The ousting of Daniel (COYS)

dontcallme said:

Which bit are you struggling with?

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your defence of Levy tbh

YB123 said:

your defence of Levy tbh

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I'm not defending Levy. I've had enough of him.

That doesn't mean I have to agree with every single attack on him.

YB123 said:

Masons wife has already had the kid?

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Not sure on the precise timing, but it was given as reason as to why he wasn’t given the job when Conte left by a number of journos.

Unless Levy has a Scrooge moment three nights in a row this week, it’s safe to say he won’t change. He won’t shoulder any blame that we know from the press releases we get and the talks
Like the one earlier this week.
His ego won’t let him leave the footballing side alone, so unless something radical happens, we will continue on this trajectory. Harry and Poch done wonders for us on limited control.
Chances are it will be the same for the next person in charge…..here is player X, bit of a bargain, make him fit. You want a classy defender? Noooo you don’t, have this prospect from Norwich, his ceiling on fifa is 85, we could save millions if we buy him now, but may have to wait 4 years to get the best out of him.
Hence we have a mish mash of players littering our squad and in loan from 4 eras or managers. We will never get a cohesive team with this behavior.

jurgen said:

Tbf someone literally said they’d rather Enic than Liverpool’s owners who’ve delivered trophies we could only dream about.

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They’ve won the league and CL, which we were runners- up in. Liverpool fans are moaning about their want-out owners just like you, this for instance:


Maybe you could offer a swap?

modern football is toxic all over, is the real point….

dontcallme said:

Yeah, as down as I am about Levy, I'm not sure there were any good, realistic options for us that would save this season.

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It would have taken a bit of forethought and creativity because we’d have had to bring in someone who didn’t have experience of working at the club, but it was possible for sure to come up with a better solution than the person who has literally enacted contes plans on the training pitch for 8 years +.
You can certainly understand why we were interested in tuchel as an available manager with perfect experience and flexibility to play formations that suited some of our players. Stellini would have been a placeholder for 2 games max if that had panned out as hoped.

My defense of Levy.

I get the 20 years without trophies argument. I also get that we were around 10th when he joined point of view.

My defense purely revolves around money .. which is important to a business ... a bit boring so just depends if you want to think about it.

Our owners are who they are, and we aren't going to go City or Chelsea levels of funding.

Levy in his role of Chairman should be judged by how he's done against competition of similar resources. I.e. there's no point in comparing the success of McDonald's vs your local chippy.

Liverpool , ManUtd and Arsenal had much larger income and therefore potential transfer spend. I think all agree that in this department he has done a good job of catching up.

Success wise , we flirted with Prem title and Champ league but ultimately failed. However, compared to competition ahead of us ... Man Utd and Arsenal .. we compare quite well ... ie all won little and similar league positions.

So.. imo to judge Levy is now we are closer financially because of his good work .. is he able to convince the stakeholders to spend that to achieve football success .

RUWatching said:

My defense of Levy.

I get the 20 years without trophies argument. I also get that we were around 10th when he joined point of view.

My defense purely revolves around money .. which is important to a business ... a bit boring so just depends if you want to think about it.

Our owners are who they are, and we aren't going to go City or Chelsea levels of funding.

Levy in his role of Chairman should be judged by how he's done against competition of similar resources. I.e. there's no point in comparing the success of McDonald's vs your local chippy.

Liverpool , ManUtd and Arsenal had much larger income and therefore potential transfer spend. I think all agree that in his department he has done a good job of catching up.

Success wise , we flirted with Prem title and Champ league but ultimately failed. However, compared to competition ahead of us ... Man Utd and Arsenal .. we compare quite well ... ie all won little and similar league positions.

So.. imo to judge Levy is now we are closer financially because of his good work .. is he able to convince the stakeholders to spend that to achieve football success .

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Good luck.

Levy's biggest fuck up is the state he's left this squad.

