Spurs fans will have to take their medicine if they want to stay among the big boys

[cliff jones]

Wahey! @CliffJones disagreed!

Please explain my good man?

wahey? are you incredulous someone dare disagree with you? or welcoming another subjective view on who was world class and when? Bale was world class imo in the champs league season, that was the core point you made that I disagreed with. You made a lot of other good points but I really choked on the Bale one. Had a super club come in that summer and he decided to act up, the fee would have proved the point imo. it would have been a world class fee, for potential, realised or otherwise. cheers.

 

[Shirtfront]

Its also not stretching the imagination to think that we will finish above Everton.


and of course Harry's high water mark will be tough to achieve again because all teams have significantly improved from then. That includes us.

Two points here:

1. I don't agree that we have improved since Harry's day. Our Champions League team would thump this one, no question.

2. It's not about whether we have improved. It is about whether we have kept pace with out competition, and if not why not? I accept that Chelsea/Man City are different (abhorrent) cases. But we do bear scrutiny against our other peers in the League table and to my mind Levy has underperformed both commercially (his approach to transfers; the new stadium) and in football terms (managerial chaos; re-overhauling management structures etc).

The only thing that has kept pace with our peers is the increase in price of our Season Tickets.

Again, I am not here to vilify Levy. Much of what he has done has been very good. But like anyone in a job, or any manager or player, his performance should be under constant review and if it dips below the standards expected they should be called on it.

I think he has some tough questions to answer again.

 

[Shirtfront]

so have we overtaken Man Utd as we finished above them last season?

on what criteria do they have a "better" stadium?

and as for transfer window being better, time will tell.

You could look at the league table and claim that, but the basis of my assertion wasn't just based on the league table but on a combination of objective and subjective factors - including the league table (objective) and then looking at other subjective factors like the ones I listed and including other things like stability, quality of football, success in bringing through home grown talent etc.

Fair point re Goodison - I thought it was about 10k bigger than ours but it is only about 5k bigger.

And I agree, only time will tell. But again, expressing my subjective opinion I would prefer to do business the way they did it than the scattergun approach we seem to take. They identified the need for a world class striker; they identified the one they wanted (rightly or wrongly) and they brought him in early.

I accept the comparison to Everton is probably marginal - but it is important in this debate because Articles like this would have you believe that Levy has worked miracles to keep up with the top 4 when it simply isn't true. He has done well in some ways, but I think his failure to deliver a new stadium; his approach to the management structure; and his approach to transfers have been poor.

 

[guiltyparty]

wahey? are you incredulous someone dare disagree with you? or welcoming another subjective view on who was world class and when? Bale was world class imo in the champs league season, that was the core point you made that I disagreed with. You made a lot of other good points but I really choked on the Bale one. Had a super club come in that summer and he decided to act up, the fee would have proved the point imo. it would have been a world class fee, for potential, realised or otherwise. cheers.

Welcoming a subjective view. I said a lot of things in that post and was wondering what you disagreed with, as it was the first one, that's all.

That's cool, I don't agree, but that's cool. I think the Inter games were widely perceived as him "arriving" (Taxi for Maicon, etc) in the public consciousness, as in anyone knew who he was. The stories around the world were very much "who is this fucking guy?!". Which was end of October of 2010. So first three months of season he was still an unknown on the international scene.

Bale for that full season was 76th in the Premier League's combined goal/assists table (7 goals, 1 assist). Even Jermaine Pennant was 63rd. Clint Dempsey (then of Fulham, and soon to be hated at Spurs) was 25th.

Van Der Vaart was 7th.

I really don't think Bale was world class yet, it was his emergent season where he showed what he could be about in fits and starts. The next season, 2011/12, Bale was up to 7th with 10 goals and 11 assists, and a lot more consistent. With Van Der Vaart gone, he took the creative mantle the following season even more, and the rest is history.

 

[guiltyparty]

well following your logic those of us hoping Erik, Roberto and Paulinho will step up in their second season better give up now then. Logic also suggests Lukaku and his teammates would build on playing with each other last year, and hes very young and has yet to hit his peak- like Lamela. I appreciate second season syndrome exists, and for every black theres a white, this is all just my onion.

Erm, no, as I'm talking about money.

Everton just spent £30m on a player who was technically already theirs. If Lamela or any of the others comes good that is effectively, as they say, "like a new signing" but for no more money. We spent our money on new people

 

[cliff jones]

Welcoming a subjective view. I said a lot of things in that post and was wondering what you disagreed with, as it was the first one, that's all.

That's cool, I don't agree, but that's cool. I think the Inter games were widely perceived as him "arriving" (Taxi for Maicon, etc) in the public consciousness, as in anyone knew who he was. The stories around the world were very much "who is this fucking guy?!". Which was end of October of 2010. So first three months of season he was still an unknown on the international scene.

