What Spurs could learn from Christopher Columbus

What Spurs could learn from Christopher Columbus

What shall we discuss today?

Well today I thought we'd take transfer fees and transfer negotiation as our topic as many a fan on Twitter doesn't seen to understand the whole scenario.

Mind you, many a fan on Twitter doesn't seem to understand very much.

Well that's where we are going to start, but you know me, this could wander anywhere.

In the late 15th century, Christopher Columbus pitching a plan to the then Catholic Monarchs, of reaching the Indies directly across the Atlantic Ocean.

He needed funding for his project, he needed ships, crew, provisions.

People knew since ancient Greek time the world was round so this journey was perfectly feasible.

However, nobody had dared to make a journey to prove it.

Columbus spent 9 years trying to get his expedition financed.

The Catholic Monarchs finally agreed to finance him (by borrowing money - sounds like the Glaziers buying Man Utd with a banks money).

They, amazingly, agreed to his requests to be conferred the titles of Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor, as well as a 10% cut of all earnings.

Such a request today is like asking to be call the Admiral of the Internet, which can be likened to a sea of information.

It's quite absurd, yet it was granted.

Now that story is one of persistence, not giving up on your goal, but there are also many other elements that we can see in the football business today.

He set a goal way beyond the ordinary.

Tottenham have done that, to rival Real Madrid and Barcelona both on and off the field. Obviously you have to rival off the field before you can rival on the field.

He made spectacular demands.

Daniel Levy makes big demands of his managers and staff. He sets a standard and you go if you don't meet it.

He is right that coaching should be able to make a difference if you have talented players, ala Pochettino.

That has to be the goal while finances are tight and until the stadium is bringing in the cash regularly.

25 non-football events a year could bring in £50m, a revenue stream other clubs don't have great access to at the moment.

Once the pandemic moves, the Spurs can move forward.

You wouldn't want anyone who can't see that on the board!

As Lord Sugar says, a fan place will just be a token gesture as the people you want making decisions are people with knowledge, not kids protesting.

Both sides in a transfer negotiation make demands beyond what they expect or lower than they expect, it's standard negotiating practice but most fans have never been involved in a meaningful business negotiation in their lives.

It is a different world to the 9-to-5 Indian.

His demands/communication were persistent.

The right deal is more important than speed. Every deal affects the finances available for other deals so to simply throw money away by accepting too little or paying too much can, in fact, be detrimental in the long run.

He didn't give up or waiver in his conviction, belief, desire, persistence.

Look at the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. That was always going to happen, it was just a case of how much. Real Madrid were not going to get him cheap and had to pay a then world record fee.

Negotiation experts suggest you should let the other party make the first offer, that is standard, but that also means they are setting the benchmark for negotiation.

With transfer business you need to be controlling the price narrative thus you must employ the Columbus technique.

What you therefore do is to determine exactly what you are prepared to accept for your player, that leaves you TOTALLY satisfied and add on 30% - 40%.

That is the figure you quote.

OK, now put yourself in the shoes of being a buyer, the selling club are doing the same thing so a price quoted originally is not what you should be contemplating paying.

You build in what you are prepared to yield into your initial offer, equally, if you are the buyer, you do the opposite.

Thus the people who moan and groan about low offers simply don't understand the art of negotiation.

This is a centuries proven technique to negotiation.

If you can't get the right deal, walk away and negotiate another.

There are aspects here where I think Spurs under Daniel Levy have got it wrong and that is communication.

Columbus had his goal and needed people to believe to fund his expedition.

Daniel Levy equally has a stated goal, to rival Barcelona and Real Madrid both on and off the field (spectacular demand).

That means you have to rival them financially off the field before you can rival them on the field.

That message has been lost and forgotten about by most fans, even though it is one made by Sir Alex Ferguson.

For me, that message (ultimate goal) should have been regularly reinforced. 

If you want to achieve success, you must have a goal that you review and remind yourself every day to drive you forward, otherwise it'll weaken.

99% of the population are not prepared to put in that effort, thus they become the 9-to-5ers working for somebody else.

Progress and recession should have been linked to the ultimate goal so fans understood a great deal more and more would be accompanying the Spurs expedition.

Fans need to be on board with where the club is going and understand how we get there.

