A lot of the backlash in these types of threads seems to be coming from people with what I see as unrealistic expectations of our club, in both directions.
The figures are difficult to get now we are a private company, but most analysts still peg us as 6th in wages in the Premier League. City, Chelsea and United pay multiples of our wage budget every year, Liverpool and Woolwich about double. Then us, then Everton at about two thirds of our budget. Those clubs all have much higher revenue streams to be able pay those budgets, in the same way our revenue is miles above Everton.
People talk about the Welbeck deal. We wanted a loan, Welbeck wanted a permanent deal. While on the face of it £16 million seems a reasonable price for the player looking at the whole deal you can see why it isn't feasible. If he is on the reported £100,000 a week, that makes the total value of the deal over a five year contract £42 million. Amortized over those five years that is £8,400,000 a year on Welbeck. For Woolwich that is worth a risk, for us that is only feasible if he is going to be our undoubted Bale level star, selling a shit ton of shirts and driving new revenue. I don't see Welbeck doing anything like that for the club.
To give a further example of the difference Fabio Borini failed to move to QPR in major part because they were unable to meet his £90,000 a week wages. He is a useful squad player who can turn out in cups for them and do a job and he would be one of the elite earners at Spurs.
Too many people have unrealistic expectation that we WILL qualify for the Champions League. Unless we can compete with the budgets of those clubs above us we can never guarantee that. We can compete for those positions as we have been doing and some seasons we may even do it, but to budget that way would be suicide in the long term.
But likewise too many people seem to think we are shit. We are the 6th biggest spending club in the richest league in the world. We are one of the few teams in the league who, barring utter catastrophe, never have to worry about relegation. Our worst season in the modern (post mid-table shite) era (2008-09, two points eight games) saw us finish 8th, two points off Uefa Cup football. The year before we came 11th but won a cup. We qualify for Europe every season and, crucially for the long term goals of the club, do well in it. Our coefficient is huge. We are second in the Europa League seedings, behind only Inter (who have a European Cup win to bolster their ranking as well). If we had been in the Champions League group stage draw we would have been seeded 14th, healthily in the middle of pot two. In fact we would have pushed Manchester City into pot three.
We are a well run club who are competitive in the highest profile league in world football, with no real fear of losing our position, competing in Europe, and competing well. Signing someone like Danny Welbeck will not change our position either way.
Also, the point I feel gets lost in these debates often, we are bloody good at football and I really enjoy watching Spurs play. We win a fuckload of games every year and always go into two domestic cups with a chance of winning them. We're not Villa or Hull. Steve Bruce claimed that he played a reserve side in the Europa play off because if he didn't "we wouldn't have got a point at Stoke". THAT is misery as a football fan. That your clubs only chance, possibly ever, to compete in Europe is thrown away to draw at fucking Stoke.
We aren't Barcelona or Bayern, but we also aren't Villa hoping Ron Vlaar isn't sold so we don't get relegated. We're Spurs. None of us here started supporting the club because we were the biggest club in the world and winning the European Cup every year, that was for the mugs who followed Liverpool at school (or Man Utd for younger readers). Each of us is here because we like the way the club is driven, full of lofty ideals that we will almost certainly never attain.
For christ sake the most famous quote attached to the club is basically saying 'Well, we probably won't actually win, but we will be so good at not winning that it won't matter because we're just that great.' It's a romantic ideal (Spurs fan)/high minded delusion (fan of most other clubs) that defines the club and it's supporters and is one of the reasons I'm sure most of us are here at all. Spurs are genuinely different to other clubs. West Ham talk about 'the West Ham way' when most fans couldn't tell you what that means. But Spurs DO have an ethos.
There's no echo of glory in Danny fucking Welbeck.
EDIT: That was way too fucking long. TL;DR = Danny Welbeck isn't that good, we're better than Villa, I'm sad enough to not have to look at Uefa coefficients to know what ours is (75.949), #COYS
The figures are difficult to get now we are a private company, but most analysts still peg us as 6th in wages in the Premier League. City, Chelsea and United pay multiples of our wage budget every year, Liverpool and Woolwich about double. Then us, then Everton at about two thirds of our budget. Those clubs all have much higher revenue streams to be able pay those budgets, in the same way our revenue is miles above Everton.
People talk about the Welbeck deal. We wanted a loan, Welbeck wanted a permanent deal. While on the face of it £16 million seems a reasonable price for the player looking at the whole deal you can see why it isn't feasible. If he is on the reported £100,000 a week, that makes the total value of the deal over a five year contract £42 million. Amortized over those five years that is £8,400,000 a year on Welbeck. For Woolwich that is worth a risk, for us that is only feasible if he is going to be our undoubted Bale level star, selling a shit ton of shirts and driving new revenue. I don't see Welbeck doing anything like that for the club.
To give a further example of the difference Fabio Borini failed to move to QPR in major part because they were unable to meet his £90,000 a week wages. He is a useful squad player who can turn out in cups for them and do a job and he would be one of the elite earners at Spurs.
Too many people have unrealistic expectation that we WILL qualify for the Champions League. Unless we can compete with the budgets of those clubs above us we can never guarantee that. We can compete for those positions as we have been doing and some seasons we may even do it, but to budget that way would be suicide in the long term.
But likewise too many people seem to think we are shit. We are the 6th biggest spending club in the richest league in the world. We are one of the few teams in the league who, barring utter catastrophe, never have to worry about relegation. Our worst season in the modern (post mid-table shite) era (2008-09, two points eight games) saw us finish 8th, two points off Uefa Cup football. The year before we came 11th but won a cup. We qualify for Europe every season and, crucially for the long term goals of the club, do well in it. Our coefficient is huge. We are second in the Europa League seedings, behind only Inter (who have a European Cup win to bolster their ranking as well). If we had been in the Champions League group stage draw we would have been seeded 14th, healthily in the middle of pot two. In fact we would have pushed Manchester City into pot three.
We are a well run club who are competitive in the highest profile league in world football, with no real fear of losing our position, competing in Europe, and competing well. Signing someone like Danny Welbeck will not change our position either way.
Also, the point I feel gets lost in these debates often, we are bloody good at football and I really enjoy watching Spurs play. We win a fuckload of games every year and always go into two domestic cups with a chance of winning them. We're not Villa or Hull. Steve Bruce claimed that he played a reserve side in the Europa play off because if he didn't "we wouldn't have got a point at Stoke". THAT is misery as a football fan. That your clubs only chance, possibly ever, to compete in Europe is thrown away to draw at fucking Stoke.
We aren't Barcelona or Bayern, but we also aren't Villa hoping Ron Vlaar isn't sold so we don't get relegated. We're Spurs. None of us here started supporting the club because we were the biggest club in the world and winning the European Cup every year, that was for the mugs who followed Liverpool at school (or Man Utd for younger readers). Each of us is here because we like the way the club is driven, full of lofty ideals that we will almost certainly never attain.
For christ sake the most famous quote attached to the club is basically saying 'Well, we probably won't actually win, but we will be so good at not winning that it won't matter because we're just that great.' It's a romantic ideal (Spurs fan)/high minded delusion (fan of most other clubs) that defines the club and it's supporters and is one of the reasons I'm sure most of us are here at all. Spurs are genuinely different to other clubs. West Ham talk about 'the West Ham way' when most fans couldn't tell you what that means. But Spurs DO have an ethos.
There's no echo of glory in Danny fucking Welbeck.
EDIT: That was way too fucking long. TL;DR = Danny Welbeck isn't that good, we're better than Villa, I'm sad enough to not have to look at Uefa coefficients to know what ours is (75.949), #COYS
