Quote:
Originally Posted by MegaErtz
That's an extremely narrow interpretation of the wage bill. I think a more accurate way to look at things would be to take into account total transfer and wages outlay, including agent fees and bonuses paid. Just off the top of my head, Spurs spent £65m on Solanke, £40m on Archie Gray, £8.5m on Bergvall, £25m on Odobert, and £12.5m on this new goalkeeper they brought in a couple of weeks ago. They're also spending huge money on Werner's wages to have him on loan.
Meanwhile Liverpool brought in Chiesa for £10m and sold Fabio Carvalho for £20m, Bobby Clarks for £10m, and Van Den Berg for £20m. A bit hard to argue that Spurs are being cheap when Liverpool's revenue is only about 13% higher. Levy is spending money for sure, just on the wrong players.
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It’s the right way to view this though (wages as a percentage of revenue) because it evens the playing field in terms of the size of the operation.
And yes, over the past two summers we’ve spent some money, but let’s not forget they also sold Kane for £100m and he was an academy player. So first of all, they had to replace him and second, that drives the net spend down significantly. And the other issue is that they’ve spent money on a lot of young and unproven players. At this point those kids are getting a trial by fire and it might work out, but it’s hard to look at purchases like Yang, Bergvall and Kinsky and say “see, they’re backing the manager”. Sure, they’re warm bodies and might be awesome, buts that what…£30m? In today’s world, that’s a pittance. Even Odobert was cheap by today’s standards.
But here we are 3 weeks into the window with an enormous injury issue and there is nothing. No reinforcements and just hopes that these guys heal up and come back to make an impact.