Levy’s Catastrophic Blind spot
By: Robert Reed | February 1st, 2013
‘They say our love won’t pay the rent
Before it’s earned, our money’s all been spent
I guess that’s so, we don’t have a pot
But at least I’m sure of all the things we got’
That song was running around in my head when I awoke this morning; the day after the night before. What is it’s meaning? I thought. Is it some calming clarity which has been visited upon me in the night through the dulcet tones of Sonny & Cher? Am I wrong, and my mind is telling me that the money should have been saved and that we already have a good enough squad?
No, nothing that deep. It’s just February 1st; Groundhog Day.
It is a well known theory that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that maxim Daniel Levy should be on a ward somewhere eating pudding in his pyjamas.
NO! Some shout. He is a genius, deftly guiding us to the promised land with his prudent and wise business plan. It is stupid and short sighted to think that a forward should be signed when we do not have the revenue from Champions League football.
Well, I disagree, and if you would indulge me I would like to go through a brief recap in order to better express that opinion. I would also like to add that my opinion of the Chairman’s handling of certain aspects of the club does not require the slightly more hysterical to shriek ‘Get behind the team!’ I am forever behind the team; sometimes, I think, for my sins.
Our Champions League run in the 2010/11 season made us around £27 million pounds from the actual competition, as well as the uncalculated revenue from extra sales of everything from team shirts to alarm clocks which the excitement generated. It’s estimated that with TV money etc a team should make around £20 million.
The 2010/11 league season however was an absolutely abysmal one for our strikers. Defoe, Crouch and Pavlyuchenko scored an unbelievable eighteen goals between them in eighty five games. Doubtless there are some overlapping substitute appearances but that still works out as six goals each over the season. That was enough, particularly in the run in, to see us fail to qualify for the Champions League and receive the £20 million+ income that would have brought in. We finished six points behind Arsenal and it was obvious to everyone that the striker situation needed a complete overhaul.
So, in the summer, out went Crouch. Most fans were keen on the idea of Defoe and Pavlyuchenko following him but they stayed and were joined by the loan signing of Adebayor. Adebayor? OK, he’d be good for a season (no more, it’s Adebayor) but it seemed clear that a really top, long term striker was needed also. Fans were divided; ‘Without Champions League football, we can’t buy a top striker,’ said some; while others said, ‘Without a top striker we can’t get Champions League football.’ Sound familiar?
On to January. Pavlyuchenko left, and again there was an outcry for the top striker needed to secure Champions League football. In the end Saha was signed, another cheap loan, and fans were divided. ‘Without CL we can’t buy the striker,’ versus, ‘Without a top striker we can’t get CL.’ Sound familiar? It was argued that the summer was the time to buy a top striker and not in January. Wait until the summer.
Over the remainder of the season Defoe scored four and Saha scored three. We missed out on Champions League qualification, and the £20 million+ windfall that would bring, by one point and one goal.
2012/13 season. Saha left and although many thought it was a bad idea, Adebayor was signed on a cheap permanent contract. Saha was not replaced with anyone up front and again the cry went out for investment in a top striker, especially as we had one less than at the same time the season before. Was it not intimated that January was not the time, and that we should wait for the summer? Fans are divided. ‘Without CL….’ etc. Sound familiar?
Now this transfer window has closed. With Defoe carrying an injury and, after a bright start, having reverted to his 10/11 league form of one goal in his last nine, along with Adebayor having the kind of second season most of us were expecting (and Arsenal fans were relishing) with two goals in fourteen games so far; most are outraged that we have once again failed to sign a striker. Yet again, fans are split. The now very familiar ‘No striker without CL,’ versus, ‘No CL without striker,’ argument is ensuing once more.
Again, there is talk of this mythical striker that we have to wait for the summer to sign. But do you know what? I don’t think we will sign one; why is that? Because with the predictable strong finish from Arsenal, the worrying consistency of Everton this season and the strengthened and dangerous looking front line of Liverpool I do not think we have enough goal scoring threat up front to hang on to fourth place. We could easily now miss out on the Champions League for the third consecutive season.
If that happens we will once again shy away from paying the money required to sign a player of sufficient standard in the summer. Why? ‘Without Champions League football, we can’t afford a top striker.’
This is a vicious circle which can only be broken by biting the bullet and signing the player. World class if we can attract one, for between £20-£30 million. In truth we need two strikers, with Adebayor quite likely on his way in the summer. Defoe should be farmed out to QPR or Villa or somewhere also. At the very least though we need one striker who can comfortably score twenty goals in a season.
