Sold on AVB but not Levy yet.

[vegassd]

I guess what worries me is, whether it's AVB, Redknapp or whoever in charge of the team, Levy has a huge amount of control over transfers when, frankly, is it his real area of expertise, other than deal negotiation??

The flip side to that argument is do you want a football manager to be responsible for the financial management of the club?

If manager A is given a window to buy whoever he wants you could be looking at spending 100m or so. When manager B comes along and doesn't like the existing players he will want to sell them as soon as possible and spend 100m of his own. Then manager C and D do the same thing and suddenly the club has spent far more money than it can afford.

That's a fairly simplistic example, but considering that managers change far more often than chairmen I do think that it makes sense to give the chairman the final call over where our money gets spent.

I think it's the big argument for having a DOF... somebody with one eye on the short-term football and one on the long-term side of things. It seems like we shed that role for Redknapp and are now considering it again.

The real key is to have some patience with Levy because his record speaks for itself. We all get frustrated when we don't sign superstar players, but there is always a reason for it, and it's not because Levy is some power-crazed, money-grabbing bastard.

And let's be honest - had we signed Moutinho I reckon the vast majority of Levy bashers would be in hibernation. It baffles me how missing out on one transfer (which was hardly our fault) can be such a camel-breaking straw to attack our very successful chairman with.

 

[HotspurFC1950]

Wow all these words.

Simple. Levy rocks.

AVB rocks.

 

[14/04/91]

To summarise SP, I've never said there hasn't been improvement around the club however, unlike some on here, I'm just not sold on the future. Yet.
Hopefully Levy has got everything spot on and we see continued improvement over the next few years.

 

[StartingPrice]

To summarise SP, I've never said there hasn't been improvement around the club however, unlike some on here, I'm just not sold on the future. Yet.
Hopefully Levy has got everything spot on and we see continued improvement over the next few years.

To summarize (my fans will be disappointed ), I don't think anyone is saying anything is guaranteed, or that there won't be mistakes and mishaps on the way - just that when we (mere mortals) analyse his record so far, along with all the variables such as emphasis on youth product, training facilities, etc., then the more logical conclusion is that the future, as a whole, is something to feel excited about rather than morosally depressed about (although the congenitally miserable would not agree with me ).

 

[Harry_Snatch]

To summarize (my fans will be disappointed ), I don't think anyone is saying anything is guaranteed, or that there won't be mistakes and mishaps on the way - just that when we (mere mortals) analyse his record so far, along with all the variables such as emphasis on youth product, training facilities, etc., then the more logical conclusion is that the future, as a whole, is something to feel excited about rather than morosally depressed about (although the congenitally miserable would not agree with me ).

In response to your other message. You win mate. I really CBA to write an essay in response and you could, so it's yours. You missed loads of points that I was making and the typo's and grammar would have seen your essay fail but for the effort you are prepared to put in, I concede.

The proof will be in the pudding. We haven't qualified for the Champions League in the last 2 seasons since we did and as good as I believe AVB is without the players that he really wanted; Willian and Moutinho, it will be a massive achievement to get there this season. I understand the long view of the training facility and youth development but if we haven't taken advantage of the Goons period of frugality whilst they wait for their new stadium to pay off and Chelsea's transition period from Jose's ageing squad, then getting back into the top 4 is only going to get harder, no matter how great our facility's and stadium are.

 

[StartingPrice]

In response to your other message. You win mate. I really CBA to write an essay in response and you could, so it's yours. You missed loads of points that I was making and the typo's and grammar would have seen your essay fail but for the effort you are prepared to put in, I concede.

The proof will be in the pudding. We haven't qualified for the Champions League in the last 2 seasons since we did and as good as I believe AVB is without the players that he really wanted; Willian and Moutinho, it will be a massive achievement to get there this season. I understand the long view of the training facility and youth development but if we haven't taken advantage of the Goons period of frugality whilst they wait for their new stadium to pay off and Chelsea's transition period from Jose's ageing squad, then getting back into the top 4 is only going to get harder, no matter how great our facility's and stadium are.

