The Sun have claimed that Manchester United want Mauricio Pochettino as their next manager.

With Pochettino’s Tottenham side current second in the Premier League and still in two cups, Spurs fans are understandably keen to keep hold of the manager who has transformed our club. Here’s how they reacted on Twitter.

SHARE

60 COMMENTS

    • Exactly! The article in the Sun, written by Neil Custis, is a total fabrication, an utter pack of lies from start to finish. If this pathological lying piece of shit of a journalist had done any research at all he would have discovered that Pochettino doesn’t have an agent and doesn’t have any representatives. He negotiated his own contract at Spurs with Daniel Levy directly. The Gooner supporting Custis is now officially busted as a brazen liar and an abject fraud, a pathetic journalistic nonentity utterly unfit for employment in the 4th estate, even by the deplorably degraded standards of the tabloid cesspit that we works for.

      • Yeah. If I’m not mistaken, he started this a couple of weeks ago on TV. His ‘reasoning’ (I use the term loosely) was solely that Poch left Southampton ‘as soon as a bigger club came in’ and ‘United are a bigger club than Spurs so he’ll go to United if they try for him’.

        Well, er, no – and if anyone wants to put this in an open letter to Mr Custis, feel free to do so – he left Southampton because they had a new chairperson who was preparing to sell his squad from under him. He was very close to the previous chairperson at St Mary’s, and assured that if he built a young squad it wouldn’t be sold out from under him. Why? Why was this so important to Poch? Well, as anyone who didn’t any research at all would know, that is exactly what happened to him at Espanyol. He bought a lot of young players through, they were doing well, they were sold because Espanyol were in an economic black hole. And Southampton did exactly the same thing, and he knew they were going to – they sold five players to Liverpool, FFS.

        So, now he joins Spurs, and he is given assurances that this club is economically stable and, within all foreseeable forecasts, this will not happen at WHL. So he has built a very good young side. I believe that Poch talking about the club having to be careful with finances has encouraged Custis again to stir this BS pot – on the basis that he must think that means that Poch is disgruntled. That is something I have seen no signs of.

        And I think we need to be clear about this: It is a two-way thing. Levy has put in a lot of time, work and money on the Spurs youth set-up. It is starting to pay dividends. The process began in 2005 with the hiring of Frank Arnesen – and what happened? Chelsea poached because they could see Spurs were making progress. AVB was supposed to be on board with the youth centred policies at WHL. He made several public statements to that effect. And then, allegedly, rink-fenced the 1st team squad and wouldn’t even allow the youths to train with them. Apparently it was a major issue, and one of the real reasons that AVB walked. Rumour has it that Mr Lewis, Levy’s boss, went to extreme lengths to get character references on Poch – tracking down friends of friends of friends of his own million friends. People whose word he has reason to trust, and the word was that Poch is a stable and loyal man.

        So is United likely to be that much of a draw to him? From everything we know about Poch, his sole focus is on building a team on scratch – and with this Tottenham team, he has stated several times that it would have to be a pretty special player for him to want to spend big money. So, firstly, he seems to believe he is working with a squad in situ and, mostly, on recently upgraded long contracts. And secondly both because he likes to work with young players and because he doesn’t have that much interest in spending a lot of money willy-nilly once a squad is assembled (more or less), having more money to spend, what United do have to offer him, wouldn’t appear to be that much of a draw. At the same time, Spurs have a better youth set-up than United, better training facilities, better youth players (IMHO), a better squad (IMHO – the evidence seems to support this), and soon to have a stadium that will at least approach Old Trafford in size, will be more modern and better designed (with money spinning innovative cross Atlantic sporting agreements to provide even more revenues and exposure to the financially lucrative North American market). Afaik, Daniel Levy has never scrimped on wages for his manager/head coach (Pochettino is the latter, not the former). So, that is what he has to make remaining at WHL attractive.

