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Well done Levy and co.

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Shadydan

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Jul 7, 2012
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So it emerges, yes I do believe it, that Levy was responsible for Sissoko.

Of course Poch is not going to oppose the signing. Faced with no one at all to compete with Lamela or someone who can turn in a good performance on the right occasion all of us would have done the same?

Clearly Levy thought the deal could be done in a way which represented a low risk, so he did it. If Sissoko don't play, loses hiss France squad place he'll either Buck his ideas up or go to China.

That's quite the story you have there.
 

NEVILLEB

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Nov 6, 2006
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Everyone is acting like we have absolutely no money to spend, WE SPENT 30M ON SISSOKO.

We have money, the issue is is that we dilly dally when we try to get our first choices and when we don't get them and it gets nearer and nearer to the end of the window then it's like... shiiiiiiit... then we overpay for shit.

I'd rather have spent 70m on two players than 70m on four so so's.

People talk about us as being financially savvy etc and whilst we're are secure which I appreciate I also think it's exaggerated. We have spunked alot of money, yes we may recoup that cash but ultimately it's taking one step forward two steps back. We really should have made a statement in the summer after a magnificent season.

Daniel can't help trying to get a deal on deadline day. He lives for it.

This Sissoko transfer is absolutely horrendous. Such a monumental waste of money and show of stupidity.
 

Shea

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Apr 5, 2013
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Daniel can't help trying to get a deal on deadline day. He lives for it.

This Sissoko transfer is absolutely horrendous. Such a monumental waste of money and show of stupidity.
It also comes not very long after the Soldado transfer, not to mention the likes of chirches, fazio, paulinho etc

Yes we've had some great signings too and some of our youth players have made us money (plus saved us money) to off set the bad transfers

But it does worry me how many of our recent transfers have been so bad, barely played and been moved on, sold for losses etc

It makes me question my confidence in the people in charge of these matters

Currently Sissoko personifies that
 

Shadydan

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Jul 7, 2012
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Every club makes shit transfers from time to time, that's the risk you take I guess although I was beginning to have some faith until Sissoko but that's got me questioning wtf goes on with our player recruitment.
 

Shea

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Every club makes shit transfers from time to time, that's the risk you take I guess although I was beginning to have some faith until Sissoko but that's got me questioning wtf goes on with our player recruitment.
I'm sure every club do - I know Man Utd and Liverpool have some high profile recent examples respectively

I feel that for a club in our position and with our strategy these things are a little less forgettable - or maybe it's just because I am a Spurs fan and that makes our mistakes feel worse

If KNKD and Janssen also fail to succeed in addition to Sissoko, Chiriches, Fazio, Stambouli, Paulihno, Capoue, N'jie, Yedlin (potentially Davis, Wimmer, Son and Trippier depending on if they ever reach expectations) it's hard to look at anyone else who has made as many mistakes in recent history as we have (at least in terms of how those mistakes compare to the amount of money we have and can offered to write off compared to a Man U who can afford to throw money at fixing mistakes year in year out)
 

Shadydan

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Jul 7, 2012
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I'm sure every club do - I know Man Utd and Liverpool have some high profile recent examples respectively

I feel that for a club in our position and with our strategy these things are a little less forgettable - or maybe it's just because I am a Spurs fan and that makes our mistakes feel worse

If KNKD and Janssen also fail to succeed in addition to Sissoko, Chiriches, Fazio, Stambouli, Paulihno, Capoue, N'jie, Yedlin (potentially Davis, Wimmer, Son and Trippier depending on if they ever reach expectations) it's hard to look at anyone else who has made as many mistakes in recent history as we have (at least in terms of how those mistakes compare to the amount of money we have and can offered to write off compared to a Man U who can afford to throw money at fixing mistakes year in year out)

If you compare us to our rivals we can be forgiven as they have more money to spend therefore more margain for error as they can take higher risks in the transfer market, for what we pay we are always going to more or less get gambles.
 

