ENIC...
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Lighty64
I believe
- Aug 24, 2010
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wow all this excitement and for once I never got involved
not exactly sure there is a figure for what we can spend because as the last I heard FFP has been suspended for a season so FFP doesn't come into it. unfortunately with everything that's happened I doubt we will spend much
Wheeler Dealer
Well-Known Member
- Jul 29, 2011
- 6,935
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Unless you are bank rolled by a country / soverign state or a Oligarch money launderer, then it's going to difficult to have any money to spend irrespective of the FFP being relaxed.wow all this excitement and for once I never got involved
not exactly sure there is a figure for what we can spend because as the last I heard FFP has been suspended for a season so FFP doesn't come into it. unfortunately with everything that's happened I doubt we will spend much
Lighty64
I believe
- Aug 24, 2010
- 10,400
- 12,476
oh I totally agree but it puts both sides of the argument to bed. if Lewis and Levy decided to go stupid (I KNOW THEY WON'T) they can
yido_number1
He'll always be magic
- Jun 8, 2004
- 8,692
- 16,895
Levy taking the loan from the government and saying it won't be spent on transfers (Rightly) says all you need to know about the possibility of us spending any decent money. From my perspective ENIC have a free pass until we can recoup the damage the Corona virus has done to us. We know Lewis isn't going to bank roll us and they have the perfect reason not to spend a load of money. Hopefully Levy can show how amazing he is with the books now we really need that.
spursfan77
Well-Known Member
- Aug 13, 2005
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spursfan77
Well-Known Member
- Aug 13, 2005
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These player swaps sound right up Levy’s street.
yido_number1
He'll always be magic
- Jun 8, 2004
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McArchibald
Well-Known Member
- Jun 6, 2010
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Pochettino and Klopp both built good sides, but only one got the crucial backing
Spurs were better than Liverpool for much of the last decade, but when in came to the crunch the Reds invested as Spurs stagnated
theathletic.com
Pochettino and Klopp both built good sides, but only one got the crucial backing
By Jack Pitt-Brooke 2h ago10
Right now, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur are playing a different sport. Liverpool are currently 41 points clear of Spurs and will probably finish the season with roughly double Spurs’ final tally. Any comparison of the two sides, their recent triumphs, their strengths, their prospects, will not be particularly favourable for the north Londoners.
Liverpool are reigning champions of Europe and now champions of England too. They have taken 183 points from their last 69 league games, and they will surely break Manchester City’s 100-point season record next month. Next season’s duel with City for the title will be another historical epic. Liverpool can already claim to be one of the great sides of the modern era and they are nowhere near finished.
Tottenham Hotspur, to be honest, are living a different life right now. They are seventh, and while they should hold off the challenges of Sheffield United and Arsenal to hold onto a Europa League spot, clambering up into the Champions League places will require perfect results and rivals dropping points. They could still do it, and Harry Kane’s return to fitness gives them every chance. But the more likely outcome is that next season their midweek games will be against Progres Niederkorn and BATE Borisov, rather than PSG and Barcelona.
It all feels very different from even the recent past. Tottenham, for most of the decade just gone, were better than Liverpool. They finished ahead of them in the league eight times out of 10. When Jurgen Klopp took over Liverpool in October 2015, Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs were already flying. For Klopp’s first three seasons, Liverpool finished beneath Spurs.
Each side had its own charismatic manager, its own modern brand of pressing, its exciting young team with an English core. Both sides felt as if they were changing the way football was played in England. But Spurs had the edge, and looked likelier than anyone else to break the big-money grip of Chelsea and Manchester City at the top.
That sense that it would be Spurs who broke in, before anyone else, survived until very recently. It was less than three years ago — October 2017 — when Liverpool visited Spurs and were torn to pieces. This was still peak Spurs: Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Son Heung-min and Christian Eriksen all performing at their best. The Liverpool side — Dejan Lovren, Simon Mignolet, Emre Can — still looked miles off.
And yet that afternoon at Wembley was more or less the end of Spurs’ superiority. Subtly enough, the two teams started to move in different directions, even if it was not apparent at the time. It is tempting enough to look at the 2019 Champions League final as the key moment here but in truth the two teams were already in different orbits by then. Liverpool finished 26 points ahead of Tottenham last season, a tiny margin compared to this season, but a huge margin in the context of the decade preceding it.
