The situation is as follows. We have a serial winner in Paratici (as Director of Football), working in tandem with a serial winner in Antonio Conte (as Manager), unfortunately under the footballing stewardship/chairmanship of a serial loser in Levy and anyone who thinks that Levy, as ENIC’s representative on Earth, is going to change the modus operandae of the club, for the benefit of Antonio Conte, let alone the fan base, is gravely deluded.
Levy will continue to peddle the fraudulent mantra that we are ‘a self-sustaining’ club, which is a euphemism for ‘we don’t invest our own money in the club’, whilst in reality saddling the club with $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars worth) of debt-financed real-estate, collateralized against THFC, manifestly not financial proceeds derived from ‘self-sustainment! Is Levy going to similarly debt finance the purchase of the players we actually need, to regain our top 4 status? Not a chance!
Levy will attempt, as always, to build the team on the cheap. Manifestly he has hired Paratici to replicate Juventus’s strategy of paying big wages to acquire ‘out-of-contract, big-name players, on free transfers. However, under Levy our transfer dealings will continue to be drawn-out, protracted affairs, involving haggling over minutiae, going back on agreements, quibbling over payment terms, etc. The leper, pardon me, leopard, is not going to change his spots!
Notwithstanding the huge impediment of Levy at the helm, I do expect to see an improvement in performance under a world-class coach like Conte and better player acquisition under Paratici, now that abject nonentity Hitchin has been relegated to a wholly subordinate role. Nevertheless, I remain entirely cynical that any silverware will ensue, in spite of the honest endeavours of the two Italians. Our best hope frankly remains a buy-out by a world-class outfit like Amazon, to finally remove the parasitical ENIC axis from our midst.
I reckon he’d walk rather than embarrass himself.
Thing is, Spain and Italy have been hit hard financially so a top manager between jobs doesn’t have a huge amount of options, certainly if he wants to earn his going rate.
It’s not actually a dissimilar situation to Jose when he took the job, out of work with a big reputation and looking to maintain his salary levels. I’m just hoping that with Paratici that the pair of them might find a way of working within Levy’s financial framework (whatever that is exactly).
I fell that the sponsorship of Getir somewhat contradicts Amazon being involved, certainly in the near future…
Maybe some point in the summer. It will be all down to recruitment and if they are Conte picks.
I don’t disagree with that last sentence and it’s doubtful Enic would price the club to make it a viable purchase for anyone. Just as Levy did to Abramovic.
I’m not that up to date but I’m not sure Amazon (bezos) has any interest in sport. I’d argue that were he there are better clubs out there to buy.
Danny does not give a fig ..he is spending the clubs money ..while lining his pockets….he is laughing at us.
More likely a US Hedge fund who may or may not need an NFL team .
MkIII
Hope you have a decent armchair..
Spursy
Spursy
Right scouting right assessments pertinent to the EPL rather than the NFL..Levy is a complete and utter tool when it comes to the football. I wish he would unscrew himself and play with Trumpton.. there aren’t any excuses..the man is a footballing fakwit.
Does Levy also understand that backing the manager also entails letting him define the players to come in? Hope so as more cheap punts with ‘sell-on value’ has been decidedly hit-and-miss thus far.
I don’t know, Bezos has an enormous ego and those folks tend to want glory and adoration. I would swap for Levy and Joe all day, every day.
It does get better than that by appointing a world-class manager and actually backing him so that he can achieve his potential. Levy didn’t back anyone, starting way back when he bought the club for a snip. Rectifying another almighty balls-up that was the NES appointment was the very minimum he should be doing and I still stand by the fact that Conte is an optics acquisition to silence the Levy Out shouts that were clearly audible on the telly. If he supports this chap then great, after 22 years the penny finally dropped but I stand to be corrected if that ever happens.
The fact is for the first time in his reign at Tottenham, Levy has appointed a manager who is at the peak of his powers and could have the pick of any job he fancied.
He is a top coach so in the short term I’d expect him to get an improvement out of the existing squad. He won’t turn Ben Davies into Roberto Carlos but I’d expect an improvement in his performances.
