I think all Spurs fans share the same frustration when it comes to Daniel Levy. I have complained about him endlessly on this blog, and in my opinion, I think the positives and negatives of having him as a chairman are very simple to analyze.
Financially, he is no mug, and we can be very proud of both the stadium and the training ground. It’s definitely a tick for Daniel Levy, but we need to move on from it. It’s used in his defense every time he is criticized, and nobody is beyond criticism regardless of their past achievements. He’s known to be a tough negotiator and whilst that may have saved money in the past on wages or transfer fees I feel that long term this approach has been detrimental for the club.
There are clubs that simply refuse to do business with us, and now we are searching for a new manager this approach will not work with modern managers who know they need to earn the maximum over a short period of time.
This leads to my next point, recruitment. Specifically managerial/coaching appointments. You could argue that Levy has only got this right once in 20 years with Poch. If you remember at the time Louis Van Gaal was our first choice, but he decided on Ltd. The only manager he got right wasn’t his first choice.
I’m not going to dig too deeply into player recruitment, as I’m sure there are scouts or experts he uses or has used during the 20 years. He’s not fully at fault on this point, but I now believe the buy young and cheap and sell high approach is not the model we need going forward, especially in our new stadium.
To summarize, I think we can all agree that Levy’s skills are best suited to the club’s infrastructure. He does have a proven track record (not without costly mistakes) of getting projects finished. I know we can point out things that went wrong, but I think it is fair to give him this credit.
However, from a football point of view, his track record is appalling. One cup in 20 years, managerless and comfortably sitting at the top of the laughingstock table. If had a £1 for every Spurs meme I’ve seen in the last year, I could buy Harry Kane for my 5 a side team. For our club to move forward the solution is simple, Daniel Levy has to relinquish all control of footballing matters. All control.
