Watching the most recent interview with Daniel Levy, it’s all well and good him slipping in the warm lines about protecting the club, but what is of far greater concern to me is not just the willingness to foist all blame upon COVID-19 (after all Brexit was hurled in as an excuse for price rises in the stadium build – and that was before we left!), but what happens next in terms of transfers.
Tottenham simply cannot remain on what has been a largely unsuccessful path of hoping to unearth coal, and seeking to polish them, and sell on diamonds.
The next few seasons must be less about striving for the top four and more about engaging stability. The time to rebuild is once the market has improved. That said, some players MUST be moved on in order for the squad to offer a sense of stability.
Should Harry Winks, Moussa Sissoko, or Eric Dier survive this summer at Tottenham, then will know for certain the direction Levy is determined to take.
Yes, I was wondering where he got his rather amusing nom de plume.
No hiding that fact now at all.
Levy’s job is simple – generate the funds and hand it all over to the football experts.
If he does that – a big if of course – then I will give him credit.
Fail to generate the funds through the vision he has embarked upon and fail to compete in the transfer market & player salaries then his position is untenable.
2 – 3 seasons max??
Agreed, but you have missed my original point. Under Harry and Poch we needed to buy 2/3 top players to win a trophy or two. Fans looked up rather than down. Levy The Charlatan was not prepared to do this and that is why we didn’t win trophies. Eventually, players move on (unless you are a BIG club. We are not) and if you buy players that can be sold for profit this is good business and is needed for clubs our size to compete. At present we are buying players (Aurier, Doherty, Ndom, Sissoko) that have made us worse and we have regressed because we have changed what we used to do well in the transfer market; get good, young players in. If we cannot buy ready made superstars (and we can’t) what should we do? Buying young, good players (like we used to) seems to be a better option than looking to get the players I have mentioned and the likes of Vinicius and Gedson in.
We are meant to buy players to win stuff , not sell fir aprofit
Palace innSpurs bracket. FFS. We have fallen. I thought West Ham found Carrick
I am quite looking forward to next season.. This guy seems to have the right approach to playing the game, he has had more experience than Poch had when he took over, lets get behind him. My only worry is that we don’t get rid of all these players who have demonstrated they are just not good enough. IMO we need to get shut of Aurier, Dier, Sanchez, Winks, Lamella, Sissoko, immediately. Also want to see Skippy, Sess, and Tangy given a chance to shine. COYS
I think if you buy the right players and sell at the right time it does work. You can’t ‘win’ every time in the transfer market, but I think our successes outweigh the dross. I mean, if you compare Spurs to Everton and clubs of that ilk, we have had genuine world class players brought in at a young age (Walker, Carrick, Modric, Bale). We could have sold Dele for over £50m if Levy had seen what was coming (many of us did) too. Only a few years ago we were an attractive prospect, outbidding Liverpool. Not many teams can compare favourably in buying such quality. Obviously, Man City etc buy ready to go players, but we had to be clever. Unfortunately, since 2015 there has been no signings worth a salt. 6 years of ‘meh’ is not good enough. When Maddison, Grealish, Godfrey and Bellingham reared their heads we should have involved ourselves in trying to sign them. To realise we didn’t get any is a concern.
Also. playing football that doesn’t make me rather watch paint dry, preferably…
In fact, if Levy has hired a specialist football man, a negotiator, if he doesn’t get deals done then it proves it’s Levy blocking deals etc…
Perfect.
Yeah fair play was a shocker.
I agree, but if we’re not going to win anything anyway (and evidence suggests we are not) then I’d rather do it watching some lads I can establish an emotional connection with!
Its Levy scrabbling around in desperation.
Because it doesn’t work. Or did I confuse our league position and lack of trophies.
If you were to list the flops then this blog page wouldn’t be long enough. I certainly haven’t got the time to list them all as I have a dentist appt. at 2 !
Yep he may be small but he’ll find it hard to hide.
And the common denominator throughout this failure is guess who?
More bullshine from the Master Baiter in chief. He is in total denial of his incompetence as usual. 22 years of abject failure yet he is the highest paid chairman in the league – what is a matter with his boss to let him get away with it?.
As for “prudence” ingrained tightness more like, or has covid affected his last 22 years of spending?
Fall on your sword now time waster. We’re sick of your lies and excuses.
Not sure our academy is up to it.
What I could get on board with is a fresh young team peppered with academy lads, mixed with internationals who actually work hard and care about playing for the shirt, (like Hoj and Son) all playing adventurous football.
I could get onboard with a team like this, regardless of results (within reason!).
I hope this is where Fonzie can take us.
