The Levy story so far

[dontcallme]

Our problems have been pretty deep since 1992. We went through a decade of complete mediocrity. No area of our club improved from the beginning of the 90s to the end. Our youth system, first team success, our coaching and ability to make the most of our marketing potential simply wasn't made the most of and we were in a major slump.

Levy took over at the helm with a squad of over-the-hill players, an unpopular manager(Graham) and our results and quality of play just wasn't improving.

Levy did the obvious thing and rightly (imo) sacked the manager and bought in a Spurs legend who had a good managerial record. He backed Hoddle financially without crippling us and still results and quality of play wasn't improving. The rot it seemed was much deeper. DL sacked Hoddle after a disastrous start and an unhappy dressing room and this time thought long and hard about what was the best way forward regarding who should be in charge and how our managerial system should be set up.

After a season fighting relegation DL turned to the continental system having a DOF and the head coach was in charge of first team affairs. F Arnesen was bought in, a man highly respected for helping PSV battle Ajax in the Dutch League and Santini the French national coach and man who had led Lyon to the French title. Men with top class reputations and not only that we bought in Martin Jol and replaced our physio set-up and set about improving our youth set-up.

Our club all of a sudden had potential. Like always though nothing goes to plan and for debated reasons Santini resigned after only 13 games in charge. Fortunately under our new system the transition from one head coach to the next was simple and Martin Jol stepped up the plate and we achieved a comfortable mid-table finish, unspectacular but a huge improvement on the season before and under Jol and FA we appeared to have the right set-up.

Unfortunately again things didn't go to plan. Arnesen was offered a job at Chelsea for huge money and he left us. On the pitch things improved even further and we finished 5th two seasons in a row. Comolli was bought in as DOF and things looked to be on the up.

The next season started off disastrously and it appeared all was not right between Jol and Comolli. They had different visions for how we could progress and someone had to go. After the DOF system had bought us to become temporarily known as the 5th best team in England Levy made the choice that Jol would be axed and Comolli was put in charge of choosing his successor.

Juande Ramos a man who had won 2 consecutive UEFA Cups, bought Seville to compete in the league with R Madrid and Barcelona and was reportedly wanted by Chelsea at one point was chosen to take us "to the next level". A huge amount of emphasis was put on our club and players becoming ultra-professional. A new diet and concentration on fitness was chosen as the way forward.

Ramos became popular after leading us to beat Arsenal in the semi final and Chelsea in the final of the Carling Cup in thrilling fashion. It didn't go un-noticed that our league form after January was awful though. In the summer we bought Modric, Dos Santos, Gomes, Bentley and Pavlyuchenko 5 players with very good reputations.

Again our season started disastrously and DL felt things weren't right in the set-up and this time both the DOF and Head Coach were axed. An experienced Premier League manager to take sole control and responsibilty for the playing side of the club was chosen as the best option to solve our problems.

Daniel Levy has had to make a lot of changes since taking over, many (Santini, FA leaving) were out of his control and despite 3 of our best seasons in the Premier League have been under the DOF system with Levy at the helm the Spurs fans aren't happy. Many don't think Redknapp is the right man to do anything bar save us from relegation.

I believe Levy has done a lot of really great things for this club and while he gets criticised for his mistakes I don't feel he gets anywhere near enough credit for all the good he has done. I really hope he has learnt from past mistakes and supports Harry Redknapp all the way.

Harry has hired Joe Jordan and Kevin Bond as coaches. Having three experienced guys at the top and some enthusiastic young coaches to come in and learn their trade seems like a decent enough set-up to me. It's not as glamourous as the top European names some on here want but we had that with Ramos and it failed.

We need to be as supportive as we can through this period as Harry has to make difficult decisions regarding the best team to put out in cup competitions. Whatever he does many will disagree but this is not a reason to not support the manager. We all want our situation to be better and Harry is experienced enough to make some bold decisions.

The fact that Jol and Ramos are currently having success does not mean they would have been successful here if given more time. The set-up at a club has to suit the manager for him to be successful. I just hope after years of tinkering Levy has got things right for Redknapp to make our club a success.

 

[PT]

Firstly. Mr Levy is the head of a plc and by definition, a businessman first and a football chairman second. His business model has been manipulated and adapted as years have gone by with our club under the guidance of ENIC.

Mr Levy sought council from many football people before going down the DOF route. Many of us thought that Ranieri was being offered the hotseat while Pleat was keeping it warm after Hoddle's departure.

Ranieri distanced himself from the media gossip though and explained that he offered advice to Levy who was putting together his business model upon which Arnesen and Santini were recruited.

He has made many mistakes insofar as football itself goes, not least in allowing Arnesen go without a massive fight, even though it would eventually conclude with Chelsea offering financial compensation and Spurs in turmoil at an inopportune time in the season.

Commolli was brought in with a promising cv, primarily to get our Academy kickstarted, after Arnesen had begun and then abandoned the project.

Martin Jol stepped up after Santini skedaddled back to France but as a role as Coach, not Manager, under the European model of DOF / coach relationship.

Our football, while not exhilerating, produced results, not least as a consequence of having top drawer players available to Jol, namely Carrick and Davids.

Gradually though, Levy has eroded our squad by allowing key players to use their agents to draw moves to top four clubs - clubs that could and should have been our peers. He has also prevented, quite rightly in my opinion, those players departing under terms drawn up by the buying club. Both Carrick and Berbatov went for top money after long drawn out negotiations designed to wear Levy's patience down.
Keane went quickly as the money was right, in fact top dollar, for a 30 year old striker who had requested permission to leave for the only club he would leave for.

That is Levy's achilles heel - his desire to ensure Tottenham don't get shafted in the transfer market, sometimes as has been evident, to the detriment of Commolli drawing in replacements in time, as was the case with Arshavin last Summer.

The team that represents Spurs week in week out is imprinted with the knowledge that we really are a selling club, although our position has shifted from buying young kids with potential for a high resale value, to established players from Europe coming in, proving themselves in our colours, then engineering moves onwards and upwards.

There is strain of DNA within the make-up of THFC which determines that we will be perennial also-rans as a consequence of having to remain loyal to the ethic of Managers gone and buying flair accordingly, but leaving team spirit and resilliance at the pitch side.

We need someone like Harry Redknapp who is his own man, and has already proven it by only coming in to steer the ship by forcing Levy to abandon his European DOF model.

Redknapp may not have the cv that we all feel should belong to any Manager at Spurs, but he has proven man managership skills and Premiership nous, to perhaps at least leave Spurs with some basic building blocks as his legacy before Levy's eyes light up in the not too distant future when another "Name" is proposed to him by an agent.

The man with the baton right now though, may be Levy's most significant signing during ENIC's tenure. We will know by this time next year.

 

[There's always next year]

I think that Levy's obsession for champions league status, has mean't knee jerk reactions, a constant change of strategy and most importantly a dire lack of continuity. This lack of continuity has been his achilles heal and maybe he now sees this and has lowered expectations to a much more realistic level, which will allow Redknapp to build a team capable of CL status over the next 3 to 4 years.

Levy's business head is to maximise his investment. This again means a club with regular CL football is worth more than one without. He will want to sell, probably sooner not later. The stadium redevelopment will be costly, and he probably wants to cash in an move out before this begins. The problem he has, is no CL, limited gate revenue due to 36K capacity, and a massive credit crunch, that will restrict potential buyers, or buyers that will offer a smaller amount than Levy requires.