The REALITY of the Alderweireld situation
The REALITY Of The Toby Alderweireld Situation
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| The way out is that way Toby |
Welcome to the No1 Spurs blog where you will find sense prevails as regular readers already know> You may not agree with me all the time , but that doesn't matter, as long as you have a reasoned argument. When you ask fans for the way forward for this club, few have any idea. I haven't found one single anti-ENIC or anti-Levy fan who has been able to give an answer to that question.
Until they can, you'll find I have no time for these people. Now onto the Toby Alderweireld situation looked at with some common sense.
The fans continue to argue over Toby Alderweireld so a rational look at the situation is needed. Human being make decisions based on emotion, whether right or wrong, they then look to justify their decision.
For instance, if you buy a new car, you suddenly start to see more of 'your' cars on the road, a justification of you buying that model. If you get married, you have a long line of people congratulating you on doing the right thing, justification again.
Toby Alderweireld is 29 and needs one last big pay day. He is not going to get a jump in wages after this point, only annual increments. Is he a quality centre-back, yes, should we pay him, no.
The contract he is apparently asking for is £180,000 a year for 5 years until he is 34-years-old, presumably plus annual increments.
What is to stop him then asking for £200,00-a-week in a year or £250,000-a-week in 2 years if we gave in now?
Let's assume that £180,000-a-week is doubling his ages, that is a £90,000 increase, that's £4.68 million a year. Over 5 years, that's £23.4 million.
OK, now as he has got that increase, we now have to pay Lloris (who has to be the highest paid player in the club as part of his contract I believe, captain's bonus achieves that), Kane, Eriksen, Dembele, Alli, Vertonghen, Lamela, Son, Rose, Dier, Wanyama, a similar hike in wages. They will obviously demand it and we won't have a leg to stand on.
So if we take it that each of these players need a similar wage increase, say £80,000 each, that's £800,000-a-week (£80,000 X 10 players) added to the wage bill. That equates to £41.6 million over just one year.
That is the reality in paying Alderweireld what he demands, £41.6 million+, it's 13.6% of our last total income figure.
Over 5 years £40.6 million is £280 million, all to increase one player to his demanded wage.
These are estimates of course, but they haven't included players like Trippier, Sissoko and the rest who would also all need a wage increase now we have smashed the wages structure to destabilise the club.
Where is this money coming from?
It isn't coming into the club now, it would have to come from the increased revenue from the new stadium when it kicks in. But, ticket prices and money earned from spectators isn't going to cover it. A proportion yes, but we still need to increase commercial income while paying the loans on a new stadium.
The stadium finances do not affect the playing side of the club, well no they don't, if you stick to the budgets set for the playing side. If you destroy them, as agreeing to Alderweireld's blackmail would, then that money has to come from another area of the club and you are then putting the financial structure of the club in jeopardy.
Paying players what we can't afford and hoping that brings success is simple not a sensible business practice. If no success is achieved you have to start selling your assets while they are still in prime condition, meaning we will have to sell the better young players, which puts the future of the club in jeopardy again. That is a downward slope we do not need to go near.
We spend 50% of our income on wages because we have other expenditure. I remind readers what I wrote after Basel played us off the park at White Hart Lane is the Europa League and we managed to scrape a 2-2 draw.
We need to build a young team, playing a set system throughout the club at all ages, promote youth and build club loyalty. We have to build loyalty to play on their heart strings and make it an emotionally difficult decision for them to leave.
That involves creating a happy and positive environment. You can not have success without the environment first. Anyone who has been successful can tell you that. The club have built the facilities, the infrastructure for success and there have been significant improvements on the playing field.
What we are doing is working, yet some suggest we tear up what is working to simply gamble with our future. That is plain nuts, it is simply people trying to justify a silly ant-ENIC, anti-Levy stance, when it is they who have built us to this position from a side who were broke and regularly finished 1th, below the like of Aston Villa and Leeds United.
Where are they now? Where are all the clubs who were around us or above us then? NONE have built like we have built and some fans complain about that. Are they real supporters? Not in my eyes.
The game has changed, it is about money now, money equals trophies. The Champions League is won by a side with one of the top six football wage bills in the world. To win it you have to increase your revenue to be able to pay that sort of money.
