Tottenham face playing the rest of the season – still in the top-four race, still in the Champions League and FA Cup – without a fit senior striker.
How did we let this happen? It is Daniel Levy’s fault, surely?
Well yes, and no.
MORE: Detailed Analysis – Did Spurs Have A Good Transfer Window?
Levy and Mauricio Pochettino between them must take responsibilty for the imbalance of the squad and the burden placed on Harry Kane over the last half-decade – a burden that has taken its toll on his body and our results.
Over a period of 10 transfer windows now, dating back to the summer of 2015, we have failed to identify the right forward to play back up to Kane, or refused to pay up for any front-man who may have been suitable.
Clinton N’Jie and Vincent Janssen were both major flops. Fernando Llorente was not much better aside from a couple of Champions League cameos.
But for this January alone, Levy is blameless for not bringing in a striker. Some fans will accuse the chairman of stinginess, again. But look at the market. Chelsea and Manchester United, two of the most shameless overspenders in world football, both wanted a No.9 and drew blanks until the latter made a desperate move for Odion Ighalo on deadline day.
Levy would have been equally criticised for a lack of ambition had he signed Ighalo, as he has for not signing anyone. But that was who was available. Him and Willian Jose, and Krzysztof Piątek – a thoroughly uninspiring list of names destined to follow the likes of Janssen and N’jie.
The players just weren’t there, although that does not excuse the failings of previous windows. We’ve searched five years for a decent deputy for Kane and come up short, and maybe that is where we have been going wrong.
Perhaps we should be looking for a top-quality forward who could play in the same team as Kane as well as instead of him. Now there’s a thought.
And it can’t take us 10 transfer windows to get it right this time…
Haaland. Cost 20 million euros and he’s scored 7 goals for Dortmund in his first three games. He’s looking to be bargain.
We could have gone for Jay Rodriguez,he has PL experience,can play on his own up from or could be a foil for Kane with his knockdowns.Probably would have come in under 10M too.
Yeah I dont read his comments so much or get involved lol
Yes but he does have a lot of Levy apologists commenting on the site.
How’s the past? Any changes 😂
Of course they were all Levy’s ‘choices’, just through the financial constraints alone, so he failed, just as he failed Poch.
Harry. I hope you’re not coming to help me. Can handle these lot myself. (Easily) even without being allowed to in my natural “twang😁 I’ve got TOTTENHAM on my side😊
Read a good blog which said
“…can’t shake the feeling that Spurs are dead. We’re just watching some psychopath walking around in our skin”
Quite aptly applies to our current state
He might go to the matches but does he know what he is watching.I doubt it.I suspect he is there to get an immediate post match view of the takings.
I agree it’s his fault the argument no one is available is bollux. Players of quality are rarely available at the discount rate levy wants to pay,
You go in and bid above the odds and make them available!
“if iffs and ands” 😂
It’s not just this Transfer Window we haven’t bought another striker.
Every Spurs fan has known about our lack of backup to Harry Kane for the past Three years.
So, in my opinion Mr Levy is to blame he watches all the matches and I guess he can see this problem but has failed to spend the money.
Well, if this means that we fail to finish in the top four the he should put his hand up and admit his error.
A snake rots from the head down.. Of course it is levys fault, no other clubs (never mind top clubs) fail year after year to land targets.. Its no mistake that chelsea have four strikers. Its no mistake we have only one whos becoming broken… Baldy can blame tens of managers for decades of failure, and blame them now also for his feared and shrewd negotiating skills? Come on joe just look at all our signings since poch made us champion league regulars.. Levys to blame here and judging by the window just shut on us nothing is changing anytime soon… We will be lucky to get ropey league without kane, forget about top four.
What I meant was if the money is not reinvested then he has no excuse.He will be seen as a fraud even to his believers.
Who’s starting to know what we know?😁
Negative narratives collapsing below me😂😂😂. I promise I’ll try to go easy on the faithless😂😂.
Maybe they were all levy choices, who knows? But he failed to provide his coach with any of them either way.
Eddie, ‘No Where To Hide ?’, Dan The Man has been hiding these past 20 Years .
I also think Piatek would have been a good buy.
The more I think about it , the more I like it !!!!!!
And now has 7 in 3 games.
Are you saying Mourinho had the option to refuse Levy’s choices, and end up with no one?
Spot on Marbella.
Fish also mentions Chelsea and Utd.
Chelsea have Abrahams,who played yesterday anyway,Giroud and Batshuayi.What Lampard probably means is not one of them is really good enough as a no.1 for Chelsea.That’s another matter.