In terms of quality we are way behind the best three or four sides in the country but I’d expect him to show improvements in more basic metrics such as fitness, passion and combativeness in the short term.
What he can achieve in the next two windows remains to be seen, however should Levy not back him I think all hell will break loose
Grass always looks greener on the other side.
I have no problem with a ‘self sustaining’ club.. Liverpool adopted this model ten years ago.. They now have premier league and Champions league titles to show for it.. What matters is the whole infrastructure of the club runs properly. The right coaches and scouts from the seniors to the academy. The right manager. Then you get the right players.. Liverpool have done it properly, we haven’t.
Where’s that LOL button
You ol cynic you. Bit I think you’re right !
If we end up in the hands of Amazon we’ll just end up in an oversized box rattling around inside similar to how we are now.
Bezos is more interested in Space. He sees himself as the modern day James T Kirk.
Frying pan and fire come to mind.
I agree Danny boy is backed into a cul de sac with nowhere to go. I genuinely believe the boos and abuse inside the stadium aimed at him during the Man Utd game finally hit the nail on the head for Danny boy.
Last chance saloon, although Danny boy has played a blinder in appointing Conte as it gives him time.
If he doesn’t spend big then Conte will call him out and make his position untenable.
I’m yet to be convinced by Paratici, persuading Conte is the best thing he’s done so far. Recommending Nuno was childish…
It’s like Mourinho MkII.
Conte is a short term fixer being paid a fortune, better to earn 15m rather than sit around doing and earning nothing, while waiting for a serious job to turn up. I give it 12 months, at a push.
call me a cynic if you like… 😆
I’ll get slated here for saying something vaguely positive about Levy, but… yes he needs to be dragged out and shot for hiring Nuno in the first place, but in terms of rectifying that then lord knows how he did it, but Conte is the real deal – a genuine top class elite manager that any club in world football would be happy to appoint. It doesn’t get better than that.
Will he suddenly now go dropping £80-100m and 500k a week on superstars… obviously not. But, the next 2 windows will tell us all we need to know about whether change is afoot. If we bring in a couple of decent first teamers and forget about the usual 22 year old french league cobblers having a half decent season then who knows whats going on behind the scenes.
Could easily be that these last few months have been a wake up call, but if he continues to bring in cheap dross and haggles over a few quid for players at the top of the list then Conte will walk well before his 18 month contract expires and that will take some explaining.
Yes indeed. It’s all bullocks. Fact remains, as always, matters not who’s in charge. There’s no window for 9 months, nothing will be done in Jan of any note, and there’s already been a ‘serial winner’ chewed up and spat out of ENICs anti football mincing machine. Conte should have gone for the Newcastle job where he could have the funds to back his vision. Doing a 180 on this job loses any respect I’d have for him….and he’s talking stadium/facilities already…..
Judging by the team on Sunday Conte has as much faith in these players as some of us have in Levy.
Recipe for repeat. Boycott.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It’s coming to a head, after Levy sacks Pat and Ant, where does he go Nnext? ASacking one of the best DOF in the game with a huge contacts list, and a coach who is in the top 4 or 5 in the world today, the only viable alternatives after Conte are Pep or Klopp. He’s backed himself into a very small corner and I can’t see any manager who will be better than what we currently have in place.
You should be flattered. Donna and the rest of the incompetent club hierarchy at least know how to find a decent website. It’s just decent footballers they find so elusive.
yep
this is the reality, thanks coys1882
I just want to see some entertaining football FFS – played by professional athletes that can run for 90 minutes at least once a week – twice a week would be nice!!!
The FRAB without the Redknapp………..
In other news:
Whither Paulo Fonseca?
Dumped for Gattuso (sort of) and then Nuno, now given the flick for a guy who looks like one of the Tracy Brothers from Thunderbirds and got Bournemouth relegated, dear old Eddie Howe.
