Ricardo Rodriguez

[Barry Mead]

I think Levy will try to free up some cash, but 30/35 mil for Dembele and Paulinho is pushing it a bit to be honest. Not even Levy is going to squeeze that amount of money out anyone for those two.

Combined sales, I'd be surprised we'd get more than 50 mil for all those players you listed.

Paulinho - £15m
Dembele - £10m
Sigs £7m
Benny £2m
Kaboul £4m (crocked)
Naughton £2m
Rose £4m

Nah there's already talk of Juve prepared to spend £20 mill on Paulinho. We just got £8 mill for Livermore and managed £6 mill going up to £7 mill for JD at 31
At the end of the day whilst the likes of Naughton and Rose are poor they are still comparatively young with PL experience, Siggy is still rated by other clubs and Eunice seems to be in demand in the slower Serie, so I think you are underestimating Levy with those figures but even with those extremely conservative figures when you add the Livermore/JD money and don't include one of Andros or Chadli it's still £59 mill

 

[Good Doctor M]

Nah there's already talk of Juve prepared to spend £20 mill on Paulinho. We just got £8 mill for Livermore and managed £6 mill going up to £7 mill for JD at 31
At the end of the day whilst the likes of Naughton and Rose are poor they are still comparatively young with PL experience, Siggy is still rated by other clubs and Eunice seems to be in demand in the slower Serie, so I think you are underestimating Levy with those figures but even with those extremely conservative figures when you add the Livermore/JD money and don't include one of Andros or Chadli it's still £59 mill

Fair enough, but even still, things are rarely that simple.

You can't work out how much money we have/are going to spend with a formula as simple as Defoe+Livermore+Dembele = NEW STRIKER.

As pointed out, we've have to find clubs willing to buy and then clubs that could afford what we want. I simply cannot believe Juve would come at us with a £20 mil offer off the bat. That would be the worst opening hand to a transfer negotiation in football history considering we paid £3 mil less than that and the player by all accounts has been a disappointment.

 

[bigfrooj]

We could have saved a lot of money on new managers if that was our aim, Levy wants CL because he knows that he will find it easier to sell naming rights, gain sponsorship and sell lucrative boxes
If Levy was not inclined to try for CL he wouldn't have spent so much last summer and instead put it towards stadium costs

We all want CL football and it has to be our aim, but it will be against the odds I fear. I really hope we do get it as it was the most enjoyable year for a long time when we did have it, let alone the financial benefit to the club.

 

[Barry Mead]

Fair enough, but even still, things are rarely that simple.

You can't work out how much money we have/are going to spend with a formula as simple as Defoe+Livermore+Dembele = NEW STRIKER.

As pointed out, we've have to find clubs willing to buy and then clubs that could afford what we want. I simply cannot believe Juve would come at us with a £20 mil offer off the bat. That would be the worst opening hand to a transfer negotiation in football history considering we paid £3 mil less than that and the player by all accounts has been a disappointment.

Well of course we can't believe every price or transfer possibility we read but there does seem to be some interest in some of the more expensive players like Paulinho, Dembele, Sandro and Siggy as well as the lower end. The only player that seemingly might be a struggle to sell is Eunice if he can't pass a medical but if he can then he will have a reasonable value

But then when assuming quoted prices for our players might be on the high side that can work the same for our targets, invariably agents and the press prefer to overstate as it makes more interest, so values are a two way thing

All I have touched on has been players in areas we have excess, or where we seemingly want to upgrade and offload current players

I've not even considered that a Hugo, Verts, Eriksen or Lamela might want to move in which case even though we might not want to sell, then like Bale, we may have to accept a big offer and have an even bigger kitty. Obviously if one or two were to leave we would have to replace but again with Levy I can't see him selling without a big premium that will cover any replacements and leave excess in the pot

 

[Barry Mead]

We all want CL football and it has to be our aim, but it will be against the odds I fear. I really hope we do get it as it was the most enjoyable year for a long time when we did have it, let alone the financial benefit to the club.

Of course we all want it, but I think Levy is less thinking about it from the ion the pitch side and more from the angle what is better for us to generate income, gain sponsorship, gain competition revenue etc.,
That's why I think he wants CL and why he will speculate a bit on transfers if needed to get it.

 

[Japhet]

Well of course we can't believe every price or transfer possibility we read but there does seem to be some interest in some of the more expensive players like Paulinho, Dembele, Sandro and Siggy as well as the lower end. The only player that seemingly might be a struggle to sell is Eunice if he can't pass a medical but if he can then he will have a reasonable value

But then when assuming quoted prices for our players might be on the high side that can work the same for our targets, invariably agents and the press prefer to overstate as it makes more interest, so values are a two way thing

All I have touched on has been players in areas we have excess, or where we seemingly want to upgrade and offload current players

I've not even considered that a Hugo, Verts, Eriksen or Lamela might want to move in which case even though we might not want to sell, then like Bale, we may have to accept a big offer and have an even bigger kitty. Obviously if one or two were to leave we would have to replace but again with Levy I can't see him selling without a big premium that will cover any replacements and leave excess in the pot

That's how we got stuck with David Bentley. I'm sure that at some point we could have got something back but Levy can be such a stubborn B at times.