We have 5,6,7 players left from Pochs era, we have a dash of Mourinho, a few from Nuno and alot from Conte.

Thats 4 different managers and a massive mix of players.

Most annoyingly, the half arsed backing of Conte has left us only able to currently play a 3 at the back with wing back system, I know football manager fans and fifa fans will say we can play 4 at the back but our whole defense is set up for a 3 CB system. Romero, Dier, Lenglet, Sanchez, Tanganga, Davies, all work best in a 3.

Only 2 true fullbacks in Emerson and Davies, and however great defensively will offer nothing offensively in a back 4.

Perisic, Sess, Porro, all wing backs with very little defensively to play full back.

Midfielders all very samey, all bought to play in a 2 in a 3-4-3. Bentancur and Bissauma the only stand outs but we'd require atleast 1 or 2 creative midfielders to play 3 in midfield.

Attack is fairly solid but who knows if we'll lose Kane or Son in the summer?

Not to mention we need a top class GK aswell this summer.

Squads is an absolute fucking mess.

Duke of Northumberland said:

They’ve won the league and CL, which we were runners- up in. Liverpool fans are moaning about their want-out owners just like you, this for instance:

What next for FSG? Liverpool's owners losing trust

From smartest guys in the room to also-rans.

www.thisisanfield.com

Maybe you could offer a swap?

modern football is toxic all over, is the real point….

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The real shame is we were ahead of Liverpool 2017, then the famous summer 2018, then Liverpool were clear favorites for 2019, what could have been….

But this moronic idea comparing ‘moaning’ spurs fans who have won shit all for 23 years to Liverpool fans moaning, look if ENIC won us the league and CL then you have a point. But you want to belittle any angst ENIC cause so carry on…

SirNiNyHotspur said:

The real shame is we were ahead of Liverpool 2017, then the famous summer 2018, then Liverpool were clear favorites for 2019, what could have been….

But this moronic idea comparing ‘moaning’ spurs fans who have won shit all for 23 years to Liverpool fans moaning, look if ENIC won us the league and CL then you have a point. But you want to belittle any angst ENIC cause so carry on…

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I wouldn’t want to belittle your angst, mate, you carry on….

Nebby said:

That was never going to happen. I believe Mason is going on paternity leave any time now, and there’s no way Redknapp was going to be asked. I don‘t think he and Levy get on.

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Yea it was never going to happen but I'm saying it would've been one of many ideas which would've been better than keeping Stellini on in charge.

Here is another genius idea... how about perhaps we'd realised that Conte is very volatile, we'd not agreed an extension with him, he'd had personal issues this season and clearly wasn't enjoying managing us and Conte's tenures usually end in him going ballistic and he and the club cutting ties, maybe just maybe it would've been a good idea to have a contingency plan in place for this scenario happening...

Brighton lose Potter they immediately get De Zerbi, Arsenal lose out on Mudryk, they move straight onto Trossard, Conte blows his lid, Paratici's ban gets extended and we are 'surprised' are left twiddling our thumbs and have zero contingency plan whatsoever to react to this what were fairly likely outcomes.

RUWatching said:

My defense of Levy.

I get the 20 years without trophies argument. I also get that we were around 10th when he joined point of view.

My defense purely revolves around money .. which is important to a business ... a bit boring so just depends if you want to think about it.

Our owners are who they are, and we aren't going to go City or Chelsea levels of funding.

Levy in his role of Chairman should be judged by how he's done against competition of similar resources. I.e. there's no point in comparing the success of McDonald's vs your local chippy.

Liverpool , ManUtd and Arsenal had much larger income and therefore potential transfer spend. I think all agree that in his department he has done a good job of catching up.

Success wise , we flirted with Prem title and Champ league but ultimately failed. However, compared to competition ahead of us ... Man Utd and Arsenal .. we compare quite well ... ie all won little and similar league positions.

So.. imo to judge Levy is now we are closer financially because of his good work .. is he able to convince the stakeholders to spend that to achieve football success .

