That rant was simply a response to his failure as a coach to outperform.
The problem with all the arguments about Levy is that during his time as Chairman our average league finish has been above our average position in the wealth table. The facts are entirely consistent with us being a very well run club that is doing better at football than we ought to be. If the Chairman knows nothing about football and is wasting money buying useless players then there must be some other compensating factor that allows us to outperform on the pitch. So what is it?
We are an extremely well run club, no one can argue with that. Levy has increased our financial clout year on year and done so in such a stable way that things like dropping out of Europe or even a global pandemic don't appear to derail us. Very few clubs in the world can say the same, and most who do rely on blood money to do so.
The secret to our "success" (which in my opinion is relatively small compared to what you seem to make of it) is that despite Levy's best efforts to the contrary, we have stumbled across three managers in the PL era who took us forward in a quantum leap.
Now, I say 'despite' Levy because the plain evidence is that he didn't want to hire two of those managers and only did so after his picks - Santini and Ramos - performed so terribly that he had no choice but to give in.
These managers succeeded because Levy has created a culture at the club whereby the manager has to punch above our weight or they are deemed a failure. All other managers have therefore failed.
There is never enough money available for the manager to be truly competitive in the mainstream way, and what little money there is risks being wasted by Levy himself when he spots what he thinks is a genius idea to strike a bargain.
This has been Levy's approach since day one, and in lieu of the lack of proper money, the only choice remaining is to grant the manager an equally precious commodity in modern football:
Time.
Time to develop a team steadily. Time to nurture youngsters and promote academy graduates. Time to sell senior players to turn a profit and reinvest that back into a longer term plan that will stretch beyond that senior player's peak.
The record shows that Levy has only ever given time to one manager in his entire 23 year tenure, Poch, and even that is debatable. Sacking him three months after allowing him to spend £130m was insane. The rest were cut adrift at the first sign of not being able to pull miraculous rabbits out of very small and cheap hats.
So he doesn't give his managers enough money to make us competitive. He doesn't give his managers enough time to make us competitive. But he sacks managers for not making us competitive.
Can you see the dilemma?
In my opinion, most of what we've achieved in the PL era is despite Levy, not because of him. We have 3 managers to thank for it all, two of whom he didn't want in the first place. We are as close to challenging for major honours now as we were around 13 years ago. Our off pitch progress has not been matched by our on pitch progress. It's as simple as that.