 

[Barry Mead]

That's how we got stuck with David Bentley. I'm sure that at some point we could have got something back but Levy can be such a stubborn B at times.

Yep always likely to be one or two players that you get stuck with if you hold out on price, but I'm always amazed at the prices Levy gets on some of the players he sells, again swings and roundabouts, how he ever got the fee he did for Caulker last year is beyond me

 

[TheUltimateHotspur]

I disagree, first and foremost Poch has been brought in to get CL football on a regular basis.
He knows that's his bottom line, Levy knows that if he wants to fill a big new stadium he is going to need an attractive team playing at the top level and also he knows that a team playing CL is far more alluring when trying to sell naming rights and other sponsorship and funding
He might get away with not making CL next season but if he doesn't deliver it by the next he'll be going the same way as AVB, Sherwood, Harry, Ramos and Jol, never mind bringing through youngsters and all that other stuff. That was one od the much lauded reasons for AVB coming in too. Lets be quite clear Poch's remit is not to have a good season with a lesser PL club but to push us into regular CL qualification.
If that takes the addition of one or two marquee signings to achieve then that's what he has to demand and Levy has to provide

Our chances of getting CL next season are extremely thin. Our wage structure isn't good enough to compete for CL on a regular basis. Neither is our transfer net spend. Sure way may fluke it every now and then when certain scenarios go in our favour but it won't be a regular thing until Levy spends the money on a regular basis. He doesn't do this. He spends what he makes.

As for Pocho knows it's the bottom line well none of us know this yet we are just presuming that this is the case as our previous managers/head coaches have been given the objective of 4th or else.

Maybe Levy has changed his way of thinking? Not often he gives five year deals to head coaches.... I sure hope they have because we will be visiting ground hog day once again and achieving nothing.

Time for a change. Back the manager let him build his team. We should be focusing on winning trophies for the next 4-5 years until the stadium is built. Aim for 4th or higher but don't sack the head coach just because it doesn't happen.

 

[TheUltimateHotspur]

We could have saved a lot of money on new managers if that was our aim, Levy wants CL because he knows that he will find it easier to sell naming rights, gain sponsorship and sell lucrative boxes
If Levy was not inclined to try for CL he wouldn't have spent so much last summer and instead put it towards stadium costs

You can't expect to get CL on a regular basis with the 6th highest wage structure in the league. It's just not going to happen.

As for the money he spent, look at the money he made, pretty much broke even last summer.

 

[dondo]

Has there been any ITK or any credible link to this guy or is it just wishful thinking?

 

[Barry Mead]

You can't expect to get CL on a regular basis with the 6th highest wage structure in the league. It's just not going to happen.

As for the money he spent, look at the money he made, pretty much broke even last summer.

Well you can if you pay CL bonuses which tend to boost the salaries of the players at clubs that make the CL and were demonstrated by us the year we made it when the financials were produced, besides if top wages were the only criteria for success and it automatically made a player better than lesser paid ones we might as well give up. There is no exact correlation between wages and quality that a higher wage might give

As for the money spent he could have taken a large part of the 100 mill we earned from sales and ploughed it into the ground development costs rather than spend it if he was that keen on saving money

 

[Hoddle&Waddle]

Well you can if you pay CL bonuses which tend to boost the salaries of the players at clubs that make the CL and were demonstrated by us the year we made it when the financials were produced, besides if top wages were the only criteria for success and it automatically made a player better than lesser paid ones we might as well give up. There is no exact correlation between wages and quality that a higher wage might give

As for the money spent he could have taken a large part of the 100 mill we earned from sales and ploughed it into the ground development costs rather than spend it if he was that keen on saving money

No he couldnt, theres no way the fans would have accepted that for starters. Once Bale was sold Levy had no other option than to put it back into the team.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

No he couldnt, theres no way the fans would have accepted that for starters. Once Bale was sold Levy had no other option than to put it back into the team.

Obviously true about fans, but also from a different perspective; HOW exactly would one go about that, spending the money on stadium costs? There was no stadium to start on last summer, so what would you have them to? Load up on bricks and cement for 100M or pre-pay hours of workes, and hope it would become useful? No, you simply have to spend the money on assets, to avoid profit tax. The only assets one could get last summer were, well, players. In fact, had they not bought players, and gotten a huge tax bill, that's when the money would have left the club. As it is, we still have the capital, only in other forms than cash.