        What is there to make moving to Old Trafford worth him wasting a couple of years work at WHL (getting to the point he has always wanted to be at with an excellent young squad that isn’t likely to be broken up soon, not totally destitute, and with all of the above advantages). Well, as mentioned above, he will have more money to spend and his wage no doubt will be improved a bit on anything he can get at WHL, even though he is likely to get an increase and contract extension at the Lane, anyway (though just what is the extent of United’s ability to service the massive debt they run on with continued decline?). But, as we have seen, that isn’t necessarily going to be the mega-pull Big Club, money money money obsessed folk like Custis seem to think it is). There have a great recent history. They are ‘a bigger club’. United have poached players off Spurs. That appears to be the extent of Custis’s argument. Well, yeah, they do have a great recent history, but as plenty of clubs have found – including Spurs in the early 1990’s, having a great history means exactly jack shit when a club is in decline. Indeed, having a history of epochal success can become a mill-stone around the neck – as Liveprool have found with their fans obsessed with having a title challenge every year, even though they are the fifth best financed club in the BPL now, and in most ways behind the sixth best financed side, Spurs, when what they should be doing in restructuring. Yeah, they are a ‘bigger club’, but the financial advantage will be lessened with the completion of the NDP. They poached a few players from WHL – yeah, they did, but only under very specific circumstances: Spurs went into a tailspin in the 1990’s and have slowly been working desperately hard to catch up ever since. Sheringham left after he pleaded with the WHL board to show ambition, and they couldn’t afford to. Carrick left at a time when United continued to dominate English football, at a massive profit to Spurs and only because the DoF of the time (Damien Comolli) believed he had identified a better player at a fraction of the price (sadly, Didier Zokora just wasn’t that!). And then Levy fought tooth-and-nail to keep hold of Berbatov, and United had to break all the rules and behave disgracefully (to the eternal disgust of Levy) to pry him away. Since then, Spurs have continued to improve and even when everyone knew that Modric was exactly what United needed, Ferguson stated publicly that there was no point in making a bid as Levy just would not do business with United. And then they desperately tried to get Bale (to the point where the United obsessed media are still trying forlornly to ‘fix’ it for them) and quite heavily outbid Real Madrid – did they get Bale?

        So, there you have it, the ‘advantages’ that child-brains like Custis fixate on are not so great after all. Poch has many reasons, and his own sense of honour, to keep him at WHL. And, frankly, since the enforced Berbatov sale, United have not only ceased to be the best financed club in the BPL, by are now behind Citeh and Chelsea, with ArsenAnal much closer to parity, too. At the same time, Spurs are much, much better in every way and will soon move into the second biggest (but possibly the best in terms of modernity and suitability to purpose) ground in the BPL. Custis and his ilk should grow up rather than trying to ‘fix’ a bully-grab to to suit their own outdated notions of propriety.

        In fact, the whole ‘bigger club’ thing is predicated upon a ‘not the biggest or the wealthiest at the time’ United bringing through a core of young players from their youth set-up that was their staple until just about when Fergie retired. If Ferguson had wanted just the biggest and most successful club he wouldn have waited for a vacancy at Liverpool, wouldn’t he. Up to a couple of trophies into Ferguson’s reign, Spurs and United had parity in trophy haul, both were members of the Big Five (who had underachieved in the league), and Spurs had been more recently successful and were better financed. The fact that Custis and his ilk cannot fathom that things changed then, that United weren’t always ‘so much bigger’ and that things have changed again both in the condition of MUFC and in THFC is why I refer to them as child brains. If they had any dignity they would be eager for Pochettino to continue with what he is doing at Spurs to see if he can achieve success and lift Spurs closer to the status they once held and everyone associated with the club do (or should) aspire to again.

        Custis, do one you disrespectful stirring piece of…!

        • Well reasoned argument, but what is this sudden annoying jump to ‘BPL’? It is the English Premier League; the rest of Britain has nothing to do with it. Is the Scottish league now so unimportant it has been swallowed up?