Manchester United's wage bill is more than our total income, so how can we afford to pay their wages? We can't, simple as that. To ignore that is stupidity.
We all want regular trophies, but the only way to achieve that is to increase the income of the club, to at least double it on last years figures. We have taken a leap this year but that leap must be measured against the increase in income of the other clubs as each year that sets a new figure we must chase.
Bleat all you like, but ENIC, Daniel Levy and Mauricio Pochettino are building the club in the right way, they are building it to be sustainable on it's own, not reliant on an owner. That gives the club a long term future at the top table.
So Alderweireld can not be paid £180,000-a-week, there is simply too much at stake. The club is bigger than any one player. Sell him to PSG for £55 million in the summer and bring in a player like 18-year-old (19 in August) Dutch international and Ajax centre-back Matthijs de Ligt.
We then have Jan Vertonghen overseeing the development of Davinson Sanchez, Matthijs de Ligt, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Juan Foyth. We have the position secured for the future, assuming we retain them. That is better than having Alderweireld for a couple of years and destroying the club financially.
With Alderweireld in the team, Spurs have conceded 15 goals in 17 games.
Without Alderweireld, Spurs have conceded 22 goals in 29 games.
Toby Alderweireld was what we needed while we built the club, he has been brilliant for us, but he had less competition for places. Now the situation has changed, the club have progressed and his presence isn't do vital, as who we have beaten and the number of goals conceded per game testify.
Yes we would all love to keep him, but on our terms, not his. £130,000 including the best bonuses in the Premier League is enough for Spurs to be paying him at this time.
COYS
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11 comments
It's hard to over-estimate what Toby has brought to the club. Nevertheless, acceding to such demands would more than counter-balance that legacy.
He's been brilliant, but he's worth more to us now as an asset if he's so insistent on wage demands that are so far outside the scheme of how things work at Spurs.
I won't forget what he's done here. I won't be booing him from the sides if/when he goes elsewhere. I hope he gets what he wants - he's certainly earned a great reputation for being a fantastic player. We both move on. I'd be surprised if he doesn't go for more than Van Dyke. He's a far better player.
We've shown already that we can move on without him. I'm not sure we could have managed that two years ago, so he's been instrumental in our progress.
Personally (at this stage in his career), I doubt very much that he will get a 5 year contract given the salary that he's demanding.
Impassioned plea to Poch...Sonny is not a 'go to player'!
I was praying for Alli to 'lead the line' at Chelsea...so frustrating when one sees the same errors of judgement being repeated.
What a change in the second half when Sonny played wide (where he's more effective) and, ok, it was Eric & Alli interchanging up front but how much better we were at disrupting the Chelsea defence.
When I see the same narrow (attacking) approach being repeated without success, then I have to question Poch & his coaches and I feel that the win owed more to the brilliance of our players (and one or two in particular) than our coa…
I see your point Hibs. At his age though I suspect he sees his last chance of making some real money to retire on, rapidly going by. I agree 5 years is a long time for him at this stage of his career. He's a centre-back though, so perhaps not beyond the realms of possibility.
Here though, I don't accept that selling him hasn't made a difference. I believe he's better than Aurier ATM (Hopefully the latter will improve in time). My earlier point was about how much he's helped Shitty to improve defensively though - not to mention how good he is going forward (in spite of not having Tripps's crossing ability).
I understand he was ready to go. I understand we got a premium for selling to a rival. I'm just not sure the extra was worth it.
As you say, that won't be the same for Toby - which is a great relief. He could turn a sieve into a plastic bag, wherever he went. Playing against Toby next season would be a nightmare.
Sometimes none of the alternatives on offer are good ones. That's when you need to choose the least bad. That's what grown-ups have to do. Thankfully we have a manager that's magic, you know ;-)
COYS!!
Back in the eighties, under the great Keith Burkinshaw, I was never aware of any such fan unrest. Now there seems to be a smattering of supporters that seem to desire to follow in the footsteps of our erstwhile competition down the road.
Do they not see how we're doing even better now than we were then? Have they all been lobotomised? Is the example of The Arse not a vivid enough example for these 'supporters'? Frankly, is not what's happening now so exciting that the idea of moaning about it perpetually seems utterly ridiculous?
COYS!!