If you don't explain how Spurs are going to get there, they will make up their own minds and that will be playing first, off the field second, which puts them at odds with the club.

Why not detail out the various possible steps in a timescale for fans.

Yes it's a stick to beat the club with but used correctly it's a tool to take the majority of fans with you, it's a chance to educate many of them which in the long run is beneficial.

Make the fan a part of the journey, at the moment they are divorced from it.

That's a matter for the board and communication department to discuss

There will always be the I want it now merchants, the people who ignore the constraints of FFP and refuse to accept owners can no longer fund transfers and wages.

These you leave behind on the shore, they do not support the expedition but you can sure as hell believe they will bask it it's and any glory.

Seems to me we commercially communicate but aren't taking the fans along with us.

We have tried bringing in the most successful manager in history, but narcissistic failures saw the requirements of success as too demanding, so rebelled.

Players who have won nothing at the top level think they can tell the most successful manager in history how to win things!

It's incredible.

Bottlers, bottled it again.

It gets tough and they ain't prepared to do what it takes.

Failures give up, they don't push themselves.

Some Spurs players gave up, not the winners of course, they are still fighting trying to carry the failures.

At the end of the season the board will make a show gesture.

By that I mean they'll appoint a new manager.

It will be a show gesture because it is for the fans benefit, to appease them, pretending we are moving forward when we are not.

TWO MANAGERS now have said this squad need a TOTAL REBUILD, because there are too many failure mentalities within it.

We can only afford do that over several summer transfer windows.

A winning mentality tries to improve his game every day on the training field.

Dele Alli is lazy on the training field.

Yet fans side with his laziness, fans side with his failure attitude, that isn't a route to success, never will be.

A winning mentality employs their own chief to take their nutrition to the next level (Harry Kane).

A losing mentality just plays video games and hangs out with gangsters for his image.

Fans are not siding with Harry Kane and the winning mentalities though, they want to follow showy egotistical failures.

Until there is a change in the mentality in the squad, Spurs are going nowhere.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

The expedition is long and arduous, painstakingly slow at times.

When you are sailing into a headwind, as we are now (pandemic, empty stadium, income £150m down), you have to bide time, do the best you can with your resources, maximize every penny you spend.

You ned to find those little gains - yes using psychologists is one of them, wouldn't be where we are now if we were using them.

The club needs to reconnect with the fans, re-establish the long term goal, communicate some of the steps along the way, involve them on the journey.

Look at it as a movie franchise, Harry Potter, Star Wars etc.

We need a before story, a reminder of where this journey started, how the club has been built to date and for what purpose.

Then we need to communicate the present, where we are now, the serious problems an empty stadium holds for clubs and football in general.

The third 'movie' the journey to that revered place beyond the imagination of the masses with lesser dreams.

Are we all not in this journey together?

Wouldn't it be easier to take us all along with you?

What are you afraid of, ridicule?

Ignore those folk, they are failure mentalities who want to keep you down.

Failure mentalities want to drag you down to their level...

They DO NOT want to work to rise to your level.

Failures like Dele Alli, want to drag Harry Kane down to his work ethic level because it suits him, NOT success, NOT the team, HIM.

Raheem Sterling, Jessie Lingard both had the Dele Alli problem.

They were only interested in their own egos and the adulation of the crowd for a trick.

Dele Alli is in that position.

Both Raheem and Jessie eventually grew up.

Dele hasn't grown up yet.

That is the constant battle with young players.

You get audacious brilliance...

But you get the ego with it...

And if the ego takes over from the mentality...

You're sunk.

You ain't got a winner on your hands until they grow up.

There are non-negotiable values in negotiation, there are non-negotiable values on the playing side.

For me, mentality is non-negotiable, it's essential in a player.

Look at N'dombele.

People love him, but off the ball he couldn't care less, he doesn't rush to get goal side, rather keep himself the wrong side of the ball and out of play.

5 minutes are spent ion the ball 85 minutes off it.

If you can't be bothered off the ball for 85 minutes, is that going to affect the team, the result?

Too bloody right it is.

How many of them are there in the Spurs team?

Who Spurs appoint will be interesting, as will out summer transfer activity to reactivate supporters hope.

COYS