ENIC...

NEVILLEB said:

If you had read the thread you’d have seen there’s been insults on both sides of the argument. Or maybe you just favour one side of the argument!

For the record what makes you think I care if you respect me?

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Oh, I wasnt talking about me per se, I think everyone on here is a ****!

For the love of Spurs said:

Because we didn’t sell when we should or bought when should of these last two windows have been almost emergency windows to rebuild an aging team.

I think the good news is that with Lo Celso, Ndombele, Sessegnon, Bergwjin, Gedson and hopefully Paitek and Perhaps an outside shot of a DM plus the emergence of Tanganga we are well on our way to rebuilding.

It was sad and perhaps inevitable that Poch’s reign would come to an end with a stale squad and he has probably every right to feel some annoyance that after delivering so much cash to the club through CL qualification he didn’t get a chance to rebuild.

Without the stadium we probably would have spent more on the squad and had a stronger squad, we may have even won the title the year Chelsea won it or won the CL last year, Poch may have been able to gradually rebuild and everything that came to ahead never happened.

But the stadium will keep us financially competitive over a long period, in the short term though it was always going to hurt us. My only regret from the club is that they should have been more honest, you don’t go many windows on zero net spend and two windows buying no one unless something is up.

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without the stadium build I'm not sure we would have held on to some players, or signed the players we did. with the players knowing their wages were on the verge of being doubled once we moved out, it was most probably 1 of the reasons they stayed on top of thinking this squad should win something.

southlondonyiddo said:

Would be lovely though to see us try just the once to build from a position of strength wouldn’t it!

Im all for exceptions to the rule and playing devils advocate and not wanting to bankrupt the club but just a slight steer towards glory rather than business would be lovely to see.....

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unfortunately at our strongest time, we had our hands tied behind our backs building a stadium. the only person that could have changed that is Joe Lewis if he had thrown his own money at it.

when Leicester won the title, we wouldn't have been classed as a chaser even come the January by the end of January we were 4th. ok only 5pts behind but we had a pretty strong squad and very hard to upgrade on the starting XI. once Chelsea won the party our heads dropped and cost us 2nd.

the season after we were 3rd 9pts adrift, but we still had a strong squad, the problem was Janssen didn't produce after buying cover for Kane, Batshuayi didn't score many more. he might of got the goal that finally won the league but in the league I believe he only scored 2 more. it hurt getting Sissoko instead of Mane, but Mane wanted more wages than we were paying our top earners, and we were playing with an 8k reduced crowd that season. no way could we have upped everybody's wages that season.

the new stadium build, the squad we had, and Pochettino all ended up being here at the wrong time. if he had joined us this season with a squad similar to then, I reckon we would see a very successful team pretty soon.

the only window I really feel we should have done better in was the Nelson/Saha fiasco, but with Redknapps future being very uncertain then perhaps that's why Levy never backed him.

Lighty64 said:

without the stadium build I'm not sure we would have held on to some players, or signed the players we did. with the players knowing their wages were on the verge of being doubled once we moved out, it was most probably 1 of the reasons they stayed on top of thinking this squad should win something.





unfortunately at our strongest time, we had our hands tied behind our backs building a stadium. the only person that could have changed that is Joe Lewis if he had thrown his own money at it.

when Leicester won the title, we wouldn't have been classed as a chaser even come the January by the end of January we were 4th. ok only 5pts behind but we had a pretty strong squad and very hard to upgrade on the starting XI. once Chelsea won the party our heads dropped and cost us 2nd.

the season after we were 3rd 9pts adrift, but we still had a strong squad, the problem was Janssen didn't produce after buying cover for Kane, Batshuayi didn't score many more. he might of got the goal that finally won the league but in the league I believe he only scored 2 more. it hurt getting Sissoko instead of Mane, but Mane wanted more wages than we were paying our top earners, and we were playing with an 8k reduced crowd that season. no way could we have upped everybody's wages that season.

the new stadium build, the squad we had, and Pochettino all ended up being here at the wrong time. if he had joined us this season with a squad similar to then, I reckon we would see a very successful team pretty soon.

the only window I really feel we should have done better in was the Nelson/Saha fiasco, but with Redknapps future being very uncertain then perhaps that's why Levy never backed him.

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We've finished in the top 5 ELEVEN times in the last 15 seasons. I would say we’ve been strong on many many occasions in those years and haven’t pushed on

Every season there is an excuse for not buying those 1 or 2 extra players to strengthen our squad and help us to fight on all fronts

End of the day ENIC only invest when it makes good business sense. No point buying players when we don’t really have to!

As I’ve said before, the business will always outweigh the glory

Timberwolf said:

Yeah this is a fair point. Spending big doesn't guarantee success, you only have to look at Man Utd to see that. However, it's also notable that every side apart from Leicester (which was one of the greatest freak outcomes in sporting history) that has won the league in recent years has, at one point or other, made that big push in the market. Liverpool did it last year. Chelsea did it. Man City did it.

