The Times article by Tom Allnutt really paints a picture of total chaos behind the scenes.
Some of it is absolutely insane stuff - like Dier, now of AS Monaco, taking it upon himself to lecture Spence on timeliness and attitude, only for Lange to wander past and, self-satisfied, remark 'at last! If only we had more of that!'. Like it wasn't *his job* to bring in players to do that.
There's also a lot of anonymous bitching and briefing by ENIC against Levy, and Levy loyalists against ENIC. It's all darkly hilarious.
But hidden in there are two paragraphs that sum up why we are, where we are.
"
Levy and the Lewis family had overseen a period of drift beyond league positions too. The hierarchy prioritised pop concerts, Amazon documentaries, go-karting tracks and lucrative pre-season tours, which put football “further and further from the centre of things”, one present official said, and irritated the players, like Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who was fined two weeks’ wages for refusing to play in a post-season friendly in Melbourne in 2024. Morale among staff was low, with many fed up with the top-down way of working."
"
Football departments cut during the pandemic were also never fully restored. Scouting was trimmed back, nominally in favour of a more centralised, data-led approach overseen by Lange and the brief chief football officer Scott Munn, but which resulted in fewer eyes on fewer players. The academy, which has yielded only 26 Premier League minutes this season, was neglected, “one of the lights turned off during Covid that never got turned back on”.
Apparently COVID resulted in a scythe being taken to backroom operations, which explains so much of why things have started breaking. Even in the marketing team, where...
"
Even in non-football areas like marketing, staff describe the club as completely ignorant about the Tottenham fan base, in a way that would be deemed unthinkable in other industries."
Remember those cheery 'It's CLASSIC Tottenham!' billboards flogging sweatshirts, flashing across the stadium as we conceded yet another stupid goal?
Yeah, this tracks 100%.