-
Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara
Daniel Levy - Former Chairman
- Thread starter Howard Webb
- Start date
Baleforce
Joe Kinnear
At this rate we’ll be in administration by Christmas and he’ll be fully vindicated.
parklane1
Teddy Sheringham
Haters have to hate.
Gazza Dazzla
Les Ferdinand
The irony being it’s his stewardship that has enabled this spending without the same issues Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Forest, etc. are facing now. Let’s also not pretend these funds were always available to him either.
Won’t hold my breath that it gets acknowledged though..
Won’t hold my breath that it gets acknowledged though..
BrentwoodSpur
Mauricio Taricco
Simon Jordan is absolutely imploding. I love it
DeanoAustin
Jack Jull
100% right. It was Levy's vision which has landed us in a place where we can spend money. He did a tremendous job getting us to this place but seemed like he'd taken us as far as he could. Still doesn't take away from what he delivered for the club.
This doesn't have to be a Levy bad/Nepos good equation. Levy did a magnificent job creating the conditions for us to act like a really big club. To be fair to the Lewis kids, they're starting to do a good job of realising that potential.
Bishop
Paul Walsh
Funds were available to him, he chose how to to use them. It's not a binary decision. It was not spend the way Levy did or spend the way we are now, there was a middle ground and maybe, just maybe if we had spent better and earlier we would have never needed to almost get relegated to have to then try and fix things in such a dramatic and some might even say desperate manner.
Bishop
Paul Walsh
It was also Levy decisions that landed in a 17th place that required this massive spend to over correct things. If we did it right in the first place we wouldn't need to be doing what we are now.
parklane1
Teddy Sheringham
Never going to happen, Levy has made mistakes [ just like everyone on here has] but there are some who will never get past their dislike of him. Sad really.
DeanoAustin
Jack Jull
He certainly contributed to both 17th placed finishes albeit I'd argue there were far more guilty parties than him for last season's fiasco.
Without Levy's vision, we may have never been in a position to compete like a big club in the market. And that is something we'd have needed to do at some point no matter what other decisions were made in 2020-2025.
MartyFunkhouser
Vic Buckingham
People will find ways not to acknowledge that though. He gave the famous speech that time about future proofing the club, he was right and its proof today that his work is benefiting the clubs ability to spend, that can't be denied.
If we were in a 34,000 seater stadium still with the same commercial backdrop there is no way we would be able to have a summer like that.
His time came, rightfully his time was done, but he done some great work amongst the bad
SissokoWasGood (BoL)
John Lacy
It will always fascinate me to some degree that Levy couldn’t be the guy to actually take advantage of the situation he created for us.
He had the foresight to say that we can’t do a Leeds, and the only way we can spend like a top club sustainably is if we increase our revenues. And so he led us through a massively complex stadium build, and kept us on the same site no less. Unbelievable achievement. And I think only someone of his intellect, foresight and his standards could have driven that project.
But once we had the stadium and the revenues increased, we didn’t start acting like a big club truly until he was on the way out. And really started this summer. Why did it take 7 years? I think a big part of it will have been that whoever on the Lewis side didn’t want to authorise the level of spending, and so Levy had to continue to make do. But I also think Levy got too entrenched in his old playbook, and couldn’t get out of it when it came to player trading and football strategy to really be the one to take advantage.
I would love to know the reasoning as to why the Nepos have a different view on things seemingly to their dad. Because in some ways maybe we’ve ended up in the best possible owner situation - devil you know owners that are willing to invest and have been rooted in the club and the area for a long time. But why the change on their side? Is it the realisation that if we didn’t start spending we would fall further behind? Is it that other clubs started to and we needed to catch up? Or is there a new calculus in how clubs are valued, and the knowledge is that only on field success consistently can boost our valuation from this point onwards? I’m fascinated as to how much they’re willing to invest now and how much valuation growth they expect.
And if they genuinely don’t expect to sell, why not? What’s the end game? Do they genuinely just love it? How long will they be willing to spend? What will happen at the end of this cycle where the Tonali’s and JPVH’s start ageing out of their prime? Can they finance another rebuild again?
DeanoAustin
Jack Jull
It's a really interesting question. And it's very hard to know. The two extremes are that Levy wasn't given the latitude by ENIC to spend big money or that he just didn't know how to take the next step.
Personally, while I do think ENIC/Joe Lewis ran a tight ship and probably weren't minded to spend big, Levy must have been part of the reason for that. As a 30% owner and the fella doing the running of the club, he must have had a say in strategy.
However, everything I've seen of Levy suggests to me that he is fiscally very cautious. That's not a criticism, just an observation. He never pushed the boat out and never took risks at critical times (the Harry season, Poch's summers of no signings, Mourinho, Conte etc.). He tied players to contracts that were heavily incentivised - your perform, you get paid well. He ensured our wages to turnover ratio was always the lowest in the league. All good business decisions but in an environment where clubs will do anything for an edge, you can't compete for top players with "pay for performance" contracts or a low wages to turnover ratio. Great businessman but I'm not sure he ever really got competitive sport.