          • Its not EPL ( English Premier ) its not even BPL ( British Premier league ) it is simply The Premier League, EPL & BPL are made up acronyms invented by internet bloggers and for the record its no longer the Premiership its just The Premier League

          • BPL = Barclays Premiers League, nothing to do with British 🙂

            @Darren: I use this term and EPL for English Premier interchangeably but only when chatting online. Offline, talking with friends, we all know exactly the league we mean. Online, I have been queried, taken to task even, and seen the same happen to others, on the basis that the internet is international and can’t assume that whoever we are chatting to is in the same country. Even when we are on a site discussing the (English) Premier League. Kinda nit-picking, I’ve always felt, but just as a courtesy/to avoid pointless and needless arguement, I am now in the habit of adding B or E to the name to clarify.

            COYS

        • That was absolutely fantastic. You should pick up writing. Spurs have a shit ton of fan sites. You should try to write for one of them.

          • Nah…I get abuse from folk who can’t understand that reasoned and logical analysis sometimes necessitates using more than three words (one of which has to be the obligatory F word). They also dislike some of my more bold predictions – for instance I said seven seasons ago that we would finish above Liverpool and in the top four, and predicted that Liverpool would go into serious decline unless that started emulating our template of revamping the youth set-up and investing in the infrastructure of the club (more and more complex arguments on that). Or 3 seasons ago when I said Ferguson was handing his successor a sub-standard squad, kept afloat by the last gleanings of the Class of 92 (hell, Fergie had to beg Scholes out of retirement to bail their midfield out), that they had won the title in his final year on memory induced auto-pilot and that Fergie, just by his achievements would be leaving the ultimate poisoned chalice. The abuse I got for that one was terrifying 🙂
            I don’t think the World is ready for me yet :-O

    • his business advisors when he was negotiating with spurs was a large city accountancy firm so if they talked to anyone thats who they would have talked to, they are his agents

      • But he specifically said he doesn’t have agents. Maybe he was being a bit flippant in saying Levy totally out-foxed him, and maybe he did have some advice, but he specifically said he had no agents.
        I don’t care anyway, because I have good reason to doubt that he would just drop everything for a club who used to dominate everything but can now be outspent by two clubs, with others gaining or about to gain large tracts of ground on them, whose only policy seems to be to spent huge sums of money on galactico players to ‘prove’ how big they are, and have abandoned the very thing that allowed Fergie to become what he was – i.e. giving their manager time (was it four years, or five Fergie had, with the fans screaming for his removal, before they won a trophy?)

        I could be wrong.

  3. Poch is on £3.5m per year before any bonuses. He’s talking about a new, improved, contract. His representatives have probably spoken to Man Utd. It’s what they do. They’ve probably leaked this rumour. Why? Well if Poch gets more money so do they!
    There is no doubt that Man Utd could offer Poch a much bigger salary than £3.5m. They are a much bigger club than Spurs with more than 3 times the annual turnover. Also, like Spurs, they have some excellent young players, such as Martial, Luke Shaw, etcetera. Man Utd have more potential than Spurs.
    However Levy will be desperate to keep Poch and as he proved with Ramos back in 2008 he will splash the cash to keep Poch. He offered Ramos £6m per year to quit Sevilla immediately, mid season, instead of waiting to the end of the season.
    Money TALKS. Which is why I believe Poch will still be at Spurs next season.

    • Spurs have seven or eight of the best young players in Europe. They are ahead of Manchester United in the league. They have a new, state-of-the-art stadium coming. United do NOT have more potential than Spurs. To say so makes you a clueless muppet.

    • Can they outpay Spurs – yeah, but by how much? Is it going to be Poch’s only motivation (HIS motivation, not yours).

      He does his own negotiating – he doesn’t have an agent.

