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Daniel Levy - Former Chairman

Yes, the press coverage seems overly critical of his achievements as chairman. His job is to ensure long-term financial stability and delegate the football to the manager. They obviously don't remember Sugar or Scholar.

I really agree. In an attempt to seem balanced most journos seem to have gone with ‘good off field, bad on field’ which is clearly not the picture at all.

I’m waiting for a good one to write the perspective of explaining why there is absolutely no reason that we shouldn’t be Everton. Or Villa with their relegation and now PSR issues. Or Saudi Sportswashing Machine with their relegations prior to Saudi money.

The reason is Levy. The reason we even have the expectations that we should have won more in the first place is Levy. Consistent performance and European football while building a world class stadium and training ground, having taken over a bottom half club going absolutely nowhere prior to his arrival.

Someone needs to write that perspective because it’s the least he deserves. What’s being written now is a profile of the caricature people think they know.
 
I really agree. In an attempt to seem balanced most journos seem to have gone with ‘good off field, bad on field’ which is clearly not the picture at all.

I’m waiting for a good one to write the perspective of explaining why there is absolutely no reason that we shouldn’t be Everton. Or Villa with their relegation and now PSR issues. Or Saudi Sportswashing Machine with their relegations prior to Saudi money.

The reason is Levy. The reason we even have the expectations that we should have won more in the first place is Levy. Consistent performance and European football while building a world class stadium and training ground, having taken over a bottom half club going absolutely nowhere prior to his arrival.

Someone needs to write that perspective because it’s the least he deserves. What’s being written now is a profile of the caricature people think they know.
Absolutely. Many such examples around Europe too imo.

The comparison is almost always to how it could have been better on the pitch with no reflection on how it actually could have been much worse.
 
I really agree. In an attempt to seem balanced most journos seem to have gone with ‘good off field, bad on field’ which is clearly not the picture at all.

I’m waiting for a good one to write the perspective of explaining why there is absolutely no reason that we shouldn’t be Everton. Or Villa with their relegation and now PSR issues. Or Saudi Sportswashing Machine with their relegations prior to Saudi money.

The reason is Levy. The reason we even have the expectations that we should have won more in the first place is Levy. Consistent performance and European football while building a world class stadium and training ground, having taken over a bottom half club going absolutely nowhere prior to his arrival.

Someone needs to write that perspective because it’s the least he deserves. What’s being written now is a profile of the caricature people think they know.

History will probably correct itself over time.

What's funny is Levy leaving puts him in a no lose position re history, the infrastructure and rise of the club is under his reign, he leaves the club in CL having won a European trophy in his last season with one of the club's better transfer windows, promising manager in charge.

If the club pushes on, he built the foundation, if the Lewis family puts in money, it will show what could have been done years ago, if the club doesn't push on, then he looks even better ..
 
Competed? Yay, maybe we should build a statue for anyone who's at the club for 'competing'.
How many should we build for the likes of Pleat, Jol, Poch, Redknapp for 'competing'?

"The most Semi-finals, you'll never sing that!"

Competed was a barometer used by the person I was originally replying to.

Try to use context before tossing yourself off

Edit: I just checked back and it was actually you that brought up that we should have “Competed” more… hilarious.
 
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History will probably correct itself over time.

History will correct itself when my beloved Spurs win the FA Cup again. And again. I know there are plenty who think it's an irrelevance in the days of the CL, but for me it embodies Glory-Glory Tottenham Hotspur. We won't win the League, but for an oldie like me, an FA Cup would do fine...
 
Ultimately I think Levy was a victim of three things:

A) many people somehow not understanding that building a £1bn stadium means you have less money to spend on players.

B) many people ignoring the fact that since we’ve built the stadium, we’ve spent a LOT of money on players.

C) his own success - being compared to the ‘big five’ just because we managed to get closer to them under his reign than any other club has come close to. We’ve had more success on the pitch than every single one of those other clubs, which is who we should be compared to.
When you consider A and C went hand in hand, the club were obviously doing alot of things right, and not just on the business side.
 
Yes, the press coverage seems overly critical of his achievements as chairman. His job is to ensure long-term financial stability and delegate the football to the manager. They obviously don't remember Sugar or Scholar.

If you knew journalist you would understand most have no regard for other people's money, or how to manage a business, they only like to be associated with success.
 
Our performance (average position) is the best in the club's history, our cup runs are also right up there, and our trophy haul while admittedly short is not hugely off the club average, all done while building a structure to secure our future and competing with the Chelsea & City's (something no previous club leadership had to deal with).

I'm a bit amazed by the PR/messaging coming out that the "Lewis family" was not happy with on pitch results, literally wtf? they/he was the one handicapping Levy all these years, while Levy became their fall guy.

To me, if they decided to change direction (actually invest) and felt someone else was needed, that's a decision but the messaging is way off point. I hope they understand how much flack Levy took for their failing as ownership.

I posted earlier, we don't know that Lewis and family were holding Levy back. It could have been the converse. In fact it is more likely. Levy without his own resources to invest, couldn't recomend that the shareholders invest £XXXm as it would mess with his shareholding. No doubt Lewis respected the sustainable way Spurs was run (as everyone did) and didn't mind not having to invest. The con of PL Football club ownership is no one makes money. I've posted previously about when the bubble bursts with US owners, salary caps, or when clubs are able to stream games directly paid for by fans - as being potential watershed moments that could change things.
 
When the news broke yesterday I said to Mr GL “ I can’t believe what’s just happened, Daniel Levy has stepped down” and he said “you must be happy”.
Me :?????
He said “ I thought all Spurs fans hated Levy”.
Which actually made me quite ashamed for not even knowing that he thought that and for the impression given to fans of other clubs. I still don’t believe there is anything other than a minority of fans (not necessarily an insignificant minority, but a minority all the same) who feel that way but it’s the voices of outrage that get the most media coverage.
I now have a West Ham fan spreading the word that not everyone is happy with the latest developments!
 
From the Guardian article, Pleat has said it , Redknapp has said but according to so many Levy haters he was always interfering.

Importantly, I have never known Daniel interfere with the business of the manager. I worked there as the director of football, had two spells as caretaker manager and spent 14 years as a scouting consultant and never has he interfered with selection or tactics. I’ve had chairmen who would ask: ‘Why is so-and-so not playing this week?’ But Daniel was never like that.
 
Appreciate your ability to see different perspectives and nuance.

I just hope the change will be the positive you and others have hoped for. I've long been very much open to a change of chairman, but unsure if a change would be for the better or worse (or mostly similar).

As with players and managers improving on someone is always a good idea. I look around at how different clubs are run and I don't see the average being better than what Levy has done. A change could be good, could be brick.

I think we’ll be ok. Change is always a bit nerve racking but as Frank says ‘if you don’t take risks, you take a risk’ and I think its important that we continue to try and push on.

Levy has given us an amazing platform to push on from here with. Oodles of PSR headroom, and so much space to work with in terms of wages to turnover. If they do want to sell, it’s really prime for someone to come in and pour fuel on the fire of our potential, and that’s all thanks to him.

If we end up getting new owners, I definitely hope they are more FSG than Gillet, but I’m willing to take the risk personally. Under Levy I think we would have needed to be extremely lucky to win the league. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but it would have been really tough, and very difficult for us to be consistent title challengers. I’m willing to spin the wheel a little bit to get there, especially considering we have the infrastructure of a super club, and should be more likely to be able to sustain whatever push we end up making, even if we have some false starts. And that’s all credit to Daniel.
 
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