Marcus Edwards and ENIC Out Debate

Hello folks, 5:30 in the morning and I have already been up an hour so I'll write a ditty while the eyes seem to be good (might not be by the end of this pieces though) and have a kip later.

In Tottenham Tittle Tattle today (Sunday) I'll answer some of the questions you are asking (Revision - answer 2 questions - see how plans change).

Question: Is it likely Marcus Edwards will return to Spurs?

Answer: Well the short answer is no, but football is a funny game.

Firstly, Spurs let him go because, as regular readers know, he had a real attitude problem.

He didn't want to wait and thought he should have been playing first-team football, when in fact he was nowhere near ready for Premier League football. 

Now this is where I have a problem with journalists.

People like Alasdair Gold couldn't see a problem, couldn't see an attitude problem, he couldn't see one with Josh Onomah either. I know because, incredibly, he told me.

The main element of any sportsman is his head, yet journalists know nothing about the mental side of the game, which rather invalidates their opinion.

They aren't coaches either and have never applied a tactic to see the result in their lives either, yet they know more than professional coaches who are serial winners of trophies apparently!

From enquiries I have made, Marcus Edwards still has an attitude problem. He still doesn't take responsibility for his actions, he looks to blame others.

Until that attitude changes he will not become the player he could be because he won't work at every aspect of his game to improve it, like nutrition, mentality and therefore skill, to the level he could go with the right attitude, a Ronaldo attitude.

He reminds me of Wilfried Zaha, he is only interested in football when he has the ball at his feet, doesn't really want to be bothered with the rest of the game.

Our interest in Edwards possibly stems from the fact there could be a financial gain to be made from him. We can buy him back at 50% of his value or receive 50% of any sell on fee or we could buy him back and sell him for higher.

Personally I don't think we'll see him rejoin.

Question: Is the proposed banner in protest at ENIC a good idea?

Answer: Well that's a very subjective question and the answer is different for different people.

We must be fully aware of the fact an owner can not just give a club money for players or wages and that any money given for infrastructure must be paid back in some way.

There may have been  a lowering of restrictions for one year but ta club still has to break even over the two-year period (thi financial year and next) which rather restricts what an owner could possibly put in.

Many of the protesters against ENIC or Daniel Levy simply refuse to grasp those basic facts and, quite frankly, your understanding of that determines which side of the fence you are on.

The informed support the club, albeit disappointed how things are currently going through a time when, perhaps some players are more concerned with COVID-19 than with playing football.

I will be watching the game with interest today because the players, at the moment, couldn't care less.

Will they care in a North London Derby, a game they normally raise their game for, or are they going to continue with the current walk about off the ball football.

If it is the former then there is some hope, if it is the latter then it may be that some of the players want Mourinho out and are doing what players do when they are discontented with a manager, perform way below their level as a collective group.

Will the banner help, no.

It will massage the ego of those paying to fly it, but achieve absolutely nothing. leaders of industry don't take notice of these things, they aren't important. They have bigger issues to deal with and particularly now with Spurs facing at an expected £200m drop in income brought about by the financial implications of COVID-19.

For me, while these supporters support the club, they are working against the club, they are working to divide the club, while arguing they are working to improve the club.

Division never creates success, disharmony never creates success.

You challenge any of them and none to a man know what they want to change the owners for, apart from an illegal Sugar Daddy doing all the things that FFP is in place to stop.

The stadium was due to transform this club with the income, guaranteed not speculative, generated by it being used to benefit us in terms of transfers and wages.

When you get a sudden increase in money, do you:

a) go out and spend it all at once?

b) wait to ensure it is going ti remain at a consistently higher level?

Is one of those approaches wrong and the other right?

No, both have their advantages and disadvantages.

The major disadvantage, as it now happens, with the former is you have saddled yourself with ongoing debt over the next 5 years that you can not afford now with the financial effects of COVID-19 and no Champions League football.

But, nobody could have predicted the pandemic, although Daniel Levy did predict the financial bubble the Premier League was in was unsustainable and thus not a road to go down.

Spurs are in a totally different situation to any other club.

We have just built a stadium, to generate the income the club needs to win trophies regularly and we have to pay for that. We have a debt that has to be serviced at a time when our income has been drastically reduced.

That impacts other areas of the club and transfer funds is one of them, what we can afford to pay in wages is another.

Here is a novel idea, the players are performing badly to save the club bonus payment money on win bonuses, goal scoring bonuses. No, I don't buy that one either.

I recall a conversation I had with someone on Twitter and their argument was basically, he who shouts the loudest is right.

A journalist writes a fictitious piece, as they so regularly do, and the rest of the media copy it.

Foreign media copy it.

Our media then re-reports the foreign media reports as if it is new news, even though it is a copy of a copy of a fake story.

Then you have the news regurgitators on Social Media and the clickbait website repeating the false story as if it were true and gullible fans believing it.

They then report the same story as if it were true from the foreign press and report it again from our press reporting from the foreign press, reporting from he original fake story.

The gullible Twitter fan. 

Well the story is everywhere so it must be true.

He who shouts the loudest is right.

That is the woke generation culture of today.

Those who know the truth, therefore, are not listened to as they should be.