Click to expand...

All fair points, and we shouldn't underestimate the importance of how much ENIC/Levy have bridged the gap in turnover between ourselves and the teams above us in their time.

But no chairman gets to be judged on one factor alone. It's the running of the business as a whole that they get judged on.

Levy has failed to run the football side adequately to deliver trophies, something we've consistently done since the 1950s.

If Levy simply increased our turnover, make ENIC a bunch of cash and ran the club in a way where the football setup operated well on the given budget, I think most would be happy.

But as football fans, our focus is on the football. Something Levy is consistently bad at and appears too much of a control-freak to change. His recent interviews certainly show a delusion that he just doesn't get it and is too disconnected from the fans to ever understand.

dagraham said:

Of course the manager plays a huge role at a club, but Klopp was given the tools to succeed and left to get on with it.

If anyone believes that we would have hypothetically given our manager the same tools after bringing in approx £150m in sales then I think they are deluded. Even with the funds available we would never have sanctioned record deals for a keeper and CB. It’s simply not how we roll.

Anyway, moving on from the Klopp comparison, imo as important as the manager is the culture is set from the top and as Conte alluded to the culture of our club is not about winning on the pitch, but winning on the balance sheet. The players are too comfortable, because there is no pressure on them to win. When two serial winners in Jose and Conte find that to be the case and can’t change it people need to take note.

When we were building the stadium and after we moved in, I and others expressed concern that as amazing as it is, we need to have a team befitting of it, otherwise what is the point?

And so it has come to pass. We are now defined as a club by our stadium and facilities. Both from outsiders looking in and from within the club, from the board, to fans and players. Whether it’s existing players or new players coming in ( or managers) all they have to talk about is the stadium. Because really, there’s not a lot else of note to talk about.

I caught 5 mins of a preview of a Villa game on Sky/BT last week and they were interviewing a Villa player about their favourite stadium to play in. He immediately said The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Nothing unusual about that in itself, but it was what he specifically said that got my attention. He said “yeah, it’s really luxurious, they even have Molten Brown in the changing rooms/toilets”.

Some might say it’s an insignificant flippant comment, but to me it sums things up pretty well : we are more like a fucking hotel chain than a football club.

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This sounds good but does it really make sense?

How is the owner meant to put pressure on the players to win? What would constitute setting a culture from the top?

Levy doesn't have anything to do with the players or the training or the tactics. He can only provide the facilities and the management. Doesn't being aggressive in providing the best facilities and ruthless in the hiring and firing of (some of the best) managers create a culture of success and expectation that should permeate down to the players?

Isn't it more that he's made mistakes (primarily in appointing managers) rather than created a culture of failure? How does demanding we play every year in the biggest competition in the world cause the players to be comfortable and blase?

You could say that signing superstar players would improve the culture but then we have Harry Kane and Son and world cup winners and that doesn't do anything. We signed lots of players last summer (some with experience and agressive mentalities) that should have provided competition and put people under pressure but that didn't happen. What difference should it make whether we sign Richarliason or Darwin Nunes, people's places were still under threat. But they didn't respond - if anything they all got worse.

The more people tear into Levy, the more apparent it becomes to me that we, as fans, have a close (parasocial) relationship with the owners, whereas the players have a relationship with the manager. Since we only care about what happens on the pitch, it really matters most who influences and selects and coaches the players, and that's the manager. It really does all start with the manager.

Obviously it's down to Levy (most of the time) who we appoint but once someone has been appointed then it's up to them. They can inspire the team and the fans, they can prove that they are worth investing in. It's not within Levy's power or interests to sabotage a manager - maybe he can come up short at key moments - but he's not going to stop a manager from doing a good job.

