Wilson returns to talk us through a rather quiet transfer window and examine what it means for us this season.
Transfer reflections
As another transfer window closes, and another nail in the coffin of British footballing respectability is hammered in, as ever many Spurs fans look back in anger. Personally, though, I’m happy enough, in that I am pragmatic.
Strategy
Last season was our worst for over five years, yet we still finished only one place lower than in 2013, suggesting that we aren’t nearly as rudderless as so many people seem to believe. This year, our previous seven signings have settled, we’ve ‘re-signed Erik Lamela’ (or whatever the cliché is) and have brought in an obviously gifted manager known for ‘bringing the best out of players’ – who has already begun to do just that.
During pre-season, Mauricio Pochettino clearly identified the defence as our weak spot and addressed the issue immediately. Long before the window closed, we had acquired a promising young Premier League left-back in Davies, an excellent second keeper in Michel Vorm, and a talented young defender in Eric Dier.
[linequote]We have found ourselves a clear upgrade on Michael Dawson in Federico Fazio, fresh from captaining his side to winning the Europa League[/linequote]
Both outfield players have already played; Dier, rather well. More recently, we have found ourselves a clear upgrade on Michael Dawson in Federico Fazio, fresh from captaining his side to winning the Europa League. On top of these, De’Andre Yedlin is on the way, and Jan Vertonghen is staying. I’d say that’s the back line pretty well sorted.
Schneiderlin
One well-covered hiccup the summer was Pochettino’s (alleged) pursuit of Morgan Schneiderlin. But I don’t see this as a failing of Pochettino or Levy’s, but just a matter of unfortunate timing, and above all, I feel most sorry for the player.
Schneiderlin had decided he wanted to leave Southampton back in summer, apparently even telling his team mates he wouldn’t be back after the World Cup. While he was away playing in the World Cup, progressing to the quarter finals no less, his Southampton team mates from more rubbish countries (England, principally) came home and rushed through their big-money glory-hunting moves – Adam Lallana, an Everton fan, went to Liverpool; Shaw, a Chelsea fan actively turned them down for more money at United.
[quotefull text=If Benjamin Stambouli can play more than eight games without getting an injury, and more than five minutes of those games without getting booked, he may well be an improvement[/linequote]
Schneiderlin returned from his post-World Cup holiday to an empty dressing room and to find himself being used as a pawn by his club’s chairman to emphasise they’re not a selling club, a charge levelled at them pretty relentlessly because, well, they had sold all their best players in a week.
Anyway, back to Spurs. Once it became clear that the deal wasn’t possible, another option was swiftly sourced, and we have got very similar player (for £20m less than Schneiderlin’s asking price, no less), to perform Pochettino’s deep-lying/defensive midfield role.
I won’t pretend to know much about Benjamin Stambouli, but – without wishing to offend any fans of the ‘Beast’ – if he can play more than eight games without getting an injury, and more than five minutes of those games without getting booked, he may well be an improvement on his predecessor (I’d like to point out that Sandro has been a loyal servant to the club, and I look back on his Champions League days fondly – he has just never been the same player he was before the injury he picked up, ironically enough, at QPR).
The attack
This, I concede, could be a concern. Quiet apart from his ‘difficult first season’, Roberto Soldado has not shown himself to be invulnerable to injury, and with Emmanuel Adebayor off to the African Cup of Nations in January with Togo (who reached the quarter-finals last year), an untimely injury could see us face up to six premier league games with Harry Kane as our only striker.
[linequote]We are building a (desperately needed) £400m stadium; no team above or around us currently has that level of financial commitment[/linequote]
But I think this is our only ‘true weakness’ – though consistently frustrating, I do believe Townsend will come good under Pochettino – and even this is only a potential one. If Soldado finds form, stays fit, Kane continues to progress and Togo go out in the first round, we may not find we’re hit too hard come winter. Stranger things have happened.
Net spend
The last point I want to make addresses the never-ending and relentlessly irritating debate over net spend. Comparing us to clubs around us in terms of net spend is as insightful as saying ‘but they wear red’. We are building a (desperately needed) £400m stadium; no team above or around us currently has that level of financial commitment.
Would people rather that ENIC had not bought up the vast swathes of North London real estate necessary for the stadium development, or not completed one of the best training centres in Europe this year – and instead put the money into signing all the £20m players (before wages) linked to us by tabloids? And then, what – put off the stadium for a few more years while that lot down the road continue to rake in nearly three times what we do every home fixture?
[linequote]I would describe our business this window as adequate, barring of course a potential nightmare up-front[/linequote]
I’m no ENIC apologist: Stub Hub, a stone-wall lack of communication with fans and cynical ticket pricing ensure that. But running a football club is a business, and when that business has literally hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of commitments on the boil, we must keep our expectations in check.
In summary
Overall, I would describe our business this window as adequate, barring of course a potential nightmare up-front. Hardly a grand statement, but this isn’t supposed to be a year of grand statements.
This, I believe, is supposed to be a year in which players develop, and a philosophy formed. A year in which the media will dine out on United’s ‘Top Four Challenge’, not ours, and a year in which Pochettino can go about building a bright and solid team, while the management goes about building a stadium for it to play in.
All views and opinions expressed in this article are the views and opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of The Fighting Cock. We offer a platform for fans to commit their views to text and voice their thoughts. Football is a passionate game and as long as the views stay within the parameters of what is acceptable, we encourage people to write, get involved and share their thoughts on the mighty Tottenham Hotspur.
7 Comments
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03/09/2014 @ 9:47 am
Wilson, I could not agree more, in amongst all the moaning and groaning I thought I alone had common sense pragmatic thoughts.
Deals, whether in football or commerce, have to be financially achievable, and that’s as well as having at least 2 sides come to an agreement, we cannot sign every player, this is not” fantasy football league”, reality bites!
