The problem with that is that evidence doesn’t suggest it’s true. If CL football allows you to retain your best players then why are Eriksen and Alderwield winding their contacts down? Why did Kyle Walker want to leave us when we had this? Neither CL or a trophy is enough for us to fend of the likes of Real or Barca - you are deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Similar clubs like ourselves like A. Madrid, Dortmund and even Liverpool have been asset stripped by the elite even with CL and silverware behind them.
As for VDV well how do you account for this
Van der Vaart: Tottenham don't need Champions League to make me stay
www.goal.com
The Dutch playmaker has claimed he moved to England to guarantee regular action, something that he could not be provided in Spain...
www.goal.com
So I don’t know where you get this notion that we couldn’t have signed him without CL football when he wasn't in the Real team and only cost £5 million. And how you account for us signing the likes of Lamela, Eriksen and Lloris to name a few who where high profile signings who left CL clubs for a non CL club?
Why did Lo Celso leave PSG for Betis then? Are you saying without CL football we couldn’t attract Real Betis best players? If what you say is true how did Woolwich manage to sign Pepe (one of the best players in France) for £72 million without CL football and a trophy to their name?
11 years without a trophy, longest drought since the ‘30s and yet second priority remains CL?! None of the supposed benefits hold up - you’re just parroting sound bites from television networks hawking their tv packages. We haven’t signed anyone that we couldn’t have previously and it doesn’t shield us from the elite clubs. If it did Walker wouldn’t have left and Eirksen and Alderwield wouldn’t be winding their contract down.
What did winning the title do for Leicester? They are a mid table which is what they were under Martin O Neil. It’s an absurd argument - United could finish 15th and yet they would still be one of the richest clubs in the world. Swansea could win the European cup but it wouldn’t alter their capacity in any way. If we had won the league instead of Leicester we would have still been the sixth largest club in the league and we still would be able to compete financially with the elite clubs. Would you be arguing that winning title didn’t do anything for us?
Erikesen has been here for 6 full seasons, 3 of those CL years
Alderweireld has been here 4 full seasons, 3 of those CL years.
Both of them have been here long enough that they can look elsewhere as they enter a different phase in their career but you can’t hold the club being uncompetitive as the reason why. It’s hardly like they are doing a Berbatov or Modric, they are actually still here.
Yes we haven’t won a trophy (you lot are really letting this drought affect your perspective), but as far as I’m concerned, Tottenham 2019 summer transfer window outlook >>>> Tottenham 2008 transfer window outlook.
I’m talking about the overall view of the club, and then you want to bring individual cases as proof that the overall plan is failing.
Wage packets are a big factor behind players wanting to move obviously Spurs have been lagging behind... domestic cups aren’t the way to close that gap. However we’re starting to pay competitive wages. Stadium and CL/top 4 league income helps massively.
Football has its food chain, of which Real Madrid and Barcelona are the apex predators, I’m not denying that , however have we lost anybody since Gareth Bale that the club truly didn’t want to?
IMO the club was quite happy to let Kyle Walker leave; Trippier started the majority of games in the 2nd half of the 16/17 season, and that deal got sorted quite early in the summer window. Selling Walker wasn’t a mistake. Signing Aurier to replace him has been.
VdV cost £8mil and it was only ourselves and Bayern Munich in for him... he wasn’t exactly begging to play for just anybody. He left 2 years later because Sylvie wanted to go back to Hamburg and their marriage was having difficulties. On the professional side I believe he would have stayed but he was already 29/30 at that point.
You also completely discount a players Stage of their career, any baller worth their salt wants to spend their prime years at a CL club - Lo Celso was still young enough to take a step down to Betis, re-establish himself and come back to a club operating at a similar level. Also he was effectively forced out of Paris due to FFP.
Lamela and Eriksen were 21 when they came to Spurs we had just finished a point outside the CL and could offer them London and a league with a higher profile. Plus there was the small factor of having Bale money to spend.
People forget that once the novelty of playing in the prem and London wore off, Lloris wanted to leave in 2014 because we weren’t competitive. Poch convinced him to stay and Lloris is more than just a player for Poch.
Pepe signed for Woolwich because Woolwich pay higher wages and have a bigger profile than Lille. That his agent auctioned him around was telling. Contrast that with N’Dombele and Lo Celso who said they wanted Spurs and only Spurs.
Winning the league is the priority, continuing to have a seat at the elite table for us is crucial because we know the ownership don’t pay over the top wages.
No CL run = no N’Dombele, Lo Celso might be a different story. Sessegnon I think we sign but he was so sure that this was the place to be. All three only wanted Spurs - that’s significant. Usually we’re the back up option after plan A falls through.
Leicester are back where they were in the filbert street era, but ask their fans if the last 5 years (and the quality of player they’ve been able to acquire) compares at all with the MON era. When MON left Leicester it was for Celtic, whereas Rodgers left Celtic for Leicester. The football landscape and it’s demands have changed in the past 20 years. Leicester have now set themselves up as a place where talented young players can grow, not a club full of some hard nosed journeymen who overachieved.
Domestic cups are nice but in the long run they mean jack shit to owners, and I’d argue managers (who generally are always seeking funds to approve their squad) don’t see them as a big deal either... until they win it of course. Bet you Poch doesn’t cry like he did for the CL semifinal if he wins an FA/League Cup.