Hitchens was obviously not up to the task. Who knows if Paradoxici is, but something had to change in recruitment, therefore this is hardly delusional. It couldn’t possibly stay the same that is for sure. Paralegalici knows how to exploit a Loan deal and hasn’t always paid massive fees for players at Juve which will be right up Levy’s penny pinching alley. He just has to pick better than Vinicius, Fernandes and Bale! I agree that the transfer budget is a massive stumbling block, it is far easier to be successful when you can buy better players. We competed in the not so distance past by buying the malleable (aka not ready quite yet) young players. Not signing the likes of Maddison and Grealish were massive errors (not that we were entitled to them) and I would prefer going back to that method than heading in the direction Hitchens and Levy set us on.
Never possible? Not in its current situation, but that is my point. We got Bale and Dele Alli, 2 of the hottest young prospects in football therefore why not continue that strategy.
We have a squad suffering from over three years of neglect, even Kane’s sale will really need to stretch some way to sort it out. Levy will be hoping he DOF has loads of cheapo deals ready to get done…
The game and the world has moved on, the stadium is built and he didn’t plan beyond that. The DOF is designed to take the heat of him, he won’t whatsoever because every decent player that we get linked with that we can’t get over the line, Levy will be the target of the fans, not the DOF…
Remember people, “we have to be pwudent for the next ‘few years”.
Well you’ve been ‘prudent for the last 22 and we have just the one League Cup to show for it. What does a “few” years mean exactly? 3 or 23?
He’s such a piece of work, he really is…
I just wondered how you managed to come up with your nom de plume which is the most esoteric on this site?
We all know how this will end, don’t we? Idk about anyone else but my head is rapidly numbing after banging it into the wall season after season. Pretty soon I won’t care about Spurs, or too much of anything, anymore.
Fonz is coming in with basically none of his back room staff, according to rumours. That doesn’t bode at all well. Probably suits Levy as he can get the whole lot of them for a quarter Jose, far less to pay off. We just lurch from one extreme to the other yet again. DoF, no DoF, winning manager, total unknown, unbalanced squad, oh….
I had Sweden at 12/1 and that F\##$#g carthorse missed an open goal. If you can’t score that you shouldn’t be an international.
I feel like billing him…
levy (v.)early 13c., “to raise or collect” (by authority or compulsion), from Anglo-French leve, from Old French levée “act of raising,” noun use of fem. past participle of lever “to raise” (from PIE root *legwh- “not heavy, having little weight;” compare levee). Originally of taxes, later of men for armies (c. 1500). Related: Levied; levying.
levy (n.1)
“an act of levying, a raising or collecting of anything” (a tax, debt, fine, etc.), early 15c., from Anglo-French leve (mid-13c.), Old French levée “a raising, lifting; levying,” noun use of fem. past participle of lever “to raise” (from PIE root *legwh- “not heavy, having little weight”).
Seems strangely appropriate for a midget psychopath obsessed with raising funds, collecting money
Yup, that’s the size of it. Except they’re parasites living off the remains of THFC and we’re going to have to show them the door ( or preferably offer them stairs or the window)
So true . How long before Mr Levy replaces Walter Mitty in common vernacular
It’s called equality apparently, had to listen to one telling Lewandowski how to meet a header earlier too(same one prob)…..just unreal.
You have to except it though otherwise you will be written off as a Nazi and probably lose your job.😵
Given the documented, accepted and consistent identifying differences between male and female skeletons (skull, clavicals, pelvis, shoulders, adams apple, arm length, hand/finger size and ratios to name a few) i get very confused as to the gender of a number of sports men and women i’m watching, whether currently active or retired to punditry.
You mean Emma Hayes, Chelsea women’s manager. Thought she actually did a good job and knows her stuff.
But Generally agree. If you are a bloke you have no chance of being the pitchside reporter at present. They all seem to be women.
Levy has become publicly toxic in the footballing world.
Need to build a new NFL training ground at 10mil….ummm, I know, reduce manager salary…….tick…
Fonseca’s salary around 3/4 million. I think we now know why he appears attractive to Levy. Low balling Levy yet again shows his Poundland approach to everything THFC.
Thank God we saved ten bob by not signing that Skriniar. Well done again MrL.
The video speaks volumes I think – to address it so directly he’s clearly feeling the heat of the criticism both profoundly & personally.
He has backed himself into a corner though. His infrastructure vision is complete, with all of the short sightedness and decadence now fully on display. All that is left now is to invest in the first team squad. He said so himself!
Levy gambled on the off-field investment as a necessary pre-cursor to on-field success. No point whinging about the timing and Brexit and the Pandemic. You took the gamble sir, show some leadership and tidy it up whatever way is required and let us see ALL the revenue reinvested into Tottenham Hotspur 1st team squad as your priority. Get your stadium naming rights, get your NFL deal, get some multi-purpose events happening on that extravagant artificial surface above and beyond American Football, most importantly though get some good footballing people around you and bloody well back them!!
Alternatively? Get gone!
