|
|
|
..
|
3rd September 2009 – The definitive article on Spurs transfer dealings
On one level it has been an uninspiring
transfer window, as no ‘Robinho-like’ superstars have deigned to join the
premier league and Spurs have not added an Edgar Davids or Jurgen Klinsmann
type player to the squad to bring in some star quality over the summer.
However it can still be said that Spurs are deemed to have had a good window,
buying in proven premiership class players and jogging on what can largely be
said to be weaker members of the squad, whilst avoiding the mad upheaval of
previous seasons. The window has however been very
interesting if you dig a little deeper. Despite the flow of riches into
English football and the daily announcements that ‘Player X’ has just signed
a contract worth another £1m+ a year, the general message is that times are
hard and it appears the Sky4 are having to watch the pennies. Man City are an
exception to the rule and are spending over the odds, building up their squad
as quickly as an arsenal player can throw himself to the ground, and as you
can see from the lists above, jumping to No 1 in the net spending lists to
break the Sky4 cartel, mostly spent within the last 12 months. The end of the transfer window provides
an opportunity to try and cut through the hype of the media and to
considerthe direction in which Spurs are heading. The team has strengthened
in needed areas, has added proven Premiership performers to the squad in Bassong,
Kranjcar and Crouch, as well as moving on more peripheral members of the
squad. The trouble for Spurs is that the media then make a quantum leap
between total transfer spending and what should be the reported level of
achievement, leading to the popular myth that Spurs are perpetual
underachievers, conveniently forgetting details like clubs that have bigger
stadiums, richer owners and champions league money. Measuring teams by looking at what they
spend on transfers only ever tells half the story. It conveniently forgets to
mention little important facts like the wage bill for a club and how much a
club pays in signing on fees etc. Without such little details we would never
have known what exactly motivated Judas to ever contemplate leaving Spurs, or
Gareth Barry to turn down Liverpool for Man City , or for Tevez to leave Man
Utd. If we add the wage bill into the equation, the Sky4 would shoot to the
top of the table for expenditure, and there would be a massive gap between
them to Newcastle in 5th, Spurs and then Villa. Without reprising the figures
here, as a rough guide Spurs spend around £45m per year on wages, whilst
Liverpool spend at least twice that on wages, Arsenal spend around £90m, Man
Utd around £100m and Chelsea £120m. At this point I would add that I have
taken these tables from another source on the web, so please do not shoot me
for any inaccuracies, and a cursory look would suggest there are some within
the reported figures. The tables above show the estimated net
spending of the premier league clubs since the start of the Premier League
and over the last 5 years. You will see that historically Spurs feature
strongly on both lists as we would expect, given the level of player turnover
since Enic walked through the door. The table at the bottom of this lists the
individual players that have been bought and sold in this period. The figures
can, in the murky world of football only ever be a rough comparative as the
details aren’t always released by the club, can be inaccurately reported (unless
Spurs have had to announce the deal under the requirements as a plc), and can
be subject to a large number of conditional clauses so that the actual money
paid can differ from the reported figure. The list also appears to be
inaccurate, if only using the non-mention of David Bentley in the list as an
example (although that might reflect some wishful thinking of some at Spurs).
Even if we factor in his supposed £15m+ transfer into the equation, it
doesn’t really change the overall picture too much. It would mean Spurs have
spent around £100m in the last 5/6 years and have been in the top 4 transfer
spenders, over the period. Whilst the sums above suggest that Spurs have
tried to match Liverpool in the transfer stakes, in reality the high figure
would possible be better accounted for by the fact that Spurs have been a
player trading agency over the last few years rather than a football club,
and you can see from the list below that Spurs have traded at least 127
players since Hoddle was sacked. Over the same period Spurs have
probably spent something like £200m+ less on wages for the players they have
signed. When comparing Spurs with their nearest rivals in the league, within
the champions league wannabe contenders, it would suggest that Newcastle have
woefully underperformed, and Spurs have performed on par with Aston Villa,
but have been out-performed by Everton. Maybe this is indicative of the
talent of David Moyes, as he continues his search for the One Ring. The list can also provide some way to
measure the impact of Arry especially during a rare period when Spurs are
sitting at the top of the league with a 100% record. We can see with
the benefit of hindsight that Spurs spent over £70m during 2005/06, 2006/07
and 2007/08 under Levy and Comolli, Jol and Ramos. Clearly that level of
investment in theory would have an impact on the quality of the squad even
though it seems the majority of the players signed during that period have
either moved on or have been moved on and bought back by the club. Whoever is
ultimately responsible for the transfer dealings however, the recent past can
be contrasted with the fact that the club has a net spend of £8m during the
accounting period that Arry has been in charge. On the face of it, whilst
Arry has a reputation as a spendthrift wheeler-dealer, the above tables also
demonstrate that the 2 clubs he is most heavily associated with in Pompey and
West Ham have made a profit in their transfer dealings during the Premiership
years that he has been associated with them, albeit largely with the legacy
