leffe186

Yes it does…because it would have been odd, because it didn’t happen Honestly, I feel like there should be a sticky thread saying “Maddison wanted to go to Spurs” at the top of the page .

How do you know? Imagine how far ahead everyone else would be with no regulation and Mike Ashley in charge for over ten years. Maybe Liverpool is owned by Saudi Arabia, Man City by UAE, West Ham by Qatar, Aston Villa by Indonesia - whatever. Who knows?

We’ve seen the sort of responses he’d get time and again for decades and at so many clubs The stick Levy gets (and will always get, whatever he does) from some Spurs fans blows my mind. Maybe you could do a Man City or West Ham and just hang around until Birmingham hosts an Olympics and then move into a new stadium in Digbeth or wherever for a song

Nah, really appreciate the long post, was kinda dreading sorting through everything on VitalVilla or wherever It all sounds very much like the sort of issues we were dealing with throughout our own process. I read that statement without really knowing anything about what you guys had been dealing with and it looked to me as though he was saying “we may have to build a new stadium” while simultaneously avoiding saying “we may have to build a new stadium.” Your last two paragraphs are the crux of the matter in general.

Just caught up. Your next game’s Saturday, right? Five days to hold out.

Supposedly Al-Nassr (or Christiano Ronaldo’s team if I’ve got that wrong) have made an offer for Emerson Royal. Can’t see us accepting unless it’s bonkers money.

I’m finding it so hard to decide. Worst case scenario for me is Arsenal winning, then Villa, then maybe Liverpool, then maybe Man City (out of the top four). I also genuinely think we have a chance if players come back when we’re still there or thereabouts. So whenever Arsenal win I kinda want Liverpool and Man City to win, even though that theoretically is bad for us.

That’s the rub. We talked about it for years. You guys have done the same once it became clear that you were restricted on one side.

You couldn’t pay us.

It’s just bent now? Oh you sweet summer child.

Cheers. Yeah that’s peculiar. He doesn’t say “we don’t have the money” (unsurprisingly) but instead he doesn’t think they should tear down the one stand intended for expansion “while we’re playing like this…I think everything should be about all fans and not just one particular stand”. I’d have to look into the fan discussion but on the face of it that suggests that rather than not having the money for redevelopment of Villa Park, they might actually be looking to build a new ground. Unless @Stifler you have something that says they don’t have the money? My understanding is that a few clubs around Europe are looking at the Tottenham Stadium and thinking that a multi-purpose stadium is the way forward. Maybe Villa are thinking the same.

Got a link for that? Wifey is Villa and I want to check it out.

Yeah, that’s one reason why our financing and construction was such a massive ballache. Everything was stratospherically more expensive than, say, when Arsenal built the Emirates. Levy seems to have managed to secure long-term, relatively low-interest (effectively) loans that we can cover using our revenue and in particular revenue generated by the stadium itself (Beyoncé etc). Compare and contrast that with Man City and West Ham who were each effectively gifted a stadium. It makes a massive difference. It’s why I’m presuming that you’ll need a new custom-built stadium to bridge the gap, and the main question is whether Saudi Arabia will just build it themselves.

Good open game.

That was definitely the feeling we got all along with Kane, and during the Dragusin stuff a couple of journos suggested it was the case in Germany - for example when they wanted other Bundesliga players. I don’t know what wages they offer in general, but we heard that their late offer to Dragusin included higher wages than ours. Wouldn’t surprisenme at all if they could offer Trippier a lot for a couple of years.

I bet he doesn’t etc etc

Yeah, every fan base is going to have people who want to “do a City”, people who don’t want to but go along with it and people who hate it. These posts are from here precisely 11 years ago: There are Spurs fans who’d love to be/have been owned by a foreign country and spend infinite money. There are clearly Newcastle fans who think you’re not “big enough in terms of support, revenue etc, if run properly, to have a tilt eventually, and do it the right way.” I don’t agree, but nothing I say is going to change their minds so all I’m really doing is laying out how I feel.

Feels like they’ve all been really cynical fouls too

Absolutely. And if Man City didn’t have an emotional affect on you either then I envy you . If you were cool with that then of course you’d be cool with Saudi Arabia spending whatever they want right now. I just wasn’t. And I think if you build steadily over the next few years and redevelop your stadium (or build a new one) then you’d bridge the gap too eventually. I didn’t know about the Moores stuff as a kid, all I knew was that Liverpool won everything and loads of people I knew in North London supported them to feel better about themselves. Maybe it would have changed my attitude.

It wasn’t, Jack Walker was the most obvious recent example at the time, there have been loads since the 1800s. The Abramovich one felt different to me. If it felt the same to you then fair enough.

Yeah, you might blow every other club out of the water. Except maybe Man City who could now spend whatever they wanted. And maybe Chelsea - Boehly clearly is happy to spend whatever he wants. I don’t know about the other guys - the Chinese owners of Wolves, that Egyptian guy at Villa, that bloke (Iranian?) who bought Everton. Maybe he could buy Everton a new ground. I dunno. All I know is that I felt really, well, sad when Abramovich was throwing his money at Chelsea and it wasn’t because it wasn’t us. Same with what happened at Man City. If this is what you want then I get it, and maybe it would make the league better. I have no idea any more, really. It just makes me feel a bit sad again

I mean the coat tails were halfway up the stairs at the beginning. Was hard enough grabbing hold of them let alone hanging on. Most of the talk here has been about the top six cartel being out of reach, and as we are part of that I presumed you were wanting to catch us. I just think that we bridged the gap while spending less than our income, so why can’t you? I think we’re well placed to kick on now. I mean, it’s only 2018 when we didn’t buy anyone (presumably because of the stadium costs/uncertainty) and then COVID came along. I just think that you’ve already shown so much improvement in such a short time, and your past history suggests you can generate way more revenue on matchday and outside. I would presume you also have decent name recognition abroad thanks partly to the early successes in the Premier League. I do think that you will need to either move or rebuild St.James’s Park to make the step up at some point. The rules definitely need changing to account for inflation etc.

Yeah, I think one problem with the podcast is that there was just too much ground to cover. They say it at one point - basically they have to cut it short because they could talk about it for hours. Once again though, the drawbridge stuff is true and yes it would be lovely to achieve it without the asterisks. But you don’t have to imagine it out of thin air. We fucking did it. And it sucked at times, and it was up and down, and Levy got pelters from everyone. At the beginning the top 4 was essentially a closed shop (Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool) which meant they got pretty much all the CL money. Then just as we might have broken in Man City came along and fucked us all. Lest you forgot, we are the only Premier League team to ever go an entire summer window without buying a player, in 2018. But timeEd32 has laid it out. It will be shitty this year then it will get better. You’re the only show in town with the potential to build a spanking new stadium on more than one site. Whereas we had a closed shop of four who had guaranteed CL income (and no FFP to worry about for a few years at the beginning) there are more teams now jostling for position and preventing the same four from hogging all the CL money. We’re already looking at three of those four having to sell to buy this January if they can even do that. Before this year Arsenal had been out of the CL for six years. Man U have only managed every other year for the past 10. And it might suck at times, like now, and it will be up and down, and yeah it would help if you were in London. But I reckon it’s more doable now than it has been for a long time. Why do you think it’s impossible?

Sorry you can listen for free through the Apple Podcasts app.

Right now it’s because they say they’re not guilty, and many of the charges are complex. Everton and Forest admit they are, and they are straightforward breaches. Honestly, listen to that Athletic podcast, it lays it out pretty well: https://theathletic.com/podcast/144-athletic-football-podcast/ The 16th Jan one.