The Godfather of Football

On January 27, in the 23rd round of the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur defeated Fulham, a team from the same city, 2:0 at home with goals from Ribery and Falcao, and continued to remain unbeaten. This is the 22nd round of Tottenham Hotspur's unbeaten streak.

On January 30, Tottenham Hotspur challenged Birmingham away. Messi and Thiago Silva's goals helped the team reverse the opponent 2:1 and get three points again.

After 24 rounds of the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur has won 63 points with an impressive record of 20 wins and 3 draws. With one round less, it ranks first in the Premier League standings, followed by Chelsea and Manchester United. The Blues have also performed very well in recent times.

Further down the standings, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Aston Villa and West Ham United are currently competing for the fourth place in the league and the qualification for the UEFA Cup.

However, compared with the fierce competition in the Premier League, the winter transfer market seems a bit dull. Not only in the Premier League, but also in the winter transfer market in Europe, Tottenham Hotspur's football economic forum was very successful, but the transaction volume fell to a historical low, which felt a bit like thunder and rain.

However, if you study the current situation carefully, you will not find it strange.

The South Africa World Cup will be held in four months. For all the international players who hope to participate in the World Cup, changing teams will undoubtedly take the risk of losing the qualification for the World Cup, because transfers often represent many uncertainties. Once injuries or discomfort occur and they become substitutes, it is likely to cause their four-year wait to be in vain.

Because of this, almost all capable international players will not choose to transfer at this time.

Another factor is that the economy is indeed in recession, especially with the advent of the European debt crisis, the team's business operations have indeed encountered problems. In this case, any team must be cautious and tighten the money supply when recruiting players, which is not surprising.

The team with the largest transfer investment during the Premier League winter break is Birmingham, which invested 6 million pounds. In the entire European transfer market, the team that invested the most is Dynamo Moscow of Russia, which invested 13.2 million euros, and the second is Shakhtar Donetsk, which invested 12 million euros.

Looking at the general trend of the entire European football world, it is not difficult to find that almost all teams are tightening their money and are even trying every means to save money, because with the arrival of the economic crisis and the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis, business operations will become more and more difficult. If there are problems with opening up sources, then the team will naturally have to save money if it wants to maintain a balance between income and expenditure.

So we can see that in the last two days of the transfer market, Manchester United secured the loan of six youth players at the Hilton Park Road Hotel in the east of London Hyde Park, at the Football Economic Forum, and Liverpool, Arsenal and other teams are also doing the same.

Manchester City sent away Robinho, who had been making trouble for a long time, and loaned him back to Brazil, but rented Vieira from Inter Milan. The salary also declined, but Mancini still wanted to get Van der Vaart and Gago from Real Madrid, but Real Madrid pursued a no-in, no-out strategy during the winter break this season.

Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur also adopted a no-in, no-out strategy, because these two teams have no special areas to strengthen and their overall strength is also relatively good.

But looking at the entire winter break transfer, loan and free transfer have undoubtedly become the mainstream, and this is also an effective cost-saving measure taken by many teams to balance the team's financial budget. Therefore, this summer, free transfers, such as loan or free transfer, accounted for 80% of the transfer market, which is a surprising height.

Tottenham Hotspur is not very interested in cutting costs, because Ye Qiu's team has always done a good job in controlling the financial and salary structure, and the team's commercial development is in a stage of rapid development. Even if it encounters an economic crisis, Tottenham Hotspur can still make up for it by effectively developing emerging markets in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and other regions.

For example, around Christmas, Tottenham Hotspur signed authorization contracts with telecommunications operators in eight countries in the Middle East, which will bring Tottenham Hotspur generous licensing fees every year. Telecommunications operators in countries including Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other countries can use the Tottenham Hotspur team logo and the portrait rights of players in publicity and promotion.

This is also closely related to the regionality of telecommunications operators, so when contacting sponsors, Tottenham Hotspur also treats them separately and does not sign exclusive clauses, in order to maximize benefits in this way.

With little pressure on the salary structure, steady improvement in business operations, and a reasonable team lineup, Tottenham Hotspur does not need to make any moves during the winter break. In discussions with Peter Kenyon and Rob Newman of Moon Sports Services, everyone is very sure that the situation will not change much in the summer transfer.

In other words, even with the impact of the World Cup this summer, it is still difficult to expect a transfer boom.

But there will definitely be some exceptions, such as Real Madrid and Barcelona. These two membership teams do not need to worry about financial pressure at all. Their only purpose of making money is to introduce stars, so it is estimated that they can continue to spend big.

The other teams most likely to continue to strengthen their strength are transfer giants such as Manchester City and West Ham United. As for Chelsea, which was once so glorious, even though Shevchenko, a big salary earner, has been sent away this summer, unfortunately, Ballack is still in the team, and Chelsea's salary surge in the past few years has become a foregone conclusion. The operating pressure will still be great, and it will still be difficult for Abramovich to make a big investment in Chelsea.

To be honest, rich people are not stupid. On the contrary, these rich people are smarter than each other.