So what happened? What allowed Liverpool to take those long bounding steps in the last few years, not just past Tottenham but past every other team in the Premier League and the rest of the world? Why did they take the chance that Tottenham ultimately missed?
The answer has to be recruitment. Both teams were good in their own way but only Liverpool made that final step to being great. Because they reacted to setbacks by making obvious upgrades. Two months after that defeat at Wembley, Liverpool bought Virgil van Dijk for £75 million. Two months after Loris Karius cost them the Champions League final in Kyiv they bought Allison for £68 million. And those two players have been integral to Liverpool sweeping everything before them in the two years since.
Compare that to Tottenham. They never improved on the team that Mauricio Pochettino and Paul Mitchell built in those first two years working together. Teams at their peak should keep improving themselves with top players to maintain that freshness, but Spurs never did. And they let their advantage erode.
In 2016 Pochettino wanted more pace and unpredictability in wide areas. He was desperate for Sadio Mane — Mitchell had signed him for Southampton — and met the player, only for him to choose Klopp’s Liverpool instead. They could not do a deal for Isco or Wilfried Zaha and ended up, at the end of the transfer window, with Moussa Sissoko.
Even in the summer of 2017, when the team had just racked up 86 Premier League points, and were right on the brink of glory, they did not do enough. Kyle Walker was sold to Manchester City and the players who came in — Davinson Sanchez, Serge Aurier, Juan Foyth, Fernando Llorente — were not upgrades on what they had. The club also missed the chance to agree new contracts with Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen and Eric Dier, to reward them for finishing second in the league, which would have saved them plenty of money and hassle down the line.
And in the summer of 2018, Spurs identified Jack Grealish as a man who could elevate the whole team, but they only bid £25 million and he stayed at Aston Villa. They ended up, quite unbelievably for a team four years into a cycle, not signing anyone at all.
From the start of 2019 it was clear that Spurs were going stale. They were left with a starting line-up that had been together too long and lost its freshness. Of the team that started the Champions League final last year, Sissoko was in his third season at the club and everyone else had been there four years or more. (Liverpool, in contrast, had five starters in their first or second season at the club plus Trent Alexander-Arnold who was also relatively new to the first team.) And Pochettino knew that any benefit he would get from his players understanding his principles would be offset by the dulling effect of over-familiarity.
Pochettino could be forgiven for looking jealously at the example of Liverpool. His team had stagnated since its peak, failing to build or improve, failing to add to that initial magic that they had. They never signed the special players to make that difference. And Pochettino knew that Liverpool, unlike Spurs, had completed the project of building the team the right way. When they needed a top centre-back they bought a top centre-back. When they needed a top keeper they bought a top keeper. And every player was perfect for the way the manager wanted to play.
Compare that to Spurs. They wanted Mane and ended up with Sissoko. They wanted a young striker to come in as a back-up to Kane, ready to learn from him, and they got Vincent Janssen. They wanted Grealish and got no one at all for a whole year. They started out with Kyle Walker at right-back and two years later they had Serge Aurier.
That is why it is so unfair to blame Pochettino for the way things ended at Spurs, or even for the fact that after five and a half years in charge he did not win a trophy. Because the basic squad refreshment and improvement he wanted to do was impossible. And with the squad going stale in his hands, he still found a way to guide them to the Champions League final.
The problem is that Pochettino was trying to do all this while Tottenham were also trying to build their new £1.2 billion stadium, a process that left them homeless for almost two years, the time when the squad stagnated. Unfortunately that made it difficult for a club who was paying for its own stadium, with no public money, and no benefactor throwing money at them, to keep investing in players. For Liverpool, a global superclub with huge commercial revenues, the money for top players was always at hand.
“It was difficult wasn’t it,” Paul Mitchell, who resigned in 2016, told The Athletic in a recent interview. “When you’re trying to build a stadium, and the level of investment that takes now, it’s hard to align the two. Because of the sums of money it costs now to invest in players, especially in the Premier League.”
“But my philosophy is that that is needed, year on year, new voices, new profile, just to stimulate the group. Just to keep the group competitive. Keep the group daily training at its maximum. That competitive stimulation that all great teams have. It doesn’t have to be a whole wave of new players. Two or three or four players every window, of the highest quality, that can try to break into that starting line-up, is crucial to continue being competitive at the very, very top echelons of the game.”
