Credibility - Is Levy's Stock Rising?

[rez9000]

I still remember Daniel Levy's vociferousness during the Frank Arnesen affair. I remember thinking how fantastic it was to have a Chairman who seemed to have Spurs in his blood and would defend us to the hilt.

This season, as we all now, whatever else is or isn't true, Daniel Levy's credibility has taken a knocking.

For me, replacing a manager isn't necessarily cause to slate the Chairman. Just because the decision wouldn't be popular doesn't mean he doesn't have the club's best interests at heart (have fun with those double negatives, Stoof). I'm not saying that if he had sacked MJ, he would have done so out of honest motives, just that the possibility exists.

Now, since the hoo-ha settled down slightly, statement after statement has issued from Levy stating his support for MJ. Cynical though I am, I'm beginning to come round to the opinion that maybe he genuinely is backing MJ, at least for the rest of the season, especially after he admitted that there was some truth to the Seville 'scandal'.

Am I alone in taking what he's saying at face-value? Was he spouting bull from the start and is continuing to do so? Is Mr Levy winning back the trust that he may have lost? I don't think a poll is necessary; just say what you think.

 

[PT]

I think that Levy underestimated the fans' reaction to the news that he was courting potential replacements.

He has his own agenda and business plan and is right to keep checks in place to ensure of our progress but perhaps has realised that there's no point in running before walking without falling over.

 

[rez9000]

Has your opinion of him changed since the season began? Personally, before the season began I trusted him and then the Seville stuff caused me to lose a lot of that trust.

Recently, I've started finding myself more willing to believe what he says, whereas before I was very cynical and scathing about any pronouncement he may have made.

 

[PT]

I've never doubted Levy's commitment to the Club - it's ENIC I have concerns about as there is only one motive for a plc to be involved in football. The problem is that Levy and ENIC are intrinsically related.

Levy wants Champions League badly but I think is beginning to appreciate that it is not ours to enjoy by right.

His quandry is whether we have the right tools to get the job done.

 

[bogosian]

actually the ramos affair made me even more confident in his qualities. he appears to be thinking in the long term & getting a top class manager is exactly that even when we have an ok manager who is very much loved by the fans (largely because of his charm and not his skills).

 

[rez9000]

actually the ramos affair made me even more confident in his qualities. he appears to be thinking in the long term & getting a top class manager is exactly that even when we have an ok manager who is very much loved by the fans (largely because of his charm and not his skills).

Many would agree in principle. However, the stats prove that a club that changes managers partway through a season finish on average four places below where they finished the season before.

If he'd done it in the close season, personally, I would have been upset to see MJ go, but I would have accepted it, if the new boss was a step up. The reason that Levy lost a bit of his shine in my opinion was the fact that it appeared that the upper management were looking to replace MJ after the season had started. Of course, we don't know if Levy was directly involved.

 

[PT]

On another point, I would far rather a British face at the helm by way of Levy heading up ENIC, than the spate of foreigners hooking in to the gravy train of Premiership football.

If Abramovich leaves Chelsea after boring of his toy play thing, they are so going to be in deep shyte. They are trading at a massive loss and have a business plan that will continue to suggest it will carry on doing so for a few years yet. Private money is a recipe for disaster in my opinion.

 

[sloth]

Many would agree in principle. However, the stats prove that a club that changes managers partway through a season finish on average four places below where they finished the season before.

If he'd done it in the close season, personally, I would have been upset to see MJ go, but I would have accepted it, if the new boss was a step up. The reason that Levy lost a bit of his shine in my opinion was the fact that it appeared that the upper management were looking to replace MJ after the season had started. Of course, we don't know if Levy was directly involved.

Presumably those stats would be slanted somewhat by the fact that the vast majority of clubs who change manager mid-season do so because said club is already in dire trouble.

It's worth also noting that there are no stats that say what happens to those clubs already in dire trouble who do not change manager. In other words there is no control group, which I'm afraid renders the statistic interesting but meaningless.

 

[Wiener]

To be fair to Levy, I don't think he has actually said anything untruthful, as far as I know.

There has been so much speculation in the wake of the Ramos affair, based on very little fact. Kemsley + Alexander met up with Ramos and his agent in Spain to discuss the head coach position at Spurs. I think beyond that we know very little. In fact the press took it from there and we have had many different theories on what is going at white hart lane.