The Athletic article isn't that good. It's an easy pile on after a shambolic performance. We actually haven't plumbed the depths (yet) of the type of oversight we're seeing from Levy. Certainly this season we are in a falsely high position relative to performances and that was always going to break down because the points tally relative to performance wasn't sustainable. And once the semblance of leadership Conte provided was gone, the void we have since then was unlikely to see an improvement.

As far as I can tell, only Levy allows campaigns to completely whither while he considers his options. In 2003, he had a caretaker manager from September until the end of the season! And the outcome of him needing that period to assess how to proceed was appointing Santini. He lasted 13 games. After Mourinho, he used the time and we ended up with the shitshow ahead of Nuno. For a guy that doesn't commit to a strategy that winning managers can provide, like Redknapp and Poch, he sure doesn't make contingency plans either.

So we don't need to hear from Levy what the football strategy is. We need him gone. He hasn't had a footballing strategy in 23 years and any boilerplate bullshit he describes now won't be informative. We keep hoping he'll turn the corner or that the penny will drop, but I think he's quite satisfied that his performance is totally fine and it's others or circumstances that are to blame. Levy doesn't have a coherent footballing vision or idea of who should be his advisors and what kind of football we should be playing. We bounce around among DoF's like we bounce around managers. Usually, with conflict between DoFs and managers and the board.

The hope ahead is that he stumbles on another Jol, Redknapp or Poch again to provide temporary relief. Because there is plenty more downwards trajectory to come from the current "leadership" we're seeing.

dontcallme said:

All fair points, and we shouldn't underestimate the importance of how much ENIC/Levy have bridged the gap in turnover between ourselves and the teams above us in their time.

But no chairman gets to be judged on one factor alone. It's the running of the business as a whole that they get judged on.

Levy has failed to run the football side adequately to deliver trophies, something we've consistently done since the 1950s.

If Levy simply increased our turnover, make ENIC a bunch of cash and ran the club in a way where the football setup operated well on the given budget, I think most would be happy.

But as football fans, our focus is on the football. Something Levy is consistently bad at and appears too much of a control-freak to change. His recent interviews certainly show a delusion that he just doesn't get it and is too disconnected from the fans to ever understand.

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As I said, for me it depends on what happens now that he has leveled the playing field a bit.

Also regarding success, would it be any different if Sissoko didn't give away the penalty or we piped Leciester to the title? If we won.or had thr chance to win. would that be Levys merit? or only in hindsight because we didnt?

Or even if we win a FA Cup a year but we still had 100million less each season to spend vs 6 or 7 other teams .. what does that mean exactly?

Stavrogin said:

This sounds good but does it really make sense?

How is the owner meant to put pressure on the players to win? What would constitute setting a culture from the top?

Levy doesn't have anything to do with the players or the training or the tactics. He can only provide the facilities and the management. Doesn't being aggressive in providing the best facilities and ruthless in the hiring and firing of (some of the best) managers create a culture of success and expectation that should permeate down to the players?

Isn't it more that he's made mistakes (primarily in appointing managers) rather than created a culture of failure? How does demanding we play every year in the biggest competition in the world cause the players to be comfortable and blase?

You could say that signing superstar players would improve the culture but then we have Harry Kane and Son and world cup winners and that doesn't do anything. We signed lots of players last summer (some with experience and agressive mentalities) that should have provided competition and put people under pressure but that didn't happen. What difference should it make whether we sign Richarliason or Darwin Nunes, people's places were still under threat. But they didn't respond - if anything they all got worse.

The more people tear into Levy, the more apparent it becomes to me that we, as fans, have a close (parasocial) relationship with the owners, whereas the players have a relationship with the manager. Since we only care about what happens on the pitch, it really matters most who influences and selects and coaches the players, and that's the manager. It really does all start with the manager.

Obviously it's down to Levy (most of the time) who we appoint but once someone has been appointed then it's up to them. They can inspire the team and the fans, they can prove that they are worth investing in. It's not within Levy's power or interests to sabotage a manager - maybe he can come up short at key moments - but he's not going to stop a manager from doing a good job.