Just like the Qatar consortium that was rumored to acquire Manchester United not long ago, after being scared off by the high price of the Glazer family, it shifted its target to Liverpool, but also encountered some problems in the process of acquiring the Red Army and was forced to shift its target again. This time, they are very likely to succeed.

"I just got the news that the Qatari consortium has basically reached an agreement with Newcastle's shareholders and is expected to complete the acquisition of Newcastle in April. Once completed, the Premier League will surely have another strong team!" Rob Newman is the CEO of Moon Sports Services. He has better information channels than anyone else.

After hearing this, Ye Qiu and Peter Kenyon looked uneasy.

Newcastle is currently leading the English Championship and has a great chance of being promoted to the Premier League. If the Qatari consortium takes over, coupled with Newcastle's return to the Premier League, it will inevitably cause a storm in the transfer market. This is indeed a huge benefit for the sluggish Premier League and European transfer market, but it may not be the case for competitors.

There are many strong teams in the Premier League now. Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool are the five major teams. Although Tottenham Hotspur is a new strong team, its strength has been proven and affirmed. The strength of the other four teams should not be underestimated. After all, they all have their own solid foundations.

Further down the list, Manchester City and West Ham United are upstarts. With the pound in their hands, they are also rapidly strengthening their strength. Coupled with Everton, Aston Villa and other teams that are already strong, the competitive pressure in the Premier League is very high. If Newcastle is added next season, it will be a nightmare.

"Is the news reliable?" Ye Qiu asked Rob Newman cautiously.

"Basically it's almost the same!" The latter replied, but didn't say much.

After hearing this, Peter Kenyon laughed bitterly, "It seems that the Premier League will become lively in the future!"

The Qatari consortium will not do a loss-making business. Although the specific acquisition amount is unclear, it should not be too expensive. However, the Newcastle they acquired is a traditional Premier League powerhouse, and the Magpies are the team with the largest number of fans in England, and the most popular team in the country, and even have a high reputation all over the world.

If it was in the early years of the century, Newcastle would be a traditional Premier League powerhouse!

Not only that, Newcastle itself is a well-known big city in the UK. It is the political, commercial and cultural center of the north of the UK and the most popular city in the UK. The Newcastle Club is the symbol and flag of this city.

At this time, it is indeed a carefully calculated transaction to acquire Newcastle, because first of all, Newcastle was relegated to the English Championship. Although it has the financial support of the Premier League parachute, the team's own finances are very bad, and the relegation makes Newcastle almost desperate. This is undoubtedly a very good opportunity to buy at the bottom.

By acquiring this most popular team in England, the Qatari consortium will undoubtedly gain both fame and fortune. Not only can it use Newcastle to make its own reputation and brand, but it can also use Newcastle to land in the UK for multi-faceted investment, such as real estate and some basic industries, which are industries that the Middle East consortium is very interested in.

From an investment perspective, although buying Manchester United can create huge influence and momentum, it is also difficult and requires a large investment. Instead, it is better to simply acquire Newcastle. The difference in the purchase price of the two teams is more than 1 billion euros, which can fully guarantee that after the Qatari consortium acquires Newcastle, it will introduce a superstar every year for ten consecutive years.

Just imagine, which acquisition method is more advantageous? Which acquisition method is more advantageous?

From the perspective of an observer, the Qatari consortium has undoubtedly made a shrewd deal, and from the perspective of fans, it is natural to welcome a large consortium with a total asset of tens of billions of dollars such as the Qatari consortium to enter the Premier League, because it can bring more stars, and Ye Qiu from the perspective of a competitor is not without worries. After all, the competitive pressure is high, which is not much good for Tottenham Hotspur.

In fact, many people have not noticed that the reason why Tottenham Hotspur was able to defend the Champions League and win the Premier League last season is actually related to the fact that the competitive pressure in the Premier League is not very strong. Once the competition in the Premier League becomes fierce, the impact on Tottenham Hotspur's multi-line operations will be very large.

But before the new stadium is acquired, Ye Qiu will definitely not adjust the current team's business strategy, so if he wants to strengthen the team's strength, he must dig from the team itself, such as youth training, such as introducing some players who meet the needs of the team, good quality and low price, etc.

But in general, the iron must be hard, and Tottenham Hotspur still has to ensure the strength of the team, this is the kingly way!

While Ye Qiu was worried that the competition in the Premier League would become more and more fierce after the Qatari consortium acquired Newcastle, Tottenham Hotspur finally stopped its unbeaten record.

January 27, 30, February 3, February 6, February 10, these are Tottenham Hotspur's schedule in the past period of time. Among them, the game on February 3 is a make-up game for the 18th round. If we count Tottenham Hotspur's intensive schedule in January, the team's schedule after the winter break is indeed very intensive, almost double games a week.

In such a intensive schedule, Tottenham Hotspur defeated Blackburn 2:0 away on February 3, and then on February 6, they won 7:1 at home against Aston Villa, which is currently ranked seventh in the Premier League. But on February 10, the team finally had problems and lost 0:1 away to Wolves, who are currently ranked 19th. The loss was indeed a cowardly one.