Fan opinion is based on fiction, not truth.

There is partial truth, like one trophy in 19 years,but that has to be coupled with why and why has that happened to virtually everyone else too, apart from those with more money that Spurs.

That element, the important element, is ignored because it doesn't help the anti-Spurs opinion.

Understanding is not something a fan take into account on this issue.

Everyone seeks information to back up their opinion, not to change it because nobody wants to actually change an opinion or understand the subject.

The future is bright, despite looking bleak.

And here we have another problem, short term vs long term.

Now the anti crowd will bellow 19 years, ignoring the fact we haven't had the money to buy trophies as richer clubs have done.

Barring Leicester City, all winners of the Premier League since its inception in 1992 have had more money than Spurs.

Everton, Wigan and Portsmouth are the only three clubs, with less money than Spurs, to win the FA Cup since the Premier League began.

3 in 27 seasons.

Leicester City the only Premier League winners with less money that Spurs.

1 in 27 seasons.

That's 4 out of 54 trophies (7.4%)

92.6% of trophies (Premier League and FA Cup) won by clubs with more money that Spurs.

Answer = generate more money, obviously.

I fail to see how any fan can not see that, yet there are plenty of them.

OK, you are going to ask me about League Cups that our fans once also craved, who celebrate our success and now claim it doesn't count or doesn't matter. Hypocrisy of course, but that's fans for you.



Aston Villa were a richer club than Spurs.

Back in the 90's, we were facing bankruptcy due to financial mismanagement before Alan Sugar and Terry Venables took over to avoid us falling into the hands of Robert Maxwell.

Spurs were fined £600,000, banned from the 1994/95 FA Cup and docked 12 Premiership points because of financial irregularities.

So, that is possibly only 4 times (I haven't looked back into the finances of Leicester City in the 90's) that the League Cup has been won by clubs with less money than Spurs.

4 in 27 seasons.

That is a grand total of 9 out of 81 (11.11%) trophies won by clubs with less money than Spurs.

88.88% of ALL trophies have been won by richer clubs than Spurs.

Spurs have won 18% of the trophies not won by richer clubs than Spurs.

If the referee had shown a red card to the Manchester United player in the first quarter of the game in the final in 2009, as he should have done,  Spurs might well have won the trophy that year.

Personally I think Leicester City back up my assertion that coaches today can only buy success, that they are actually very poor coaches in the proper sense.

For me, Mauricio Pochettino and Brendan Rodgers have shown themselves to be outstanding by achieving more with less.

When you can go and buy who you want it is much less of an achievement, an achievement yes, but you have to have the income to constantly fund it.

That means building the infrastructure to generate it.

Could ENIC have invested in the way Abramovich did at Chelsea?

Yes, but they didn't (it's their money not ours) and that is their choice, now FFP prevents them or anyone else doing so.

What is possible now is what counts now, so fans need to let go off the past and look to the future.

Daniel Levy has shown he doesn't invest.

My counter argument would be to say he hasn't had the money to invest in the way these fans want. That's why we built the stadium, that's why the club had to be developed to generate the income needed.

COVID-19 is delaying that income.

We have a set of fans who would happily bankrupt the club to win a trophy, however harmful that would be in the long run. The can't simply buy players and pay them wages that you don't have the income to support.

How much debt do you live on?

Do you spend all your wages, have you got a mortgage, are your credit cards maxed out? What do you do when prices go up?

You stop spending as much somewhere else in your budget. That is not normally an option with your mortgage (home/stadium).

Should a fan look to next season or the next 5 seasons, the next 10 seasons?

Which is more important, a trophy or being in a financial position (thanks to the stadium generating income) to win regular trophies, perhaps having won several in that period?

I'm in the latter camp, I want regular trophies, not an odd trophy and I think it will be at least 3 seasons before we are in a financial position to progress again.

I want the club to be financially able to compete at a higher level in the transfer market, like it or not that takes time.

The stadium was delayed, now with COVID-19 the world has to recover normality yet, as I reported when this pandemic started, it could well re-emerge in November December time.

Research back then showed it could move around the globe and that heat could dissipate it and cold bring it back like flu.

I see reports suggesting that now but this isn't an article to go into my research of the virus and its possible health implications.

The point is, nobody knows what the future holds in terms of club income.

If you don't know what income you will have coming in, how much do you spend?

What you can afford or more than you can afford on current known income?

Your only other option is a redistribution of the funds you have.

Sell assets and buy new assets (assets = players).

In the current financial climate can anybody afford to buy our assets?

If they can't,what can the club do, it can't force clubs to buy our players.

It can only spend, therefore, hat it can afford and what it can raise in sales, which severely restricts us in the market.

That causes the lack of understanding supporter to shout ENIC out.

But he who shouts the loudest is not right, just with an opinion that is ill-informed, generally.

I challenge an ENIC out suporter once again to come forward with a coherent plan.

Tell me what you want to replace ENIC with and what you expect them to do bearing in mind they can't throw the money at the club you want them to.

Give me an alternative to consider, because if you can't, shut up and support the club instead of working against it and against winning anything.

Have a great day folks and fingers crossed for a performance that says we care and three points.

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