We never made that big push and we didn't win the league when it was there to be won.

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none of those clubs were in debt for building a stadium. Chelsea and Man C both spent massive before FFP came in. if FFP had been introduced before Abramovic took over I doubt he would of, and nor would of the Sheik

southlondonyiddo said:

We've finished in the top 5 ELEVEN times in the last 15 seasons. I would say we’ve been strong on many many occasions in those years and haven’t pushed on

Every season there is an excuse for not buying those 1 or 2 extra players to strengthen our squad and help us to fight on all fronts

End of the day ENIC only invest when it makes good business sense. No point buying players when we don’t really have to!

As I’ve said before, the business will always outweigh the glory

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if we hadn't failed in so many semi finals, and finals I might agree. the players they have signed us since they have been with us have made us a top 5 club for 14yrs. due to the stadium we were in, we could only afford to pay wages of a top 6 team, and have overachieved. we have seen the spend go up in the summer, we are seeing an increase in January and we haven't been in the new stadium a season yet.

the building of the stadium has been a problem, and not helped by the spiraling cost of what happened due to brexit.

both Chelsea and Man C managed to lay their foundations before FFP. Liverpool spent big with the Coutinho money, we haven't sold a star player since Bale, and every penny they got from that sale was invested back into the team and the start of the foundations were built for Poch, he also got lucky we had a star come through the ranks.

we are now in a stadium that allows us to compete with wages and hopefully bring players in. yes it might be seen as a panic buy now to get us back in the top 4, but none of us really know for certain that if we were where Leicester are now, we still might have bought.

southlondonyiddo said:

As I’ve said before, the business will always outweigh the glory

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Isn’t that a false dichotomy? Those two things aren’t necessarily in opposition. Glory on the pitch would lead to a burgeoning business, wouldn’t it?

The reason the biggest clubs turn over the amount of money they do is because they’ve had years of success on the pitch. It seems unlikely that ENIC don’t really care about the team winning things.

Cast your minds back to 2001 when ENIC took their controlling stake.

League:
We finished 12th.
5 years later, we finished 5th. With the exception of 2 seasons we haven’t finished outside the top 6 since. That’s progress.

Stadium:
In 2001 our capacity was a little over 36000. The stadium was hemmed in by listed buildings and serviced by sub par public transport. Now we have a brand new station and more trains flowing to get us all in and out. We also have the finest ground in world football. That’s progress.

Training ground:
We have a hotel, some of the finest facilities in the world. Our lovely rivals West Ham have portakabins. Nuff said.

Finances:
We have increased our turnover from circa £90m to £521m. At the same time our rivals incomes stagnated or grew slightly. Not bad, and that’s progress.

Playing Staff:
Take a look at some of the players we had in 2001, how many would make it into our team now? Maybe Teddy, Poyet, Ledley, Les Ferdinand? How many would make the bench? Maybe Ziege, Sherwood? Let’s not discuss Judas. We have significantly increased quality across the board, and with the squad refresh it only gets better, in time.

Coaches:
Hoddle is and always will be a legend, he didn’t have the best tools to work with and I am grateful for what he did for the club. He cannot be compared with the coaches since... Pochettino, love the guy. Mourinho, well he might just take us to the next level and win stuff.

In short, we’ve made steady and consistent progress with few rash decisions and deft management of the stadium and training ground. We could have blown millions and done a Leeds, but we’re lined up to dine at the top table of world football for years to come.

While it would be easy to moan about Levy, ENIC have transformed and future proofed our club. We are sustained by our income and not by debt, our playing staff is strong. I’m an ENIC fan, they are welcome to steward our club for as long as they feel able to.

Lighty64 said:

without the stadium build I'm not sure we would have held on to some players, or signed the players we did. with the players knowing their wages were on the verge of being doubled once we moved out, it was most probably 1 of the reasons they stayed on top of thinking this squad should win something.





unfortunately at our strongest time, we had our hands tied behind our backs building a stadium. the only person that could have changed that is Joe Lewis if he had thrown his own money at it.

when Leicester won the title, we wouldn't have been classed as a chaser even come the January by the end of January we were 4th. ok only 5pts behind but we had a pretty strong squad and very hard to upgrade on the starting XI. once Chelsea won the party our heads dropped and cost us 2nd.

the season after we were 3rd 9pts adrift, but we still had a strong squad, the problem was Janssen didn't produce after buying cover for Kane, Batshuayi didn't score many more. he might of got the goal that finally won the league but in the league I believe he only scored 2 more. it hurt getting Sissoko instead of Mane, but Mane wanted more wages than we were paying our top earners, and we were playing with an 8k reduced crowd that season. no way could we have upped everybody's wages that season.

the new stadium build, the squad we had, and Pochettino all ended up being here at the wrong time. if he had joined us this season with a squad similar to then, I reckon we would see a very successful team pretty soon.

the only window I really feel we should have done better in was the Nelson/Saha fiasco, but with Redknapps future being very uncertain then perhaps that's why Levy never backed him.

