It’s something a little bit different this weekend for Tottenham Hotspur, as we put the Premier League aside and go into what will be an incredibly tough battle with Manchester City at Wembley Stadium in the EFL Cup Final.
Results and form of late has been mixed and we’ve seen the departure of former manager Jose Mourinho as a result of that (or the Super League nonsense?), but plenty would argue that we’ve seen an almost immediate reaction from the side to the appointment of caretaker boss Ryan Mason, as we turned our habit of losing points late on around with a 90th minute winner against Southampton in midweek. Few however, wouldn’t say our performance should’ve been far improved.
Victory was certainly much needed given how the week started and the confidence boost everyone has taken from that is the perfect preparation for Pep Guardiola’s side on Sunday afternoon, but nobody will be under any illusions as to how difficult this tie will be.
It is a chance for silverware though, so the players will definitely be up for this one and Cup games especially are definitely a ‘funny old game’ as one legend used to say.
The biggest question that remains for fans is will Harry Kane be passed fit for this one, as if he returns our chances of a result dramatically increase. Mason could also welcome Matt Doherty back aswell, but Ben Davies will need longer.
This is what I mean about the complexity of football finances. And it all being relative, BS.
For one, Chelseas do not own Stamford Bridge stadium. And our main asset now, is our stadium. But if we had been relegated into the Championship and not playing CL football in recent years. Our wealth would not be anywhere near comparable to how it is now. And we would not have our new stadium.
I mentioned the money we have earned from TV and media rights. And this is substantial. This is directly due to how we have performed on the pitch. As far as playing in the the CL and top 3, 3 years running, and reaching a CL final… And, our entertainment factor. Even to the point whereby a couple or so seasons ago, Spurs live matches were shown on Sky etc., more so than Man City’s were.
This again is where our style of football is also very important, regardless of winning trophies or not. No one wants to watch boring Spurs. Not even me! Many more than before, wanted to watch MP’s Spurs in their prime…… More watchers, more followers, more live matches shown. And more income!
And our finances are also currently better than Chelsea’s, because we haven’t been spending more than we can afford to spend……. So, it’s all about the good football AND the good business…
BS…as I understood it at the time we were very much in negotiations with Bruno’s representatives and had agreed a fee with his club, it was only when United entered the running and offered him better personal terms and (as alluded to in an earlier post) a chance to play for one of (if not) the biggest clubs in the world we couldn’t compete. I don’t believe the fee United paid was much different to what we had offered.
That said, in terms of 1 player having an effect on those around them, if our own squad aren’t able to follow the example set by Kane then it’s debateable whether they would lift there game for any other player.
TQ2S….On the subject of BF, I heard that he said he only wanted to play for MU, but agreed to go to Spurs as MU had shown no interest and to get into the Prem, so as soon as MU showed interest there was no way we were ever going to get him, for me in my opinion he was using us a stepping stone. COYS
Well, that’s the point I was making. DL is never going to sanction the wages it takes to attract top players.
When THFC can afford those so called top players. DL will buy them…
To me this is obvious. Pre covid and even during covid, the spending increased… But I can’t ever see why it is a bad thing to not overspend, beyond the means……
Levy’s plan is and always has been for the long term. For generations to come. Not just here and now for you and me…..
It’s not his fault or problem that many supporters fail to see this……. Shortsightedness and short-term ism is not his game……
Even so…
We do have some top players. We have had top players. We have created top players……… And there will be more to come. Of course there will be.
It wouldn’t matter BS, if United wanted him they would just trump our wages offer anyway. They seem to think it’s ok to go to about £400k per week as with Sanchez but this is just mad.
400k is an obscene amount of money to the average person but it’s all proportional to income.
When poch and spurs were at their best, following season we took it for granted, but we should of aimed higher, take a chance, gamble, to dare is to do, as we didn’t it fell apart, and now we have to spend to re build being outside top4 rather then spending to stay in top 4.
funny business modern football. ridiculous, really. a club can pay 200 million euros for a player who is on a massive salary for years tp come and every day that player is one serious knee injury away from never being able to play well again. and the club still is responsible for the massive salary for years to come. in a very real sense, the whole enterprise is a crap shoot when you bring in the super galacticos. buy on the cheap and you’re screwed. shoot for the stars and you might be screwed even more spectacularly.
🥵😱
the horror!
TK…I think the clubs insure against the potential situations you describe, I wouldn’t want to pay the likely premiums myself though! 🙂
you need to be quite mad to go into the business of overseeing a football operation. safer to sell weed in front of the old bill.
Haha TK!
Or maybe even selling weed TO the old bill!