I didn't miss any points that you had in your post - that's why I numbered it sequentially, to demonstrate that I was deconstructing your post piece by piece. There may have been things in your head that you knew were connected to the points you were trying to make, but I couldn't intuite them - sorry.
Yeah, the typos and grammar may have been far from perfect, but I only typed it up once, and didn't read through it or spell check it - I wasn't writing an academic paper, but have done in the past (and got a deuced good grade for it), so if that was an attempt to minimalize my argument my imputing some kind of academic ineptitude, I'm afraid it was a cosmic fail. I didn't make any preparation for it - it's just a football forum, and contrary to popular opinion, I don't actually enjoy typing these essays up, I just find that when I think folk are talking wrong-headedly, and will not concede to logic but, instead, compose longer and longer posts of their own trying to prove they are right, eventually I go overboard a bit in deconstructing their arguments (such as they, usually, are). I don't enjoy doing it, but I don't know why folk make such a big thing of it, I show my reasoning throughout, and if they want to deconstruct it and show it is false they can. This is a place for debating, isn't it...it's got to be better than saying fuck off, or well, you're wrong - surely?

The proof will be in the pudding.
We have been excluded from the CL thanks to a most improbable CL win by Chelsea, but, to-all-intents-and-purposes we finished fourth and, therefore, by usual standards, qualified for the CL - that has never happened before and was a total abberation. The denyers really need to take this on board. Levy hardly forced Bayern to fail to convert any more of their 47 chances to Chelsea's one. It was an ansolute freak of a game, and the Barca one wasn't much better (wouldn't surprise me if Roman greased some palms).
I agree, at least one of Moutinho and Willian would have been sterling (but not Raheem). Moutinho, though, fell through because of their persistent unreasonableness and failure to fill paperwork correctly - the latter is not a matter for debate, as I said, above, you don't get to make this shit up.
It will be an achievement, and yet I believe we have a good chance. Apples and pears, subjective opinions and all.
Still not convinced by Chelsea, so not so sure why you are convinced their period of transition is over. Don't rate di Matteo, and having seen them a couple of times this season, think they are still vulnerable in exactly the places they were last year. Still have a mish-mash of a squad. And still have all of the problems AVB was hired to fix. Is it because they had an improbable CL win and have bought a lot of excting trophy players for the same few positions they weren't really desperate in in the first place? I'm not convinced their period of transition is over.
Personally, still not convinced by the Goons, either - they may be challenging for the top 4, and they may well finish ahead of us, just not convinced overall by them.

You aren't going to answer the whole thing, point by point - perhaps you could address three:
Why do you believe it will be just the once when you want Levy to pay over the odds or accept less for a player? I have shown that exactly the same demands were made over BerbaGit, Modric and Moutinho, by certain sections of our fan-base, and it would have cost the club in the region of £25 million.
And if Levy did what you want, and put the club into debt, and we didn't attain CL football, what do you think the consequences would be?
Do you understand that we would have been a regular top 4 team now if it wasn't for the unforeseen circumstance of Citeh being gifted billions?

 

[Harry_Snatch]

I didn't miss any points that you had in your post - that's why I numbered it sequentially, to demonstrate that I was deconstructing your post piece by piece. There may have been things in your head that you knew were connected to the points you were trying to make, but I couldn't intuite them - sorry.
Yeah, the typos and grammar may have been far from perfect, but I only typed it up once, and didn't read through it or spell check it - I wasn't writing an academic paper, but have done in the past (and got a deuced good grade for it), so if that was an attempt to minimalize my argument my imputing some kind of academic ineptitude, I'm afraid it was a cosmic fail. I didn't make any preparation for it - it's just a football forum, and contrary to popular opinion, I don't actually enjoy typing these essays up, I just find that when I think folk are talking wrong-headedly, and will not concede to logic but, instead, compose longer and longer posts of their own trying to prove they are right, eventually I go overboard a bit in deconstructing their arguments (such as they, usually, are). I don't enjoy doing it, but I don't know why folk make such a big thing of it, I show my reasoning throughout, and if they want to deconstruct it and show it is false they can. This is a place for debating, isn't it...it's got to be better than saying fuck off, or well, you're wrong - surely?