Unfortunately, while we have had some good performances, and we should have won most of our games since, we haven't had the rub of the green on the pitch and have defended and finished woefully.

I believe the tide will turn soon, and I believe Jol and Levy will stick it out to the end of the season, and then they will take it from there.

While I was disappointed in Levy's handling of the Ramos situation, I still think he is the best thing that has happened to this club for some time and I hope he stays to see out his plan, which includes increasing capacity (or at least putting in place a viable plan) and setting up a serious academy.

 

[spurs4europe]

actually the ramos affair made me even more confident in his qualities. he appears to be thinking in the long term & getting a top class manager is exactly that even when we have an ok manager who is very much loved by the fans (largely because of his charm and not his skills).

charm not skill????

5th place two seasons in a row?

no, you're right i guess

 

[striebs]

I reckon he took advice about Jol from the wrong people and that started the nagging doubts .

The Arsenal match showed the absurdity of expecting our boys to depose one of the entrenched top 4 . Levy must have felt like a fool declaring a month earlier something to the effect of "Martin agrees that he is fully equiped to chase fourth"

In addition Jol showed his ability to remain focused on what was happening on the pitch and we our performances have improved .

To summarise I think reality set in and what Levy says about backing Jol can be taken at face value .

 

[Ironskull]

Many would agree in principle. However, the stats prove that a club that changes managers partway through a season finish on average four places below where they finished the season before.

If he'd done it in the close season, personally, I would have been upset to see MJ go, but I would have accepted it, if the new boss was a step up. The reason that Levy lost a bit of his shine in my opinion was the fact that it appeared that the upper management were looking to replace MJ after the season had started. Of course, we don't know if Levy was directly involved.

A ha two good points but what the stats don't say is where those self same clubs would have finished if they hadn't sacked their managers - maybe even lower; because those stats are indistinguishable from those of clubs who didn't sack their managers and who never even considered it.

BMJ can drop Robbo without sacking him, but Levy can't do the same with BMJ. The next best thing was the warning shot across the bows and the "take it or leave it" "pull your socks up" message that BMJ got. I have no problems with what's happened.

 

[tony0379]

actually the ramos affair made me even more confident in his qualities. he appears to be thinking in the long term & getting a top class manager is exactly that even when we have an ok manager who is very much loved by the fans (largely because of his charm and not his skills).

i sometimes go on about levy but thats very well put my man

 

[Banjo]

:hello:

I'm a bit puzzled. I thought it had been fairly well established that Levy and Comolli had been at the meeting with Ramos but had left the Hotel via a side/back enterance and that their presence was finally admited. (I believe I read that either here or at COYS.)

Either way it is clear that when the story broke the club initially denied any meeting had taken place with Ramos at all and Levy issued statements where the sub-text was a critique of MJ. Apparently it was only in his third public statement that he explicitly came out and supported Jol.

I remain unconvinced about either Levy or ENIC's long term commitment to Spurs and it would take a hell of a lot to raise Levy's stock with me.

I do agree that if the board were so unsure of Jol (I would have thought they were insane) the correct time would have been in the off season. Being caught surreptisiously sniffing around a replacement for Jol after two poor results into the season can hardly said to inspire confidence.

:wink:

 

[SpurSince57]

There have certainly been rumours that Levy and possibly Comolli were at the Alfonso XIII, but I've not seen it said anywhere that their presence has ever been admitted.

Does anyone really believe that after the Everton game our board flew first into a panic and then over to Seville a couple of days later to meet Ramos? I suppose this could have been the case, but if so it would have been the most ludicrous knee-jerk reaction on the part of hard-headed businessmen; the thought that those responsible for running Spurs should be capable of flying into such a panic is simply incredible. More than that, it's absolutely terrifying.

I don't believe this was anything to do with results this season or last; rather, I'm sure something happened over the summer that we haven't heard about, and the approach to Ramos came as a result of this. Oddly, at some time during the summer, Archibald, one of the more reliable ITKs, who works at the Lane in some capacity, posted that 'they' were all off somewhere, and taking an interpreter. Who 'they' were wasn't specified, and Archibald said, 'They won't tell me what's happening.' This was maybe two or three weeks before everything blew up. It could just have been a coincidence, but one starts to wonder.

