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General Adnan's Football 17/18


PowerButchi

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11 hours ago, SpursRiot2012 said:

Can't wait to get into the new stadium and - with the expected revenue of the stadium, securing Champions League cash and the new TV deal, I expect that we will be making a couple of "name" signings in the summer. You know, people Danny Rose won't have to Google in the United dressing room.

 

A new stadium seems nice, but it's not always the blessing you'd hope, as Arsenal have learnt to their detriment. With the onsite microbrewery and artisan bakery, you might find your new stadium unrecognisable soon enough. Now whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a question of your perspective, but as someone who saw the same happen at Arsenal, where I regularly attended games at Highbury now to be priced out and put off from attending games at the Emirates regularly by the soulless corporate bowl we now play in, I wouldn't recommend it. Hopefully, your board have more sense than to push out their existing fans in favour of those with bigger wallets and fancier appetites but given the furore over the pricing of season tickets already and the creeping gentrification of Tottenham, I could see something very similar happening. 

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3 hours ago, Gus Mears said:

Celebrating finishing in the top four, not winning anything tangible, justifying player sales, getting exicted about revenue, talking about the new stadium.

You've become what you claim to hate; Arsenal.

Well, it's relative, isn't it? You got to remember, I was born in 1987. So, for the vast majority of my life, Spurs have been a mid-table side that even flirted with relegation at least twice in the Premier League era. Arsenal, on the other hand, had all that success under Wenger - league and cup doubles, the "invincible" season - in actual, living memory. Most of my family that had any interest in football when I was growing up were Arsenal fans. And they would be regularly celebrating success of some kind. Spurs were - one or two bright spots aside, usually due to having one or two great players alongside 9 mediocre players - a fucking punchline for so much of my life as a fan. Shit, for lots of fans we still are. We haven't had three consecutive seasons in the top European competition in the Premier League era. So, yeah, I'll celebrate (well, I celebrated, last night, by feeling happy - the extent of my celebration was my post on here and a few tweets). It's not like I was jumping up and down on my sofa.

It's also an element of being realistic. If I'm going to support my local team, and my local team happens to be in the top division, as a fan I think I kind of have to think about things like revenue. Levy has been justifying our reluctance to pay the going rate to players, the reluctance to buy big-ish name players because of sell-on value, all of this is supposed to change - according to Levy - once the stadium is up and running. I know Arsenal fans were probably told similar things and had similar thoughts at that time, so it is entirely possible that the new stadium ends up being a millstone around our necks for a number of years.

I am also actually from Tottenham and we've bought our first home in Tottenham. So for me, the stadium isn't just about having a nice, new, higher capacity stadium to watch my team play in. It's also about what that stadium is bringing to the area - lots of regeneration, which it desperately needs.

@mim731 All that artisan bakery and on-site micro-brewery shite interests me not one bit. So, I do have my worries there. But, again, Levy - from what I've read - has taken a lot of lessons from the likes of the Emirates and Wembley about what not to do when building a football stadium. @MrDanger The Toby thing is that he wants more than we - meaning Levy - is willing to pay a 29 year old. I think we've offered him around £130k and he wants more like £200k. When stuff like that happens, yeah, Poch seems to feel that he'd rather not have anyone in the team that he doesn't feel is 100% committed. And I do think that has been to our detriment this season. 

As far as "bottling it" goes, DCW, if that's the new term for "losing football games sometimes" then I don't know what to say. Mark the season as a failure? Maybe. Let's see how Chelsea get on when they have to play a season or two at Wembley, week-in, week-out. For me, I was in the stands when we beat Real Madrid 3-1 in the Champions League, I watched us beat the shit out of Liverpool in the same stadium - there have been many bright, individual spots this season. 

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1 hour ago, SpursRiot2012 said:

The Toby thing is that he wants more than we - meaning Levy - is willing to pay a 29 year old. I think we've offered him around £130k and he wants more like £200k. When stuff like that happens, yeah, Poch seems to feel that he'd rather not have anyone in the team that he doesn't feel is 100% committed. And I do think that has been to our detriment this season.