The proof will be in the pudding.
We have been excluded from the CL thanks to a most improbable CL win by Chelsea, but, to-all-intents-and-purposes we finished fourth and, therefore, by usual standards, qualified for the CL - that has never happened before and was a total abberation. The denyers really need to take this on board. Levy hardly forced Bayern to fail to convert any more of their 47 chances to Chelsea's one. It was an ansolute freak of a game, and the Barca one wasn't much better (wouldn't surprise me if Roman greased some palms).
I agree, at least one of Moutinho and Willian would have been sterling (but not Raheem). Moutinho, though, fell through because of their persistent unreasonableness and failure to fill paperwork correctly - the latter is not a matter for debate, as I said, above, you don't get to make this shit up.
It will be an achievement, and yet I believe we have a good chance. Apples and pears, subjective opinions and all.
Still not convinced by Chelsea, so not so sure why you are convinced their period of transition is over. Don't rate di Matteo, and having seen them a couple of times this season, think they are still vulnerable in exactly the places they were last year. Still have a mish-mash of a squad. And still have all of the problems AVB was hired to fix. Is it because they had an improbable CL win and have bought a lot of excting trophy players for the same few positions they weren't really desperate in in the first place? I'm not convinced their period of transition is over.
Personally, still not convinced by the Goons, either - they may be challenging for the top 4, and they may well finish ahead of us, just not convinced overall by them.

You aren't going to answer the whole thing, point by point - perhaps you could address three:
Why do you believe it will be just the once when you want Levy to pay over the odds or accept less for a player? I have shown that exactly the same demands were made over BerbaGit, Modric and Moutinho, by certain sections of our fan-base, and it would have cost the club in the region of £25 million.
And if Levy did what you want, and put the club into debt, and we didn't attain CL football, what do you think the consequences would be?
Do you understand that we would have been a regular top 4 team now if it wasn't for the unforeseen circumstance of Citeh being gifted billions?

You say you didn't miss any of my points then in the next breath say maybe you didn't understand what I meant.

We could stop after that tbh as I think this is the concentrated essence our disagreement.

You say you only go to town when people are thinking wrong-headedly and typing ever longer essays to prove their point.
Who appointed you the head decider?
I think you will probably find, if you do a word count of your own posts in this particular discussion, you have done the exact thing you are correcting others for?
What's the expression? never argue with a fool, he will bring you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Don't let me bring you down to my wrong-headed level.

I wasn't entirely serious about grading your essay in terms of an academic paper but you were choosing to use language befitting an academic paper. Why do it badly, if you are going to bother to make the effort in the first place?

your q's

1. You suggested that I wanted Levy to pay over the odds. I was saying that I was hoping he would be prepared to pay market value for a player over 15-16m. His lack of willingness to do this but overt willingness to suggest that he would, is the crux of my frustration with his leadership. I also never suggested he does this just once. I suggested that he treats every transfer differently and spending the market value on a 20-25m pound player early enough in the window, may have a better chance of being successful with the transfer.

2. I never suggested that spending market value on a player would 100% put the club into debt. This is your belief. Debt is a relative thing. A high % percentage of prem clubs operate in debt. I would imagine that with the cost of the new stadium and training ground that we will be very close to operating in debt without champions league anyway.

3. I understand that our chances of champions league football would have been much greater had City not invested as they have. I also understand that we would be more likely to play champions league football if UTD weren't a football powerhouse. Are you suggesting that because our plan of how to get champions league football was sound before City invested, it is still sound now that they have invested?
Also why would you have wasted a question with this question?
Surely anyone incapable of understanding such a basic thought wouldn't be worth spending so much time on writing essays to correct their wrong headness?

 

[vegassd]

What's the expression? never argue with a fool, he will bring you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Great phrase! I don't agree with what you have been saying but that's a corker!

The debt issue should be a concern because once FFP kick in properly (if they ever do) then I believe payments to service debt are regarded as part of the balance, so any debt accrued now is going to effectively reduce our total spending pot (transfers + wages) in years to come.

The crux of the matter seems to be that Levy isn't the man to take us forward if he isn't willing to spend big money on a player that we want - in this particular case Moutinho. It's a perfectly valid point when taken in the context of one window. But in the context of continued development we simply don't have the cash to do that.

30m (Moutinho's buy-out and therefore 'market value' in the early part of the window I believe) on one player is a huge risk. If the player gets crocked or simply doesn't perform (a la Carroll) then we are hamstrung for the next however many windows. Instead we have bought Dembele, Dempsey and Sigurdsson for about the same money - decreasing risk, improving flexibility and depth - and Levy was still willing to spend money on Moutinho.

