Spurs Summer Transfer Window Day 28
It is Thursday, it is 5:45 and it's Crackerjack, who remembers that, sprung into my head as soon as I wrote Thursday. Whether it's right or not I can't quite remember.
Anyway, Spurs Summer Transfer Window Day 28 is upon us and these last 4 weeks do seem to have flown by after an initial flurry before a more consolidating window.
There is plenty going on behind the scenes, like a duck in water, all the motion underneath can't be seen, just the serene calmness on the top.
In our Spurs Chat section today I though I'd better cover another element for my pet anti-Levy readers, particularly Scottish Yiddo, who simply has to be an SNP supporter, given the outstanding and convenient lack of memory of Nicola Sturgeon.
Wages
The argument is voiced by this fast dwindling smattering that a chance was missed to invest when we reached the UEFA Champions League Final, but that fails to take into account wages.
Unfortunately people only consider transfer fees, Spurs had extra money to invest and yes, that is true, BUT buying better players means paying better wages and increasing the wages of the players you have got, like Harry Kane.
You therefore have to have the guaranteed income for the next 5 years and beyond in fact because once risen, a wage bill isn't going to come down again.
That means the business side of Spurs has to be generating the income to support the increase in wages and at the time it wasn't.
It would have been reckless business practice to have increased the wage bill significantly when you only have one years guaranteed income.
That leaves you 4 seasons short.
If the club then did not qualify for the UEFA Champions League (UCL) then that puts financial pressure on the club and sets it's progress back.
It means there is less money for the next transfer window, less wages.
Failure to qualify for a second year would mean having to sell players and replace them with players on lower wages.
You'd have to get the wage bill back under control before you can look to invest again.
It is vital therefore that the club, through it's business operations, generates the income to sustain wages.
That would happen when the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was built and generating revenue.
However Covid19 kicked in and the revenue dropped with an empty stadium to pay for.
Had we invested and increased the wage bill before this worldwide pandemic, our progress would have been set back at least double the three years it was set back by.
So far from being the right time to invest, it was the wrong time, the club income was not ready for it, only projected to be.
Now we have fans in the stadium, now we know what it earns, now we know what extra revenue we can direct towards transfers and more importantly, wages.
Now it is common sense to invest, the plan all along as reported in my Spurs Summer Transfer Window Day 25 article.
Now off you go and read that one, there's good people.
Most of you read daily I know, which makes all the work that goes into these posts worthwhile, a labour of love, not that I'd support Labour in anything (UK politics reference).
Thank you
Let me take this opportunity to thank all my readers from around the world, some of what I write must confuse you, but I take great delight in the knowledge I have readers in over 100 countries.
The Big Boys
These are followed by:
- Bulgaria
- Poland
- Thailand
- Brazil
- New Zealand
- France
- Cyprus
There is a fabulous diversity in just those few countries there. Malaysia are only 8 views behind Spain, the Top 4 remain consistent..
I'd certainly like to increase the number of Asian area readers so any shares on social media from those countries is much appreciated.
Pre-Season
Players that have begun pre-season:
- Fraser Forster
- Dean Austin
- Matt Doherty
- Emerson Royal
- Japhet Tanganga
- Eric Dier
- Davinson Sanchez
- Cristian Romero
- Ivan Perisic
- Ryan Sessegnon
- Sergio Reguilon
- Rodrigo Bentancur
- Oliver Skipp
- Yves Bissouma
- Harry Winks
- Tanguy Ndombele
- Giovanni Lo Celso
- Harvey White
- Pape Matar Sarr
- Troy Parrott
- Lucas Moura
- Bryan Gil
Tanguy Ndombele
The problem you all now with Tanguy is that he is lazy and he wants his money.
Any loan deal we are going to have to pay some of his salary, which means we have to charge a larger loan fee to get some of it back.
If we pay £100,000 a week x 52 weeks a year, that's £5.2 million.
A loan fee of £1.5 million would cover £28,846 a week of his wage we pay.
Lyon paid a loan fee of £1.28 million which is £24,615 per week.
Clubs abroad, I would think, would be looking to cover no more than 50% of his £200,000 a eek wages, including the loan fee element.
I don't know, but that's my guess.
Now, unfortunately, Ndombele himself has hinted he could stay at Tottenham.
"We'll see how things go during pre-season. I'm not putting any more pressure on myself than that."
But what he said in his interview still demonstrates he has the wrong mentality, it isn't a winning mentality and that isn't what we or Antonio Conte wants.
A winning mentality does the opposite, they do put pressure on themselves to improve, they thrive on challenges, Ndombele sound as though he wants to shy away from them, just wants an easy life.
I have said this before, you have to bring in as many winning mentalities as possible when building a squad, as they feed off each other and each can trust the other.
When you have a player who is merely trying to win, then, when the going gets tough, they revert to type and that type for Ndombele is to give up and be lazy.
"What I want is to be happy, take pleasure in what I do, play, win, that's all I want."
That basically says hand it to me on a plate, I don't want to have to work for it. It's a to do as little as possible for the most money possible attitude.
It totally lacks any determination, any challenge, any hard work, just an easy life.
Conte wants hard workers in midfield, what has Ndombele shown in that regard, nothing.
He deliberately stays the wrong side of the ball to avoid defending and that video of him against Wolves is damning.
The merest hint of that means he can't be trusted and would therefore only be picked as a last resort, but he wants to be a guaranteed starter.
He doesn't even want to have to work for a place.
Konrad Laimer
Another in the series of players we have been watching the progress of is 25-year-old (26 next May) RB Leipzig central-midfielder Konrad Laimer.
The Austrian international (24 caps, 2 goals, 7 assists in 1,852 minutes) is entering the last year of his contract, having joined from, yes you've guessed it, RB Salzburg.
He has played 109 games in the German Bundesliga, 17 in the UEFA Champions League and 22 in the UEFA Europa League.
Bayern Munich have had an initial €22m + €2m in add-ons bid for him rejected while Premier League rivals Liverpool and Aston Villa have been linked.
Leipzig are reported to want €30 million for the aggressive, high-energy, good tackling midfielder.
COYS
2 comments
COYS!!