      They aren’t ‘a much bigger club’ they are ‘bigger club’ thanks mainly to the era of success under Ferguson and their bigger stadium. That’s it. That’s all. Spurs will soon have a stadium to compete, along with a number of other competitive edges. Ferguson is gone. United no longer dominate English football – they can now be outbid by two clubs. Spurs are growing and growing fast. I can’t give an exact comparison to United, but Liverpool still have higher revenues than Spurs, but the revenue gap between Liverpool and Spurs has been halved in the last ten years! This is a trend that is likely to accelerate rather than slow-down with the new stadium, etc. – not to mention greater access to TV money and hopefully more access to CL money. If this squad stays together, continues to improve and is strategically added to, the THFC trophy cabinet will begin to fill again, at last.

      United may also have ‘some good young players’ – but that kinda misses the point. Spurs don’t ‘just’ have some good young players, they have a burgeoning youth set-up that is likely to produce a conveyor belt of talent (in all honesty, the potential of some of the Spurs kids in the youth set-up ATM is phenomenal. Added with what has come through so far we really could be talking Spurs equivalent to United’s Class of 92, you really do need to begin to interact with this possibility. United’s youth set-up is, frankly, a bit of a mess – which is why its head is leaving and United were trying to pinch the corresponding Spurs staff member.

      United don’t have ‘greater potential’ than Spurs. They have the reality of being a wealthier club, but it is difficult to see just how much more they can grow. They no longer dominate the league but are now capable of being outspent by Chelsea and Citeh, with Arsenal closer to parity thanks to their stadium build. And they are highly unlikely to dominate the honours list in the way folk have become accustomed to and which is making so many (including yourself) estimate them so highly – in short, they will most likely not be as successful. Spurs, on the other hand, have huge potential. This is a club that was one of the former Big Five, that nearly went bust in the early 1990’s. The potential for growth, which has slowly been being realised (see the shrinking revenues gap with Liverpool, above), is massive. They have one of the best training facilities in Europe, one of the best youth set-ups, some of the best youth personnel (Liam Brady’s opinion when he quit his job in the Arsenal youth set-up), an exciting young squad, an exciting young head-coach and will soon have a stadium that is going to generate much greater revenues, having a knock on effect in all other revenue generating ares. The club have been innovative and proactive in cornering a share of the global market, and all and any success is going to facilitate that.

      To the best of my knowledge, Levy has never scrimped on paying his managers/head coaches.

      I think you are right, Poch will stay at the Lane – but not just because money talks. Poch is getting exactly what he wants – the time and tools to build a young team on his blueprint. I believe the assurances given to this effect when he joined where mutual – I suspect he has undertaken to stay to finish the job, and Lewis has make stringent checks deep into Argentina as to the integrity of his character.

      COYS

    • He’ll still be at Spurs next season as….
      Man Utd have NOT spoken to ANYONE regarding him taking over there!
      NO mention anywhere of Mr. Levy allowing/giving Man Utd permission to talk to our manager or his non existent representatives mid-season, is there!?

  4. Typical arrogant United stunt, helped by their pals in the media who love the ‘expenses’ and gifts that United send the way. Every time they are under threat they wind up the Press to run stories solely aimed at destabilising their opponents. United were after Modric….Bale…..Kane….Lloris….even Danny Rose…..and now Poch. It’s all bollox!

  6. As a lifelong fan of Tottenham Hotspur & born in our league & cup double team, I strongly suggest that Manchester United go & find their manager elsewhere & leave us & poch alone. COYS DUBW

  7. I am a lifelong fan of Tottenham Hotspur & This is by far 1 of the best teams we’ve had in a long long time. So I would suggest Manchester United go & find their own replacement for cheese head & leave us & our manager alone, why would he consider taking over a second rate team such as theirs. COYS DUBLIN.

  9. Well, it’s Poch’s decision isn’t it?, He surely left Southampton just coz he thought Spurs has better potential goin further ( & that too simply coz Spurs came fishing for him), similarly if it’s not MU, some other bigger clubs ( eg Liverpool perhaps), or other might take him away right under ur nose. Players & Managers change clubs for a reason!!!!& club has to move on……

    • I will slap you all the way back to Baghdad, Sharif. Man utd are crap. You are a stupid boy. Go and finish rimming your father. Slap you like a dog.

