how exaclty is £30 million going to significantly change our transfer policy? Surely our budgets are a % of turnover. Levy himself spoke of how a further investment into the club of £30 or £50 million would make little difference and this is exaclty why. You are talking as is a business our size wont spend accordingly with turnover/revenue projections. You are arguing as if this is a game of monopoly, when you earn a profit and buy a new hotel.

Do you understand the concept of profit & loss Joey. Why would you assume the budget would be assessed solely on turnover. Why limit yourself in such a volatile industry to letting one financial factor influence your budgetary considerations. Newcastle United have a greater turnover than us but did they spend as much as us last transfer window ? Joey do you really think any corporate board worth a wank would not look at a profit/loss sheet as well as the balance sheet ?
When any business increases his profit or for that matter his losses ten fold it is bound to effect decisions made regarding future investment and development and in a football business a huge part of that is player trading. FFS to suggest otherwise is just daft or arguing for the sake of it.


And yes I know that 30 mil over one year is worse than over three, as I already said. But 10mil loss per year is still significant to a company that even with the latest profits is still averaging less that that per year over the last 5 years.

As usual you’ve resorted to distorting what I’ve said and tried to move the debate away from what it really is about. I never said the players I suggested would guarantee us CL football, that wasn’t the point of any post I made. I specifically asked you not to dwell on the names. I suggested the £30 million in profits won’t have a significant impact on our transfer policy and it won’t. It’s like you think this £30 million just fell out of the sky and the board weren’t expecting it. And this is why it won’t affect transfer policy. It is in affect simply a accumulation of money we could have already spent. Hence the whole point of this debate, which is, we can comfortably afford to make purchases of the players like Petrov (the only name I’m prepared to mention). However, instead we purchase players we can transfer across as balance sheet assets. And this is where one has to ask the question, do ENICs and our (the fans) interests still go hand in hand. The profitability of the club is essentially being used to increase it’s value and arguably at the cost of success on the pitch. We can already afford the kind of players we can attract to the club and this is exactly why Daniel Levy himself stated that £30 million of investment wouldn’t really make any difference. As I said before you have to be realistic about what we can or will plausibly spend in the transfer market. £30 million of profit isn’t going to mean we can suddenly sign players we couldn’t previously and we aren’t going to suddenly not miss out on players because of it. If anything the £30 million in profit is a reason we miss out on players. It seems that you think we’ve made £30 million and therefore we have £30 million more to spend and our transfer activity will be significantly impacted by that. But in reality that just isn’t going to be the case.

Your last two paragraphs just don’t make any sense.

 

[joey55]

SS

Exception that proves the rule - bollocks. That is one of lifes stupider sayings as well you know. Chimbonda is an exception that proves levy will make an exception (or will make the type of purchase that Joey suggests he won't). And if you think there is a rule (that Chimbonda proves the exception to) maybe you can answer joeys question above because I think I have explained all I need to explain to qualify the points that I was making (that basically Joey is taliking articulate bollocks)

Joey
You are the one who tried to suggest that Levy with his degree in economics would not examine a profit loss sheet before assessing future budgetary considerations and development investment. I merely pointed out that I think this is incorrect. And that your figures didn't add up (you were only 20 mil out) and that your hypothetical player purchase outcome had several other hypothetical outcomes which had downsides.

Now unless you can prove to m that levy doesn't read a profit and loss sheet or that you can gaurantee me that lucas neil would have got us into the CL and won us a trophy then there's realy fuck else you can say that will make a difference to this argument is there ?

When have I tried to suggest Levy doesn't look at the profit and loss account. What figures don't add up? £20 million out? What are you talking about? What relevance does the hypothetcial downsides have to the argument?

Why do you do this every time. You just have no shame. Why can't you just acknowledge that we can afford to make the kind of player purchases that have been suggested. Instead you try and wriggle your way out of a simple acknowledgment by changing the argument to something that has no real relevance.

Btw here is the exact quote from Levy himself:

"The reality is if someone gave us another £20-£30 million it's not going to make any difference to Tottenham,"

It's simply about reality. We can already afford what we can currently attract in the transfer market. And our recent profits show, that we can certainly also afford the kind of purchases which have been suggested. How do you think we remained competitive in the transfer market when we weren't making profits? In business profits don't always mean increased spending, in fact usually it's more often the other way round and that increased spending lowers profit.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