Utd. have Martial,who has said himself he can lead the line and Greenwood who when he burst on the scene was hailed as the second coming.
We do have Parrott,but he is considered too young and too inexperienced.
Indeed not, the coach bears no blame. If he identified these guys as strikers who would be capable of filling the void it was imperative on levy to get one of them for him. Don’t see who else can conceivably be blamed for failing to land any of them.
Levy is the DOF, head of scouting and head and sole member of the transfer committee. Poch advised the club to be brave, they were not,. I cannot see how anyone can blame him for the failings in recruitment although I am sure he was responsible for some duffers, as all football managers tend to be. How many times have we seen a headline which reads, “Spurs made a last ditch offer”, but we always fail. It is more likely that we never made an offer but it was just fake news from the Spurs media team to assuage the fans yet again. There was even a report that we had tried to recruit an 32 yr old Israeli, playing in the Chinese League. Like any business, and let’s make no mistake, Spurs is first and foremost a business, so the buck should stop at the top. Let’s not feel any sympathy for Levy, the highest paid chairman in the PL, who has won one trophy is his toxic tenure of Spurs.
Re Mourinho – beggars cannot be choosers.
So Joe, Levy and Poch must take responsibility for the lack of a striker. How does that work? Does Levy come out in public and apologise to Harry Kane for all his injuries, for Harry’s limp performance in the Champions League Final, for Harry maybe missing the European Championship Finals, for maybe shortening Harry’s career, for maybe costing Harry and his family millions in lost income from a premature end to his career. Apologise to all the other players injured because they were overused because our leader deliberately chose not to invest in the team. Well Joe let’s see him take responsibility for the failure in his duty of care to his staff. We’re all waiting.
When it comes to acquiring new players, Levy never has had anywhere to hide – that’s why he employs coaches and not managers = he cannot delegate.
As is suggested below,this has been Levy’s failing over a number of windows.The situation is not new.There are,and have been options out there which wouldn’t have broken the bank either,but Levy is not a football man and wouldn’t know the qualities to look for.And he isn’t as good a negotiator as he likes to think.
As far as I know Bergwijn could be a useful addition to our squad,but he wasn’t really what we needed.I think Parrott should be shown some appreciation,not necessarily as a starter,but as an option to bring off the bench.His pre-season cameos showed that he has promise and if he is not loaned out then why not give him some opportunities.
Off piste slightly there is an article in the Mail today about a possible clearout at City at the end of the season,one of whom is Jesus.Would this be the point at which they go all out for Kane and Levy sanctions his sale.Then the question is does that money then get invested back into the squad.If not then Levy has nowhere to hide.
I dont think that was an exhaustive list of options. It is the list of the players levy actually made offers for, presumably with Mourinho’s assent.
Lets hope all the new lads play today and no one at the back makes silly errors and we should be able to keep them at a low score…whether we can score or not will probably come down to either a counter attack or more likely an error…
His coach said publicly the world’s 6th richest club had no strikers and levy failed to land any of those he targeted last month.
Blameless how?
Sorry but this is all on Levy. Granted the list of options weren’t great this window but we shouldn’t have needed this window for that position anyway. I know I’m saying the same as what’s already being said but I can and therefore I will. There have been plenty of decent options over the last few years and Levy should have marked a date on his calendar to have one sorted the next time a window came around. All this sh1te about “not getting it done in time” on numerous deadline days is an insult to our collective intelligence. I didn’t want Jose as our manager in the first place but I thought he’d at least stand up to Levy and get what was needed. If he is going to be the same as every other manager before him when it comes to squad needs I hope his time at Levy’s feet is very very short.
On this occasion, given the dearth of quality options, I would agree in principle that Levy cannot be blamed. However, over the past 5 years, both Poch and Levy share the blame, not least because Poch was responsible for scouting and signing Vincent Janssen, who was a total bust, following on from the earlier signing of Robby Soldado, another huge blunder.
In my opinion we could easily have signed a decent back-up to Kane from one of the lesser EPL teams, for example Deeney, Shane Long, or more recently Pukki, Ings, etc, without the risk of bringing in an untried striker from a continental league. Thus the excessive burden on Harry Kane, which has contributed to his physical problems, could have been avoided.
C’mon Al. We’re playing without a striker now. Ship off Harry and trouser the proceeds says the chairman.
So, Dortmund bought Haaland, who has scored 5 goals in his first 2 games, but quality strikers were not available? Levy will never put his hand in his pocket to support his managers.
Surely Botch cannot be blamed ????? Spurs will spend Big on a New Striker , when Kane is sold off .