I'm just not sure what you want him to do to impress you?

What would you have gone for if you were in Levy's position this Summer? Assume that all the out-going players were gone and that you then had £80m to spend. Just interested to hear some different views on it.

 

[Azazello]

For HarrySnatch, re your numbered point 1, I would just like to suggest that there is no such thing as a market value for players, just an agreement between two clubs.

 

[sloth]

You say you didn't miss any of my points then in the next breath say maybe you didn't understand what I meant.

We could stop after that tbh as I think this is the concentrated essence our disagreement.

You say you only go to town when people are thinking wrong-headedly and typing ever longer essays to prove their point.
Who appointed you the head decider?
I think you will probably find, if you do a word count of your own posts in this particular discussion, you have done the exact thing you are correcting others for?
What's the expression? never argue with a fool, he will bring you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Don't let me bring you down to my wrong-headed level.

I wasn't entirely serious about grading your essay in terms of an academic paper but you were choosing to use language befitting an academic paper. Why do it badly, if you are going to bother to make the effort in the first place?

your q's

1. You suggested that I wanted Levy to pay over the odds. I was saying that I was hoping he would be prepared to pay market value for a player over 15-16m. His lack of willingness to do this but overt willingness to suggest that he would, is the crux of my frustration with his leadership. I also never suggested he does this just once. I suggested that he treats every transfer differently and spending the market value on a 20-25m pound player early enough in the window, may have a better chance of being successful with the transfer.

2. I never suggested that spending market value on a player would 100% put the club into debt. This is your belief. Debt is a relative thing. A high % percentage of prem clubs operate in debt. I would imagine that with the cost of the new stadium and training ground that we will be very close to operating in debt without champions league anyway.

3. I understand that our chances of champions league football would have been much greater had City not invested as they have. I also understand that we would be more likely to play champions league football if UTD weren't a football powerhouse. Are you suggesting that because our plan of how to get champions league football was sound before City invested, it is still sound now that they have invested?
Also why would you have wasted a question with this question?
Surely anyone incapable of understanding such a basic thought wouldn't be worth spending so much time on writing essays to correct their wrong headness?

For HarrySnatch, re your numbered point 1, I would just like to suggest that there is no such thing as a market value for players, just an agreement between two clubs.

What is the market value of a player Harry?

 

[Harry_Snatch]

What is the market value of a player Harry?

If there is no market value, then how much is over the odds?

Or are you asking me to work out what I consider to be the market value of a player?

Surely you are able to see that I am saying imo, Levy is guilty of negotiating on price for a player to the point of causing the transfer to fail. I also saying that imo, we may be much better placed as a club if he had been prepared to negotiate slightly less in certain situations. Imo his decisions are unbalanced in favour of business value in comparison to squad improvement. Imo this has already cost us champions league football for the last 2 seasons and could easily cost us this season. Potentially the window of opportunity to get back into the champions league has closed. If FFP does come into play then it's possibly going to be even harder.

 

[GuvnorP]

There is a fine line in speculate to Accumalate and ending up paying of the odds without rewards. I have often said (over the last few transfer windows) that there is a time when u need to spend over the odds if what u are getting is exactly what u need. Moutniho was the player we all wnated and i for one thought he would help us up to the next level - however neither i nor AVB cud guarantee this. so we have to look at what Levy has done and where he has taken us and from the shambles of having marquee players but no squad in the 90's we seem to slowly but surely be assembling a squad that can challenge for top honours. I still think we are a little short especially in the wide areas and up front and tho we are said to play good football we do lack goals.
Levy deservs our backing and though i dont always agree with our last minute bargain hunts i am not akin to our true financial picture though i am aware we are not in difficulty at the present time but miles away from the spending clout of the mancs clubs and Chelsea. All in all we have to wait to see what AVB is about - his man management skills could be his real weak point and though tactically he is said to be the man - im still not convinced but im sure we all realise that doubts aside we are able to challenge for a top 4 position and that in itself is a massive improvement and with a youthful squad at present the future does appear bright.

 

[StartingPrice]

1) You say you didn't miss any of my points then in the next breath say maybe you didn't understand what I meant.

2) We could stop after that tbh as I think this is the concentrated essence our disagreement.