I’m sick of hearing the argument that there are so few class strikers, and where are we meant to find them etc. I’d be very Happy with Demba Ba at the moment, and where were we when Liverpool signed Luis Suárez? Why were fourth placed, Champions League Spurs going into the 2010/11 season with Peter Crouch as our main man while sixth placed, Europa League Napoli were buying Cavani for £4million up front, rising to £15 million? Do we have a scouting network? Cavani scored twenty six league goals that season. Crouch scored four.
It is scandalous, and completely baffling. Levy is clearly an incredibly intelligent guy, but for some reason he has built a brilliant team which is capable of finishing third every season and hamstrung it by persevering with a front line good for mid-table.
I used to always stick up for Levy but I cannot any more. He has done so much for the club with the training ground and the forthcoming stadium. Holtby is a terrific buy and a great piece of business. Why does he just have this massive blind spot when it comes to the all important position of centre forward?
Balancing the books is one thing but this failure to invest big up front is NOT prudent and is not good business sense. Just look at the facts! Sign a decent forward instead of Saha last January, good enough to fight for a place at around £15 million say, who scores just ONE GOAL more than Saha to give us a draw instead of a loss and that’s £20 million Champions League money this season. Player, and a profit.
I’m beginning to think that not spending money we can’t afford is going to ruin us financially. Kind of ironic.
COYS!
Follow me on Twitter @RobertReedUK
Some Related Spurs Posts:
- Striker Signing Decided Today?
- Is There A Bright Side?
- Strike A Striker Deal, Daniel
- Damiao? Or another Defoe?
- Blessing In Disguise?
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Comments
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couldn’t agree more. It is indeed an outrage that we did not sign a striker. I am in total disbelief that it didn’t happen. I have to say I think there is something more compelling brewing – the club will be sold in the summer (it’s the only explanation)
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just remember Leeds United, we don’t want that.
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How is it like Leeds? This makes financial sense.
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Your article is spot on but many have known this before. Levy has no desire right now to reach the top.Reaching for the top and getting there means lots of things.It means bringing in top tier players,,which in turn means kissing the current wage structure goodbye.Getting to the top and challenging to stay there year in year out,will cost Levy more money than he and the board care to even think about spending.I’ve had the opinion all along that Levy only will ever strive for ..at very best a top 4 or 5 positon.I believed it to be true then ..and I believe it to be totlly true now.The supporters have been hoodwinked into thinking that the boards ambitions are to be number 1.
I read today that Dembele questions Spurs ambition.He’s right to be thinking that. -
Old harry decided not to pursue Suarez. Felt he was similar to vdv. Not going for Ba, even in the summer, did not make sense..
I guess harry Kane is our saviour
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Well written and an argument well put.
It may though, well be worth considering the possibility that out and out strikers are slowly becoming a thing of the past.
More and more often, attacking players nowadays are asked to perform more of an advanced, very mobile, attacking midfielder’s role. You’ll see Ade and JD move out wide whilst Bale and probably Holtby come central as the play demands.
This poses the question: Who’s best at playing an advanced, very mobile attacking midfielder?
Interestingly, Spain have toyed with the idea of no all out striker and arguably it has worked.
Maybe we’ll see only a couple of out and out forward type super-subs on the bench coming on only when needed?
Mind you, I believe Levy is the backbone of Spurs and I trust his judgement (football as well as business)completely and would go so far as to say he’ll go on prove to be the most positive, albeit conservative, influence this club has ever known. -
Let’s also understand that this year’s loss is a “paper” loss and not necessarily a cash one as the amortization of the new traing grounds would be included and possibly some additional amortization of plsyers who were dumped. With the sale of “The Poisoned Dwarf” to Madrid the club likely had a cash positive year! The other thing about Ade was that he was unavailable/unfit for the first bunch of games as Levy dickered over price, and anyone with half a brain could also see there was at least a 50/50chance he’d be off to the ANC so a third striker from Day 1 was imperative! In addition, I am utterly sick of the Damaio BS. This has been going on for 3 seasons/6 tfr windows so it’s just a callous Levy smokescreen to pretend he’s doning something about our worst problem, re: strikers! AVB has done a great job so far this year with all the problems he’s had but even he can only do so much without 3 good strikers! If Spurs miss out on CL this year agsin then the “goat horns” are squarely on Levy, no one else!
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You said the obvious.
SC is also spot on.
Levy and Co have reached their limits.
Only naïve persons can’t see that.
Our only realistic hope for achieving fourth place is that the direct rivals will continue to show the same inconsistency as they did until now. -
A £20m pound striker commands a relative salary, for arguments sake lets say £120k a week (which is probably on the low side). So the total cost of such a deal would be a minimum of £50m. So we would have to qualify for at least 2 consecutive champions leagues to just cover that deal. There is no guarantee that any given striker would guarantee anything let alone automatic CL qualification. Also once you start paying one player that kind of money the rest all want more. Our wage bill used to be about 50% of our turnover it has spiralled closer to 70%. This is unsustainable so there is no chance Spurs will be recruiting the kind of player some people think will automatically get the side CL football. Too many people look at headline player prices without using their brains to see the total cost. Spurs aren’t UTD, or the sugar daddy clubs City or Chelsea, Arsenal don’t spend £20m on a single player and their highest earner is on £90k despite having champions league football for 15 consecutive seasons and a ground that gets them £3m per home game. Some people need to live in the real world.