Shea

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Apr 5, 2013
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If you compare us to our rivals we can be forgiven as they have more money to spend therefore more margain for error as they can take higher risks in the transfer market, for what we pay we are always going to more or less get gambles.
I feel that means we have to be more astute and that makes our mistakes less forgivable

Our richer rivals can fix their mistakes with more money and not feel any way about it

We built our recent success on being savy in the market and while we've still had the odd successes with Toby, Dier and Dele etc, we've made far too many mistakes in recent times

Teams like Southampton have shown there are still ways to succeed in the market like we used to yet for the most part we seem to have lost our way and stopped doing what made us successful and started making a lot more costly errors that had our youth team not being able to counter balance would have really undone years of hard work

There seems to have been massive overhauls in the staff that are charged with our recruitment in recent years yet this very summer we still signed Sissoko for £30m, missed out on Dembele for 500k while signing Janssen for basically £20m and have swapped one flop French left winger in N'jie for someone who may well add up to the same thing but for more money (I will add that I'm giving a worst case scenario for Janssen and NKD and I still hope they both come good)
 

Shadydan

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Jul 7, 2012
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I feel that means we have to be more astute and that makes our mistakes less forgivable

Our richer rivals can fix their mistakes with more money and not feel any way about it

We built our recent success on being savy in the market and while we've still had the odd successes with Toby, Dier and Dele etc, we've made far too many mistakes in recent times

Teams like Southampton have shown there are still ways to succeed in the market like we used to yet for the most part we seem to have lost our way and stopped doing what made us successful and started making a lot more costly errors that had our youth team not being able to counter balance would have really undone years of hard work

There seems to have been massive overhauls in the staff that are charged with our recruitment in recent years yet this very summer we still signed Sissoko for £30m, missed out on Dembele for 500k while signing Janssen for basically £20m and have swapped one flop French left winger in N'jie for someone who may well add up to the same thing but for more money (I will add that I'm giving a worst case scenario for Janssen and NKD and I still hope they both come good)

Maybe but it's a little unfair to expect us to get it right more often than not, I agree with Southampton though they always seem to get it right but then again they do have lower expectations. I think as a club we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, we are a club who are trying to sustain a top four challenge and push for the league but our wage budget simply doesn't allow for that so sometimes we need to gamble.

Re: the point about our youth, that can't be seen as a negative, that's been the model DL has been trying to achieve since he took over Spurs, if say the system is working perfectly now.
 

Shea

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Apr 5, 2013
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Maybe but it's a little unfair to expect us to get it right more often than not, I agree with Southampton though they always seem to get it right but then again they do have lower expectations. I think as a club we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, we are a club who are trying to sustain a top four challenge and push for the league but our wage budget simply doesn't allow for that so sometimes we need to gamble.

Re: the point about our youth, that can't be seen as a negative, that's been the model DL has been trying to achieve since he took over Spurs, if say the system is working perfectly now.
I don't expect us to get it right all the time, but I do expect us to not make such obvious mistakes repeatedly. (every window recently we fail to get our business done quickly, miss out on main targets, end up paying for people who don't work out and are quickly moved on....and now Sissoko)

As for the youth - I wasn't suggesting it was a negative, I was saying that it has covered our arses and without it our transfer dealings would really have put us in the shit in recent years I feel

I miss the days when we seemed to clean up in the market - Bale, Modric, VdV etc. We built our realtive success largely on signings uncut diamonds and allowing them to shine, we just seem to have lost our way somewhat (although as I say we still have Dier, Dele, Toby and hopefully the likes of Son, Janssen and NKD will come good like Lamela has)

What my point is really - I've lost confidence in the people at our club in charge of our transfers and that worries me moving forward for the club (what if we don't have youngsters ready to compensate next time and continue to make more poor signings than good?)
 