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I agree with you albeit the point with investing in some better quality than Saha and Nelson was pushing for the title that season - it wasn't so much worrying about the following season at that moment - almost what one would call "to dare is to do" but what's done is done now.

We don't do because we never dare. ( sadly) just once it would be nice to take a punt but Levy is the ultimate conservative.

buckley said:

We don't do because we never dare. ( sadly) just once it would be nice to take a punt but Levy is the ultimate conservative.

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Yeah we haven't spent anything this month.

My gripe about not daring is about last year when we could have signed Bruno Fernandes and Dybala that was the time to dare does anybody think we would be in our present position if we had gone the extra bit and signed players who incidentally thought they were on their way to us .

buckley said:

My gripe about not daring is about last year when we could have signed Bruno Fernandes and Dybala that was the time to dare does anybody think we would be in our present position if we had gone the extra bit and signed players who incidentally thought they were on their way to us .

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the BF deal feel through because 1 we signed GLC the other was we failed in getting Eriksen out. if Eriksen had gone during our window I believe we would have dared on him. with Dybala sometimes because of image rights and 3rd party ownership a deal becomes impossible.

we really needed the players out also that we want out, you wouldn't want to be paying someone 50k+ to be doing absolutely nothing

NEVILLEB said:

You guys are just dumber. You can’t remember all the things that have happened at the club over the years and you have no ability to discuss any faults in how the club is wrong.

You don’t spot patterns where the same mistakes happen again and again and you have no loyalty to our Managers.

You can’t really argue and have rounded on anyone who points out the obvious.

This point of view is only found on this forum.

Everyone else sees what the problems have been. The press, pundits, ex-players, even some of our squad. Every normal fan you meet outside of the forum knows.

So if Ive resorted to calling you dumb then it’s the result of years of evidence!

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Believing that people who disagree with you are "dumb" simply because they disagree with you is actually a trait of a narcissist leaning toward the psychopathic side of life.... or ironically of a dumb person. Lumping everybody into the same bracket by saying "You guys..." is just lazy.

I haven't posted on this forum for ages specifically because of people like you. The small-mindedness of yourself and similar posters isn't limited to this debate, it can be seen in players threads, match threads, even general chat. It is painful to read and has made me not want to be involved with the rest of the folk on here.

If you take the time to read people's posts properly and try to remove your own opinion bias as much as possible you will start to see that many pro-ENIC people point out times when they messed up. Just as many anti-ENIC people can appreciate good things they do. There are some very eloquent posters on both sides of the argument, although probably still out-numbered by the one-liners we see! There are lots of good arguments for and against if you take the time to "see" instead of just "look".

The idea of pro-ENIC is not something limited to this forum. People on the outside (press, pundits etc.) never have the full story and are paid to deliver stories, so listening to them verbatim is not the recipe for the truth. Many normal fans of our club are overall happy with the owners. Many normal fans of other clubs are jealous of our owners. Your post above is simply incorrect.

I'm not saying you are the only person who has ever said something bad, but making posts like these genuinely spoils the experience for other people. And consider this; if you really don't care about other people and what they think, then perhaps that means your own views are inherently limited.

If you choose to not consider other people's points of view you do not limit their potential to be right... you limit your own.


PS. Don't bother replying to this because I doubt I'll be posting again any time soon. The Norwich game last week was my first trip to the new stadium and it massively re-ignited my passion for the club, so I wanted to pop my head up and say "Hi" to my fellow fans who are feeling a bit jaded by this debate. There are many positives around the club at the moment, don't let the naysayers get you down.

NEVILLEB said:

You guys are just dumber. You can’t remember all the things that have happened at the club over the years and you have no ability to discuss any faults in how the club is wrong.

You don’t spot patterns where the same mistakes happen again and again and you have no loyalty to our Managers.

You can’t really argue and have rounded on anyone who points out the obvious.

This point of view is only found on this forum.

Everyone else sees what the problems have been. The press, pundits, ex-players, even some of our squad. Every normal fan you meet outside of the forum knows.

So if Ive resorted to calling you dumb then it’s the result of years of evidence!

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This is utter bollocks, the BSoDL was all made up as a bit of jest amongst fans and has somehow been turned in a term that seems to mean you can see the mistakes that Levy has made. I have no problem being called a BSoDL but I can sure as shit tell you he has made mistakes along the road. On a whole though he and ENIC have transformed our club in the modern era of football, if you cant see that I honestly don't know what you have been looking at.

dontcallme said:

Fair points. I think it's hard to compare us with City and Chelsea. They both came in with huge financial backers at a time when no one was really spending so they could outspend their competitors.

