Daniel Levy/Joe Lewis

mickman

Interesting article this morning where poch says "I am the head coach , not the manager. My role is different to Southampton'

Looks like Franco will be buying the players for some time yet

2nd Row Donkey

mickman wrote:

Interesting article this morning where poch says "I am the head coach , not the manager. My role is different to Southampton'

Fair enough. Sure the DOF role has worked a treat for us in the past and it's bound to be successful again.

Mayo Yid

2nd Row Donkey wrote: »

Fair enough. Sure the DOF role has worked a treat for us in the past and it's bound to be successful again.

I don't think Franco will be around long after getting that guy from Southampton

Dublin Spur

Levy rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic again

2nd Row Donkey

Dublin Spur wrote: »

Levy rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic again

Especially when he's holding up his own banner in that photo above. :D

Ormus

So some guy wrote on a tshirt with a marker and...... ?

From top 4 to two points off top 4 in 4 years. Give us back the club that you gave us in the first place. Hmm.

Yeah but surely you can't deny yesterday was our best performance of the season? Due to the fact we dumped a lot of the garbage Levy has signed off on over the last year or two.

Paulinho, Capoue and yes even Lamela can all fcuk off!! Chiriches, Soldado and Chadli haven't been bad. For me only Eriksen looks quality.

That's one out of seven. Not very good Daniel. If that was the record of one of your managers you'd have sacked him!

slegs

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah but surely you can't deny yesterday was our best performance of the season? Due to the fact we dumped a lot of the garbage Levy has signed off on over the last year or two.

Paulinho, Capoue and yes even Lamela can all fcuk off!! Chiriches, Soldado and Chadli haven't been bad. For me only Eriksen looks quality.

That's one out of seven. Not very good Daniel. If that was the record of one of your managers you'd have sacked him!

Capoue looked good when he came first. Wouldn't write him off yet.

Ormus

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah but surely you can't deny yesterday was our best performance of the season? Due to the fact we dumped a lot of the garbage Levy has signed off on over the last year or two.

Paulinho, Capoue and yes even Lamela can all fcuk off!! Chiriches, Soldado and Chadli haven't been bad. For me only Eriksen looks quality.

That's one out of seven. Not very good Daniel. If that was the record of one of your managers you'd have sacked him!

Definitely our best performance of the season. The difference in attitude of the players was amazing. I really think Lennon's running created a buzz. Kane and Eriksen were class too, and Vertonghen looked interested again.

Eriksen will be world class if he keeps up the work rate he put in yesterday.

I think Chiriches is awful. Lamela is just so brainless. If he learned to make better decisions he could be good.

Levy was lambasted for several years for not spending enough. Then he hired a man with an excellent reputation for talent spotting, gave him £100m and said go nuts. We were all delighted at the time and hugely supportive of the signings. And it all went pear shaped. Not Levy's fault. Everyone knows deep down that it's not his fault and he did nothing wrong. But there is nobody else to blame and we have to have someone to moan at. So we blame the chairman, because it's convenient.

Mayo Yid

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com/2014/12/1/7289881/what-went-wrong-at-tottenham-hotspur

Dublin Spur

He gets the blame because he is responsible for what happens at the club. He should also get the credit when good things happen. All roads lead to Levy.

He has the final say on every new signing, every new manager, every interm manager and every new director of football. Nothing happens without his approval. Every coach/manager/DOF that has worked for him has confirmed this.

If he just let the football people get on with their jobs and backed his managers in the transfer market with the players they wanted we would be a lot better off than where we are.

Finally - and this is a major point - Tottenham Hotspur has taken in more in player sales than it has spent on players in the past 5 seasons - that is criminal in my opinion - how are we ever going to compete with this approach ? Massive lack of ambition in my humble opinion.

Yesterday's great win has restored some confidence and I really hope we kick on now.
Loving the high tempo and the hunger of the home grown talent. Its great that something positive like this has happened after so many weeks and months of awful crap. Onwards and upwards please God.

Martin567

Mayo Yid wrote: »

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com/2014/12/1/7289881/what-went-wrong-at-tottenham-hotspur

That is a brilliantly written article. It sums up everything I feel about Daniel Levy's & ENIC's management of the club. The only quibble I have is that I think he was a little harsh on AVB.

I agree with every word written about Harry. It's a pleasure to read intelligent analysis of what actually happened instead of the simplistic nonsense pedaled by the UK media. It really bugs me every time I read some journalist criticising Levy for sacking Redknapp and trying to claim that it was a bizarre decision. It wasn't. Jol & AVB are the only two managers removed by Levy that I felt sympathy for.

Ormus

Dublin Spur wrote: »

He gets the blame because he is responsible for what happens at the club. He should also get the credit when good things happen. All roads lead to Levy.