That, ultimately, is the difference between Tottenham and Liverpool. Tottenham never made those final steps in the market, and Liverpool did. Both Klopp and Pochettino built good sides, but only one of those two men was backed enough to push for greatness. And now Jose Mourinho has to try to relaunch a very different looking Tottenham team back towards where they used to be.
This might be a lesson to the growing teams of the 2020s, who builds to the point of being on the brink of glory. Whether that is Everton or Manchester United or Arsenal or Wolves. These windows of opportunity only come along rarely. So clubs have to take advantage if they can, backing the manager, buying the right players, trying to make that step from good to great. Because when they are shut they do not re-open fast.
The most damning indictment of ENIC's (mis)rule yet to appear in print. People must realize once and for all that the Levy/Lewis partnership is only interested in making as much money as the possibly can over the back of the club. Their rule is NOT for the benefit of THFC, they don't give a f*ck about on-field success and couldn't care less about winning trophies. Where at (almost) all other clubs the first team squad is at the core of the board's thinking, our owners have actively undermined our chances of success at every turn, siphoning off as much earnings as they could get away with. We're simply not run as a football club, but as a get-rich-quick scheme. That super-expensive stadium, that now hangs like a millstone around the clubs neck, will not start benefiting the first team for many a long year because of the mountain of debt incurred to build it. Only from the point of inflating the resale value of the club will its effects be immediate.
Like a leech Levy has attached himself to our club, growing mega-rich in the process. And all his talk about loving the club and doing the best for it are just statements of imperial hypocrisy. Yes he loves the club - like Dracula loves a fresh maiden. And they are treated much the same.
Our window of opportunity has slammed shut. Levy f*cked it up. And the fact that I as a fan will lose more sleep over that than he will makes me really quite angry...
Last edited:
hellava_tough
Well-Known Member
- Apr 21, 2005
- 9,429
- 12,383
Pochettino and Klopp both built good sides, but only one got the crucial backing
Spurs were better than Liverpool for much of the last decade, but when in came to the crunch the Reds invested as Spurs stagnated
The most damning indictment of ENIC's (mis)rule yet to appear in print. People must realize once and for all that the Levy/Lewis partnership is only interested in making as much money as the possibly can over the back of the club. Their rule is NOT for the benefit of THFC, they don't give a f*ck about on-field success and couldn't care less about winning trophies. Where at (almost) all other clubs the first team squad is at the core of the activities, our owners have actively undermined our chances of success at every turn, siphoning off as much earnings as they could get away with. We're simply not run as a football club, but as a get-rich-quick scheme. That super-expensive stadium, that now hangs like a millstone around the clubs neck will not start benefiting the first team for many a long year because of the mountain of debt incurred to build it. Only from the point of inflating the resale value of the club will its effects be immediate.
Like a leech Levy has attached himself to our club, growing mega-rich in the process. And all his talk about loving the club and doing the best for it are just statements of imperial hypocrisy. Yes he loves the club - like Dracula loves a fresh maiden. And they are treated the same way too.
Our window of opportunity has slammed shut. Levy f*cked it up. And the fact that I as a fan will lose more sleep over that fact than he will makes me really quite angry...
Thanks for posting.
I think a lot of people need to take the blame, really.
Levy for not getting key deals done and missing chances when they present themselves.
Our scouting network for apparently not being good enough in recent seasons.
Poch for not being flexible enough on his transfer targets, when he knows the club is operating with reduced financial power.
Finally, would the fans have been happy if we had have sold a favourite (Alli, Eriksen, even Kane) for big money and the fee reinvested on 2 or 3 quality players? Probably not, but that's what Liverpool did.
Anyway, all in all, there are multiple reasons, but it's all very disappointing.
DiVaio
Well-Known Member
- May 27, 2020
- 4,181
- 17,423
Or people must realise that the difference between Liverpool and us now are not the ENIC and FSG but the fact that Klopp is much better in recruiting players&tactician and knew how to behave after losing the CL Final...Pochettino and Klopp both built good sides, but only one got the crucial backing
Spurs were better than Liverpool for much of the last decade, but when in came to the crunch the Reds invested as Spurs stagnated
The most damning indictment of ENIC's (mis)rule yet to appear in print. People must realize once and for all that the Levy/Lewis partnership is only interested in making as much money as the possibly can over the back of the club. Their rule is NOT for the benefit of THFC, they don't give a f*ck about on-field success and couldn't care less about winning trophies. Where at (almost) all other clubs the first team squad is at the core of the activities, our owners have actively undermined our chances of success at every turn, siphoning off as much earnings as they could get away with. We're simply not run as a football club, but as a get-rich-quick scheme. That super-expensive stadium, that now hangs like a millstone around the clubs neck will not start benefiting the first team for many a long year because of the mountain of debt incurred to build it. Only from the point of inflating the resale value of the club will its effects be immediate.