We have done well to strengthen defence, midfield we will see, but we had to many players in any event, and if we as spurs fans do not believe Mo po is chasing striking options as we speak( or type) then we may as well pack it in!!!!!
03/09/2014 @ 10:27 am
Wow, another Spurs fan with common sense, hard to find in this day and age. Too many Spurs fans looking at the Top 4 and listening to that Champions league music and wanting it like all of us but removing the common part of the brain. Those Islington Gypsy/Chelsea/Liverpool/Man City/Man utd fans are mocking and laughing at me, boo hoo please make it stop. Man up and stop being patheitc and get behind the greatest team in the world. COYS
03/09/2014 @ 11:00 am
the best training facility & football ground in the championship?
03/09/2014 @ 11:32 am
Perhaps a bit of clarity on the ‘new stadium’ is required to put your article in context.
ENIC have not directly participated in the site assembly over the last decade surrounding the current football stadium. The land & buildings were bought and held by 3rd party investment companies, whose beneficiaries were Alan Sugar, Paul Kemsley & Joe Lewis (either directly or via corporate shareholdings).
Who do you think pocketed the ‘profit’ when ENIC acquired these sites?
Also, this proposed £400Million construction cost will be funded by 75% debt, with the remaining equity chunk coming from naming rights & other corporate sponsorship deals. IN short, ENIC will not be parting with 1 penny of their own cash to build the stadium. The money required will be generated from within the business.
Finally, the zero net spend over the last 7 years should have created a huge cash pile, so do you not find it a tad bizarre that in the same period ENIC go from a public entity to a private company? One of the benefits of this act is to reduce the amount of required financial reporting.
Do you really think ENIC are benevolent owners, that are stockpiling the cash just to put it into the build cost of a new stadium? You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you do.
There is nothing wrong in making money, especially when you have a successful track record as traders. ENIC’s lack of transparency on all things financial should at least raise your eyebrow.
So, in short, Spurs is a fabulous cash cow for ENIC, who are able to keep their customers content with limited action and zero investment.
Great if yu can pull it off……..oh hold on, they have.
03/09/2014 @ 1:54 pm
The club’s 2014 shareholder statement on the site states that ‘ENIC has subsequently financed the Phase 1 development through to completion’. Whether this was done by Joe Lewis handing over the cash in person, or by ‘TH Property Limited, a subsidiary of ENIC’ (same statement), some of ENIC’s money, at some point, must have left the accounts, no?
Similarly, also from the club’s statement, ‘ENIC has supported the Club by way of an interest free, unsecured loan of £40m.’ Again, even if they will get it back, that is still an outgoing now.
ENIC’s lack of transparency does raise my eyebrow – I said as much in the piece – but I don’t think it’s a blind leap of faith to infer from the hundreds of articles on ENIC and, more pertinently, the Club’s official reports, that somewhere along the way, some money has been spent. They are an investment company after all.
I don’t claim to be an economist, nor am I trying to start an argument (if I’m wrong please correct me), but surely no one can build a training ground and begin to build a £400m stadium without a drop of investment or using the profits form our lack of net spend – indeed, if they can they must be even more savvy businessmen that we think.
03/09/2014 @ 2:52 pm
All fair points. To address each one in turn:-
1. The myriad of property deals that have made up the land assembly at Spurs have made the protagonists healthy profits. Question – Why do you think the largest Sainsburys in the UK has already been completed on site? As an investment this will attract a very keen yield in terms of valuation, and even by conservative estimates will return in excess of £30M profit (over the land & build cost) to the owners upon disposal.
2. ENIC did provide a free unsecured loan, however we have no transparency on where this sat within the capital stack. Regardless of preferential rights of secured finance elsewhere, if all went wrong, ENIC would have turned their debt to equity, and released it via exit. It was a win/win.
3. Assuming the total land, design & build cost equates to £400M, there are a number of financial institutions that would be prepared to lend up to 75% of the build cost on a staged draw down basis. That would leave £100M to find, which would come from a mixture between selling naming rights, partly securitising the gate receipts for the increased stadium and other corporate sponsors. In short, not 1 penny will come from the shareholders introducing new equity.
Please don’t misunderstand me. If I was ENIC I would be delighted at the way this business is run.
Unfortunately, I’m a Spurs fan since the 1970’s, that has had the opportunity of seeing how these strategies are implemented from the other side of the fence.
Enjoy the season.
03/09/2014 @ 4:37 pm
Interesting.
To reply to each in order (again, not arguing but ‘discussing’)
1. To have a CPO granted, and indeed to secure funds from the Greater London Authority, Spurs needed to prove that the NDP would benefit the whole area not just the club. As such, the community-focused parts of the project were done first i.e. a Sainsburys to create jobs. Getting it up and running proves the viability of the venture and, yes, ensures a healthy cash-flow – also necessary for proving viability. As far as I can remember, that was always going to be done first.
2. I’ll hold my hands up to this point and admit you lost me at ‘unsecured loan’… As I say, I’m not an economist, but as I said earlier, even if they did/do stand to get it all back, it is still an investment of their money now, isn’t it? If I lend you a tenner, I’m still a tenner down – even if there’s a ‘win/win’ arrangement that if you can’t pay, your brother will (does that make sense? and where’s my tenner)
3. (this one will sound the most pro-ENIC, it’s not necessarily meant to; devil’s advocate and all) You say there are ‘a number of financial institutions that would be prepared to lend 75% of £400m’. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Might that come out of the fact that the company keeps turning a profit i.e. is well-run and trusted with such levels of debt? And if it takes a couple of tax exiles to get (even) richer to facilitate the project, so be it, that’s capitalism? As in, ain’t nobody lending Portsmouth’s owners £300m…