I doubt the fans will let Levy wriggle free from that corner any time soon.
Oh come on now HH, although you’re right, changing m.o. is how someone who’s been committing the same ‘crime’ for 20 years would get caught out & methinks Mr. Levy isn’t that daft? 🙄
Let’s not forget Mr. Levy’s end of season letter & that THFC will establish a ‘Club Advisory Panel’ the appointed chair of which shall be a non-executive board member & so we, the fans will be at the heart of club decisions.
Well Mr Levy, you’re ignoring the fans now & rather than appoint a WINNING manager & have him ‘control the football side of things’ you’re settling for one that some hadn’t even heard about, led a club to 7th in Serie A, FFS, & who can’t even count to 6! (IF what’s been reported about manager talks, etc over last 2/3 weeks are true?)
So, on 2nd thoughts, we may as well all forget that end of season letter as it was seemingly all part of the smokescreen?
There is nothing in Levy’s track record to suggest that those over priced players mentioned above will be moved on quickly without his usual haggling down to the last moment of the window as putative buyers get fed up with his tactics. Parataci will find it hard work with Levy. He has been appointed as a buffer for Levy. As Willi Cicci stated under oath in the hearing in Godfather 2,” the Godfather had a lot of buffers”. If Paratici does well, which I personally doubt, Levy will take the credit and if he fails and is sacked, inevitably, Levy will say that he did what the fans wanted. Plus ca change.
On another matter, I have just switched on the Poland Slovakia game, Skriniar is playing incidentally, and wonder why all sports channels insist on having a dopey bird commentating on male sporting events, in this particular case with one who appears to have adenoidal problems.
Over the weekend, I had to endure listening to another dopey bird during the second test against New Zealand., the only consolation being that I did not have to suffer terribly long as England endured their usual batting collapse and fore shortened the game. Enough of this nonsense.
How can Paratici do what he did in Italy without the same funds and without the advantages of the Italian tax system which saves the clubs and players millions and is completely different in the UK.
It’s all wishful and delusional thinking.
Bellingham was never possible, he was already on his way to Germany when the famous £1 million bid was made.
For a supposedly top club with the pick of some of the best young players in the world our Academy is woeful.
As a club we haven’t done bad in unearthing talent and buying young players that are sold for profit later (Carrick, Modric, Bale, Kane, Son to name a few), but I dare say all clubs in our bracket could say the same.
Palace have had Zaha and Eze, Leicester have Barnes, Maddison, Justin, Thomas. Villa have Cash, Targett, Konsa, Grealish. Everton had Rooney, Rodwell, Barkley, Richarlison, Digne, Calvert-Lewin, Pickford, Coleman. Granted, if you can grow your own the world is a better place, but Bale at £10m was good business. Why couldn’t that same business acumen have been extended for Grealish and Bellingham, two players we could have realistically have bought if we hadn’t tried to lowball their respective clubs? That is what’s embarrassing, that we know longer follow the buy young, quality players.
We buy players who are simply not good enough, have done for a few years now. I doubt other teams in the Premier League have a worse record for transfers in recent seasons. I know that not every transfer can be a success, the law of averages means a team will have to buy some duffers, but since 2014 I can only see Son and Toby as long term success stories. That is not good enough for a club our size. In September 2015 Baldini was relieved of his duties, therefore Levy is the man who has to shoulder the blame. Mitchell was a spare part and must have hated working at the club, after all, what was he allowed to do?
Will Paramedici be a success? Not if he has the same role as Mitchell. I am holding out that Levy saw the error of his ways, he conceded that he took his eye off the ball, and as a result is trusting Paralympici to do his ‘job’ and bring some top young players in to the club, as well as shipping the dross out. BUT, and here is the crux, I do not trust Levy one bit. Once bitten-twice shy and all that. I am wholeheartedly waiting to be proven wrong by him though, but hiring Fonseca cannot be the answer surely? We all said no manager could improve us, but I was expecting something a little better. I mean, one minute we are after Poch and Conte and the next we get some random fella who few had heard of. I definitely Googled him! God help us is all I can say, and I’m an atheist!
As we are going to be down to playing kids and cheap signings then surely Graham Potter was the man for that.
Levy try protecting our club by investing in the team, It takes longer to pay 1bn back with a shower of shit than it does to pay 1.5bn back with a top side.
I just hate how levy always bleats on like running a club is the most painful thing in the world. Invest and win trophies levy you complete mug
Levy must think we’re all stupid, it doesn’t matter who is in charge, Fonseca, Paratici, Pochettino, Guardiola or Jesus Christ himself, if Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy do not supply them with enough funds to buy the best players nothing is going to change. It the sign of madness, doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, it won’t happen. So it’s simple really, makes funds available or sell to someone who will. ENIC, Levy & Lewis OUT !!!