He has the final say on every new signing, every new manager, every interm manager and every new director of football. Nothing happens without his approval. Every coach/manager/DOF that has worked for him has confirmed this.

If he just let the football people get on with their jobs and backed his managers in the transfer market with the players they wanted we would be a lot better off than where we are.

Finally - and this is a major point - Tottenham Hotspur has taken in more in player sales than it has spent on players in the past 5 seasons - that is criminal in my opinion - how are we ever going to compete with this approach ? Massive lack of ambition in my humble opinion.

Yesterday's great win has restored some confidence and I really hope we kick on now.
Loving the high tempo and the hunger of the home grown talent. Its great that something positive like this has happened after so many weeks and months of awful crap. Onwards and upwards please God.

I disagree. He shouldn't get credit for football matters. I know that the business matters of the club and the football matters are closely related. But at the end of the day all Levy can do is make sound business decisions and hope that the football experts he appoints do a good job.

So he shouldn't be blamed when a sound business decision doesn't translate to good football, and he shouldn't get credit when it does.

That last paragraph is the first positive thing I've ever seen you write. Keep it up!

Ormus

Mayo Yid wrote: »

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com/2014/12/1/7289881/what-went-wrong-at-tottenham-hotspur

Facts, truth, proper English, proper journalism.

All Spurs fans need to read this.

yiddo59

Ormus wrote: »

Facts, truth, proper English, proper journalism.

All Spurs fans need to read this.

Very good read. As I said before Levy's mistake was not getting rid of Harry it was replacing him with someone who wasn;t up to the job.

Dublin Spur

Ormus wrote: »

I disagree. He shouldn't get credit for football matters. I know that the business matters of the club and the football matters are closely related. But at the end of the day all Levy can do is make sound business decisions and hope that the football experts he appoints do a good job.

So he shouldn't be blamed when a sound business decision doesn't translate to good football, and he shouldn't get credit when it does.

That last paragraph is the first positive thing I've ever seen you write. Keep it up!

You cannot have a business or an organisation where nobody is accountable.
You seem to give Levy a free pass no matter how he performs - that's very odd to me.

He's paid very well (by himself ) to make all of the major decisions at the club, therefore when his decisions fail only he can be accountable and not the latest DOF/chief scout/Interm coach/manager/head coach. He always seems to pin the blame on someone else and shows them the door but Levy is the only common demoninator in all of this instability. He's driving this madness with his crazy hiring and firing poilcy - nobody else.

I'm sure he makes his decisions in good faith - but history tells us that his soultions rarely come off and its back to the drawing board every 18 months or so.

Then there's the lack of investment - say what you want about Alan Sugar (and I'm not suggesting he was a great chairman) but he did give his managers decent transfer budgets to attract decent talent to the club. On the other hand Levy/ENIC seem not to want to spend a penny more than they recoup from player sales. The figure is actually a negative in the past 5 years. This is criminal in my opinion and makes us look like a bit of a small time joke. Fine if you're Crystal Palace but we're Tottenham Hotspur.

Ormus

Dublin Spur wrote: »

You cannot have a business or an organisation where nobody is accountable.
You seem to give Levy a free pass no matter how he performs - that's very odd to me.

He's paid very well (by himself ) to make all of the major decisions at the club, therefore when his decisions fail only he can be accountable and not the latest DOF/chief scout/Interm coach/manager/head coach. He always seems to pin the blame on someone else and shows them the door but Levy is the only common demoninator in all of this instability. He's driving this madness with his crazy hiring and firing poilcy - nobody else.

I'm sure he makes his decisions in good faith - but history tells us that his soultions rarely come off and its back to the drawing board every 18 months or so.

Then there's the lack of investment - say what you want about Alan Sugar (and I'm not suggesting he was a great chairman) but he did give his managers decent transfer budgets to attract decent talent to the club. On the other hand Levy/ENIC seem not to want to spend a penny more than they recoup from player sales. The figure is actually a negative in the past 5 years. This is criminal in my opinion and makes us look like a bit of a small time joke. Fine if you're Crystal Palace but we're Tottenham Hotspur.

Levy is the chairman and as such is absolutely accountable for business decisions of the club. Thankfully, the club is run on a very sound financial footing.

I've asked you this before but which of the clubs managers wwere you critical of at the time of their appointment? Personally, I wasn't thrilled when we signed Harry and I turned out to be wrong. I was even less thrilled when we appointed Sherwood. I was right that time.

Which of our managers do you think shouldn't have been sacked? Personally I think they all deserved to go. Maybe AVB shoulda been given more time, but he wasn't sacked. The circumstances of his departure are unclear.