      • Charles, why so childish & vulgar, shows obviously that u are scared to face the reality of coming transfer window. Have a rational discussion with a rational mind!! Fact is money will direct individuals path & bigger clubs always derail players dedication to their clubs! It’s proven almost every transfer window!!!
        Btw, am not from Baghdad!!!! & plse be calm when engaging in public discussions!!

    • I will give you a proper answer Sharif:

      He left Southampton because when he joined the chairperson gave him assurances that if he built a young squad it wouldn’t be sold out from under him. He wanted those assurances because that is exactly what happened to him at Espanyol. Southampton had a new Chairperson who would not give him the same assurances, were clearly intent on asset stripping his squad, and indeed, that summer, sold the majority of his first team (five of them to Liverpool). He didn’t ‘just’ leave to Spurs because they were a bigger club – if you have listened to anyone (maybe Mr Custis) saying this you have allowed yourself to be deceived by agenda driven fools.

      “If not MU, some other bigger clubs (e.g. Liverpool perhaps…)” – I am tempted myself to ask if you are on drugs. Liverpool had an epoch of era-defining success – which ended nearly 30 years ago. They have been in slow but steady decline ever since. They are now the fifth best financed club in the BPL, Spurs are sixth. Despite being better financed than Spurs, the revenue gap between the two clubs has been halved in the last ten years. At the same time, Spurs have built a much better training centre, considered one of the best in Europe, than Liverpool’s; a better youth set-up; have better youth personnel, and a better squad (just check the table). In the last six seasons Spurs have finished above Liverpool in five of them – that will be six in seven at the end of this season (believe me, its true). In that time, spurs have finished lower than fifth once, Liverpool have finished seventh or lower in four of those seasons. Spurs are builing a new stadium that will make the clubs revenues and profile bigger in every way; Liverpool are developing Anfield, but it will be neither as big nor as modern nor as suited to purpose as the new White Hart Lane. On what basis do you believe Liverpool could bully Spurs out of a manager/head coach?

    • Oh behave!
      He left Southampton due to the new chairman reneging on agreements made by previous chairman who he’d had a great relationship with!
      He didn’t bail/jump ship, etc just because he wanted more money/bigger club, etc!
      Get your facts right!!

  10. Utter shit. Why would he want to go there? We are 2nd challenging for the title, Man Utd will be lucky to finish top 7 this season.

  12. The original article in the Sun, written by Neil Custis, is a total work of fiction, an utter pack of lies from start to finish. If this pathological lying apology for a journalist had done any research at all he would have discovered that Pochettino doesn’t have an agent and doesn’t have any representatives. He negotiated his own contract at Spurs with Daniel Levy directly. The Gooner supporting Custis, is now thoroughly busted as a brazen liar and an abject fraud, a pathetic journalistic nonentity utterly unfit for employment in the 4th estate, even by the deplorably degraded standards of the tabloid cesspit that he works for.

  13. Matt, but how do you really feel?
    Utd do not have more potential than Spurs at the moment. They may be financially and physically(STadium) bigger, but that is not potential that is current. Potentially Spurs could step up to their former exploits on the pitch. Potentially Spurs will have a stadium not far off in size, but much better in facility, potentially we are going to be in the Champions League, potentially this team could get much much better, potentially we have many young players coming through our youth system that could yet make the grade.. If Poch wants potential he will stay where he is.. Man Utd is a flagging old horse and could be potentially a good project, but I think Poch himself likes what is happening at Spurs, because unlike Soton, there is no ceiling…

  15. It’s all a load of made up bullshit designed to get people talking and has been for sometime. The same clown masquerading as a journalist ITK is nothing more than a story teller writing for a comic of a paper, second only to the Daily Star, just. Wasnt it the same idiot who for weeks wrote that Kane was off the Manchester United and that Woodward had approached Levy about a possible deal. This was all proven to be a complete fabrication. Before the season even started he also wrote that Lloris was off to the same club as De Gea was jetting off to Real Madrid. Now the lucid among us will have recollected hearing Pochettino tell a Guardian reporter back in December that he didnt have a representative/Agent, as he represented himself when successfully negotiating his contract of employment with Daniel Levy. Think about it, do any of you see Poch leaving Spurs at this point of his career with the club, building a squad of players with so much potential and at the start of what can be a very successful period in the clubs history? There appears to be no limit in what some people will do to destabalize THFC. Next on the agenda will be Dele Alli, the Kane to ManU will rear it’s ugly head again and I have no doubet that most of our best players will be touted to leave before the season even ends. Summer will just be the usual duck shoot.