3) You say you only go to town when people are thinking wrong-headedly and typing ever longer essays to prove their point.
Who appointed you the head decider?
4) I think you will probably find, if you do a word count of your own posts in this particular discussion, you have done the exact thing you are correcting others for?
5) What's the expression? never argue with a fool, he will bring you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Don't let me bring you down to my wrong-headed level.

6) I wasn't entirely serious about grading your essay in terms of an academic paper but you were choosing to use language befitting an academic paper. Why do it badly, if you are going to bother to make the effort in the first place?

your q's

7) 1. a: You suggested that I wanted Levy to pay over the odds. I was saying that I was hoping he would be prepared to pay market value for a player over 15-16m. b: His lack of willingness to do this but overt willingness to suggest that he would, is the crux of my frustration with his leadership. c: I also never suggested he does this just once. d: I suggested that he treats every transfer differently and e: spending the market value on a 20-25m pound player early enough in the window, f: may have a better chance of being successful with the transfer.

8) 2. I never suggested that spending market value on a player would 100% put the club into debt. This is your belief. Debt is a relative thing. A high % percentage of prem clubs operate in debt. I would imagine that with the cost of the new stadium and training ground that we will be very close to operating in debt without champions league anyway.

9) 3. I understand that our chances of champions league football would have been much greater had City not invested as they have. I also understand that we would be more likely to play champions league football if UTD weren't a football powerhouse. Are you suggesting that because our plan of how to get champions league football was sound before City invested, it is still sound now that they have invested?
10) Also why would you have wasted a question with this question?
11) Surely anyone incapable of understanding such a basic thought wouldn't be worth spending so much time on writing essays to correct their wrong headness?

1) No, I don't think I did say, anywhere, that I haven't understood you. I have dissected your post sentence by sentence, point by point, and shown had it is wrongheaded. The fact that you might have an idea in your head that you think I haven't addressed because you haven't expressed it doesn't mean I haven't undersrtood it, it, er, means you haven't expressed it (not that I think you have some killer argument that will invalidate my critique of your opinion, nestled away in your crania). We call this Semiotics.

2) No, it really isn't. The concentrated essence of our disagreement is that you will not comprehend that with Levy it is a process and you are trying to isolate one component of that process in order to judge his process a failure, where I can see little discernible fail in the first place.

3) Oh for goodness sake. It is a public forum, anyone can respond, many do. You created a thread - presumably setting yourself up as an authority on the subject of the post. I responded because, far from being an authority on the subject, I think you are disseminating absolute nonsense. You have continued to argue the point even though I have, firstly, explained why you were wrong (my first post) and subsequently deconstructed all of your arguments. And yet you continue to argue, in a rather churlish way - drawing attention to length of post, spelling and grammar, etc., with longer and longer posts of your own. If your posts are longer and I am deconstructing your post, it stands to reason that my post will be longer also.

4) I think you have missed the point: I am not criticising anyone for writing long posts, I am explaining why my posts get longer as the person I am responding to, that I feel I have already disproven, composes long posts to deconstruct. (see 3, above).

5) There are many expressions. Don't flatter yourself into thinking I have come down to your level, you have failed to deconstruct any of my arguments, while I have totally deconstructed yours. Trying to pick apart the threads in order to disguise the paucity of your original argument isn't covering the fact that your original argument is weak. there is nothing weak in my argument.

6) No, but you did say it. I can spot several spelliong/grammar errors in your post, here, I can't be bothered illustrating them. I left school before computers were in general use, and then returned to school - so I never learned to touch-type and I never mastered the art of looking at the screen while typing. Nonetheless, I do type fast. I may work from home, but I do still have to work, and, usually have piles of books and things between myself and the keyboard, meaning I have to reach over - ATM, I am also reaaching over my lunch to type. In this instance, I was frustrated because you haad made another, lenghthier post still focussing on part of the process rather than the process itself, pages after I explained that this was what you had to do, and being rather churlish about it, and offensive while disingenuously acting all hurt yourself because I described vertain arguments as simplistic. So, whoop-de-fucking-whoop, you found some spelling/grammar errors in a very long post typed under these circumstances, and composed of the top of my head without me re-reading or spell checking, when I don't look at the screen when typing rather fast, because it isn't a bloody academic paper. Does that disguise the paucity of your argument and the fact that I completely deconstructed it? No, it doesn't! Further, I didn't do it badly because I wasn't writing an academic paper. If I was, I would have re-read and re-written it several times, with several spell checks. And I wasn't using the language of an academic paper - to suggest that also implies you don't understand what an academic paper is. All academic departments have their own nomenclature and conventions, and if I were to present an academic paper on here in either of the two faculties I am qualified in, there are quite a few graduates who would struggle with the complexity of the language. If it had been such a poor response, I have no doubt, you would have deconstructed my arguments the way I do yours, rather than moan about the length and point at a few spelling/grammar mistakes.