Absolutely correct. The period after Poch urged the board to be brave, we went eighteen months without buying a player. An unprecedented event in modern day football amongst top tier clubs. This catastrophic error by Levy is the main reason we have and will continue to struggle against top teams as we are literally years behind them in reinforcing and strengthening our squad. It was during the period of the building of the new stadium that Levy palpably lied to the fans when he stated that transfer funds would be available to Poch despite the project financing. These spurious funds were yet again in the oft repeated war chest of £150 million , so why didn’t they transpire? Because we have to sell before we buy, unlike other clubs. So why didn’t we sell the players Poch wanted replacing? Because Levy did what he always does and over priced the likes of Alderweireld, Dembele, Eriksen, Rose. So to summarise, I agree completely with Coys 1882 that Levy has never and will never change his spots.
Great guest blog. Summed up beautifully.👍
With appropriate backing and investment, we could start to win things.
However anyone thinking that ENIC’s modus operandi is to make the football team successful is a chump.
Their sole MO is to generate value for themselves, they are an investment company.
Therefore their sweet spot here is, as with any investment firm, giving just enough back to the product to maximise value on the returns for THEM.
What does that mean? It means ENIC will NEVER fund us appropriately to help us win. Any success above achieving a Top 4 place will be a fluke, a ‘bonus’ and unsustainable.
Their aim is not a legacy of Spurs title successes or cup wins sadly. I appreciate I am preaching to an already converted audience here. But waking up every day and realising that we have a Chairman who wants us to ‘sort of’ be successful and/or has a very different view from all of us on what success actually is breaks my heart.
I could begin a passionate defence here of Irving Scholar as a reflection of Levy – the ‘Anti-Levy’ if you will. That’s for another day.
Yup.
Fans don’t care stadiums are built upon cemeteries, shirts are produced by slave labour and the gate money funds terrorism.
They want tonnes of signings and tonnes of trophies.
Interesting point, we’ve been promised the same cash value ‘war chest’ for at least 5 years
Thank you. Donna!
Harry H…Lets not fool ourselves that DL will relinquish control of running THFC. He holds about 30% of share – Enic and JL might sell out… but Levy will engineer a takeover with a consortium of stad build bankers, NFL franchise, stad naming rights sponsor and an entertainments/events giant etc to take over under his own umbrella, not to aoil sheik or Russian oligarch! His chair will be taken over one day by his son and/or daughter who sit next to him so often. He hasnt spent 20 odd years building the club incl the stad just to let go and esp with only 1 trophy to show for it…this is why they hv agreed to Conte terms…guaranteed trophy success!
Ive been saying the same thing for years, Levy is just fooling us all. Year after year we believe the same bullsh1t that comes out of his mouth , the Amazon documentary was just a disgrace and was a marketing job to make Levy and Mourinho look good.
Poch called it, (we need an overhaul of the team) then Levy sacked him, we still need an overhaul although not as bad as last season however I feel Levy will also make a fool of Paratici and Conte and deny them any transfers that they want because of wages, payment terms or whatever other excuse he will use. We need to let Paratici and Conte get who they want (within reason) and then we will see the magic that Conte is on what he can deliver.
I cant stand Enic or Levy, granted they have delivered on stadium and training but that is it, time for them to sell up and leave with their legacy as building the best stadium and training the world has ever seen.
Get them out.
The mantra has always been the reinvest player sales. Which each summer gives that £150m war chest number thrown out with the caveat of player sales.
We need to clear out to raise funds or more importantly to generate some cash flow for new player recruitment, let alone a need for a fresh dressing room faces.
The big issue is we haven’t recently been able to move players on and generate that cash flow which 100% sits at Levys feet.
To be honest i think this is also Levy’s last chance saloon. And would HOPE to believe he knows it also.
The way I see it everyone from the board, to the trust & fans, to the media and any potential future manager will see that if things don’t drastically change while Patrici and Conte are here, it will never under Levy.
This will then turn us back to struggling mid table mediocre club, with a mediocre squad and coach which will also result in the club becoming less valuable.
Who gets excited about being a self-sustaining club’? It’s the equivalent of cheering on a solar panel