  16. Man Utd probably would like to get Mauricio Pochettino, but then many clubs would. Interpret it as the immense praise for Pochettono that it is, and from rival clubs that are falling short, drifting and a bit lost.

    The same goes for Spurs players — they’re lusted after by all sorts of clubs, but Tottenham isn’t the kind of club that an ambitious, talented player wants to leave, not when things there look so promising.

    As things are at Spurs — Levy looks happy, Pochettino and staff seem happy and focused, and the players look motivated, happy in each others’ company, are playing well and can feel their individual and collective potential. How would you try to undermine all that if you were a rival club?

  18. The realist in me says this is just the usual Red Top bollox: pick a successful manager – think of a club bigger than his present club – start a rumour. Putting myself in Poch’s position, I’d discount the rumour because there’s no obvious advantage in leaving Spurs or going to Man U:
    1. There’s the inevitable desire to ‘finish what you started’ with an exceptional group of players,
    2. Working in (reputedly) the best football training complex in the world. That matters to players & managers because those are your working conditions for most of your working week.
    3. Poch likes working with young players. The Glazers have just scythed the Man U Academy budget by 15%
    4. The best any Man U manager can ever hope for is to restore Man U to CL glory over a long period & to have ‘Pretty good, but no Alex Ferguson’ inscribed on your retirement plaque.

    Like I said, that’s what the realist in me says. Trouble is I’m a Spurs fan & know that when things are this good, it just means that something’s about to go horribly wrong!

  19. Simply put it’s total bull$hit. Custis is just a Wenger bvm-boy trying to distract Poch and Spurs as his Gooners are panicking. Put it this way how do you sum up Cusitis, Gooner fans (soggy Kleenex users!)the Gooner team and especially “Sicknote” Wilshore and the manager? Simply a bunch of WengKers!
    COYS!

  20. Wouldn’t normally post but I’d like to add that football is a cyclical business. As spurs fans many of us have seen little to no success in our entire lives but stay faithful as ever even as the local imposters and the chavs usurp our former glories. However, the time has now arrived (I’ll be 40 this year) where we are about to sit at the head of the table once again. Teams already fear us, set up to frustrate us but yet we are finding a solution to get the points. This clinical grinding out will improve as the teams stays together longer and draws that we have had to suffer this season will become wins and we could well be out of sight this season had the rub of the green gone our way this year. Behold my fellow spurs fans; our time is now, the next ten years will be the most successful of spurs history, once the biggest club of the capital with attendances to prove it. We are back. No ones leaving (except the ones poch wants out) keep the faith.long gone our are days as a selling club

    • I’m a 36 year old South African who’s been following the English Premiership for 25 years and I’ve been a Spurs fan from the start. What you describe has been my experience throughout. I’ve been able to tell my best friend, a Gooner, for most of that time from the start of each season that we’ll be around the 11th position come end of the season. But my team is my team. But over the last few years we’ve consistently been around the 5th-6th position. That’s a 50% improvement over the “old” days of my generation. That’s very impressive. The Liverpool and United cycles are over. Chelsea and City have had good runs. Other teams are/will be challenging for the top four positions. West Ham are about to move into the Olympic Stadium that has a bigger capacity than Old Trafford. They have a good coach and a few good players. We know what’s happening at the Lane. Deep down I knew our time would come sooner or later. United won’t see days like that of Fergie for a long time. Maybe a few generations.
      COYS!