Which would probably be less sordid and corrupt than the business of football itself!
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My sentiments exactly, it was just around that time (I think) that Mahres, and Kante, would’ve made our team complete, but we rested on our laurels and focused on the stadium.
TQ yep Tuchel has done very well at Chelsea, but as usual time will tell, he ain’t won nothing yet and RM can be a dangerous “old dog” they’ve been there done that so many times.
But still would’ve been a decent call for us as manager in hindsight, but you foresaw it.
Re Kane I think as HT said, his play can sometimes be a negative, as we saw when he played for England, he doesn’t need at times to be in that midfield area, because if he is then there is really no “out ball” as he is the guy who should be getting it on the 18 yrd box.
Just think at times this then takes away from the midfielders role as we say with the Hoj mistake on Sunday where he should’ve put his laces thru it but opted for a pass to allow (possibly) a thru ball to Kane and Sonny as if these are the only two allowed to shoot/score on our team.
This is what I mean by confidence issues and someone in that centre midfield role with skill with passion with a voice, similarly a good solid RB and two CDs.
We wouldn’t be far away.
Chelsea also just invested 250 million in their squad. Talent and depth clearly are not issues, as oppsoed to us. All it takes now is someone getting their players to come together as a team.
Tuchel has done well, but there are worse situations to walk into.
Surely if we sold 6 players for between 10 and 15 million.
It could raise around what 60 to 90 mil, that could fund 2 or 3 decent signings.
Some of our players could be worth more, but it would also lessen our wage bill and cover slightly larger wages for new players.
For example: get rid of 6 players at 60 grand a week and sign 3 at 100 grand a week.
Niall….a couple or 3 question for you regards your comment…2 or 3 decent signings –
a) What is a decent signing?
or
b) Are they older proven players? who in the end will cost us.
or
c) Are they up and coming players? who look good for the future, which is for me.
There is so much “hindsight” and “close the barn door after the horse has bolted” on here.
Just some queries mate. COYS
Ideally, players who have a track record of performing in a decent league, however old they are.
Of course hindsight is always 20/20, but ythere is no point in implying that it’s impossible to recruit a good player. Some of our rivals seem to manage it just fine!
You’re turning into jod!
Niall…..don’t get me started on shooting ability! lol
It has been a particular thorn for me for quite some time, we’ve had so many players past and present who don’t seem to have any idea how to shoot, Dembele was one of the most frustrating for me, followed by Sissoko, there are many more examples but you are right, they seem to think that Kane and Sonny are the only ones allowed to shoot from around the box although Lucas isn’t bad and of course we have had Bale in recent times who isn’t too shabby!
HT,
Some years ago I was buying weed from someone who sold it very cheaply given the market prices at the time. One day I asked him if he had any to sell and he said I should come back the next morning. I did, and he had some sensi in a scuffed up plastic bag that looked like it had been stuffed in an active garbage bag.
I later found out that he was a dirty copper who who picked up known dealers and put them in the back of his police car and drive around a bit and then stop and let the poor bastards go free. Then he’d search in the space between the seat and the seat back to find bags of weed they’d hidden there after emptying their pockets.
Years later I saw a newspaper article with his name in it. Seems he and some other coppers would go to stores late at night and cause the burglar alarms to go off. The police would show up and find no one there so they’d leave. then he’d enter the store to rob tellies, stereos and the like, secure knowing that other police would not respond to the alarm.
He finally got caught when a dealer he’d stolen from saw his scam one night and traded that info to other coppers to get a selling charge against him dismissed.
better to buy from the old bill than to sell it to them. they don’t need to buy it from you, they just steal it. If it’s quick cash you want, go into stealing with the old bill.
less risky that running a football club. But this particular copper ended up in the old bill on the wrong side of the bars for a few years. LOL. One thing you don’t want to be in this life is a convicted copper in the old bill mixed in with those you’ve been stealing from.
Maybe I should recruit him to replace DL. He’s got the balls, but I don’t know about his footwork.
It’s not so long ago that we also had Eriksen and Dele chipping in with their fare share of goals as well. (And assists of course)…
We had a pretty well balanced team for a while. Dele might recapture that old form. Eriksen? He’s had a tricky time of it since leaving, no? But that team we had was put together without taking ridiculous risks bringing in galacticos for years upon years of massive salaries.
If RM collapses under the weight of salaries it’s paying for aging former galacticos, I’ll get a mean spirited smile across my face watching the retributive justice play out. they looked pretty weak obtaining a draw the other day. Old men for those running about in short pants. Lots of panting as they ran about. i wouldn’t pay a farthing to buy Modric’s contract today, and a fart buys you more than a farthing these days.
