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THE LEVY YEARS – TAKING US FORWARD OR HOLDING US BACK? PART THREE

Lilbaz

Just call me Baz
Apr 1, 2005
41,363
74,893
If Levy believes that the manager has lost the backing of the players and the fans, your time is up. He basically said so in the interview with garth crooks.

You may agree with that or not it's up to you.
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
25,914
16,413
David Pleat signed Defoe in 2004, when the season was finished, Pleat did not go back to his DOF role, he was replaced by Arnesen.

So it appears that Levy didn't have confidence in him either, in which case why are you giving him 7 million to spend when you know that you don't want him there?

Santini was appointed and Jol was appointed as his assistant by Arnesen. Santini left in 2004 first citing personal issues and then gave the real reason why he left.

He said:

"It was hard from the start," he told a French television station. "There was a problem of where responsibility lay in the club, especially when it came to transfer policy, where we could never reach agreement."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2390870/Santini-opens-up-over-Spurs-divorce.html

Danny boy was furious!
"I find it totally incomprehensible that Jacques claims not to have understood the role he took at this club or indeed his contract, which spelled it out," Levy said.

"At no time during our discussions did he suggest he had any problems with Frank. Jacques asked to leave for personal reasons. He resigned on this basis and that is what he told the players when he left. I am absolutely flabbergasted he should now say that it was not due to family problems. If this is the case, he has clearly been less than honest with us.

"I am deeply disappointed and personally let down that he has chosen to make these comments late in the day. He was meant to be my guest in the directors' box today but failed to turn up without telling us.

"The respect I had for him is gone and, on the basis of what we now know, we obviously appointed the wrong man. I don't know what his motive is. Perhaps it was to do with his inability to achieve success. In the last three games we have seen the kind of football we want to see."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2390870/Santini-opens-up-over-Spurs-divorce.html

Hold up, hold up....woah Nelly.
You mean to tell me after nearly a whole season of extensive research and the sacking Hoddle and his coaching staff and David Pleat, you ended up appointing the wrong man, who as an inability to achieve success and does not deliver the kind of football you want to see???

I'd say that was an error..a serious error.
 

bigspurs

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2005
3,193
2,419
If Levy believes that the manager has lost the backing of the players and the fans, your time is up. He basically said so in the interview with garth crooks.

You may agree with that or not it's up to you.

Exactly. We never know the whole story with regards to Levy sacking managers. However the manner of a lot of these sackings, especially that of Martin Jol does stand out as particularly cold-hearted and untidy. I think Levy may be a bit of a ruthless b*stard to say the least, but then we all know that anyway.

Basically I think we can safely say after thirteen years in charge, that generally his business sense is much greater than his football sense!
 

Lilbaz

Just call me Baz
Apr 1, 2005
41,363
74,893
David Pleat signed Defoe in 2004, when the season was finished, Pleat did not go back to his DOF role, he was replaced by Arnesen.

So it appears that Levy didn't have confidence in him either, in which case why are you giving him 7 million to spend when you know that you don't want him there?

Santini was appointed and Jol was appointed as his assistant by Arnesen. Santini left in 2004 first citing personal issues and then gave the real reason why he left.

He said:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2390870/Santini-opens-up-over-Spurs-divorce.html

Danny boy was furious!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2390870/Santini-opens-up-over-Spurs-divorce.html

Hold up, hold up....woah Nelly.
You mean to tell me after nearly a whole season of extensive research and the sacking Hoddle and his coaching staff and David Pleat, you ended up appointing the wrong man, who as an inability to achieve success and does not deliver the kind of football you want to see???

I'd say that was an error..a serious error.

Everyone agrees that Levy could have done better appointing managers. There was reasons for appointing them but hindsight (the most powerful weapon in the world) proves they may have got it wrong. Just like 99% of Chairmen the world over.
 

davidmatzdorf

Front Page Gadfly
Jun 7, 2004
18,106
45,030
You kind of skated over the mistakes that Levy made a bit quickly there sport, so let me just expand on that just a little bit.

I'm not going to start at 2006, I'm going to start at 2001 when George Graham was sacked 3 weeks before a cup semi final with Arsenal.
Sacked for leaking confidential information, a breach of contract, which basically boils down to him saying there is a limited amount of cash to spend on new players and he's not happy with it. Redknapp said a hell of a lot more than that but he managed to stay until 2012.