I don't blame Toby here. He may be 29, but he's not a winger or anything- he's a CB, and at his age he is approaching his peak of somebody in that position. The market may have gone a bit mental, but to use a term you used in your first post- 'it's all relative'. I don't think it shows a lack of commitment that Toby wants to be paid what he could earn elsewhere, that's akin to a 'we don't have a budget, but it'd be great exposure for you'. Pay the man what he's worth, otherwise miss out. And yes that may mean having to change the entire wage structure, but sooner or later Spurs are going to need to do that if they want to be big boys at the table. Van Dijk is on £180k per week, why shouldn't Toby be on a similar wage?

It's been a problem (wage structure) at Arsenal for so long, which has hampered our chances of landing certain targets. Look where we are. Obviously there are numerous reasons for this, but wages is certainly one.

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Are wages still an issue at Arsenal? Isn't Ozil on something like 300k a week?

Alderweireld is probably the best defender in the league and unless he's had his head turned and is downing tools then not to play him is stupidity.

Liverpool have probably had the best season of Can's career to date on the back of a contract dispute. Players are only obligated to see out the terms of their employment. It's shit when you nurture them and they fuck off like that but it's not like you don't get anything out of it.

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Just now, Mr_Danger said:

Are wages still an issue at Arsenal? Isn't Ozil on something like 300k a week?

Not so much an issue now, we're definitely paying more nowadays. Not just Ozil but also Auba, Lacazette and Mkhi are on £120k+. Even Kolasinac is on £119k and Bellerin not far behind. So at least we're doing something to address that going forward.

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I tell you what @PunkStep If Virgil van Diijk is on 180k per week Alderwiereld needs to be on about 250k a week as he can actually defend. Van Diijk looks comfortable on the ball and great in the air from corners but as a defender his positional sense is sub Luke Shaw levels. 

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1 hour ago, PunkStep said:

I don't blame Toby here. He may be 29, but he's not a winger or anything- he's a CB, and at his age he is approaching his peak of somebody in that position. The market may have gone a bit mental, but to use a term you used in your first post- 'it's all relative'. I don't think it shows a lack of commitment that Toby wants to be paid what he could earn elsewhere, that's akin to a 'we don't have a budget, but it'd be great exposure for you'. Pay the man what he's worth, otherwise miss out. And yes that may mean having to change the entire wage structure, but sooner or later Spurs are going to need to do that if they want to be big boys at the table. Van Dijk is on £180k per week, why shouldn't Toby be on a similar wage?

I don't blame him either. It just seems to be the way Poch works. Same thing happened with Walker. When it was clear Walker was looking to leave, Poch dropped him even though he was the best player we had in that position and fully fit.

When Toby does go, I am not overly concerned in terms of how strong our defence will be. There is no doubt he is a fucking excellent defender, but Sanchez has turned out to be a great addition and Juan Foyth will, I believe, be brought through and is going to be very good indeed. Plus we're apparently looking at de Ligt from Ajax for the summer and us signing players from Ajax tends to go well. Plus Dier can play back there, too. The only thing I do hope is that Levy isn't stupid enough to sell Toby to an English rival. It was already a shitty move - putting aside the £50m fee - to sell Walker to City.

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That's a very good point, and also I thought the same thing a month or so ago when there were more reports on Levy standing firm on not giving Toby what he wants in terms of salary. With Davinson Sanchez coming in and settling in very quickly, there's less pressure for Levy to cave in. If you still had a Kevin Wimmer for instance, then he should be moving heaven and earth to keep Toby (I mean, he probably still wouldn't).

De Light looks very good indeed, and he's extremely young.

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On 5/10/2018 at 1:48 PM, Ralphy said:

It looks like Rooney is off to DC united for £12million, good deal for everton that, past his best and it gets rid of his mega salary off the books. 

Sad though. He was supposed to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.

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So, let me get this straight. United GIVE Rooney to Everton (his contract hadn't expired, had it?), as a nice gesture of goodwill. Everton then make £12.5m profit by shipping him off to the States.

I somehow doubt Mayor Joe Anderson will be chirping up about injustices with this one.

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