Like a leech Levy has attached himself to our club, growing mega-rich in the process. And all his talk about loving the club and doing the best for it are just statements of imperial hypocrisy. Yes he loves the club - like Dracula loves a fresh maiden. And they are treated the same way too.
Our window of opportunity has slammed shut. Levy f*cked it up. And the fact that I as a fan will lose more sleep over that fact than he will makes me really quite angry...
shelfboy68
Well-Known Member
- Jun 14, 2008
- 14,566
- 19,651
How can someone avoid not apportioning some of the blame to ENIC is staggering, yes poch allowed things to slide but he and levy are to blame for the mess the club has been left in.
D
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thebenjamin
Well-Known Member
- Jul 1, 2008
- 12,273
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Also perhaps something to do with Liverpool having a wage bill that's over £300m and more than double ours. Players go where they get paid.
BringBack_leGin
Well-Known Member
- Jul 28, 2004
- 27,719
- 54,929
Enic clearly fucked up in summer 2018.
That said, who would we have been able to sell for £142m? There’s probably only one answer, and who here would have been happy with that?
That said, who would we have been able to sell for £142m? There’s probably only one answer, and who here would have been happy with that?
jurgen
Busy ****
- Jul 5, 2008
- 6,749
- 17,345
Disagree but I wouldn’t call Levy a leech like the other fellow above, you can’t given how much better we were compared to the 90s although this season has been something of a return to the dark old days, so our trajectory no longer seems to be upwards which is sad.
Poch probably isn’t and won’t be the manager that Klopp is, but as the article demonstrates it’s hard to compare because even when Klopp didn’t get the exact players he wanted - and he mostly did - he got the right profile for his playing style. Sissoko, for all his worth, is the standout example of our weird recruitment and it’s a failing of those upstairs that we haven’t developed a better scouting system given we don’t like spending money.
Ultimately we don’t know how good Poch’s philosophy could have become because of missteps from above at crucial points, in my opinion.
spursfan77
Well-Known Member
- Aug 13, 2005
- 46,685
- 104,964
You’re post is spot on yet for some reason people only want to blame a single party.
It’s typical of our luck that the pandemic comes along and robs us of the stadium, which was meant to pull us level with the other financial big boys. For example, I’ve seen that although we spent similar to Liverpool since Klopp has been appointed that during that time he’s had £500 million more to spend on wages in that time. That’s a massive advantage in quality of player you’re able to attract. Only now could we close that wage gap but that’s been taken away from us.
D
Deleted member 27995
Vincent J? I'd have fallen off my pot of gold if we'd have sold him for that much.
On this subject again, we know where things went wrong off the field.
Just another chapter in the history of this club, unfortunately it comes under the section 'missed opportunity and unfortunate circumstances'
McArchibald
Well-Known Member
- Jun 6, 2010
- 1,294
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Oh but it is... Liverpool had been working on a new stadium for many years. Grand plans, but FSG decided to bin the lot because of the prohibitive cost and because it would be hard to replicate the atmosphere of Anfield. So FSG chose the sensible approach instead of the value-maximising one. It chose Football over capital expansion.
The results are there for all to see. They go from strength to strength while we're on the slide back to mid-table mediocrity. I find that pretty grating...
AberdeenYid
Well-Known Member
- Oct 18, 2006
- 450
- 874
ENIC takes some blame, as does Levy, Poch, the players, the scouts (if we have any), the physios
It’s too simplistic to blame one thing for this season and the longer term lack of silverware.
Poch got plenty of money and spent a fair whack on utter dross. But he could have got more money. But then would he have spent that any better? I have my doubts.
And hindsight is always a wonderful thing. Can you imagine the state of some Spurs fans if we’d done a Liverpool and signed a plodding central midfielder from Sunderland or an average looking full back from Hull? Just happened that they turned out to be amazing and relatively cheap signings, but would we support such risks? Doubt that too.
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