Whatever, we somehow missed the opportunity to take advantage of a buy-out clause in Ramos' contract that would have enabled him to walk for €350k; that timed out on 6th July, so we were just a wee bit late. Then Kemsley and Alexander were caught in flagrante, and Kemsley came out with his utterly pathetic Swiss Tony-style explanation for the meeting. Then we heard that we'd made Ramos an offer he couldn't refuse. Oh no we hadn't. Ramos appeared at a press conference in Seville with del Nido and Monchi (Sevilla's DOF), at which it was announced he would be honouring the remainder of his contract. To make that easier to bear, del Nido doubled his salary. In the middle of all this, cue shots of Levy, Kemsley and Comolli sitting stony-faced at the Derby game; to look at them, you'd have thought we were losing 4-0. Oh, and a somewhat subdued statement from Levy backing Jol.

Since then we've had the rumours of phone calls to Mourinho, a more positive statement of support for Jol, rumours that Puel will be appointed caretaker until May, keeping the hot seat warm for Jose, and a string of disappointing results. Ironically, Sevilla have also had a pisspoor start to the season: four league defeats in six games, thrashings by Milan and Arsenal, and just a win over Slavia which was, judging from the highlights, much harder work than the score suggests. They have had their own problems, and to suggest Ramos has lost the plot any more than Jol has are ridiculous. Nevertheless, it's hard to suppress a chuckle.

The last few weeks have been an inexcusable shambles, and anyone who thinks the action off-pitch hasn't had a seriously detrimental effect on that on it is living in dreamland. Jol's in a sot of limbo, we don't know whether he's got until the Newcastle game, Christmas or May to pull things round, both Ramos and Mourinho are off the menu, there's word that if Jol does get the push Clive will be off, and if Jol does go we're liable to get a caretaker no-one's ever heard of. Magic.

Has Levy's stock risen? Not with me, it hasn't.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Never dropped with me. The bloke has rebuilt this club and put some pride back into what was, frankly, a laughing stock. We were the club everyone enjoyed knocking and having a giggle at. "they think they're bigger than they are" "they're living in the past" Years of shit players mixed in with the odd flawed star.

So they tried to get us a better manager. Boo fucking hoo. Get over it. What levy has achieved has been massive.

he has been brave and inovative. His policies have seen us playing the best football for 20+ years, whilst making us more financially viable than ever. To achieve thesse twin goals whilst still spending more than any other chairman, without the private backing of a billionaire's slush fund is boardering on a miracle.

Any of you lot that would chose Jol over Levy are fucking loonies.

 

[DFF]

Amen.

 

[rez9000]

Never dropped with me. The bloke has rebuilt this club and put some pride back into what was, frankly, a laughing stock. We were the club everyone enjoyed knocking and having a giggle at. "they think they're bigger than they are" "they're living in the past" Years of shit players mixed in with the odd flawed star.

So they tried to get us a better manager. Boo fucking hoo. Get over it. What levy has achieved has been massive.

he has been brave and inovative. His policies have seen us playing the best football for 20+ years, whilst making us more financially viable than ever. To achieve thesse twin goals whilst still spending more than any other chairman, without the private backing of a billionaire's slush fund is boardering on a miracle.

Any of you lot that would chose Jol over Levy are fucking loonies.

I can only speak for myself of course, but I wasn't criticising Levy for wanting to replace Jol. I said he had lost credibility because of the manner in which he was reported to be looking to replace Jol, and that is true, whether one supports his actions fully or not in the least.

But, in fairness, you did answer the actual point of the thread.

 

[SpurSince57]

Never dropped with me. The bloke has rebuilt this club and put some pride back into what was, frankly, a laughing stock. We were the club everyone enjoyed knocking and having a giggle at. "they think they're bigger than they are" "they're living in the past" Years of shit players mixed in with the odd flawed star.

So they tried to get us a better manager. Boo fucking hoo. Get over it. What levy has achieved has been massive.

he has been brave and inovative. His policies have seen us playing the best football for 20+ years, whilst making us more financially viable than ever. To achieve thesse twin goals whilst still spending more than any other chairman, without the private backing of a billionaire's slush fund is boardering on a miracle.

Any of you lot that would chose Jol over Levy are fucking loonies.

Not a matter of choosing Jol over Levy, though, is it?

