Daniel Levy - Chairman

[Robbo]

When Levy took over as Spurs chairman we were a mostly irrelevant mid table PL club with the occational good player who was often poached by better teams. We had gone through 11 managers the past ten years, caretakers included. We had qualified for Europe twice in that period, three times if you count the Intertoto cup.

We had a decent training ground and an old 36.000 seater stadium that we all loved, but which was ragged and worn. We had history and a reputation for playing good football, but not much to show for in the modern age.

...fast forward 18 years:

For the past 4 seasons we've been one of the top 2-3 PL clubs, finishing 3rd, 2nd, 3rd and 4th - the first time since the early 60s that we've managed three consecutive top 3 finishes. We have qualified for Europe ten consecutive seasons, the last four in the CL, and we just played in the CL final.

Today we have a 61.000 seater stadium considered the best in the world. We have a world class training facility. We have a squad full of good players, some of them world class or close to it. And now we have a manager considered by many to be one of the very best in the world, a proven winner with 25 trophies to his name - only six managers have more.

The one constant in the daily running of the club during all those years has been Daniel Levy. His leadership - not flawless by any means - and his vision has made Spurs into the club it is today. He has built the club brick by brick, he has worked tirelessly and ruthlessly with only the club's best interest at heart for two decades, and look where we are now compared to where we were when he became chairman. All of this without the help of financial doping or without putting the club into massive debt.

Like or dislike his methods, but Levy has made this club what it is today.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

what I mean is, our squad is so superior to most of the others in the PL that even a dodgy goal or two against us shouldn’t matter

Agree
But the “dodgy” goal getting cancelled out can change a game

 

[Baleforce]

Agree
But the “dodgy” goal getting cancelled out can change a game

only if you mentally fold, strong teams make their talent decisive

 

[glasgowspur]

only if you mentally fold, strong teams make their talent decisive

Too true, and this group have proved time and again they aren't mentally strong.
From the 5-1 capitulation against Saudi Sportswashing Machine to the debacle of this season its been there.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Too true, and this group have proved time and again they aren't mentally strong.
From the 5-1 capitulation against Saudi Sportswashing Machine to the debacle of this season its been there.

Or the comeback vs Ajax as a flip side to that
And coming back away at Emirates Marketing Project

 

[parklane1]

It amazes me that while we have been doing well over the last 5 years the Levy haters have hidden away, first sign of trouble and they come out from their hiding places and start on him again.

I wonder if these two idiots will appear again.

 

[Bishop]

It amazes me that while we have been doing well over the last 5 years the Levy haters have hidden away, first sign of trouble and they come out from their hiding places and start on him again.

I wonder if these two idiots will appear again.

If the balance for you between his negatives and positives is fine and you only see the sun shining from his bottom then fair enough.

There are those of us who think the positives that levy provides in terms of infrastructure are undone by his actions with regards the football side. So without being repetitive that is my stance and has been my stance since the days of Redknapp.

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[glasgowspur]

Or the comeback vs Ajax as a flip side to that
And coming back away at Emirates Marketing Project

Still never won anything though

 

[Raziel]

If the balance for you between his negatives and positives is fine and you only see the sun shining from his bottom then fair enough.

There are those of us who think the positives that levy provides in terms of infrastructure are undone by his actions with regards the football side. So without being repetitive that is my stance and has been my stance since the days of Redknapp.

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No one says Levy is perfect, but he's so much better than pretty much any other chairman it's quite hard to deny

And if being undone on the football side is 19 years of progression with almost continuous improvement, what is your expectation?
- We went from outside top 10 -> top 10 -> invented top 6 -> top 4
- No Europe -> 13+ seasons in Europe with 5 in CL
- Managers went from Jol -> Harry -> AVB -> Poch -> Jose, can't say how Jose will turn out but that on paper is almost a linear improvement.

Your opinion without any internal knowledge of the club is Levy should have spent more money and backed certain managers

Levy's actions indicate that he either didn't believe that was an appropriate risk at the time and/or didn't trust that particular manager with the funds

 

[StephenH]

Or the comeback vs Ajax as a flip side to that
And coming back away at Emirates Marketing Project

Still never won anything though

Brilliant memories, I agree!
But we need more than VAR and luck!
We have to start getting back to giving regular winning performance.
Mourinho is here now and I hope he does a good job ‘for my club’.