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NEVILLEB

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Nov 6, 2006
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It also comes not very long after the Soldado transfer, not to mention the likes of chirches, fazio, paulinho etc

Yes we've had some great signings too and some of our youth players have made us money (plus saved us money) to off set the bad transfers

But it does worry me how many of our recent transfers have been so bad, barely played and been moved on, sold for losses etc

It makes me question my confidence in the people in charge of these matters

Currently Sissoko personifies that

This issue has persisted with all our Managers. Many of whom have let slip they didn't get the players they wanted.

Eventually the team suffers and the Manager is sacked. Repeat and repeat...
 

Shea

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Apr 5, 2013
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This issue has persisted with all our Managers. Many of whom have let slip they didn't get the players they wanted.

Eventually the team suffers and the Manager is sacked. Repeat and repeat...
Unfortunately it's impossible to disagree with that

How much of that is the failure to identify the correct attainable targets? how much of it is failure to get negotiations done when they could/should have been?

I feel that long before a window opens we should have a very clearly laid out plan - with our ins and outs in mind

A list of targets 1,2,3,4,5 for each position we go for with a very clear budget for each and as soon as the window opens we should swarm over our targets trying to get our business done before the likes of Chelsea get wind and swoop in

If we can't get the player for the budget we want we should move on to the next best thing.

Recent windows just leave me thinking the we are pissing in the wind a little, trying our luck and gambling while making errors. I don't want to point blame at anyone in particular as I am sure elements of blame rest at various parties but for the most part we are making and repeating too many mistakes and we need to sort it out sooner rather than later
 

NEVILLEB

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Nov 6, 2006
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Unfortunately it's impossible to disagree with that

How much of that is the failure to identify the correct attainable targets? how much of it is failure to get negotiations done when they could/should have been?

I feel that long before a window opens we should have a very clearly laid out plan - with our ins and outs in mind

A list of targets 1,2,3,4,5 for each position we go for with a very clear budget for each and as soon as the window opens we should swarm over our targets trying to get our business done before the likes of Chelsea get wind and swoop in

If we can't get the player for the budget we want we should move on to the next best thing.

Recent windows just leave me thinking the we are pissing in the wind a little, trying our luck and gambling while making errors. I don't want to point blame at anyone in particular as I am sure elements of blame rest at various parties but for the most part we are making and repeating too many mistakes and we need to sort it out sooner rather than later

It's a persistent character flaw and so won't ever change
 

Shadydan

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Jul 7, 2012
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I don't expect us to get it right all the time, but I do expect us to not make such obvious mistakes repeatedly. (every window recently we fail to get our business done quickly, miss out on main targets, end up paying for people who don't work out and are quickly moved on....and now Sissoko)

As for the youth - I wasn't suggesting it was a negative, I was saying that it has covered our arses and without it our transfer dealings would really have put us in the shit in recent years I feel

I miss the days when we seemed to clean up in the market - Bale, Modric, VdV etc. We built our realtive success largely on signings uncut diamonds and allowing them to shine, we just seem to have lost our way somewhat (although as I say we still have Dier, Dele, Toby and hopefully the likes of Son, Janssen and NKD will come good like Lamela has)

What my point is really - I've lost confidence in the people at our club in charge of our transfers and that worries me moving forward for the club (what if we don't have youngsters ready to compensate next time and continue to make more poor signings than good?)

Okay let's address this quickly, we fail to get our targets in quickly implies that we don't try, under Poch we tried to get Ings, Werner, Batshuayi, Martial, Depay, Mane, Wijnaldum but the problem we face as a club is that we don't offer top dollar so those players are and were always likely to go somewhere else. We went for, Davies, Trippier Toby, Dier, Delle Alli, Wanyama Son, Janssen, Nkoudou (let's face it that was due to Marseille switching owners) early in the window. The only transfers we've left to the last minute are Sissoko and Berahino with Sissoko being the one that sticks out which is possibly clouding your judgement a little.