Lets look at Liverpool though. Klopp joined in 2015 after the transfer window.

In his first transfer window he bought Mane and Wijnaldum then a few low level signings.
The following season they bought VVD, Salah, Chamberlain and Robertson.
The next season they spent even bigger and got Allison, Keita and Fabinho.

So they didn't just come out and back Klopp massively. He has been backed solidly and continuously. His first season was 2 big signings.

We have made decent signings at a notoriously difficult time. For now, lets just see this as a good start.

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The only time they actually made a big net spend was that final season (130m or something) and that's when they won the CL and laid the groundwork for this ridiculous season they're having. We took the first couple of steps, similar to them, but then rather than making the big net spend that might've pushed us over the line, we spent literally nothing.

Of course that spending wouldn't have guaranteed us winning anything, but it certainly would've given us a better chance. I completely agree with @mpickard2087 that football is unpredictable and it was often fine margins and small tactical/individual mistakes that cost us, but equally, if we'd acted decisively and daringly in the summer of 15/16, as liverpool did in 18/19 and bought a higher tier of player than Vinny fucking Janssen and a last minute Sissoko then we may well have won the league that year.

Lots of 'if onlys' involved, but in repeated summers our first 5-6 games were sabotaged by last minute transfer wranglings and penny pinching. Opportunities were not taken to save a few million here and there. I know this is Levy's greatest strength in many ways, but there are also multiple examples of when it's backfired massively and cost the club.

Overall I'd rather have Levy than pretty much any other chairman but I also think he deserves some stick for certain choices he's made and I do believe he's occasionally showed a lack of ambition at what have since proven be crucial junctures in our recent history.

Timberwolf said:

The only time they actually made a big net spend was that final season (130m or something) and that's when they won the CL and laid the groundwork for this ridiculous season they're having. We took the first couple of steps, similar to them, but then rather than making the big net spend that might've pushed us over the line, we spent literally nothing.

Of course that spending wouldn't have guaranteed us winning anything, but it certainly would've given us a better chance. I completely agree with @mpickard2087 that football is unpredictable and it was often fine margins and small tactical/individual mistakes that cost us, but equally, if we'd acted decisively and daringly in the summer of 15/16, as liverpool did in 18/19 and bought a higher tier of player than Vinny fucking Janssen and a last minute Sissoko then we may well have won the league that year.

Lots of 'if onlys' involved, but in repeated summers our first 5-6 games were sabotaged by last minute transfer wranglings and penny pinching. Opportunities were not taken to save a few million here and there. I know this is Levy's greatest strength in many ways, but there are also multiple examples of when it's backfired massively and cost the club.

Overall I'd rather have Levy than pretty much any other chairman but I also think he deserves some stick for certain choices he's made and I do believe he's occasionally showed a lack of ambition at what have since proven be crucial junctures in our recent history.

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I agree with you. My point was about continuous spending. People keep thinking a big January signing will save our season and in the pastit could have won us titles. There hasn't been a single example of a team at the top who have made a January signing that was instrumental in helping them achieve something.

The Poch years were good but I believe we had two issues. First was not actvely selling and buying at the levels required. Second was Poch's thoughts of slow development and integration. Then four years on there had been minimal development and integration.

ENIC appear to be putting this right now.

dontcallme said:

I agree with you. My point was about continuous spending. People keep thinking a big January signing will save our season and in the pastit could have won us titles. There hasn't been a single example of a team at the top who have made a January signing that was instrumental in helping them achieve something.

The Poch years were good but I believe we had two issues. First was not actvely selling and buying at the levels required. Second was Poch's thoughts of slow development and integration. Then four years on there had been minimal development and integration.

ENIC appear to be putting this right now.

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Why then are we making some signings now.... its clear as day we want to stay in the CL....similarly at that juncture in the season Leicester won we were crying out for a player or two to aid our title challenge.

Meltdown incoming when we don’t sign a striker

piedpiper said:

Why then are we making some signings now.... its clear as day we want to stay in the CL....similarly at that juncture in the season Leicester won we were crying out for a player or two to aid our title challenge.

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I have absolutely no idea how that is a rebuttal to my post.

I said we dropped the ball and made few signings for several seasons and now playing catch up.

Are the people who don’t like ENIC seriously twisting our January signings into only happening in order to get CL? This is fucking insane.

piedpiper said:

Why then are we making some signings now.... its clear as day we want to stay in the CL....similarly at that juncture in the season Leicester won we were crying out for a player or two to aid our title challenge.

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I ask again, why didn’t Arsenal and City make signings that January when they were in a higher position than us at the end of the year?

Can you give one example of any Prem team buying in January who was instrumental in them winning a title that season?