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Great article and spot on…..this was a simple business decision and not even a football one. Get a striker who can score goals and we are a good chance of fourth place… noe with Defoe in shocking run of form and rumors of him carrying a hip injury we are toast. Top six might be a struggle from here….. like Levy but this is pathetic business! COYS!
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John Liverpool paid £20 million for Henderson, who is on around £65k a week. Ba at Chelsea is on around £70k. When Suarez signed for Liverpool for £22 million he was on around £45k (since risen to £120k, but that’s because he’s regarded as a £40 million+ player now). £20m players don’t automatically earn £120k.
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so spurs cant aford a top striker that said we better make do with mid table and stop moaning
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The article is perfectly right about Levy. His decision making in the transfer window are farcical but what worries me even more is AVB saying he is happy with the strike force he has. How can he say that with Defoe scoring one goal in nine games and Adebayor scoring two goals all season. Now apparently Defoe is carrying an injury so really what we are left with is half a striker so someone tell me how he can be happy with that.
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Apparently we were £2-3million away from Damiao’s asking price. We couldn’t really lose by going that extra bit.
If he helped us CL, like you said we gain upwards of £20million and Bale and Co might stay, if we don’t get CL then Bale will be off and we will get £40million, money we won’t need because we won’t be able to attract anyone decent as we won’t have CL football. -
I’m sorry but you guys don’t get the point of signing a super star striker. Yes, getting into the C/L is a requirement to attract the big name talent, but to compare the 20 million revenue to the cost of the player doesn’t make sense.
I looked at the Spurs 2011 financial report – total revenue of $163.5 million(MM) pounds – nice
Then, I looked up the ManU financials – total revenue of $320 MM pounds (YE 6-2012) – much nicer
The difference – signing big buck strikers – read this from ManU’s financial recap –
Commentary
Ed Woodward, Executive Vice Chairman commented, ‘We are delighted to announce our first results as a NYSE listed company; fiscal 2012 was the best year ever for Manchester United’s commercial business. Our world-record $559m shirt sponsorship deal with Chevrolet and the Premier League’s new £1bn a year UK television rights deal (a 70% increase) highlight the outstanding growth prospects for the future. We also expect a substantial increase in the value of the Premier League’s international television contracts scheduled to be announced later this year.
‘In addition, we continued to strengthen our team by signing world-class players such as Robin van Persie and Shinji Kagawa over the summer. We also opened a new commercial sales office in Hong Kong (our first outside the UK) to better position ourselves for growth in a region that represents 325 million of our 659 million followers.’
It is totally stupid to not sign 30 MM strikers –
If Levy would just line up Nike / Adidas / etc. and say – “If I bring in Damiao, will you sign a deal to cover XX% of his cost, and by the way, he was the top scorer from the summer’s Olympics – Oh and because he is a Brazilian Superstar, everyone will be looking for him at the up coming Brazilian World Cup and Olympics!”
What do you think a sponsor like Nike would do?
Levy is a smart guy, but he is to focused on getting the best price not the best person for the club.
Levy is the one that needs to be traded!
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Well written but wrong of course. Clearly you are the one with the blind spot. We finished 4th last year and only missed out on 3rd because of the England fiasco. We sit 4th now showing we have a better squad than our rivals who bought nothing, Arsenal a left back and Everton a Barnsley player.
You complain about our scouting network, yet didn’t we just sign Lewis Holtby for a fortune? Didn’t Adebayor cost £5 million?
We have quality up front and cover in the squad, a squad strong enough to see us in 4th, so if we are to add to it it has to be better than what we have, it has to be world class. Cavani is no better than what we have, but it’s easy to look around the world and pluck a striker to make a point. Tell us how many of our rivals grabbed a striker during this window for £4 million who is better than what we have? NONE.
Please please don’t ever start a business because you haven’t a clue how they operate.