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Levy hires the Manager.
Levy hires the Director of Football who in turn hire the scouts who in turn sign the players.
Levy sacks the managers.
Levy delays on shipping out players we need out to try and save some pennies here and there.
Levy meddles in the players we do sign leading to a squad being a mess and managers not properly being backed.
Levy sets out the overall plan for the football club.
Levy sets the culture of the club from the top, he sets the goals and ambitions and he signs off on player wages and contracts.

So indirectly Levy has EVERYTHING to do with the players and tactics and our results.

RUWatching said:

As I said, for me it depends on what happens now that he has leveled the playing field a bit.

Also regarding success, would it be any different if Sissoko didn't give away the penalty or we piped Leciester to the title? If we won.or had thr chance to win. would that be Levys merit? or only in hindsight because we didnt?

Or even if we win a FA Cup a year but we still had 100million less each season to spend vs 6 or 7 other teams .. what does that mean exactly?

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Our spending since the 2019/20 season has been high. In that time we've made poor managerial decisions, had a very high failure rate in the transfer market and are now looking a complete mess and having to hire yet another new head coach, DOF and other positions.

So I don't buy into the argument that ENIC needed the playing field levelled. If anything he did better on a small budget.

My view on how ENIC have run us wouldn't be any different if we'd had a singular big success in the 2 decades plus that they've run the club.

dontcallme said:

Our spending since the 2019/20 season has been high. In that time we've made poor managerial decisions, had a very high failure rate in the transfer market and are now looking a complete mess and having to hire yet another new head coach, DOF and other positions.

So I don't buy into the argument that ENIC needed the playing field levelled. If anything he did better on a small budget.

My view on how ENIC have run us wouldn't be any different if we'd had a singular big success in the 2 decades plus that they've run the club.

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I think your right it not all about spending money. It about fully backing the manager. Poch even alluded to that it was sometimes more about shifting players on/out

Look at Arsenal under Arteta, they written off alot of players and took hits because they didn't fit the culture they are building.

I'm a big big Levy fan. I started following Spurs properly around 1992 just before my teens and went through decades of pain. I was in college in Manchester during their treble, thinking that getting Sullivan, Perry and Thatcher from Wimbledon would solve our defensive woes. I learned to drive in Gateshead during Newcastle's title chasing seasons, having to grit my teeth at their success, and watching Postiga fail again and again.
I went through the pain of our home grown club captain stringing us along that he'll sign a new contract before signing on a free to our worst rivals - and then winning trophies with them.
While our rivals and every newby Bolton, Sunderland or Reading were moving into new stadiums, we were stuck in a lovely but ageing stadium with no prospect of upgrading.

Levy then single handedly dragged us up from the doldrums. With Hoddle's teams playing attacking football, Pleat and Arnesen signing young talented English players, exciting seat of the pants players, Spurs were on the up again. Jol accelerated that upwards climb, Danny Rose scoring on his debut against Arsenal - and then the pain of lasagnagate! But this was a new Spurs who dared to do, and despite ManCity's new millions, we beat them and made it to the promised land of the Champions League!

And, as if in a dream, a new training ground came along, the envy of all others, this was a club on the up!
A new stadium, revolutionary sliding pitch, a 17,500 single tier stand to rival any in the world - we were going places.

BUT, and this is a big BUT -

Levy hasn't realised his limits. He's a Curbishley, the Sam Allardyce, the Kevin Keegan. He's been a master of getting Spurs from the doldrums to rival the biggest and best. But he doesn't have the skills, the gumption, the panache to take us from good to great.
At the crucial points when we need to splash, he hesitates.
At the point when we need to stay true to who Spurs are, he gets scared and brings in safe hands.
At a time when decisive action is needed, he prevaricates.

Levy doesn't need to go. He's done enough that in time there should a statue to him. But he needs to step back and allow someone stronger, more daring, to take he lead!