of the players he brought into the club and were then sold on. What is
certain however is that for all his flaws, Arry does seem to be able to coax
the players to perform. On a deeper analysis the summer transfer
window has confirmed the power shift in English football. This isn’t due to
anything that Tottenham have done, however we may find that Spurs benefit as
a result. With their owners Man City have come
along and upset the apple-cart. They have poached players from and
destabilised all of their main rivals, signing Tevez from Man Utd,
Adebayor and Toure from the goons, Barry from Villa (at the expense of
Liverpool undermining their plans to replace Alonso) and Lescott from
Everton. Spurs have probably been immune from this thus far if only because
we are already the feeder club for one club in manchester and Man City don’t
need any more midfielders at this point in time. The transfer window would suggest that
Chelsea apart, the rest of the Sky4 are worried about their future. None of
the established Champions League clubs have bought any star names on
extravagant contracts. The reason I would imagine is that Liverpool, Arsenal
and Man Utd cannot guarantee that with the arrival of Man City , they will be
in the champions league money in 3 or 4 years time. As the average star
footballer will sign for the club on a 4 or 5 year contract, it seems to me
that the clubs are reluctant to commit themselves to large potential
liabilities in wages that they may not be able to pay in 3 or 4 years time,
and this means that the 3 of them are currently retrenching and keeping their
costs and liabilities down. Chelsea’s only worry is that Abramovich
disappears over the north sea in his helicopter so that he is no longer
around to sign the cheques to reward Brave John Terry’s loyalty or that he
loses interest in football. Whilst he is there underwriting the bills,
Chelsea will be able to protect their position within the champions league
cartel. Arsenal as we know are experiencing
financial problems due to the property crash, and the fact that they decided
to branch out as a property development company rather than concentrating
their business as a football club. The rumours are that the boardroom unrest
is down to the level of personal debt the directors had to assume to pay for
the stadium which ended up far over the budget. Whatever they say publicly,
the costs of the stadium have interfered with the football club and the team
building of Wenger, so much so that a team that once went through a league
season unbeaten, is now happy to finish 4th. A lesson there
for Spurs, if ever there was one. However their long term future is probably
brighter than most of their rivals, as Wenger remains their manager and
probably will do so until he dies in the dug-out and they continue to produce
top players nicked from barcelona ’s academy. Ultimately they will be in a
position to print money if and when the bulk of the stadium debts have
been paid. Whilst they have been the team to beat, Man
Utd have sold their prize asset, they have failed to replace him and they
have put their prices up in the face of the worst recession this country has
seen for decades. What does that tell you? Their American owners have
experienced problems with their finances in America, and they have struggled
to meet the interest payments on the leveraged deal to buy the club, never
mind seek to reduce the level of debt (at least until they sold the winker).
Their midfield looks to be the weakest it has been for years and it seems
they will be reliant on the talent of Rooney and the misfiring Berbatov to
maintain their place at the top of the tree. As this is a world cup year
Rooney is bound to get injured and if he does, Man Utd may be in
relative trouble. They also have the problem that OWF is approaching 70 and
at some point in the near future he will have to step aside . Despite the problems at Man Utd however,
Liverpool are the most vulnerable of the Sky4. Their owners have more
financial problems than the Glazers, and despite negotiating a £350m loan
deal with the banks when they took over the club to finance the new stadium,
it appears Liverpool have spent most of it on debt payments and player wages,
and they still are no where nearer getting a new stadium and they now have 2
star players instead of just the one when the Americans took over. As we saw
at the first weekend of the season, Torres and Gerrard apart, the rest of the
squad is no better than any of the champions league wannabe teams, it is
probably weaker than Spurs and Everton’s. In the short term future, given
their financial liabilities, and the competition for the champions league
places, it is difficult to see how Liverpool will be able to adequately
replace $tevie Me when he gets too old to run the show for them. It is probably a season too early for
Man City , but given their wealth and their ability to destabilise their
rivals, they will take their place at the top table so I would expect to see
them in the top three by the end of next season. At the moment, the clubs threatened by
their arrival have all sought to retrench and to limit their liabilities.
However, when City have established themselves, the next stage for the 3
threatened members of the cartel will be one of panic. They all need the
money from the champions league to pay their debts. Whichever club is at
threat of losing their Champions league money will either have to cut their
costs and sell their assets (eg like Ronaldo) or throw money at the problem
to try and buy their place back (eg Leeds). The hope is that City destabilise
the cartel so much that 2 or more of them get dragged back into the pack, or
better still go into meltdown, which would leave the door open to a club like
Spurs to capitalise. If that does happen, on the basis of what he has
achieved so far, both financially in the transfer market, and on the pitch,
Spurs may have their best chance of doing so under Arry.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||