In the case of Tottenham Hotspur's first defeat of the season, the team played 22 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss in 26 rounds, with an amazing performance of 69 points, leading Chelsea's 58 points and Manchester United's 57 points, leading the Premier League standings with an almost absolute advantage.

If it was just leading the standings, perhaps there would not be such a surprising performance. More importantly, Tottenham Hotspur is not only the team with the strongest attacking power in the Premier League and Europe, but also the team with the best defensive power in the Premier League and Europe. In addition, Tottenham Hotspur has achieved an impressive record of winning all the games against strong teams this season, which makes Tottenham Hotspur's outstanding performance this season full of gold.

Looking at the Premier League scorer list this season, many people say that it is an internal competition of Tottenham Hotspur. Colombian center forward Romedal Falcao currently ranks first in the scorer list with 30 goals in 26 rounds, shockingly, and Messi ranks second. The Argentine has scored a total of 28 goals, including two big four goals, the most recent of which was the team's 7:1 victory over Aston Villa.

Ribery also made it into the top ten of the standings, and the French scarface was also the first player in the assists list. Fabregas was the second assist king, and Messi was the third assist king. In addition, David Silva, Alves and others also performed very well. In addition, the left-back Marcelo performed well in the match against Aston Villa. The entire offensive system of Tottenham Hotspur was extremely surprising and brought disaster to all opponents.

Therefore, for the unexpected loss to Wolves away, the media were hyped up, believing that Tottenham Hotspur might start to go downhill, but the fans' reaction was relatively mild, believing that the team had performed so well this season, and the long-term combat stamina was not sustained, and the away loss was also excusable.

Ye Qiu also gave a fair evaluation of the home team for the team's loss to Wolves, believing that Wolves performed better, while Tottenham Hotspur encountered some problems, and the players did not show the strength they should have, and this was also related to the large rotation range when he played against Wolves.

But no matter what, a loss is a loss, and Ye Qiu did not make too many excuses.

After playing Wolves, Tottenham Hotspur faced Bolton in the FA Cup. As a result, Tottenham Hotspur, which mainly consists of young players, drew 1:1 with Bolton, which is currently ranked 19th in the Premier League. Ramsey scored a goal to equalize the score for Tottenham Hotspur in the second half.

But just three days later, Tottenham Hotspur faced Porto in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. However, the team had a bad start and was penetrated by Porto's opening attack in less than three minutes. Although it was very quick afterwards, Ziglinski took advantage of a free kick opportunity and headed the ball to equalize the score for Tottenham Hotspur.

But in the second half, Porto striker Barrera scored another goal, helping Porto beat Tottenham Hotspur 2:1 at home.

This battle completely aroused the outside world's concerns about Tottenham Hotspur, and even many media outlets have said that Tottenham Hotspur has no chance of winning the Champions League this season, because in the past history of the Champions League knockout stage, most of the champion teams remained unbeaten in the knockout stage.

Therefore, Tottenham Hotspur's defeat, especially the defeat to a team like Porto, made many media outlets believe that it would be difficult for Tottenham Hotspur to make a difference in the Champions League. Although the score was 1:2, Tottenham Hotspur still had a great chance of winning when they returned to their home court, but the team's poor state was indeed a difficult problem for Ye Qiu.

Ye Qiu knew very well that the team had many problems due to the multi-line operations, but when he was interviewed by the media, he repeatedly stated that losing was not a disaster, and he still firmly believed that the team could solve the current difficulties well.

"We are a mature team, and I believe that no one will be intimidated by the current difficulties!"

Relatively speaking, Manchester United has been in better and better shape since Christmas. Its performance in the Premier League is not a big deal, but in the Champions League, it reversed AC Milan 3:2 in the first leg away, winning all the applause, and the front trident and the team's midfield helped the team win this wonderful reversal battle.

3:2, the Red Devils Manchester United returned triumphantly from the San Siro Stadium. This battle almost sentenced AC Milan to death. At least their hope of advancing from the round of 16 knockouts is very slim.

Tottenham Hotspur lost away and Manchester United reversed away. The fate of the two teams is very different. Even quite a number of media reporters and professionals believe that Tottenham Hotspur's sluggish state in the past few games is worrying, and it may become a turning point for the Premier League and the Champions League.

Porto's head coach Jesús Ferreira even said in an interview with Portuguese media after the game that Tottenham Hotspur is not as good as many people imagine.

"Many people told me that Tottenham Hotspur has the strongest offense in Europe and the most difficult goal to break, but after today's game, I found that Tottenham Hotspur's offense always loses its accuracy, and their goal is as big as the open roof above the Dragon Stadium!"

It is obvious that the head coach of Porto wants to take the opportunity to add insult to injury to Tottenham Hotspur, preferably to irritate the opponent.

In the face of provocation and humiliation from the opponent, Tottenham Hotspur did not respond, and Ye Qiu also insisted on not engaging in a war of words, because he believed in a saying that losing is not justifiable, and fists are the hard truth!