  22. Great comments and in unison.
    Please let me add a different perspective, Spurs man and boy, cut me in half and you see THFC all the way through. I now reside in Tonga (SW Pacific) and don’t get live games. But i follow this and 2 other Blogs daily. No red top bs here, so here’s what i see, MP has an outstanding relationship with his players, all of the players, remember he goes to the 8 yr olds coaching sessions. Intervened in the recent transfer of Andros Townsend, two academy players have twice signed improved contracts at his suggestion. MP has said that Deli Alli is like a son to him. Watch the recently posted Alli Palace goal and who strolls up the touchline to join his players huddle? MP. He applauds the crowd, thanks the WHL faithful for their contribution to the teams success.
    MP openly speaks of his admiration for his Chairman and here’s the thing, without this manager and the squad he is building maybe the new stadium would be a further ways off, now DL can concentrate on financing the building and not another squad of players.
    Plus the stadium is also an incentive for the whole club right down to the 8 yr olds, it’s just 2 seasons away and by then a settled team, a winning mindset and still a happy club. I am impressed every time i watch spurs tv and the bond, the camaraderie between the players. I bet its the same when you all go now to WHL every match day, lucky dogs. But you can see where i am coming from, unless he is a lying underhanded toad like the wannabe Mayor of London, i don’t see a cause for concern.
    Do you really think MP has time to read such garbage except when he wants a good laugh? Yes i was concerned at the Chelsea story but i was very satisfied with MP’s response, but you cant expect one after every rumour.
    The cynic in me suggests then Manure are only interested in who he might bring from the club because as sure as eggs are eggs those young men will want to stay with their mentor as much as he wants to stay with them.
    It is great to see you all have a handle on the journo, good for you, lets start a rumour he’s joining another red top and see how he likes it.
    I will be with you in spirit come 4 am Monday morning, i hope Harry is right, Spurs fear no one. COYS.

    • Yeah, it’s pretty awesome that he even shows a keen interest in players as young as 8. This tells me he has a genuine interest in the club and its success.
      COYS

  23. No way he’s leaving, he’d go down in my estimation as a person if he did. But i don’t expect him to. The rag media as usual writing bullshit. Excellent comments all round, especially from SP. You should indeed take up writing on one of our other blogs. One point of correction though, even us a fan you can’t dismiss the fact that United are the most financially powerful club in the league, second most powerful in Europe for most of the past 10 years behind Madrid. I’m not sure where you’re getting your assessment of City and Chelsea from, but United have consistently had more revenues than those two, and for the past year they dropped to number 3 in Europe because of Champions League revenue deficit, but still had more revenue than any club in Europe except Barcelona and Madrid. Forbes and Deloitte actually have predicted they will ursurp Madrid next year due to the new Premier League money. Honestly, if it came down to a bidding war for a player right now, elite or otherwise; i’d put my money on United getting that player ahead of City or Chelsea, forget Arsenal. They have the best commercial operation in Europe as well. The debt is no longer a problem for them, and the annual interest payments have dwindled to a point that they’re largely inconsequential to their overall revenue. There are other variables of course, and it’s not always about which club can outbid who. Especially since they have no DOF and have a dimwit handling their transfer operation. Granted, if they consistently take a downward spiral for say, 5 years, their revenue and brand is going to take a beating. But for now? Chelsea and City lag behind them in terms of financial might. Thankfully it’s not money he’s motivated by, and as you put it; our financial outlook is going up with each year. I’m still refusing to talk about us as title contenders this season, mostly because of an overwhelming feeling to give in to that idea. I share DickSpur’s caution above, but i hope for the best.

    • I believe I did tip-mu hat to acknowledge the pull and financial power of United – but I think folk slightly over-egg it. I base my assessment on the fact that the owners of Chelsea and Citeh are multi-billions who don’t really give a monkeys about the fair raising of revenues and have snubbed their noses at the cowardly attempts to act against them with authority by UEFA 🙂 Revenues don’t come into the issue when what is involved is, for instance, regarding the infrastructure of the club. They can lavish only on the club without breaking any fair-play rules, and can lavish money on players if they want and just tell the authorities to go fahook themselves (or did I imagine Roman paying a billion quid, I’m rounding up :), on building several trophy/title winning squads and then write it off as a loan that he didn’t want back… LoL (gets angry, shakes fist, specks of white spittle around lips). Not to mention however much he paid bribees to win the 1/4 final, semi-final and final totally improbably and against the run of play, the last time they didn’t qualify for the CL.