 

[Bishop]

No one says Levy is perfect, but he's so much better than pretty much any other chairman it's quite hard to deny

And if being undone on the football side is 19 years of progression with almost continuous improvement, what is your expectation?
- We went from outside top 10 -> top 10 -> invented top 6 -> top 4
- No Europe -> 13+ seasons in Europe with 5 in CL
- Managers went from Jol -> Harry -> AVB -> Poch -> Jose, can't say how Jose will turn out but that on paper is almost a linear improvement.

Your opinion without any internal knowledge of the club is Levy should have spent more money and backed certain managers

Levy's actions indicate that he either didn't believe that was an appropriate risk at the time and/or didn't trust that particular manager with the funds

And that is why we haven't won anything when we have been at our closest points. If he isn't willing to take those risks and gamble's he can't then sack the managers for failing to achieve his overly ambitious targets.

You don't find it coincidental that each spurs coach/manager always tails off in a similar way. There is a moment where we can hit the next plateau but Levy has the handbrake on so it doesn't happen. 6 to 12 months later the same manager then gets the can. It's a repeating pattern.

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[Raziel]

And that is why we haven't won anything when we have been at our closest points. If he isn't willing to take those risks and gamble's he can't then sack the managers for failing to achieve his overly ambitious targets.

You don't find it coincidental that each spurs coach/manager always tails off in a similar way. There is a moment where we can hit the next plateau but Levy has the handbrake on so it doesn't happen. 6 to 12 months later the same manager then gets the can. It's a repeating pattern.

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Disagree

- 17 QF or SF Cup Appearances, 4 runner up and 1 Cup

You think a team that made it to QF or better stage 22 fudging times and got 1 trophy is the fault of the chairman not backing the squad?

- I'm sorry mate, it's managers like Harry and Poch that needed to do better, convert at least one or two more of those.

Levy has not backed the manager with funds to truly go after the league (we should have bettered Leicester), but the cup return is not on him.

 

[glasgowspur]

No one says Levy is perfect, but he's so much better than pretty much any other chairman it's quite hard to deny

And if being undone on the football side is 19 years of progression with almost continuous improvement, what is your expectation?
- We went from outside top 10 -> top 10 -> invented top 6 -> top 4
- No Europe -> 13+ seasons in Europe with 5 in CL
- Managers went from Jol -> Harry -> AVB -> Poch -> Jose, can't say how Jose will turn out but that on paper is almost a linear improvement.

Your opinion without any internal knowledge of the club is Levy should have spent more money and backed certain managers

Levy's actions indicate that he either didn't believe that was an appropriate risk at the time and/or didn't trust that particular manager with the funds

I think he's drop one here tbh, not so much with the poch sacking but with Jose, but he's still the best chairman around.

He might make mistakes, who doesn't, but it never sets us back so far that we can't recover.

 

[glasgowspur]

Disagree

- 17 QF or SF Cup Appearances, 4 runner up and 1 Cup

You think a team that made it to QF or better stage 22 fudging times and got 1 trophy is the fault of the chairman not backing the squad?

- I'm sorry mate, it's managers like Harry and Poch that needed to do better, convert at least one or two more of those.

Levy has not backed the manager with funds to truly go after the league (we should have bettered Leicester), but the cup return is not on him.

Do you think he has sacrificed almost winning the top prizes with a poch like project to win a couple of the "lesser' cups with Jose?

Is he being a realist and saying long term we can't compete with the cash doped clubs?
Consolidate where we are and don't push on?

 

[Raziel]

Do you think he has sacrificed almost winning the top prizes with a poch like project to win a couple of the "lesser' cups with Jose?

Is he being a realist and saying long term we can't compete with the cash doped clubs?
Consolidate where we are and don't push on?

No, I don't think he is being a realist at all, Levy is (to me) a very odd combination of a brilliant financial person (I would pay money to spend time hearing his financial thinking), a visionary (DoF, training facilities, stadium, NFL, etc. he is miles ahead of his peers), long term thinker (it's 19 years now) and a crazy optimist (can you imagine buying Spurs, making the progress we have and being set back by cheaters like Chelsea and City and still sticking It out?)

I believe Levy has a plan to be on the same income footing as the top 3 clubs in the league (he needs the bigger stadium, better corporate facilities, NFL and non football events to get there. I suspect the naming rights deal will shock a lot of the establishment), once there we can truly play with somewhat close to an even playing field and with our generally better run club, academy, etc. it can tip things in our favor.

Poch was a good appointment at the time and like Harry, exceeded expectations for a long time. That period of uncertainty in the club (stadium build, away from home, unknown final cost) is gone.

