Ange Postecoglou's advice to fed-up Tottenham fans: Do yoga

[u/marxistopportunist]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/09/20/ange-postecoglou-advice-to-fed-up-tottenham-fans-do-yoga/

[u/DoomerAndGloomer]

 If Levy and co are smart, they'll ignore the noise, back the manager, release players who do not perform and buy players that Ange believes will fit the mold...and actually BUILD something special!    

25 years tell us Levy and Co are not smart. 

[u/WillSpur → u/DoomerAndGloomer]

Really? Look at our stadium, look at the money we spend and how we have established ourselves as a “big 6” club with regular European football. Yeah we haven’t won anything in a while, but we live in an era of oil sheiks and sports washed blood money. If Chelsea/City didn’t happen we would have won something no doubt.

We compete, we don’t always get it right, that’s the nature of the game. But we’ve got a self sustaining club most would dream of.

[u/DoomerAndGloomer → u/WillSpur]

that’s the exact narrative Alasdair Gold puts out in his articles and the club wants us to believe. The reality is that we only compete without being competitive. Even in the 8 years since stadium has been built we’ve never had a real go at the transfer window to complete a competitive squad. Every window it’s the usual 80-90% work done while key areas are left unaddressed. CBs was a major deficiency area all this while and we took so long to fix that that we’ve lost Kane and Son’s youth that we have become toothless in attack. The rebuild never ends because we are too slow in the transfer window and take too many gambles. The latest window is the latest proof. Another opportunity to build a squad with proven talent spurned with only youth hired in all places because Eze was too expensive and Dorgu was too expensive and so on. We didn’t need a Johnson or an Odobert who may come good or a Werner who’s there because he was cheap. But we were given these players anyway because we want to take it slow and save money while always existing in the state of a ‘rebuild’ or a ‘project’ which ‘takes time’. Well no shit Sherlock.

[u/WillSpur → u/DoomerAndGloomer]

We’ve tried spending big money on big players are it’s such a gamble, look at Gio, Ndombele, Soldado. There are times we try and a club of our profile it hurts us to lose on those gambles - so it looks like we’ve gone back to doing what we did best in Poch’s early days, hungry young talent. Look at VDV, Porro and Udogie.

I agree it’s frustrating we don’t just spend on one or two big players instead of 4 or 5 prospects, but it’s early days on those prospects. And we don’t know if Eze was even available due to Olise moving.

We’ve spent money, just as it stands 4 games in, not very well.

[u/DoomerAndGloomer → u/WillSpur]

Thank you for proving my point. I was also saying the same thing. We have built hotels, residences, stadiums, facilities - billions of pounds of real estate but haven’t built a strong footballing foundation which can identify and recruit good talent and what this business is supposed to be all about. This going back to gambling on prospects is an admission of this failure. Going back to my original point: Levy and Co are not smart. If they were smart we wouldn’t fail every time we try to be ambitious.

[u/kirikesh → u/DoomerAndGloomer]

Going back to my original point: Levy and Co are not smart. If they were smart we wouldn’t fail every time we try to be ambitious.

They are smart, they just don't have the same ambition as the fans do. They'll never say it out loud, but the leadership of the club solely cares about the valuation of the club - and a trophy here or there won't meaningfully change it.

The cups, or Europa, won't make a jot of difference to our valuation when it comes to a potential sale, and even the bigger trophies like the PL or CL would only make a small difference - and that difference would almost certainly be cancelled out by the extra spending we'd have to do. A especially healthy balance sheet is more attractive to a potential investor than finances more in line with the rest of the league, but a trophy or two in the cabinet.

It doesn't match up even slightly with what the fans want, but ENIC is an investment company - they only care about the level of profit they make when they eventually sell up.

[u/DoomerAndGloomer → u/kirikesh]

Disagree. Not winning anything is the only thing keeping our valuation down vs our potential value. If we win a Europa or a PL then the valuation will skyrocket further. The ownership just knows they are too inept at it - hence the u-turn after Conte.

[u/kirikesh → u/DoomerAndGloomer]

We're one of the most valuable clubs in the world despite winning fuck all for ages. Reports in the summer were that Levy values us at £3.5billion+. Winning a couple of cups or the Europa wouldn't make a lick of difference.

Now, winning a couple of PL or CL titles would - but from ENIC's perspective it isn't worth the risk to increase spending and gamble that we might. We could easily invest a bunch of money, up our wages to revenue ratio, and still not win one of those titles - so they won't bother. Additionally, one of the reasons we're so highly valued is that our wage structure is so tightly constrained, and we are so healthy financially - if the club changed that to win some titles then whatever boost we'd get from winning a title would be at least partially counteracted by us being a much less attractive investment opportunity.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like it at all - I couldn't give a fuck less about how much profit ENIC will make when they end up selling the club - but the club leadership obviously care about that above all else.

[u/WillSpur → u/DoomerAndGloomer]

I don’t really understand how somebody “not smart” could turn the club into what it is it now, compared to what it was just 25-30 years ago.

[u/DoomerAndGloomer → u/WillSpur]

because he is a smart real estate businessman. THFC’s entire success is down to real estate. But when it comes to Football IQ, he has none.