7)
a: Yes, I know. That is not related to the question, but thanks for restating it.
b: But he is not unwilling to do this. He was unwilling to match the buy-out clause. Buy-out clauses are notoriously set considerably above the market value...that is the whole point of them. Were you really not aware of this. Porto wanted us to pay more approx. the same as we got for Modric at a time when Real were offering considerably less - if that was market value it would suggest Moutinho is better than Modric, and so, in absolute terms Real could have got a better player for the same as they payed for Modric, which begs the question - why didn't Real just buy Moutinho at the buy-out clause? especially as it would have been easier than dealing with Dan Levy, by all accounts?
c: No, and that is where you are missing the point: several very vocal members of the forum (yeah, that's you) have suggested we variously acept market value or just accept a slightly unfavourable deal on Modric and Berbatov, just to get it done quicker while, similarly, the same/others have suggested we pay over the odds (that is what you are doing if you think we should have matched the buy-out clause) just to get it done. Why do you imagine your call to do this just for Moutinho (or wherever you think paying over the odds is market value), but not when others call for it? Hence the question - if it was done all three times when it was called for we would have lost £25 million - please accont for that?
d: I think he does - but within the structure of a process. You are fundamentally mistaking a buy-out clause that was specifically and deliberately more than market-value, with market-value, and failing, therefore, that by refusing to pay over the odds he was just acting within the dictates of the process. In every other way, he treated it individually - he agreed the sensible asking price, then he upped the personal terms, and then, when the third party issue was raised and Porto demanded more money, rather than walking away (as he would have been well within his rights to do), he agreed to pay that price - that is treating this deal on its individual merits. The deal failed because Porto submitted faulty paperwork - don't you know this?
e: He wasn't quoted the market value early in the window - Porto didn't lower their asking price from the buy-out clause (which is specifically not the market value) until the last day of the window. Paying their asking price earlier in the window would have necessitated paying over the market value - which is exactly where you argument breaks-down.
f: Define success in the transfer market? If you treat it as a process that either gives us a good squad or a shit squad, I would say he has been successful, as he has built us a very good young squad without getting us into debt.

8) No, but paying over market value, and accepting less than market value, consistently, would, and you are suggesting we should have paid the buy-out clause (which is deliberately set to be more than market-value). And you may not be suggesting doing it all the time, but others have made the same suggestion for just this once on other players, and you can't explain why we should prioritise your suggestion on jsut this one occasion and it would be a stand alone expense. Hence my perfectly reasonable lumping together of these three deals were, each time, a section of our fans have turned on Levy and demanded he pay the price/accept the offer in order to get the deal completeed more quickly.
You may be comfortable with the idea of the club being in massive debt, because others are, but I am not. it benefits the club to be as solvent as possible. Really, if you don't understand this, maybe all hope is lost.

9) No, I'm not suggesting that at all. I am asking a simple question. We have finished 4th twice in the last 3 seasons. If Citeh hadn't been gifted a huge amount of money, that would have been 3 times in 3 season. Obviously. Therefore my purpose should be apparent. Without Mansour, we would be a top 4 (probably top 3) club, despite having considerably less financial muscle than any of our competitors and you want to bnitch about the chairman who has achieved this because he wouldn't pay over the odds when you wanted him to. Work the rest out for youself

10) It was only a wasted question because you didn't seem to understand the meaning of a simple question.

11) You may have a point. I have things to do, and I have taken a considerable amount of time to explain to you, personally, general in good spirit, why you are wrong, when my first answer sufficed in the first place - stop focussing on an element of the process and judge the process. This is compounded by the fact that you seem to believe that, either the buy-out clause for Moutinho was market value when the whole point of it is not to be so as to deter potential suitors, or that they were prepared to accept less than the buy-out clause before the last day, when there is no evidence to support that and a lot of evidence to negate it.

