Transfer Spending
Morning folks and welcome to another edition of Tottenham Tittle Tattle in which we explore a wide variety about Spurs, success and the football world, with dollops of culinary advice, gardening, my frogs and any other tangent I fancy meandering down.
One thing you'll get is positivity by and large and no time for the 90 minute fan, the one that moans just about all the rest of the time it seems.
There are a host of new readers so a warm welcome to you all and it is warm again today.
Before I go and check the pond, fill it with water and clean the pond plants of much, I thought we'd have a cosy chat about transfer spending.
UPDATE: Brilliant day, saw a baby frog today hopping on the aerating plant leaves in the pond, about 2" long (that's 5cm for all the youngsters).
Always a pleasure to see the frogs but with all the frogspawn you see the tadpoles, then generally don't see if any grow.
This year we had less frogspawn and it didn't last long either, we didn't see the same number of tadpoles, yet a baby fog has emerged.
It does bring a smile to the face.
OK you want some football talk, I hd better pander to your desires.
Chelsea are the only team to have spent money really and they are in a unique position coming off a transfer ban, sell Hazard and others to the tune of over £200m,which is why they have been able to spend £140m.
Manchester United are more interesting and help us to see what is happening post-lockdown.
The Red Devils are trying to buy Jadon Sancho with a reported price of £108.01m (€120m - AUS$197.28 - US$141.28m).
They are now trying to renegotiate the price down, fine for them but not for Borussia Dortmund.
Why then are they suddenly trying to renegotiate?
Well, Manchester United had budgeted for fans returning to the stadium by October and thus income returning, but with a second lockdown it looks to be a while yet before fans will be let into stadiums.
The UKis teetering on the brink of a second wave with the irresponsible population we have, particularly in cities.
From the start of this I maintained things would not be back to normal in August and that we will probably have a second wave in November and December when colder weather arrives.
I must admit I have not kept up with the latest research from around the world, particularly South Korea so I have to work on my original hypothesis.
Bottom line is, fans are not going to be in stadiums in October probably and thus Manchester United have reduced income, therefore they want to reduce a transfer fee.
If I were Dortmund I'd say no, that's the price, if you can't afford him, don't buy him. Personally, I don't think he is worth the money.
Anyway, that brings us to Tottenham.
Daniel Levy has taken a different approach.
He has looked at guaranteed income and the transfer budget we have reflects what.
We have taken the approach that there will not be fans for the foreseeable suture and remember Daniel Levy has been sitting on a committee working with the Government and promoting the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and a test stadium.
When fans do return only a third will be allowed in and thus pre-lockdown income coming in will be hit by the same margin.
In a nutshell, that's why we see different spending patterns.
I hope that helps.
I'm loving this pragmatic approach to the window.
We have secured our top target, we have identified targets like Timothy Castagne that we have to wait for until his club Atalanta are knocked out of the UEFA Champions League, they play PSG in the next round.
When you see the main medias guesswork and opinion dressed up as information they imply is from the club you can disregard it if the transfer fee is in excess of around £20m.
We only want to pay £15-20m for a player and there are plenty of options for us which is why I'm confident we'll get the squad Mourinho wants.
£15-20m
€16.68 - 22.24m
AUS$27.41 - 36.59m
US$19.63 - 26.17m
That then becomes the base from which we can build from.
I totally expect us to qualify for the Champions League and Mourinho will have us trying to lift a trophy, thus taking things like the Europa League seriously.
Callum Wilson wants to join us, if we can bring his price down so you can see him playing in the Europa League to take some pressure off Harry and give him some rest.
Now some fans feel uninspired, that we shouldn't be looking at this area of the market or that we have been here before.
What has happened in the past is gone and bears no relation to today so it should be forgotten.
We have a new manager with a realistic approach working with the best chairman in the business.
Price is not just dictated by ability.
Price is dictated by length of contract.
Arsene Wenger said, 20 years ago, that contracts were worthless, they were simply a means of ensuring a transfer fee.
Basically a player is full value if he has 3 or more years on his contract, anything less and his price has to come down.
When he has 2 years left you can still get a decent fee for him so, you either tie them to a new contract or you sell.
Letting them get to one year left takes them to minimal price.
Crystal Palace have always priced Zaha at what it would cost them to replace him and no club buys players priced like that as we have seen.
In Spain and Portugal whenever a player gets a wage increase his release clause is increased so that it bears no relation to his actual value, simply to prevent him leaving.
Thus when you see the main media reporting so and so has a release clause of XYZ and ABC club are willing to pay it, it is usually nonsense.
For lower priced players whose release clause hasn't shot up yet, maybe, but otherwise it's made up.
If you look at our transfer targets, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg had 1 year left and was unrealistically prices, Timothy Castagne has 1 year left and Kim Min-jae is from a weak league.
Strikers we are looking at relegated cubs and clubs in financial difficulty like Valencia who have Maxi Gómez who we have followed or French Ligue 1 clubs.
In this financial climate there are bargains to be had.
Some clubs choose to splash the cash on one player while others in different situations look to buy several to improve the squad.
The right player is better than the expensive player, as we have seen so far with Tanguy Ndombélé.
It is great to see far more positivity about our transfer window than we usually see, more realism, less fantasy.
And of course next season we will be lifting a trophy so we all have something to look forward to.
COYS
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