So clearly as Graham said at the time it was a excuse...a flimsy excuse.
Not long after that the club ran it's affairs in the press.
I have to agree with George's Lawyers here.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/graham-hits-back-after-cash-find-26094137.html

We appointed Glen Hoddle, we lost against Arsenal in the Semis and we lost against Blackburn in the 2002 league cup final.

That is failure. We failed.

More to come in part 2.

This is a bit daft. In 2001, ENIC had only just taken over and Levy had zero experience of running a fooball club. Oh! He made a mistake. Or even three. What a surprise.

By 2003/04, he had worked out that the way of doing things that had failed through the '90s was also going to fail in the '00s. So he changed the club's entire approach to squad-building and its managerial structure. How is this bad? It's called learning, adjusting and having the sense to abandon unsuccessful systems. Otherwise known as good management.

And the result was that we were back in Europe within 2 years.

If you want to point out his mistakes, point out the chronic one, his most notorious blind spot and the one area in which he has repeatedly refused to learn from failure: his incessant sacking of capable managers in pursuit of further improvement and his inability to see that the instability that he thus creates is what is preventing that further improvement.
 

Lilbaz

Just call me Baz
Apr 1, 2005
41,363
74,893
This is a bit daft. In 2001, ENIC had only just taken over and Levy had zero experience of running a fooball club. Oh! He made a mistake. Or even three. What a surprise.

By 2003/04, he had worked out that the way of doing things that had failed through the '90s was also going to fail in the '00s. So he changed the club's entire approach to squad-building and its managerial structure. How is this bad? It's called learning, adjusting and having the sense to abandon unsuccessful systems. Otherwise known as good management.

And the result was that we were back in Europe within 2 years.

If you want to point out his mistakes, point out the chronic one, his most notorious blind spot and the one area in which he has repeatedly refused to learn from failure: his incessant sacking of capable managers in pursuit of further improvement and his inability to see that the instability that he thus creates is what is preventing that further improvement.

Not quite. He'd been director or Rangers for a few years.
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
25,914
16,413
This is a bit daft. In 2001, ENIC had only just taken over and Levy had zero experience of running a fooball club. Oh! He made a mistake. Or even three. What a surprise.

By 2003/04, he had worked out that the way of doing things that had failed through the '90s was also going to fail in the '00s. So he changed the club's entire approach to squad-building and its managerial structure. How is this bad? It's called learning, adjusting and having the sense to abandon unsuccessful systems. Otherwise known as good management.

And the result was that we were back in Europe within 2 years.
Incorrect David. He was formerly a director at Rangers. If we had won the FA cup in his first season and then gone on to win Blackburn then he would have got credit for it.
As I've said on many occasions if he can credit he can get blame too. That seems fair enough to me, does that seem fair to you David?
 

UbeAstard

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2005
3,354
2,413
If Mr Levy's attention ever gets drawn to this area of the forum, please accept my thanks as I have long believed your tenancy has bought much more plusses than minusses.

Thanks
 
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Moorechild

Active Member
Apr 13, 2006
272
119
Thanks for the article. Very interesting from someone with your perspective. be interested to hear your views on banking and the future of Britains clone high streets as well.
 

Gaz_Gammon

Well-Known Member
Apr 16, 2005
16,047
18,013
A poor decision maker when it comes to hring and firing on managers Levy and ENIC' slegacy will be a bew stadium and running a succcessful PL side. Once the stadium is built and up and running ENIC will sell.

That is not being a negative regarding ENIC just a point where the retun in investment will be at it's highest given the limited funding of the first team. The increase in capacity and revenue from the new stadium will not mean that the additional money generated will end up on the pitch IMO.
 

guate

Well-Known Member
May 12, 2005
3,270
1,486
Excellent read "Minesadouble" and I, along with many of us I'm quite sure, are grateful for the time and research that went into your well thought out article.
Hopefully another club, a la Citeh, doesn't turn up in the near future to cause us even more delay with our plans for the future.
(Yes I'm aware that Fair play has come into force but when has that ever stopped an extremely powerful and wealthy businessman from doing what they wish)
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
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16,413
Continuing on from my previous posts, after the Santini saga, Jol was appointed and by his own admittance, we were playing the kind of football that Levy wanted to see. The season he took over we finished 9th, two points away European qualification. Then the following season we finished 5th, just missing out on the champions league.
Our best finish in the premier league EVER.

