Strange Club, Tottenham, but a victory is a victory and on Thursday they had two. A double, if you want to trigger older fans with other memories of the term.
We can return to the merits of scratching beyond Hoffenheim in Europe, but first we are going to rewind a few hours before, before their work against team 15 in Germany. That takes us in the morning and the publication of the Deloitte Money League report, which shows how bean counters are moving forward in our various clubs.
Now, those are happier tables of the League for the Spurs, because they have stacked beans as high as you can see. Great beans for large children, and for income are the ninth older child in the football world. Fifth largest in the Premier League.
Everything is there in the bars of a table: Tottenham's profits for the 2023-24 season amounted to £ 519.5 million, not taking into account their transfers traffic, and that is a roaring trade. For accounts extracted a year after their last appearance in the Champions League, in 22-23, the numbers are sublime, actually.
Then, happy shareholders, happy life; The film, the trick, the graphics that make Daniel Levy work.
The peculiarities of his reign are no secret at this time, not after 24 years, but a reexamal is always worth it when new numbers enter, as they did on Thursday. I am specifically thinking about wages as a percentage of rotation, which sounds dry. Forks. But it is the metric that tells us if a club is willing to live a little or too much.
Tottenham is spending an insignificant amount in salaries as a percentage of his income compared to his rivals
They could bring three renowned stars in £ 250,000 per week and not yet spend half of their income on salaries
Why bring a full key manager like Ange Postecoglou if he does not support him with a sufficient squad?
In the case of Tottenham, salary spending in 2024 was 42 percent of income, so around £ 218 million, and the figure requires some context through the comparison. That being a comparison with its own behaviors, which shows that this is the lowest commitment of the Spurs by percentage in the last five seasons and a comparison with its competition.
In order of the income with which Deloitte classified the nine British clubs in the world's top 20, Manchester City spent 57 percent of its turnover of £ 706.8 million in salaries (£ 403.4m), and could be seen as Our standard bearer, waiting for the result of deeper consultations.
The next is Manchester United, which operated 56 percent (£ 364 million in salaries), chased by Arsenal with 53 percent (£ 320 million) and Liverpool at 63 percent (£ 380m). Then it was Spurs, followed by Chelsea (72 percent, £ 331.7m), Newcastle (68 percent, £ 213m), West Ham (58 percent, £ 157m) and Aston Villa (96 percent, £ 251 million).
We could look at one of the two atypical values in that sample, which is Villa, which played 90 percent or more of its salary rotation in three of the last five seasons. He contributed to a place in the Champions League, so they are probably great with his fate, but the fact that Douglas Luiz now plays for Juventus tells his proximity to Cliff Edge. Just as United showed that £ 364 million can be easily wasted.
These figures highlight an inexaction in art, but also offer a guide on where the richest clubs draw their lines. How they quantify ambition. And when we look at it that way, Levy beans suddenly do not seem very large at all.
They are the beans of a man who has committed more than 47 percent of wages only once in the last five seasons. They are the beans of a man who is not even remotely close to the midpoint between extreme caution and recklessness. The beans of an executive that could sign three high -level players with £ 250,000 per week, £ 39 million a year combined and still be within 50 percent of the billing. Levy should be ashamed of those beans. They are the beans of institutional cowardice.
And is not horribly out of place in a club that is marketed in daring and doing?
It is a club that named a gentleman in Ange Postecoglou, but left him trusting five adolescents to see the game against Hoffenheim on Thursday. A club that entered four players below a complete bank, with a cast of exhausted men in the field, and has not yet signed a senior gardener in the January market.
As a comparison, Aston Villa is spending 96 percent of his income in the players' salaries
Spurs face a crisis of injuries, but they have not yet been supported in the transfers market this January
I admire Postecoglou, I find it exciting and different, which is not the same as believing that there is great wisdom in your method. There is also a question about the sense of naming a manager with a high intensity style, with all the exhaustion problems we have seen, when he is not prepared to provide him with a squad capable of satisfying the demands.
But Postecoglou has great beans and we can all agree on that. He strives, is being bold, and his exasperation is growing per week. On Friday, before DIRE NEED Sunday against Leicester, he said Tottenham would be 'playing with fire' if the reinforcements do not arrive next week.
But is Levy listening even? Do you pay any notice to those social media publications that mark that their three previous managers sat first in Italy, second in Turkey and third in the Premier League this weekend? Were they all the problem? Was Antonio Conte a mile out of his groans?
If we want to give Levy its due, beyond the magnificence of the stadium, it has splashed a lot in transfers in recent seasons and has kept the club safe from PSR vultures. But salaries, not the rates, are the key to obtaining the best players and to date only the salary of Levy, which has fluctuated between £ 3.5my 6.5m in recent times, the best in class for the division would be classified.
Are you going to overcome its £ 200,000 per week to change Tottenham's narrative? Good luck to postecoglou if you are pushing privately in that direction, even if these last figures prove, once again, the club is operating a mile within itself.
And that is a ruidor, really. A stain. A contradiction of what Levy says in public about feeling the same beat as Tottenham fans. These are words that he has used from the first day, as contained in his first set of program notes, in March 2001.
I expelled them this week, and he talks about being a supporter in West Stand in White Hart Lane, of using Gazza and Lineker Rosettes and idolists. That type of tone.
But there is also a bit in spending, as happened, and naturally that is what attracts attention now.
LEVY even notice postecoglou protests that spurs are 'playing with fire' by not signing anyone?
Levy contradicts the same beat as Spurs fans: their approach is directly in the profits
Although the Spurs have spent transfers in recent seasons, fans have been frustrated with tight bags
“Sir Alan (Sugar) faced the same challenges that we now balancing the needs of the shareholders, who want profits, with those of fans, who want success in the field,” he wrote. 'Sometimes, the two do not go together. It is an act of balance.
With each set of accounts, it becomes clearer that only one side of the line once mattered. Posttecoglou should look double.
Ratcliffe burns bridges in the water
In the last installment of the adventures of Sir Jim Ratcliffe in sport, he has had a total breakdown in his relationship with Sir Ben Ainslie and decided that he can win the Copa América without him.
Be Ainslie, four times Olympic champion, winner of the 2013 Cup for the United States and a man who recently delivered a British yacht to the final for the first time since 1964.
There is much to say with confidence and even more for those who recognize when the other type in the room is smarter in their field. So good luck to Manchester United when those rocks approach, but at least they have Captain Jim to the helm.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has abandoned Sir Ben Ainslie before the Copa América, deciding that he can win it without him
The head of the RFU, Bill Sweeney, has refused to apologize for his salary and bonds amid the difficult financial situation of the organization. What brass neck
Bill Sweeney, executive director of Rugby Football Union, refused to apologize this week for accepting a bonus of £ 358,000 and a £ 1.1 million salary at a time of record losses and layoffs on Twickenham. With so many bras on the neck, it would surely be more use in the field than outside it.