Bale for that full season was 76th in the Premier League's combined goal/assists table (7 goals, 1 assist). Even Jermaine Pennant was 63rd. Clint Dempsey (then of Fulham, and soon to be hated at Spurs) was 25th.

Van Der Vaart was 7th.

I really don't think Bale was world class yet, it was his emergent season where he showed what he could be about in fits and starts. The next season, 2011/12, Bale was up to 7th with 10 goals and 11 assists, and a lot more consistent. With Van Der Vaart gone, he took the creative mantle the following season even more, and the rest is history.

players do suddenly burst on to thescene though like this and values go through the roof, usually after the big summer tourneys. dont buy the opta etc stuff myself, prefer my own eyes, i do watch a lot!

if youre talking momey,which you cant in isolation from what it actually buys,then rl technically was a cfc player? spose a lot of fans quote ade in this context, plays well on loan secures a perm contract then plays when he feels like it thereafter. think the rl situation is the opposite.

 

[jolsnogross]

maybe I misunderstood what was meant by "Everton have overtaken us". Based on your statement, I assume that we have "overtaken" Man Utd as we finished above them last season.

it's good that you picked Modric as an example and compared him with the likes of Soldado/Paulinho, instead of (as an example) picking Bentley in comparison to Lloris (whom we could easily sell for twice what we paid for him). But, hey, we can all pick one or two examples to suit our statements, cant we.

But the point is when we had Bentley, we were successful because he was the exception. We were well managed. We had a great team spirit and some fight to match the skill. We we got 4th place twice.

Now we're spending Bentley and Modric levels of money still, but not achieving to the same level. That's not cherry picking, and you haven't picked an example to suit any broader point. And Bentley-Modric then and Lloris-Soldado-Paulinho now highlight how the sums of money we're spending are still substantial and have not been decreasing. So it isn't as much a money problem as very many are trying to make it out to be. It's the character and quality of the players and how they are managed and how we are set up (to win or not lose).

And the apparently infallible Lloris should buck his ideas up regarding his contributions to team leadership and ball distribution.

 

[guiltyparty]

players do suddenly burst on to thescene though like this and values go through the roof, usually after the big summer tourneys. dont buy the opta etc stuff myself, prefer my own eyes, i do watch a lot!

if youre talking momey,which you cant in isolation from what it actually buys,then rl technically was a cfc player? spose a lot of fans quote ade in this context, plays well on loan secures a perm contract then plays when he feels like it thereafter. think the rl situation is the opposite.

You seem to be purposefully missing my point mate.

I wasn't talking about value with Bale, I'm simply saying he wasn't "world class" (a term I've already established is massively subjective) consistently at all that season, and the stats would suggest this to be the case - he was emerging. His output wasn't that amazing really, he just performed amazingly well in a handful of games that got people to notice him. If he was world class then, why did it take another two seasons for anyone of any note to stump up the cash for him?

As for Lukaku, again, it's a fairly simple equation, and yes, you can talk in isolation. A manager has a budget for a season and manages it the best he can - you can have vague ideas beyond that, but as we've found out regularly, most don't get that long, so you have to plan for the here and now.

Don't get me wrong, I think Martinez did a great deal to get RL on loan and has done very well to get Lukaku to stay too, and he'll do well with them - he could have gone to a much bigger team. But the simple, unavoidable fact is they've spent £30m on a player who was already in their team; so while they've invested in a real asset, their line-up isn't palpably better because of it. They've just kept someone, so they've been restricted to how many others they can bring in because so much of their fairly limited pot has been taken up by retaining him.

Yes, it's exactly the same as with Adebayor, except we only paid £5m for him, which is not the 'this season's transfer money' wiping-out figure that Lukaku's is. That's all.

 

[cliff jones]

Respect your point on RL, although you're not accepting the incremental improvement aspect. On Bale I was simply using then likely market value to support my view he'd become world class.

I would have preferred a major outlay on real quality this summer, instead of so many odds and ends p layers coming in. Only time will tell though.

 

[guiltyparty]

Respect your point on RL, although you're not accepting the incremental improvement aspect. On Bale I was simply using then likely market value to support my view he'd become world class.

I would have preferred a major outlay on real quality this summer, instead of so many odds and ends p layers coming in. Only time will tell though.

I'm not talking value with Lukaku, just that for £30m, their starting 11 hasn't changed at all.

Cool on Bale, agree to disagree. And yeah I'd have liked one humdinger, it's natural, but keep the faith

 

[cliff jones]

I'm not talking value with Lukaku, just that for £30m, their starting 11 hasn't changed at all.

Cool on Bale, agree to disagree. And yeah I'd have liked one humdinger, it's natural, but keep the faith

just out of interest, do you think our outlay actually improved our first 11? I don't see it personally, although id love to see it proven otherwise. With enic I lost the faith when they didn't invest in that champs league season...