As usual you’ve resorted to distorting what I’ve said and tried to move the debate away from what it really is about. I never said the players I suggested would guarantee us CL football, that wasn’t the point of any post I made. I specifically asked you not to dwell on the names. I suggested the £30 million in profits won’t have a significant impact on our transfer policy and it won’t. It’s like you think this £30 million just fell out of the sky and the board weren’t expecting it. And this is why it won’t affect transfer policy. It is in affect simply a accumulation of money we could have already spent. Hence the whole point of this debate, which is, we can comfortably afford to make purchases of the players like Petrov (the only name I’m prepared to mention). However, instead we purchase players we can transfer across as balance sheet assets. And this is where one has to ask the question, do ENICs and our (the fans) interests still go hand in hand. The profitability of the club is essentially being used to increase it’s value and arguably at the cost of success on the pitch. We can already afford the kind of players we can attract to the club and this is exactly why Daniel Levy himself stated that £30 million of investment wouldn’t really make any difference. As I said before you have to be realistic about what we can or will plausibly spend in the transfer market. £30 million of profit isn’t going to mean we can suddenly sign players we couldn’t previously and we aren’t going to suddenly not miss out on players because of it. If anything the £30 million in profit is a reason we miss out on players. It seems that you think we’ve made £30 million and therefore we have £30 million more to spend and our transfer activity will be significantly impacted by that. But in reality that just isn’t going to be the case.

Your last two paragraphs just don’t make any sense.

Asking me not to dwell on the names is like saying "here's my hypothetical scenario don't question it". I didn't dwell on the names and even edited my original post reply to the effect that if those names were different you would get very little argument from me in terms of the club stepping outside given parameters (whatever they are) didn't I ? So why keep harping on about this particular point ?

And you didn't suggest that £30m profit would have little impact you suggested it wouldn't make any difference at all and also then tried to give suggest that I was daft for suggesting that our spending/investment budget would be influenced by profit/loss. You also suggested that 30m spend over three years also wouldn't effect future budgets, again all I did was point out that this was wrong as it inevitably could especially in tandem with your hypothetical team outcomes didn't go as planned.

I too would imagine that the board were well aware of projected profits of such magnitude and that may have influenced the massive investment this summer, don't you ? which supports my argument doesn't it.

I didn't argue about the type of purchase made this summer, and i don't disagree with what you said about the type of purchase made this summer and posted a thread months ago (and in various other threads since) that I too was disapointed that we didn't buy what was needed to immediately improve our "team".

But I don't necessarily think it was the finacial aspect with Petrov, I think it was his recent major injury - the board have seen the Redknap's etc that once have cruciate problems the tend to be a real career fucker (especially for a winger) and wanted contract caviats (there was definate mention of City waving this). I could be wrong, but I used Chimbonda as an example of a purchase that wasn't balance sheet biased as an example that the board would be willing to make. I have always maintained I too was immensley disapointed we didn't sign Petrov.

And it is you who is now distorting what I said. I have never said that we have made 30m profit so we can go and buy a player for 28m and spend 2m improving the fucking pies in the park lane upper did I ? All I said was it would almost certainly have had or will have an impact on budgetary considerations.

As far as ENIC's overall strategy it's a tough one to call 100%. If you are saying that evrything they have done has been geared to an ultimate exit strategy I would say maybe, maybe not. They are an investment vehicle OK, but there are different strategies to yield from investments, long, short,medium etc. and with football being the unique model that it is, the lines between commercial and footballing gain(shall we call it) blur into one for the most part. Even if ENIC are gearing up to sell soon, so what ? making THFC the most attractive propasition is still the name of the game and that shouldn't necessarily be a hindrance to on pitch success in fact it should be very much key to the deal. A good example thatwould cast doubt on the theory that ENIC have only made decisions for financial gain is the boards massive push for new training facilities. This is, as far as I can tell, a pure balance sheet negative venture. The only upside that I can see is an improvement in working conditions for the employees.(the land itself would never get housing development permission as far as I can tell so the potential there is would be minimal and very very long term)

And as far as every single purchase being this summer being a balance sheet asset that makes us a more attractive (or valuable). Potential buyers aren't stupid enough to think that 16m on Darren Bent isa guaranteed appreciating asset, or 8mil on Kaboul. These were not minor investments with guaranteed yield. They are are just - rightly - biased in that direction. Sure they will be more likely to appreciate than a Chimbonda or a Petrov but it is still miles from risk free. In theory you could also sell petrov 1 year into a three year contract and that would have value especially if he'd had a great year (re Chelsea Chimbonda ?). Where footballers are concerned the term balance sheet asset is very very flexible and far from as simple as your comments suggest (the marketing benefits of Petrov or even Lee - mercandise media rights bulgaria, korea market etc - outstrip that of Kaboul) And before you try to give me one of your "you don't understand" speeches. It is clear that I do. I understand everything you have suggested and the way you have suggested it. I don't disagree with all of what you say just don't see it as black and white.