      I didn’t know that about United’s dead, though, and have been factoring it in. Will it become an issue again if they have several seasons in the next half-decade outside the top four?

      The problem as I see it, is United got in on the ground floor with the whole Premier League/Champions League/TV money thang, and that gained them one for the biggest in their huge revenue haul – their massive global following. But, as I have stated repeatedly in regard to Liverpool, folk shouldn’t be putting so much faith in this. I don’t mean it in a prejudicial way. But I have a friend from College who said that he supported Spurs because all his mates did. One year, after he had been home in Botswana for a few years, I said something about how we would do in the forthcoming season and his response was that he supports Spurs, ArseAnal and Liverpool. I kid you not. After my jaw had undropped, I explained to him the issue of rivalries and club loyalties, etc. He apologised and said he didn’t know anything about that, jsut liked the way the three teams played and enjoyed watching them. I have seen a video, online, of one member of the global fan-base having himself filmed while voicing his disgust at how ArseAnal have played, publicly burning his Goon shirt, donning a Chelsea shirt and declaring that his heartfelt loyalty was henceforth with the filthy Chavs oil-money funded corrugated-shack dwellers. I’m sure there are plenty of the global fan-base who aren’t that hysterical, who take club loyalty seriously, etc. But we can hardly expect someone in Soweto or Singapore whose Dad supported Liverpool at the end of the 80’s to continue supporting them for the rest of their lives if their barren spell continues/grows. And it is the same with United. Hell, I know of United fans from England who gave up their season tickets in Moyes’ season because they couldn’t be bothered anymore ‘now that we aren’t winning’ (the proverbial prawn-sandwichers). By the same token, clubs that are successful will begin to pick up more of the global fan-base. And Daniel Levy, as I think I said above, is cleverly targeting certain areas of it. he is targeting North America – hence the post/pre-season tours – and our fan-base their is growing rapidly. And also East Asia, hence our sponsorship deals that involve having a little red on the shirt (the Chinese, in particular, believe red is a lucky colour – the genesis of the attempt to change Cardiff’s strip from blue to red). I’m sure that other clubs are likewise working hard to increase their share. And the point is that the global market is a considerable revenue generator. United may have to use up a lot of their ingenuity just maintaining their share of the global pie, and that is in effect losing ground to clubs who are increasing theirs. I’m not by any means saying they will disappear from view completely, they certainly won’t drop as far as Liverpool have. But I doubt they (or anyone) will dominate in the same way as Ferguson’s side did.

      COYS

  24. The Botswana native you mention is your typical overseas fan, amusing really. Indeed the proper fan is the exception when we’re talking overseas fan bases. Even as Levy seeks to further penetrate the US and Asia markets, we’ll be getting shares in fans that also claim to be fans of other English clubs. That’s just the reality. All that matters is being able to leverage that to produce more revenue. Concerning City and Chelsea, the arrogant big boys FFP club has indeed reined them in a bit, but they’ve really gotten in before the door has been shut. Infrastructure as you say is indeed a different matter entirely; but when it comes to transfers, i think we’re getting to a point in English football where 3 clubs will be able to pay outrageous transfer fees without the idea of outbidding or being outbidded being the point of contention, but rather other variables; agent relationships and incentives for instance. Only last week Neymar’s dad confirmed after the court session that United is the club that bid 144 million pounds for his son in the summer, basically his buyout clause. There’s too much money in the game right now, i really think so. And we’re going to get to a saturation point where FIFA will have to issue new regulations to put some control over the prevailing insanity.

Leave a Reply to matt Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.