So it is somewhat strange that in the next season Jol was expected to get champions league football.

But Jol insists he was under too much pressure to break into the big four on a limited budget.

He said: “At that time, Liverpool were still in the top four and you had Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea.



“So to tell me that we had to be in the top four was a bit too much for us.

“We had different players with Pascal Chimbonda, Erik Edman and Stephen Kelly and that is different to what they have now.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/250817/Martin-Jol-I-paid-for-Tottenham-top-four-failure

We got 5th again and in the summer we tapped up Ramos and got caught doing it. With Levy claiming that it was because Jol went for an interview at Newcastle.

to be continued..
 

Lilbaz

Just call me Baz
Apr 1, 2005
41,363
74,893
Seriously Mullers. Don't try and highjack someone else's thread that they took time to research and write. Do your own.
You sound like that annoying bloke down the pub. When anyone tells a story he's done it bigger and better. Everyone nods and smiles and thinks what a wanker.
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
25,914
16,413
Seriously Mullers. Don't try and highjack someone else's thread that they took time to research and write. Do your own.
You sound like that annoying bloke down the pub. When anyone tells a story he's done it bigger and better. Everyone nods and smiles and thinks what a wanker.
So what you are saying is I should not point out Levy's mistakes in this thread even though the title is
THE LEVY YEARS – TAKING US FORWARD OR HOLDING US BACK?
Which is asking a question, giving a choice to a viewer.
Topic starter didn't say I only want to see views from people who will blow smoke up Levy's arse.

Why don't you, start your own thread about Levy where only positive views are allowed and I won't post in it, if it is burning your eyes so much that I am pointing out Levy's mistakes?
 

Lilbaz

Just call me Baz
Apr 1, 2005
41,363
74,893
So what you are saying is I should not point out Levy's mistakes in this thread even though the title is
THE LEVY YEARS – TAKING US FORWARD OR HOLDING US BACK?
Which is asking a question, giving a choice to a viewer.
Topic starter didn't say I only want to see views from people who will blow smoke up Levy's arse.

Why don't you, start your own thread about Levy where only positive views are allowed and I won't post in it, if it is burning your eyes so much that I am pointing out Levy's mistakes?

I'm saying discuss his post and the points he made in it. Agree or disagree that's fine. But if you want to start writing your own blog about every mistake Levy (perceived or real) has made over the years, this isn't the place for it.
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
25,914
16,413
I'm saying discuss his post and the points he made in it. Agree or disagree that's fine. But if you want to start writing your own blog about every mistake Levy (perceived or real) has made over the years, this isn't the place for it.
Well yes it is the place for it.
I think the poster skated over Levy's mistakes and I am expanding on it, I don't want to write a couple of lines about Levy's mistakes and I'm not writing a blog. By all means be as pro Levy as you want, but don't try and stop me from giving my opinions on a topic which is asking a question of the viewer and is not saying only positive views are allowed.

Like I said if you don't like it, go and start your own Levy appreciation thread.
 

db1

Well-Known Member
Jul 29, 2004
1,119
697
The only failure of Levy you're mentioning though is firing managers. We get it. Nearly every club in the world seems to turn managers over quickly though, it's not unique to Levy. I think the Jol one was a big mistake but most of the others were justified.
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
25,914
16,413
The only failure of Levy you're mentioning though is firing managers. We get it. Nearly every club in the world seems to turn managers over quickly though, it's not unique to Levy. I think the Jol one was a big mistake but most of the others were justified.
And the hiring of them.
With Levy it's always 'he made a mistake, ohh everyone makes mistakes, hindsight is a wonderful thing' etc etc. But nobody affords coaches and players the same kind of luxury, weird that.
Hossam Ghaly throws his shirt down, he makes one mistake in anger and he is hounded out of the club. There is no, he made a mistake, ahh lets forgive him, we're all human, we all make mistakes.
It's how dare you throw the shirt down, get the fuck out of the club and don't come back.

That doesn't seem fair to me.
 
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