 

[TheUltimateHotspur]

Well you can if you pay CL bonuses which tend to boost the salaries of the players at clubs that make the CL and were demonstrated by us the year we made it when the financials were produced, besides if top wages were the only criteria for success and it automatically made a player better than lesser paid ones we might as well give up. There is no exact correlation between wages and quality that a higher wage might give

As for the money spent he could have taken a large part of the 100 mill we earned from sales and ploughed it into the ground development costs rather than spend it if he was that keen on saving money

We sold all our best players that were in the CL. So a bit pointless giving them bonuses based on CL and hoping for the best. That is a quick fix alternative and won't be enough long term.

Not about giving up, it's about being realistic. We won't get CL on a regular basis with our current structure. Hence why we have played in the competition once.

We make a lot of money these days, especially through TV deals. I'm sure he will produce a few more rabbits from the hat on making more money. Naming rights that sort of thing.

 

[Barry Mead]

No he couldnt, theres no way the fans would have accepted that for starters. Once Bale was sold Levy had no other option than to put it back into the team.

He could have done what he wanted, what exactly would the fans have done? Some might have cancelled their season tickets but by then they had already paid and the waiting list would have soaked up any dissenters that might have tried to demand their money back

I tend to think Levy is happy enough ploughing back the funds brought in from transfers anyway which is why I think he'll be happy enough ploughing back the maybe £60/70 mill we get in this summer, I only think he starts really sweating when deals are not self funding

 

[topper]

Wi

Has there been any ITK or any credible link to this guy or is it just wishful thinking?

Wishful thinking I'm afraid!

 

[Barry Mead]

We sold all our best players that were in the CL. So a bit pointless giving them bonuses based on CL and hoping for the best. That is a quick fix alternative and won't be enough long term.

Not about giving up, it's about being realistic. We won't get CL on a regular basis with our current structure. Hence why we have played in the competition once.

We make a lot of money these days, especially through TV deals. I'm sure he will produce a few more rabbits from the hat on making more money. Naming rights that sort of thing.

No you tend to sell your best players because bigger clubs want them and they can offer them CL and higher earnings. Are Bale and Modric that much better players now than when they played for us probably earning half? They haven't automatically gotten twice or maybe three times as good because they are paid two or three times more. The idea is to find a few more Bale's and Modrics and make the CL and continue to strengthen, unlike the time we did make CL and didn't strengthen. If you want to compete on four fronts, particularly when one is the worlds biggest club competition and another is one of the toughest league competitions you need decent depth of quality. I think Levy has learned his lesson on that score and I think the stadium is focusing his mind on the need to bring some measure of success to raise our profile

 

[Hoddle&Waddle]

He could have done what he wanted, what exactly would the fans have done? Some might have cancelled their season tickets but by then they had already paid and the waiting list would have soaked up any dissenters that might have tried to demand their money back

I tend to think Levy is happy enough ploughing back the funds brought in from transfers anyway which is why I think he'll be happy enough ploughing back the maybe £60/70 mill we get in this summer, I only think he starts really sweating when deals are not self funding

It's about the Club painting the illusion that it is actually a Club with SOME ambition. If Levy had of just taken the Bale cash, it would have had a huge knock on affect, not just with the fans, but with the playing staff too. It really wasnt an option.

 

[TheUltimateHotspur]

No you tend to sell your best players because bigger clubs want them and they can offer them CL and higher earnings. Are Bale and Modric that much better players now than when they played for us probably earning half? They haven't automatically gotten twice or maybe three times as good because they are paid two or three times more. The idea is to find a few more Bale's and Modrics and make the CL and continue to strengthen, unlike the time we did make CL and didn't strengthen. If you want to compete on four fronts, particularly when one is the worlds biggest club competition and another is one of the toughest league competitions you need decent depth of quality. I think Levy has learned his lesson on that score and I think the stadium is focusing his mind on the need to bring some measure of success to raise our profile

My point was if you don't pay your best players the going rate there is more chance of them wanting out. Of course if big teams like Madrid come calling it won't make a bit of difference. They are top dog, we are not.

The year we got CL was the year Levy had to spend big and he didn't, he bottled it. We have paid the price ever since.

That summer sums Levy up for me. If we ever got the opportunity again my money would be on him doing exactly the same.

Your right about squad depth, we need a strong 25 man squad to compete in all competitions.

 

[Barry Mead]

My point was if you don't pay your best players the going rate there is more chance of them wanting out. Of course if big teams like Madrid come calling it won't make a bit of difference. They are top dog, we are not.

The year we got CL was the year Levy had to spend big and he didn't, he bottled it. We have paid the price ever since.

That summer sums Levy up for me. If we ever got the opportunity again my money would be on him doing exactly the same.

Your right about squad depth, we need a strong 25 man squad to compete in all competitions.

No doubt whatsoever Levy screwed up badly then, my hope is that he's learned his lesson and further that maybe he feels he needs to try and support the attempts to get CL because of the stadium. Time will tell I guess