 

[sloth]

If there is no market value, then how much is over the odds?

Or are you asking me to work out what I consider to be the market value of a player?

Surely you are able to see that I am saying imo, Levy is guilty of negotiating on price for a player to the point of causing the transfer to fail. I also saying that imo, we may be much better placed as a club if he had been prepared to negotiate slightly less in certain situations. Imo his decisions are unbalanced in favour of business value in comparison to squad improvement. Imo this has already cost us champions league football for the last 2 seasons and could easily cost us this season. Potentially the window of opportunity to get back into the champions league has closed. If FFP does come into play then it's possibly going to be even harder.

Earlier in the thread you suggested Levy would get a bonus for finishing each year in the black. The goal of a business is not to finish in the black, but to maximise profitability over the piece. There's no point making a small profit one year, if by not investing, you make a smaller profit (or a loss) over subsequent years. No one would be paid a bonus for running a business in this way. I can't for the life of me fathom why you'd suspect Levy would be rewarded for doing this?

The point about about an investment is that you put your money into something (or someone) you believe to be under-valued, or you have good reason to believe will add more value to your business than it costs you to purchase it. The question becomes how good are we at judging value? You say Levy isn't very good because he won't pay market value, but then you freely admit you don't know what market value is, so what are you accusing him of really? Imo you're actually accusing him of something more basic, which is not buying Willian or Moutinho* when you think he should have. Unfortunately the question of value hasn't gone away because it's easier to ignore it.

Because it's so difficult for us to know what value is because the information needed to make such a call is not available to us it becomes very easy to fit our prejudices to any particular player purchase, for instance, you can always say we should have bought him because he was value, I can always say we shouldn't have because he wasn't.

I believe the only way to judge Levy is by comparing his performance to that of his peers. Clubs such as Everton, Leeds, Chelsea, City, Newcastle, and Villa, have all gone bust or had to cut back by trying to compete with the bigger clubs in the division. The bigger clubs in the division were Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal. To that we can now add Chelsea and City. Of those even Arsenal and Liverpool with their massive budgets which far outstrip our own, have struggled to compete, while City and Chelsea have been bankrolled by money-is-no-object tycoons.

How have we done compared to all those clubs in Levy's time. Have we fallen ever further behind because we're operating under a budget a fraction of the size of the big boys? Have Arsenal, and Liverpool left us in their wake despite spending somewhere between £20m and £50m a year more than us on players? Didn't we finish above Chelsea last year? Haven't we finished above Liverpool the last three years? Closed the gap on Arsenal to a couple of points where it used to be double-digit? Are we still competing every year with Leeds, Newcastle, Everton, Villa, or do they keep rising and falling back, going bust and cutting back, getting relegated and in the case of Leeds not coming back? How have we continued to improve when all those other clubs, bigger budget or the same size, have fallen back in comparison to us?

Give proper consideration to these questions and I think you'll get a different opinion on what Levy's contributed to our club over the years.

* I believe we agreed a price on Moutinho, but the deal was scuppered for other reasons.

 

[TheGreenLily]

agree, I desperately want AVB to succeed but I cant say yet that I have seen enough to say I am sold on him

I hope he does really well too, but for me, he has already showed shrewd manoeuvres in the tactical department, not least the change at half time against QPR. Took the players, changed it (probably thinking about for 20 mins before the break), ok it is not going to work every time, but it is nice nice to know the manager can see and apply alternative tactics. What he doesn't need is a bunch of fans booing him at every opportunity and sticking the knives.

So I have seen enough to say I am sold, the changes to the structure of the club, players are learning and trying new things, a tactical minded manager... It may not work right away and may take a couple of years to see the real benefits of it, but I have seen enough to say that this clubs has a real future under AVB, that fits within the sustainable setup that Levy wants.

I never felt or saw any thing remotely like this with Harry, whilst he did well, he just never sat right for me.

Levy may cock up in the transfer window now and then (Even if got pissed we didn't get mouts), but that is nothing to the rest of the hard work he has done to drag the club forward, and for such a young chairmen too, outstanding.

Now, if those muppets on the stand stopped booing and started singing and creating that atmosphere, my god, would we have the best club in the land and be a shinning beacon of how a football club should be and not jsut some billionaires play thing with a bunch of ungrateful glory hunting spiteful twats for fans.