I can't believe you're saying investment under Sugar was better than under Levy? Are you mad? Ok so Sugar made the odd crazily exciting signing like Klinsmann, but in general Spurs had a pitiful squad under Sugar. A few marquee signings papering over a squad of championship players. Seriously do you not remember what we had to deal with? We were a laughing stock for years and years. Our 2nd choice 11 today would destroy our first 11 from back in the 90s. Stuart Nethercott, Justin Edinburgh, Dean Austin, Colin Calderwood, Steffen Freund, I could go on and on. I'm not sure those guys would even make it in the championship.

The reason we've broken even in the last few seasons is that we've received massive fees for a few players, and we've generally been able to get our money back even on players who haven't been successful. You know this.

Mayo Yid

Ormus wrote: »

I was even less thrilled when we appointed Sherwood. I was right that time.

Hmmm, Not so sure on that one. Tim had the right idea if he kept his mouth shut in the interviews he may have kept his job or even get another PL job. He foresaw that the answer was the youngsters in the academy with Kane, Bentaleb and Mason, with Lennon on the right, Eriksen coming in from the left, sound familiar?

I think he got shafted tbh

Dublin Spur

Hoddle was the only levy appointment that excited me

Levy has got every mgr / DOF / head coach wrong in my opinion

He's basically ****e at panning on the football side

ENIC's investment on the squad has been embarrassing in recent years- that's a fact

Dublin Spur

Mayo Yid wrote: »

Hmmm, Not so sure on that one. Tim had the right idea if he kept his mouth shut in the interviews he may have kept his job or even get another PL job. He foresaw that the answer was the youngsters in the academy with Kane, Bentaleb and Mason, with Lennon on the right, Eriksen coming in from the left, sound familiar?

I think he got shafted tbh

AnotherLevy scapegoat - the root of the problem remains at the club

Martin567

Dublin Spur wrote: »

You cannot have a business or an organisation where nobody is accountable.

You can't judge everything with the benefit of hindsight though.

Just because something works out well does not necessarily make it a good decision. It might have been a crazy gamble which paid off through blind luck. Alternatively, if something goes wrong that doesn't automatically mean it was a bad decision.

All anyone can ever do is make a decision based on the facts available to them at the time they have to make the decision. They have no hindsight to work with. Very few people complained about the appointment of Baldini or the transfers made in 2013 at the time they were being made.

Liverpool are having the same problems now that Spurs had last season. They had to sell their best player for a huge fee and replaced him with 7 or 8 players costing over £100m. Many people pointed out last summer that Liverpool were adopting the same strategy as Spurs. Those defending Liverpool, including Brendan Rodgers, claimed that Spurs had just splashed the money all over the place without any coherent plan. Liverpool, apparently, knew exactly what they were doing and only bought a particular type of player. I thought that was arrogant at the time and even more so now.

Spurs & Liverpool faced exactly the same problem in successive summers and there is no easy answer to it. If they didn't spend the Bale/Suarez proceeds in full they would be accused of lacking ambition. Signing multiple players all together clearly has it own difficulties. Signing two £50m players would have been impossible since those type of players (there aren't very many of them) would not sign for either Spurs or Liverpool given the greater money on offer elsewhere.

Martin567

Dublin Spur wrote: »

Hoddle was the only levy appointment that excited me

Levy has got every mgr / DOF / head coach wrong in my opinion

He's basically ****e at panning on the football side

ENIC's investment on the squad has been embarrassing in recent years- that's a fact

Hoddle turned out to be a disaster though!

In 13 years, you claim that Levy has got every managerial decision wrong and failed to make proper investment in the playing squad. Despite this, the performances on the field have improved massively in the last decade compared with the years before ENIC. Why do you think that is?

It is an unarguable fact that Spurs would have finished in the Top 4 many times in the last 10 years had it not been for the entry into the PL of two Sugar Daddies. Spurs were nowhere near Top 4 for the entirety of Alan Sugar's ownership.

Dublin Spur

Improved massively ?

1 trophy in 13yrs under ENIC - Sugar managed land 2 in 10 years

Our Average league position has been better overall but we also did Flirt with relegation between 03 & 05

ENIC has presided over one of the longest barron trophy runs in the club's history - why should we be happy ?

But hey, at least we didn't do a Leeds !

Dublin Spur

Martin567 wrote: »

You can't judge everything with the benefit of hindsight though.

Just because something works out well does not necessarily make it a good decision. It might have been a crazy gamble which paid off through blind luck. Alternatively, if something goes wrong that doesn't automatically mean it was a bad decision.

Good and Bad luck balances out over time. I would suggest that nearly 14 years is ample time to arrive at an accurate conclusion on the man's decision making abilities

on the football side these calls have been pretty crap
on the business side he has done a bit better

DubPerryman

Dublin Spur wrote: »

ENIC's investment on the squad has been embarrassing in recent years- that's a fact

In fairness we had a very strict salary cap for most of the late 90s and early 00s. I remember we missed out on player after player (Damo Duff off the top of my head) due to the cap.

