Tottenham are one of the latest London teams to make a move to a massive stadium. The club are in the process of building a new 61,000 seater stadium, which would cost around £750 million. Without adjusting for inflation, it is almost close to the amount spent by the England FA on the new Wembley stadium several years ago. This is such a substantial investment and it may already be showing its signs in the club’s ability to compete in the transfer market. Tottenham have not made any significant signings this season.
So far in this January transfer window, the club has been fairly quiet. It has led to suggestions that they are financially unable to compete in the transfer market due to their stadium commitment, but the manager, Mauricio Pochettino, has dismissed suggestions that the club are undergoing financial difficulty.
As quoted by the Evening Standard, he said:
“We don’t need to be worried. It will be our decision, but today it is not about money because Tottenham are one of the healthiest clubs in the world from a financial point of view.
“The chairman, Daniel Levy, deserves full credit for that and we are working very hard with him.
“He is doing a fantastic job to keep our best players and he is building a great stadium for the future of Tottenham and our supporters.”
The strong words from the manager are likely to pacify supporters for the time being, but they would ideally like to see some new faces at the White Hart Lane before the end of January. New faces are utmost important considering that the club are involved in three different competitions.
Only a few months ago when the club were without players like Harry Kane due to injury, they underwent a very poor run of form. This led to criticism that the club did not strengthen the squad properly after having finished third last season. It may have been partly true to some extent with only players like Victor Wanyama succeeding amongst of the summer signings. At a time when clubs like Crystal Palace were spending more than £25 million on one player like Christian Benteke, Spurs did not bring in extravagant signings.
Arsenal’s inability to compete with the top clubs for the title over the last decade or so has largely been linked with the enormous expenditure made on the construction of the Emirates stadium. Arsenal made the move from the Highbury to the Emirates stadium for around £400 million in 2006. This was an enormous investment 10 years ago. Even though Arsenal received a lot of assistance from the naming rights and other sponsorship deals, Arsene Wenger has always maintained that the club had to go through a difficult period in terms of finances due to the loan repayment schedule caused by this expenditure.
While there is no arguing that Spurs have one of the best starting line-ups in the league, the quality of the substitute are far less compared to title contenders like Chelsea and Liverpool. A couple of big names for around £50 million in January could totally alter the situation.