 

[GuvnorP]

I'm hoping that Levy has been just a shrewd with AVB as he seems to be with the transfers. just by what happened at Chelsea it is a gamble however if he has good sources and gud research there may be more to AVB than what most of us think. Harry did well for us but so did Martin Jol who took us from obscurity to the top 5, which is often forgotten by outsiders. So apart from the poor 8 game start (and poor finish to the trophy winning season prior) we were not a million miles away from the top 4 spot (food poisoning gate). rather than Harry take us from no where to champs lge football. I think we have a lot of talent in the squad and wud like to see it rotated at times better than what Harry did - especially if results are not goin our way.
Either way until we are well into the season i dont know if we can pass accurate judgement though inevitably time will tell!
i'm always positive so i think he cud just take us a step closer to the coveted title!

 

[Harry_Snatch]

Ok wow.

I guess I opened a real can of worms here by offering an opinion that is not entirely behind our dear leaders ''process''.
It seems this provides a great excuse for people with too much time on their hands to spend way too much time telling me how much they know about business and how little I understand about how intelligent they are because they agree with Levy's way of doing things.

I genuinely feel that my views are at least worth considering and that your opinions are slightly flawed and inconsistent to suit your purpose of winning the argument but I guess none of you lot would bother spending so much time writing these posts if you didn't believe the same about my opinions.

Personally cannot be arsed to continue with this any further. It's futile anyway.

 

[sloth]

Ok wow.

I guess I opened a real can of worms here by offering an opinion that is not entirely behind our dear leaders ''process''.
It seems this provides a great excuse for people with too much time on their hands to spend way too much time telling me how much they know about business and how little I understand about how intelligent they are because they agree with Levy's way of doing things.

I genuinely feel that my views are at least worth considering and that your opinions are slightly flawed and inconsistent to suit your purpose of winning the argument but I guess none of you lot would bother spending so much time writing these posts if you didn't believe the same about my opinions.

Personally cannot be arsed to continue with this any further. It's futile anyway.

I suspect you're feeling fed up at a culmination of posts rather than one in particular, which I can understand.

 

[StartingPrice]

Ok wow.

I guess I opened a real can of worms here by offering an opinion that is not entirely behind our dear leaders ''process''.
It seems this provides a great excuse for people with too much time on their hands to spend way too much time telling me how much they know about business and how little I understand about how intelligent they are because they agree with Levy's way of doing things.

I genuinely feel that my views are at least worth considering and that your opinions are slightly flawed and inconsistent to suit your purpose of winning the argument but I guess none of you lot would bother spending so much time writing these posts if you didn't believe the same about my opinions.

Personally cannot be arsed to continue with this any further. It's futile anyway.

Porto didn't drop their demands from the buyout clause until the final day of the window. The buyout clause was £32 million. That is not his market value - therefore you idea that Levy should have bought him before the final day of the window would have necessitated paying more than his market value, but your argument was that Levy was at fault for not paying the market value. Thererfore you argument is moribund. You have never once, no matter how many times I have asked you, adressed this. If you wanted him to pay the buyout clause, by definition, you wanted him to pay above the market value. So, how can your orignal post have any validity if you can't account for this contradiction?

I know, you aren't going to answer - a good way for you to still not accept that your OP has no real validity because it contradicts itself
I explained several times that I do not agree with everyhthing Levy does (or his process). I pointed to the fact that the end result of that process is that the club has improved in every meaningful way.

I explained that I don't have too much time on my hands - I just happend to work at home, as my home boss, and sometimes get dragged into these debates whent they are better things to do. But, that wouldn't happen if posterslike you actually read what is said, and either argued constructively to refute or, like, in stead of jsut believing they thoght it so it must be right, considered ameliorating or altering their opinion, as I would if someone had so comprehensively shown my opinion to be moribund.

I never once said I was more intelligent than you. I said your arguments were simplistic, and then showed how they were. You were at perfect liberty to do the same to mine. You didn't - I am presuming that was because you couldn't.

I have considered your opinion. I have considered it every time you have stated it. I deconstructed it - if it stood up to analysis I would have acknowledged that. It didn't, I rejected it. Deal with, eh!

 

[alpha]

Is there anywhere I can find a condensed version of this thread?