In regards to the youth, what I'm saying is that we've planned and put a lot of emphasis on our youth academy and as a result we've spent money, possibly money that could have been put towards our transfer budget over they years so it's a bit unfair to say the youth have covered our arses as that implies we were lucky to have youth players come through the system when we were anything but, we've carefully planned for this and we are not benefiting. Also what youth are you talking about as currently the only youth players who have made it through and who are playing regularly are the two Harry', what has placed us on this level is a mixture of clever purchases, our youth and excellent coaching.

The days when we used to clean up in the market? Really those were the days when we used to buy the likes of Pavlyuchenko, Boateng, Dos Santos, Bentley? Saha etc...our transfer policy back in those days was absolutely terrible, it was a scatter gun approach and even under Commoli despite him being responsible for Modric and Bale we still signed the likes of Hutton and Tarrabt, in fact we are far more consistent now then we were back in those days despite the Sissoko fuck up.
 

Shea

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Apr 5, 2013
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Okay let's address this quickly, we fail to get our targets in quickly implies that we don't try, under Poch we tried to get Ings, Werner, Batshuayi, Martial, Depay, Mane, Wijnaldum but the problem we face as a club is that we don't offer top dollar so those players are and were always likely to go somewhere else. We went for, Davies, Trippier Toby, Dier, Delle Alli, Wanyama Son, Janssen, Nkoudou (let's face it that was due to Marseille switching owners) early in the window. The only transfers we've left to the last minute are Sissoko and Berahino with Sissoko being the one that sticks out which is possibly clouding your judgement a little.

In regards to the youth, what I'm saying is that we've planned and put a lot of emphasis on our youth academy and as a result we've spent money, possibly money that could have been put towards our transfer budget over they years so it's a bit unfair to say the youth have covered our arses as that implies we were lucky to have youth players come through the system when we were anything but, we've carefully planned for this and we are not benefiting. Also what youth are you talking about as currently the only youth players who have made it through and who are playing regularly are the two Harry', what has placed us on this level is a mixture of clever purchases, our youth and excellent coaching.

The days when we used to clean up in the market? Really those were the days when we used to buy the likes of Pavlyuchenko, Boateng, Dos Santos, Bentley? Saha etc...our transfer policy back in those days was absolutely terrible, it was a scatter gun approach and even under Commoli despite him being responsible for Modric and Bale we still signed the likes of Hutton and Tarrabt, in fact we are far more consistent now then we were back in those days despite the Sissoko fuck up.
excellent post, can't argue
 

dontcallme

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Mar 18, 2005
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It seems our wage structure is partly based on the idea that we don't pay very top dollar for most new signings. Once they have fit into the club and performing they can get a new contract with improved pay.

The upside of this is we get less mercenaries eating up the wage bill without performing on the pitch. One of the times we went against this was signing Adebayor and we all know how that turned out.

The downside of this strategy is it is very difficult to buy ready-made improvements for the first team.

Just before Jol's final season we were overjoyed at not losing any of our first team players. We purchased the likes of Bent and a very young Kaboul, ie we improved the squad with the belief we had a strong 1st team already. Performances went downhill and our beloved manager was fired.

It seems we have done the same again. We were happy at improving the squad but the first team almost always needs improving. Teams set up differently against us now and we needed to bring in players to help with that/ The squad players we have purchased won't help in this department.
 

DIEHARD

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May 17, 2004
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Bit of a strange one this, haven't nearly all our successes come from not spending big on players?

Spending big on the right players is very different from just spending big for the sake of it.

To point out that our successes come from not spending big on players does not mean us spending big is wrong...

Spending 30m on the wrong player is farcical compared to say spending 35m on the right player... It's about value
 

RomanzoCriminale

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Aug 24, 2013
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Spending big on the right players is very different from just spending big for the sake of it.

To point out that our successes come from not spending big on players does not mean us spending big is wrong...

Spending 30m on the wrong player is farcical compared to say spending 35m on the right player... It's about value


I don't think i said it was, I was just pointing out what had worked for us so far.

Does it really matter what a player costs though as long as its the right player?
 
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