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After hating Levy and Loving him then hating him I land firmly on the he’s doing the right thing side. Spurs haven’t been great since the 60’s. We’ve had good spells in between with massive gaps between success. It’s only lately have we been consistantly knocking on the CL door. It started back with Jol, since then we’ve been there or there abouts, mostly. We’re not Man U or some other rich club like Citeh, so buying the league or CL qualification is out. There’s not much point in getting there only to get dumped out. Ironically it’s been Levy’s succes that have a lot of fans maligning him. We never challenged for the top four on a consistant basis prior to Levy. The fact is today far too many fans want instant gratification. Spurs have a plan and hopefully it’s one that will last. Like it or not the financial stability of the club must come first. Spurs will not splash the cash until the Stadium has been built and only then when the cash flow is consistent. Levy has taken Spurs from strength to strength and I trust he has a plan. Not one I’m head over heels with but one that may make Spurs a club that’s able to sustain a challenge once we get into the CL. In the meantime I’ll wish for all the best players in the world to come to Spurs and be disappointed when they don’t. But I’m not going to blame Levy. Having followed Spurs for fifty odd years I can tell ya we’ve been in a lot worse situations. I remember going to Bristol for second div games..not much fun at all. I tease the gooners as all good Spurs fans should. However, our last few performances have me doubting we can stay ahead of them or Everton this season. The one thing that has me half believing is the return of Adebyore and the signing of Holtby. One or the other may not be enough but together I think Spurs will start tearing team apart. I live in hope.
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Great article, totally agree.
We have not improved our striker situation since Crouch and Defoe partnership, which at least worked as a partnership, even if IMHO they were not quite good enough to get us into to 3.
Adebeyor is just lazy. For a player of his height, he hardly EVER wins a lofted ball to him (actually frequently never even bothers to challenge for them!).
Dempsey works hard, but frequently just loses posession when he’s given the ball, has no particular ball skills, and is certainly not of the quality we need. In fact I’d go as far as to say he’s the weakest link in the team at the moment (with the exception of lazy old Ade…).
Neither of the players above are any better than what we already had.I’ve been saying for 2 seasons now that we should have taken Ba at the bargain price.
Even if it was another load deal to borrow from Man City’s abundance of talent, we all know we needed at least 1 decent striker from this window to make CL next year odds on, but now we are left in the same mess we have been the last 6 months….
If it was my decision, I’d keep Defoe, maybe even spend a little to get Crouch back and use them as my second string strike team. I’d cash in on whatever I could get for Adebeyor, Dempsey and perhaps a couple of our never playing over crowded midfield such as Bentley by sale or exchange deal, and look for a couple 2 new strikers with the results + cash.
Oh, I also don’t believe AVB is any improvement over Harry. The purchase and team selection of Ade and Dempsey were 2 big mistakes, which he compounds by playing at least one of them every game. Sigurdson IMHO should be starting with Defoe every game.
AVB also seems to have no control or monitoring of what goes on. e.g. against Norwich, Parker was running around like a blue arsed fly all over the pitch, just following the ball (trying to get involved and noticedto keep his place), rather than just playing his position. That left Debele totally confused wandering around somewhere in the middle wondering exactly where he was supposed to be covering and what he was supposed to do…. AVB just let it go on, which messed up the whole shape of the team.
2 new strikers and a new manager please sir! -
Don’t start a business? oops, too late Mark. I’ve been director of my own firm since 1999 (see Twitter).
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oh yeah, VDV sale was also a big mistake. It took a lot of heart out of the team and dressing room, and not a little scoring power and support play too.
One thing that hasn’t really been mentioned is that it’s not only the 20 million that is at stake here. The fact is that players like Bale want to be playing with other world class teammates. If we don’t buy the kind of player to take us further, we will definitely lose Bale and drift back to a mid table team again who don’t even bother making bids for world class players.
I agree with one of the statements above that its probably true that the board are only targeting a 3rd or 4th place. Finacially it’s just not worth the gamble of the investment required to try forcing our way into top 2. If we can get the couple of strikers we need, and hang around 4th for a few more seasons, top 2 might just come our way through luck and hard work….
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Cavani no better than what we have? Hahahahahahahaha! That’s fantastic. Hahahaha. Oh…brilliant. Mark you are a div.
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Don’t know if this was said but Ba’s release clause was only for CL teams. I’m still on Levy’s side with this one. Arsenal no longer has a world class striker to allow them to come back, and Everton are mediocre.
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Rober Reed you are a bit clueless really why mention Liverpool? Until the last year or so they were the most successful team in English league history. They therefore have a much bigger world wide support, they were a regular champions league team, they have a larger ground and make significantly more revenue than us. They wasted £20m on both Henderson and Downing with the latter being on about £85k a week and are miles behind us.
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you a dick john. they don’t earn £120 thousand a week thats the point
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John do pay attention I mentioned Liverpool’s £20m signings as examples of those on significantly less than the £120k, that is all. Downing is indeed another I could have mentioned. If any of those players had signed for Man City they would be on a lot more money; it is all relative.
With that fact in mind your points about Liverpool’s history and increased finances compared to our own actually strengthen my point that we could afford a £20m player’s salary without wrecking our wage structure, or going anywhere near £120k.
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