Good story TK…
But why does it not shock or surprise me?!
It doesn’t surprise because you’ve seen enough of the world to know the depths to which the human character can descend.
Yep, we have a lovely house. However, except for a couple of prize assets, we have a lot of old and shabby furniture. The refurbishment was required when our previous tenant explained to the chairman that we had to rebuild immediately because some of the furniture was falling apart.
Maybe, we will have to sell our prize assets unless a new coach can sell off the cheaper stuff and put deposits down on some modern acquisitions.
On another matter, HT has highlighted our poor goal scoring from midfield…. Hojbjerg can’t shoot, Winks can’t shoot, Sissoko can’t shoot, Lo Celso can’t shoot (1 prem goal for an attacking midfielder). N”Dombele lovely footballer but not many goals. Bergwijn did score once. Lucas no longer scoring.
If Son and Kane don’t see the ball like Sunday, we are stuffed. Apparently Kane and Son did not have a good game. Nope,they needed the ball and we could not get it to them because we had no one to hold on to the ball or even put in shots from a distance.
As a young and naive electro/mechanical engineer I was sent by my employer to meet the technical buyer at the medical division of a very large Dutch electronics business. We were discussing the prototypes we were bidding to make for them when the guy turned to me and said ‘of course….we could offer your company a lot more business if you were prepared to buy a new set of tyres for my car’.
After I had picked my jaw up from the floor I used the excuse that I didn’t have the authority to offer inducements so would have to discuss it with my superior. I did so but have no idea if we ever did, my guess is no because we didn’t get any large orders from them!
I tell the story because I think the average person would be shocked if they were aware of how much corruption there is at all levels of society but particularly in politics at both national and local level.
TQ2S….hahaha inducement love it! backhanders are everywhere and I can assure you the average person knows it, its just that the “turn a blind eye” philosophy comes into being, cos it suits.
I suspect fewer people would be shocked than you expect. But then I spend my time in NYC and in Brazil, so perhaps I have different expectations than someone in the UK. But the traditional politeness of the middle class in the UK is unravelling a bit, too, and greater awareness of the tawdry side is becoming harder to conceal.
HT – It remains to be seen how much freedom even guys like Baldini and AVB really had…
I think the mag 7 is entirely Levy’s doing, with just a couple of straw men in the middle.
As far as JM is concerned, I at least understand why DL was willing to take the gamble, given the track record. But one defendable gamble (even though it backfired) doesn’t offset plenty of poor ones over the years. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice every day.
As for the TV rights, a club like Chelsea would be in line to receive just as much as we have in recent years, given their performance both in the league and the CL. The main difference, as you pointed out, is that they don’t own their stadium. In other words, the valuation of their club is based far more on their performance than their assets.
However, Deloitte also rank us above Arsenal, who do own their stadium and have won more things than we have recently.
BS, Emirates is a monstrosity. I haven’t been there but have some gooner mates (ouch) and they think so having travelled to London just to have a few pints there during a match against Chelsea. The one person I know personally who’s seen a match at THFC stadium raved positive about the experience.
Having been to both the Emirates and the new stadium, I can assure you that your friends are misleading you.
The new stadium is a work of art and better, but let’s not go overboard with how bad the Emirates is. It’s a modern, world class stadium in its own right.
from a distance I have the impression the DL did produce a stadium that no other matches in many ways. I’m willing to give the man is due when it is due. Whether this will accrue to the larger benefit of the team at the level of performance on the pitch is a different question.
Arsenal have been quite well run over many recent years.
But their finances have shrunk considerably, because of their silly overspending on a few players wages, on top of not qualifying for the CL for a few seasons. And also not going that far in it, when in it… It makes a huge difference…
This is why top 4 for Spurs this season (as any other) is far more beneficial and attractive than winning the League cup… And this would have been our priority right up to the whistle blew on Sunday just gone. To win it would’ve been great but top 4 is still better…….. It’s just the way it is.
More so, since the bloody pandemic hit!
Back to Chelsea BS. You say they have recently invested 250 million on players. Good for them. But so far as it stands, it has them just 5 points above Spurs.
Okay, they can still win a couple of trophies…… We’ll see.
I think their best recent investment was probably in their current manager. But, we’ll see……. 😉
As far as them not owning their stadium. They had drawn up plans and the building consent to build one, but decided they can’t afford to ……. It was due to have been finished by this month, this year!
…and in the time it’s taken Daniel Levy to build the stadium, Chelsea have won the PL 4 times, the CL and the EL once, 3 league cups and 5 FA cups. What’s the better legacy, for a football club?