As for the change in approach? Who knows. Maybe the Lewis kids want to compete? Maybe they think success will boost the value of the club?
Levy is a fascinating and polarising figure in our club's history. His legacy is complicated and I get the arguments against him. For me, I thought he was brilliant on all fronts for 20 years and, as a businessman and visionary, he was very good for this club. Those of us that feel that way will probably always feel gratitude for the work that he did.
Jurgen the German
George Hunt
Where I land on Daniel Levy is that he has been excellent at modernising the club from a commercial perspective and maximising our revenue streams. Although, the failure to secure a stadium naming rights deal has ultimately left the club at a financial disadvantage and represents a significant missed opportunity.
It's on the football side where he's really fallen short. He's hired the wrong managers, sacked them at the wrong times, and too often the club has dragged its feet over transfers, allowing deals to become unnecessarily protracted.
What I find genuinely difficult to understand is the level of affection and loyalty he continues to command in certain quarters. In some cases it feels almost detached from results on the pitch—at times even more intense than the loyalty shown to players who actually deliver on the field, or to the club itself. Claims like Baleforce’s that he is the greatest chairman in the club’s history may be deliberately provocative, but there is nonetheless a striking, almost cult-like tone to the support he receives that doesn’t really align with the footballing record.
DeanoAustin
Jack Jull
There is merit in what you say. For me, I believe Levy’s legacy on the footballing side is far from bad though.
By 2004, we hadn’t been in the top 6 for 15 years. That’s when Levy really started to do things differently with Arnesen. Then we finished top 6 in something like 16 of 18 seasons and regularly qualified for Europe.
We had a couple of genuine tilts at the title, something I’d never seen in my 40 years supporting the club. We not only got to the CL, a competition I never thought I’d see us in, but got to the final.
Now, there is an awful lot of factors in there that can be used to support an argument for and against Levy’s footballing legacy. And the lack of trophies will always be a stick to beat him with.
It’s complicated…
Jurgen the German
George Hunt
I don’t necessarily agree with your entire post, but it’s a fair argument you’ve put forward, and I find your views on Levy among the easiest to engage with on the forum.
Like Taylor Swift, I’d say Levy’s time at the club can be divided into distinct eras: the takeover and subsequent rebuild, the Jol and Redknapp years, the Poch era, and ultimately the post-Poch period. It’s not entirely unfair to credit him for presiding over a genuine tilt at the title, but I would attribute that period more to having a brilliant manager in Pochettino. We haven’t come close to mounting a serious title challenge either before or since.
The post-Poch era has been inconsistent to say the least, ultimately culminating in a 17th-place finish in the league. In that time, there has been just one top-four finish in seven seasons—the benchmark the club itself places such importance on. Seven years is simply too long for a club of our size and ambitions to be in decline.
I don't think it's that hard to summarise, but in today's world you are almost forced to side with things as 'good' or 'bad' with little consideration for nuances.
Levy did fantastic in growing the club in terms of stature and commercially, that can't be denied from the starting point of when he came in. And for years the results on the pitch were on an upward trajectory, but when we got closer to the summit we began to stagnate and eventually decline.
I don't believe it's harsh to say from the footballing side his strategy became outdated and we needed some form of new direction in order to make a tilt for the top. That's not to say there are any guarantees about the 'new regime' but the way they are going about things in the market (at least for the time being) is what you expect of a club with ambition to compete at the top - of course we need to see how they do over a period of years, but I don't think Levy would ever behave like this if he still was pulling the strings.
However, it's in a big way down to Levy we are able to do make big moves in the market now and without concerns regarding FFP. Were it not for him we would be nothing more than an Aston Villa forever having to worry about the purse strings and unable to make the moves we now can - even coming off of a real low point on the pitch.
So we should forever be grateful for the foundation and base Levy created for our club, whilst acknowledging it was right for someone else to try to take over and attempt to lead us to the promised land....
Levy did fantastic in growing the club in terms of stature and commercially, that can't be denied from the starting point of when he came in. And for years the results on the pitch were on an upward trajectory, but when we got closer to the summit we began to stagnate and eventually decline.
I don't believe it's harsh to say from the footballing side his strategy became outdated and we needed some form of new direction in order to make a tilt for the top. That's not to say there are any guarantees about the 'new regime' but the way they are going about things in the market (at least for the time being) is what you expect of a club with ambition to compete at the top - of course we need to see how they do over a period of years, but I don't think Levy would ever behave like this if he still was pulling the strings.
However, it's in a big way down to Levy we are able to do make big moves in the market now and without concerns regarding FFP. Were it not for him we would be nothing more than an Aston Villa forever having to worry about the purse strings and unable to make the moves we now can - even coming off of a real low point on the pitch.
So we should forever be grateful for the foundation and base Levy created for our club, whilst acknowledging it was right for someone else to try to take over and attempt to lead us to the promised land....
Other than the rich clubs (I.e. Utd, City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool), which club had a better footballing record than us in his time here?
Last edited: