Spurs miss the target as Baldini and Levy bury heads in the stands

I think you will find I have said that pochettino needs time, three years at the very least. What I have done is questioned his decisions at times and that is because he makes poor decisions. Not all of the time but making Kaboul captain and Adebayor vice captain were strange to say the least. Making nine changes for games has proved to be far too many. If you change that many players you get performances like we saw on Saturday.
I openly admit to being pessimistic, always have, always will. I make no apology for it and the fact that now over 80 comments exist show that this debate has lots of opinions, all of which are valid. May opinion may not be right, your opinion may not be either but they are all valid, that's why blogging sites like this exist.
I don't ask anyone to agree with my opinion. If they do, great, if they don't, that is fine too. I repeat again that we all want the same thing but have different ideas of how it should be done.
I personally don't like how ENIC run the club, but that's not to say that I don't see some of the good they have done. Ultimately I don't think they have achieved anywhere enough, but we are stable financially which is great but I be
I've that stability comes at the benefit of the plc rather than what I support week in week out, the football club.

 

2004-05 lowest attendance 19,578. We can all play with stats

 

THFC4EVER states with the revenues THFC has a 5 year old could make a profit. This comment is my newest 'most naive comment I have ever heard'. It is so difficult to make a profit in football because agents and players basically take every penny that comes into the club. A lot of players have blagged contracts that state they only get a certain amount less than the highest paid player or they can never be less than third highest etc. Everytime a new player joins on a big whack everyone gets a pay rise. THFC thankfully have lower basics than a lot, but excellent bonus schemes but wages are still a massive problems. The club was totally unprofitable before ENIC came. Scholar had blown it all chasing the dream and the club was close to backruptcy. Sugar stabilised the ship, Gascoigne was sold. He appointed Graham and gradually bought cheap average players and turned us into an abysmal and very dull side while watching Arsenal create a wonderful side and beautiful stadium. The reason Tottenham now compete in the top 6 is that with a tiny stadium ENIC have created revenue streams all round the world when Sugar's great plan was to cancel the milk and only allow phone calls in the afternoon when it was cheaper. He built an average at best training ground and the club got further and further behind it's rivals. Of all football's problems, Bosman is the one that has crippled the game the most with the onset of greedy agents demanding top dollar for their players (Samba got £100K per week at QPR; Gomis has an £8 signing on fee at Swansea that must be paid in full if he leaves!). Making a profit is virtually impossible and Tottenham basically look to break while investing in the infrastructure and attempting to build an amazing stadium in a run down part of London. Debate is good, but comments like that are just ridiculous as if Tottenham's revenues have just appeared by magic.

 

As dear old Keith Burkinshaw said after the uefa cup final there used to be a football club there enough said

 

I called that Soldado would be a flop as he was too small to play the position he was bought for, I also questioned spending 30mil on Lamela who was a prospect at best.
I didnt think the money had been spent great and wasnt gettin my knickers in a twist over them but was willing to give them a try as they were now purchased and Spurs players.
They havent turned out great which relates to my point on transfers there is no clear structure or thought process involved.
Your point of view on this is 1 of 2 things either DL is the most hard done by unlucky Chairman of all time or he is utterly clueless.

 

Don't get me wrong here im not a Mr Levy apologist at all . I just don't think he's as bad a chairman as a lot of others seem to .. Sacking managers willy nilly is a nonsense in my opinion , especially when the next one seems to have pretty identical ideas . I would be of the opinion if you hire someone give them a chance to prove themselves . Over all tho i think giving the state of the club they took over and the limited income we are where we prob should be according to the figures . Forget a bout looking at net spend and whatever for a second and realise that whatever way you look at it we spent a lot of money over last few Windows .. Unfortunately for us it didn't work out . In fairness i don't think even the most optimistic of us could have hoped every transfer would have been a success , but likewise i don't think anyone would have predicted the nightmare scenario of the whole lot not working .. Ultimately i think they did a lot of things right to get us into the position where we could spend the money we did without putting us in a messy financial position .. Unfortunately for everyone involved it hasn't panned out the way we hoped ..

 

I appreciate frustration and anxiety of Tottenham fans. Reality is you don't dream about Championship and you don't intend to spend. This is addressed to our Chairman. You claim to be one of the 20 or even higher richest club in Europe or World. Though your accounts show that with exception of 7 acquisitions made from selling Bale. You did not spend enough to deserve the Championship place. In new era you shall express your intention with spending. Look at Man Utd for example they spent last summer over £150 million and still struggling. However, they shown their intention and they are ahead of us Spurs in league table at the moment after disaster season last year. Quick repair can only happen by buying well established stars. Not the case always but believe or not I should give credit to our Spur's fans. They really shown patience towards the owner and the Chairman and deserve more than this at this great club.

 

Of course hindsight is wonderful and many of the posters here ha e used hindsight to comment. It's the way of the world!!
I was hopeful on soldado and have been surprised at his lack of goals I really have. I had watched lamela quite a few times for Roma and whilst I was impressed with his performances, I saw someone who was not ready for the toughness and physicality of the premier league. The Italian league is very slow and lamela had lots of time to perform his tricks but I could not believe it when I heard we were spending thirty million on him. There were not exactly a host of teams fighting for his signature making the amount even more bizarre.
Paulinho was average at best.

 

Interesting stuff. I agree, its a game of opinions and I appreciate theres validity to every one of them. We have a difference in opinion in that I believe in stability and backing the team whereas I think you probably believe in change at the top and criticising where you feel is appropriate.

My issue with you comes down to this article which you wrote earlier this season.

http://tottenhamlive.com/threads/poorchettino.224/

I find calling for a managers head several months in to be *****ic given that a manager clearly needs time to implement a system alien to the players. Also reading the response to your article caused me to lose faith a bit at the complete imbeciles who left me wanting to smack my head against the wall.

As for Pochettinos poor decisions, I agree Kaboul and Adebayor as captains is a terrible decision with the benefit of hind sight but they're big characters within the dressing room by all accounts and at the time I could have seen the logic behind it

 

It is your right to disagree. I don't disagree with some of your points but I feel pochettino has shown naivety at times.
At the time of the article you kindly refer to, the performances were very poor indeed and I started to wonder what he was doing and I agree it came from a position of passion and was per as knee jerk. I never intend to offend anyone, simply create an arena for debate.
I have never booed my team inside the ground or booed a player and never will, and trust me, when we had Jason dozell and dean Austin, I was in a minority.

 

Maybe now is a good time to move on folks. The issue of levy will run and run but we can all agree to disagree.

 

Wow must be heading for record comments now. Not been on for a few days but very interesting to see how vastly different people's views on Enic/Levy/Lewis differ. I'm firmly on the fence as I believe the club and the team is firmly in a stronger position than pre Levy when we nearly got relegated until klinsmann came to rescue us! The football however is awful it must be said I'm sure all will agree... Now all of us barring felon where pretty excited when we signed the magnificent 7. Soldado was a proven top level scorer paulinho was Brazil's next big thing and lamela with massive potential to be a world star. Eriksen and chadli decent signings and chiriches his country's star player and captain. The future did look bright even with bale departing. Levy did sanction all these signings when he would have every right to maybe hold bk half for the stadium IMO. He didn't so fair play. Yeah they have flopped but who was to know. Over the past five years tho as one of the top twenty financial sound clubs in Europe the investment hasnt been great especially when the club has been on the boundaries of achieving great things. A striker or two at the right time when we had a team containing vdv bale king modric would have catapulted us into regular top four side. That is not with the benefit of hindsight. As regards to Poch he is making a decent fist of things with the squad but has made some massive mistake regarding the captaincy the selling of sygi and his misuse of dembele. If
Poch feels he doesn't need new players then that is another grave mistake that will cost him his job. Now is the time for the club to truly back their manager with the funds and faith in him to make his OWN signings that he can prosper from or fall on his own sword upon! Even if it means making a loss on certain players and paying off rotten eggs! The team is still in a very strong position to still win a cup and or reach top four with the other candidates also average sides with average managers!

 

I agree with big fran. We certainly could do to strengthen in the January window and if we don't and then fail to at least deliver. Trophy, the pressure could be on, but as I have said, he needs time and for once will be given time. I don't think even levy is naive enough to think the sacking of another manager would be wise choice.

 

This is where my issue is. Of course you can't predict how players will turn out, but when it is clear we need to strengthen, we need to do that and the investment at this stage is not forthcoming. I could of course be proved wrong in the next 7 days!

 

I wasn't in fact calling for him to be sacked, but what I did was question his decision making:

"However, whilst I have said many times that the manager needs time, and I still believe that to be true, you do start to wonder what happens when managers get the tottenham job. It is is starting to look like they all lose any sense of reasoning, tactical nouse or just simple football ideology."

The key phrase being: " I have said many times that the manager needs time, and I still believe that to be true"

I still don't want to see him sacked, but I do still find some of his decisions baffling. Hopefully on Wednesday night he will play, Lloris, kane etc and not Paulinho etc. if he plays the latter, I don't think I will be the only one asking questions.
I will not however be asking for him to be sacked.

 

I think the fact that an internet blog that had such diff opinions and got nearly 100 replies hasn't ended up in a slaging match or mindless insulting each other is a credit to all , so well done all on that score ..

 

.....Hindsight vs reality again.

Wouldn't Poch want to play his strongest team in every game?

Wouldn't Poch want to strengthen the squad?

Wouldn't Poch rather have started Kane & Eriksen vs Leicester?

The reality is that Poch needs to take risks to rotate his squad and keep his 1st teamers injury free. A team was selected which was capable of beating Leicester for 82 minutes but the players did not execute the game plan for the last 10 minutes, whereas Leicester did. That is why they have proved they are not 1st team regulars. Capoue, Dembele & Paulinho in particular do not press enough or make enough forward passes.

Mourinho put out a weakened team against Bradford and still couldn't defend a 2 goal lead. Did his selection lose all sense of reasoning, tactical nouse or just simple football ideology?

Yes, it was very disappointing to lose on Saturday, but another 10 minutes and there could have been much different posts on this forum.

For all the talk about bringing players in, Levy & Baldini also have to move players out first. Then Poch can bring in the right type of players who can fit the system. If they are not available in January, why not give him time until they do? Any new signings will also have to accept that they will be behind Kane, Eriksen, Mason etc. until they earn their place in the 1st team.

A final statistic. Spurs have signed some great players and sold many as well. However, despite all the constant change, Spurs have continued to average 67 points a year, only 2 wins a season away from a Champions League place.

Points won by Tottenham by calendar year:
2009 - 68
2010 - 66
2011 - 68
2012 - 66
2013 - 70
2014 - 66

Fine margins in my opinion and definitely not a total failure from ENIC.

signing 2 overpriced star players in one transfer window is not the answer. Building a competitive squad of 22 motivated players IS.

moving on those players who have disappointed us over the years and replacing them with a core of players who can compete in the Premier League as 1st team regulars AND step in as a back up in the cup competitions when called upon.

 

So, with hindsight, ENIC have done a fantastic job. A fantastic job of constantly giving managers no time to do anything.

 

Where are we going to find thirty million from? Well, we spent thirty million on Lamela. That came from the bale sale but we spent thirty million on a player who was doing well in a very slow and in my view pretty poor league. Bony is proven in the premier league.
This isn't about hindsight it is about having the fight people involved in transfer policy. In any other business, if an employee has wasted money like Baldini, he would be long gone.
How anyone can defend baldini is odd.

 

It is amazing that anyone believes that Tottenham paid £30m for Lamela. So far the fee isn't even £10m. It is paid in installments over the term of the contract and has many add ons. If all the add ons were met the fee would be around £25m and as these include appearances and getting into the CL, Tottenham would be happy to pay this. I doubt whether the final amount will reach £20m.