Jose for me is Levy saying lets put a few short term targets on the table, win silverware (lesser cup or not), raise the PR of club a notch (the global coverage of Jose taking over has been insane) and most importantly get something to show out of this generation of the squad. If as everyone want to predict, Jose wins 2-3 cups and then fudges off, that's double the output of last twenty years done in 2, Levy will have made sure fiscally we are fine and the foundations to push on will still be there. Long term plan to be one of the PL elite (think United & Pool more than the others) remains.

Everyone is missing one other point, the main focus has been how it can go wrong with Jose, see point above and other posters "he wins two minor trophies and fudges off in year 3"

Considering how much Jol, Harry and Poch have overachieved compared to expectation, where is the conversation of "what happens if it goes right with Jose?" What happens if we get happy Jose, he gets us FA Cup and back in CL this season, is delighted that he gets to show the world his ability again and gives us a few truly spectacular years?

 

[Bishop]

Disagree

- 17 QF or SF Cup Appearances, 4 runner up and 1 Cup

You think a team that made it to QF or better stage 22 fudging times and got 1 trophy is the fault of the chairman not backing the squad?

- I'm sorry mate, it's managers like Harry and Poch that needed to do better, convert at least one or two more of those.

Levy has not backed the manager with funds to truly go after the league (we should have bettered Leicester), but the cup return is not on him.

I do think his lack of backing has played a part. None of those managers ever had the full toolset to go out and win, we always lacked a player of a certain type or had a surface level deep squad.

We've typically not had the squad to focus on multiple competitions and so the cups have often been sacrificed to achieve that top 4 place that keeps the manager in their job and that's my main issue with him. He hamstrings his staff but expects the world.

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[Raziel]

I do think his lack of backing has played a part. None of those managers ever had the full toolset to go out and win, we always lacked a player of a certain type or had a surface level deep squad.

We've typically not had the squad to focus on multiple competitions and so the cups have often been sacrificed to achieve that top 4 place that keeps the manager in their job and that's my main issue with him. He hamstrings his staff but expects the world.

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Mate, this is why this conversation doesn't go anywhere

- 22 shots from QF or better and you give the manager the excuse, a worse than 5% conversation rate but it's the squad?

Funny how the most pragmatic manager (Ramos) managed to buck that trend.

 

[Hootnow]

Mate, this is why this conversation doesn't go anywhere

- 22 shots from QF or better and you give the manager the excuse, a worse than 5% conversation rate but it's the squad?

Funny how the most pragmatic manager (Ramos) managed to buck that trend.

And then had the rug pulled out from under him with his entire strike force being sold and replaced by a kid on loan......

 

[glasgowspur]

No, I don't think he is being a realist at all, Levy is (to me) a very odd combination of a brilliant financial person (I would pay money to spend time hearing his financial thinking), a visionary (DoF, training facilities, stadium, NFL, etc. he is miles ahead of his peers), long term thinker (it's 19 years now) and a crazy optimist (can you imagine buying Spurs, making the progress we have and being set back by cheaters like Chelsea and City and still sticking It out?)

I believe Levy has a plan to be on the same income footing as the top 3 clubs in the league (he needs the bigger stadium, better corporate facilities, NFL and non football events to get there. I suspect the naming rights deal will shock a lot of the establishment), once there we can truly play with somewhat close to an even playing field and with our generally better run club, academy, etc. it can tip things in our favor.

Poch was a good appointment at the time and like Harry, exceeded expectations for a long time. That period of uncertainty in the club (stadium build, away from home, unknown final cost) is gone.

Jose for me is Levy saying lets put a few short term targets on the table, win silverware (lesser cup or not), raise the PR of club a notch (the global coverage of Jose taking over has been insane) and most importantly get something to show out of this generation of the squad. If as everyone want to predict, Jose wins 2-3 cups and then fudges off, that's double the output of last twenty years done in 2, Levy will have made sure fiscally we are fine and the foundations to push on will still be there. Long term plan to be one of the PL elite (think United & Pool more than the others) remains.

Everyone is missing one other point, the main focus has been how it can go wrong with Jose, see point above and other posters "he wins two minor trophies and fudges off in year 3"

Considering how much Jol, Harry and Poch have overachieved compared to expectation, where is the conversation of "what happens if it goes right with Jose?" What happens if we get happy Jose, he gets us FA Cup and back in CL this season, is delighted that he gets to show the world his ability again and gives us a few truly spectacular years?

Interesting take on it.
I definitely agree about Levy and his long term thinking.
Where he sees us positioned I'm not so sure about.

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

Paddy Power (always worth following for a laugh)
"Daniel Levy is ruthless

Ive spent longer than that trying to find a new Netflix show to watch"