Under Harry ENIC invested, broke the salary cap and offered Champions League standard wages. It worked, for one season. We reached the holy grail. Though, we failed to make it there the next season - leaving us in a financial uncertainty, with over-inflated salary expenditure. Since then spending on players has been reigned-in as the board try to get a handle on salary expenditure.

I bet that if we made the Top 4 this season, you'd see a lot of money spent next summer.

I know what you're going to say, 'how can we get Top 4 without spending?'.... and you're right. Though gambling the finances of the club is not the answer (ref. Leeds United.)

Dublin Spur

DubPerryman wrote: »

In fairness we had a very strict salary cap for most of the late 90s and early 00s. I remember we missed out on player after player (Damo Duff off the top of my head) due to the cap.

Under Harry ENIC invested, broke the salary cap and offered Champions League standard wages. It worked, for one season. We reached the holy grail. Though, we failed to make it there the next season - leaving us in a financial uncertainty, with over-inflated salary expenditure. Since then spending on players has been reigned-in as the board try to get a handle on salary expenditure.

I bet that if we made the Top 4 this season, you'd see a lot of money spent next summer.

I know what you're going to say, 'how can we get Top 4 without spending?'.... and you're right. Though gambling the finances of the club is not the answer (ref. Leeds United.)

ENIC's lack of investment when we got CL football was shocking.

I also think there's a massive middle ground between our current spending policy and gambling the whole club like what Leeds (Ridsale) did.

ENIC are just not ambitious in the transfer market
They've made a profit in the past 5 years on transfer dealings
Its hard to take

Martin567

Dublin Spur wrote: »

Improved massively ?

1 trophy in 13yrs under ENIC - Sugar managed land 2 in 10 years

Our Average league position has been better overall but we also did Flirt with relegation between 03 & 05

ENIC has presided over one of the longest barron trophy runs in the club's history - why should we be happy ?

But hey, at least we didn't do a Leeds !

In fairness, if you can't accept the bit in bold is true then there really is no talking to you. You're obviously quite prepared to argue that black is white.

Have a read of that article a bit earlier in the thread. As the author says, last season was disastrous, everything went wrong & Spurs still finished 6th! Under Sugar, the best ever finish was 7th and they only managed that once.

Martin567

Dublin Spur wrote: »

Good and Bad luck balances out over time. I would suggest that nearly 14 years is ample time to arrive at an accurate conclusion on the man's decision making abilities

14 years is without doubt ample time. That's why I always try to look at their record as a whole rather than have a knee jerk reaction to every individual decision.

I don't agree with everything ENIC has done, far from it. But the reality is that the club is so much healthier now, on every level, than it was when they took over. Business wise, football wise, there really is no comparison and I respect what they've done for that reason.

irishmover

Martin567 wrote: »

In fairness, if you can't accept the bit in bold is true then there really is no talking to you. You're obviously quite prepared to argue that black is white.

Have a read of that article a bit earlier in the thread. As the author says, last season was disastrous, everything went wrong & Spurs still finished 6th! Under Sugar, the best ever finish was 7th and they only managed that once.

The problem for most Spurs fans is that we've seen what it was like to get CL football. Now some people just can't get passed it. It's demanded every season now. Seen as a failure from the owners if it's not achieved.

The other problem is, the owners demand it too. See the manager as a failure if not achieved.

This in a nutshell shows just how far the club has come. To have a bunch of fans angry that we're not playing CL football. We've got incredible competition for a top 4 spot, and when we do make top 4 we've seen it not to be guaranteed. There's been some bad player decisions and some good throughout the fourteen years. Same can be said for clubs like Man United.

The bewilderment from some supports is just as valid as the other supporters though. When you flirt with CL, and your owners sack managers for not achieving that then its only natural to get angry for not achieving it and pointing the finger.

I think that Daniel Levy is trying to get the club back into the CL and the people around him who are supposed to be the football brains are not shifting us in the correct direction.

It's time for Baldini to go as his position is useless now that we have Paul Mitchell. Give this young man a shot, some money and see how himself and Poch do. I think it's an interesting partnership, minus Baldini.

Dublin Spur

Martin567 wrote: »

14 years is without doubt ample time. That's why I always try to look at their record as a whole rather than have a knee jerk reaction to every individual decision.

I don't agree with everything ENIC has done, far from it. But the reality is that the club is so much healthier now, on every level, than it was when they took over. Business wise, football wise, there really is no comparison and I respect what they've done for that reason.

are you sure about that?, have you considered our trophy wins in this period ?
we're in the middle of our worst trophy run since WWII

we simply don't challenge for silverware anymore - this is not what THFC is about in my opinion