Yes, on the financial side there is no cause for complaint at all; he's done wonders. I'm not sure how many other Premier League clubs are in the black.

But on this score, it's a Robbo-style clanger. If he felt Ramos was a better bet than Jol for the long term, then fine. I've said this several times already. It's the way that he's gone about it that alarms me, because it's been totally stupid on just about every conceivable level. If Jol wasn't good enough in August, he wasn't good enough in May, and the wheels should have been set in motion then. FFS, weren't they aware of Ramos' buy-out clause? How incompetent is that?

If they had really thought Jol wasn't up to it they should have moved for Ramos in June, offered him a fat salary and paid off his buy-out; there wouldn't have been a thing del Nido could have done about it. Ramos would have had time to get to know the players, impose his methods and vision, make changes to the back-room staff, consult with Comolli on new signings. That's the way it should have been done. And whilst we might have had collective apoplexy on SC, if we were sitting on 16-17 points now we'd be saying, 'Great call, Daniel. Ruthless, harsh on Martin, but you saw the right thing to do for Spurs and you did it.'

But it didn't happen that way, did it? Which suggests to me that we were happy enough with Jol, and that this wasn't a matter of finding a better manager, but a response to something that happened over the summer, the nature of which we can only guess at. We do a better job of hiding our dirty washing than Chelsea.

And what message does this send out to potential successors? That our chairman might be a financial whizz, but when it comes to dealing with managers he's vacillating and trigger-happy? Think back just four years. The second half of 2003-2004 was a disaster; but for a decent start we'd have been relegated. Hoddle should have gone then, but because there were extenuating circumstances, mostly a shedload of injuries, Levy kept him on—and then fired him when the bad results continued. Last season we had a shedload of injuries too, things looked like they were going tits-up in the league, but Jol turned it round with the best last twelve games since 1951, and we had three good cup runs too. Two games into the new season and we're tapping-up another club's manager. FFS…

So again, what sort of message does that send out? If I were a candidate I'd be wondering just how long I'd have before the knives came out. And bet your bottom dollar that Mourinho has a far better idea of what's going on behind the scenes at Spurs than any of us has.

And Levy's policies have seen us playing our best football for 20 years? No credit for Jol in that statement, then…

 

[DFF]

I can only speak for myself of course, but I wasn't criticising Levy for wanting to replace Jol. I said he had lost credibility because of the manner in which he was reported to be looking to replace Jol, and that is true, whether one supports his actions fully or not in the least.

But, in fairness, you did answer the actual point of the thread.

All we know is that Paul 'the power' Kemsley and Alexander bungled the meeting. Maybe purposely. We already know PK isn't a fan of Jol. I haven't seen one shred of evidence, not even a line from a rag (if someone can point me to a respectable source, it'd be appreciated), to suggest that Levy and Comolli were in Spain too. Maybe i've been out of the loop, though.

And suggestions that Levy & Comolli and Kemsley & Alexander paired off into two-man fire teams, one of which managed to evade detection, is a bit far-fetched for me. I'd rather take what we know at face value. PK and Alexander were caught meeting Ramos. Of course there'll be rumours following that, that Levy and Comolli were in fact there too. You know, might add a bit of punch to the story. Funny that they, the two more prominent people at the club, weren't initially reported to have been there, but were later 'found out' to have been there. Yeah, they snuck out a side exit, while the well-disguised Mr Potato Head waltzed out of the front entrance, just "'cos none of these 'ere Spammish peepull know who i am". They either all went out of a side exit or none of them did. Besides, i'm the sure the paparazzi would have had the place pretty well surrounded. Then again, it's not like they're used to celebs sneaking out of side-exits or anything crazy like that.

I have no problem with the meeting taking place for whatever reason. We can't just say "why at that moment in time, Levy" as if there's no conceivable reason for it to have taken place at the time. We don't know. And a legitimate reason is no less a likely possibility as the all too easy "it was a knee-jerk reaction from a bunch of cowboys". I do have a problem with the fact that the press got wind of it and kindly returned some fecal matter hastily tagged "Spurs Board" to WHL. We all do. Whether it was Ramos' side to blame, our side or a bit of both. Seeing that i personally don't believe Levy was there to oversee it, i can't fault him for the way in which it panned out. Only that he entrusted such an operation to Mr Discreet.