makes you wonder whether he was as heavily involved in this window. Not just because it was a better window () but also because we signed players that are a bit more of a proven calibre, rather than youngsters.
the one thing that will change, is other clubs won’t have to deal with Levy over transfers. It’s been widely reported that he’s a nightmare during negotiations, so that’s going to be refreshing.
The Lewis family appear to be briefing journalists about it with some fluff. They love the club and want more wins, more often. Yeah, alright. Time will tell, I guess.
For about a decade, he's been pulling in top, top money...to repeat the same mistakes, with no consequence. We all have our moment in the sun...and a time to shuffle off the stage...the trick is knowing when those moments are, around the time they're happening. Daniel never grasped that...and writing bollocks like "COYS! Daniel" didn't help to placate those who saw that the Emperor was naked. Ironically, his greatest achievement coincided with his powers waining and seeing him increasingly outdated and sidelined. Life can kick you in the balls like that...
The new stadium era showcased Daniel at his very best and his very worst. To build that thing at a time of soaring property costs and in an ever-worsening national economy, to then be kicked firmly in the gonads with Covid stadium closures for a year, and somehow emerging out of all that without crippling the club permanently is testament to his fiscal genius and incredible forward planning. But as all this was happening, football was evolving. And whereas previously the good decisions or interventions of other people (Arnesen, Jol, Redknapp, Mitchell, Poch) was enough to cover for Daniel's deficiencies, that is no longer the case and he has been repeatedly and brutally exposed in the past 3 years, irrespective of who he surrounds himself with.
The biggest issue with Covid is it hit at the exact time we needed to overhaul key parts of the squad, but couldn't as we (like 99.9% of other clubs in football) did not have the liquidity to do so, while the oil clubs exploited this for all their worth to shore up their positions for 3-4 years while destabilising the global transfer market forever more Skriniar is the best example of this: the fee Inter were asking would have been no issue for us a year earlier, after all we paid pretty much double what they were asking for Ndombele while the fees for Bergwijn, Sessegnon and Reguilon weren't that far off, but because we couldn't be sure when the next £1 would be walking through our turnstiles we couldn't commit to paying that fee
I think that begins to sum it up for me. Levy leaves behind a club that is hardly recognisable in terms of facilities, global profile, financial clout, and on-pitch expectations, to the one he took over. No other Chairman in English football has delivered what he has managed to deliver in terms of delivering the stadium, while coinciding that with some of the best league performance of our PL history. I’m not sure there’s one in Europe who has. At the same time I think it’s completely fair to say that the club outgrew him, and football outpaced him. I think his plans for the club couldn’t keep up with the financial regulation not having the impact he thought it would on the other PL clubs, he hasn’t been able to deal with the double-edged sword of the financial collapse of many continental clubs (and the knock on effect that has on our ability to sell abroad), and his profile amongst other PL transfer movers and shakers appears to have become toxic. His approach to the football side of the club has been haphazard at best in recent times, and some big issues have been severely mishandled. My initial thoughts on Levy’s legacy are that it’s a mixed one - people will take either side of points more to heart based on their existing opinions of him. What remains to be seen now is whether this will be a period of uncertainty and further change - is there going to be new minority or majority owners? - or relative stability with VV as CEO already in place and the same ownership structure behind the scenes.
Has anybody checked on the welfare of our resident Levyista`s, this must be wrist slitting news for them. On a serious note, apparently Levy is organizing a leaving do and has left £20 behind the bar.
Turns out a lot of people are going to wake up in the morning realising they suddenly have no identifiable personality traits...
positives 1. Giving us Jol, Redknapp and Pochettino ...They all gave us teams that gave us fantastic memories. 2. under his reign we've made European Football 17 out of the last 20 seasons. 3. We have made 2 European finals and 5 league cup finals in the last 23 years 4. Have the team great training facilities. 5. New WHL...did brilliantly in giving the old girl a good send off. 6. Stopped us being a footballing irrelevance. 7. Made sure we were and are on a solid financial footing while building the new ground. 8. Ensured a fair way to distribute ticket sales in the final season at WHL. 9. Maintained a very good ticketing price at Wembley...particularlyfor the CL games...3 tickets for £75. 10. Ended ticket sales through StubHub which was legalised version of ticket touts. Negatives 1. Only 2 trophies in 24 years. 2. The disgraceful treatment of Martin Jol. He deserved far better for leading us back into European football and building a team to be proud of. He laid the foundation stones for what was to come. 3. The sacking of Pochettino. 4. The Sacking of Ange. 5. Giving us managers like Hoddle, Pleat, Santini, AVB, Sherwood, JM, Nuno and Conte...all awful and predictably so. 6. Sacking JM 6 days before a final was simply moronic. 7. Taking away OAP concessions was outrageous. 8. Threatening to furlough the lowest paid staff on 80% of their wages during covid was a shameful act. 9. Joining the ESL was beyond ****ing clueless. 10. Rarely involved himself listening to fans. If he had then he would have avoided a lot of the negatives. 11. Ticket prices History will view him kindly. Like a lot of people there were a lot of positives and negatives and he is a very polarising character. I like and rate what he's achieved with us financially and ground wise but he was awful at choosing managers and points 2, 7, 8 and 9 are milestones around his neck for me . 6.5 out of 10 for me ... without the above would have been an 8.5 out of 10.
When all is said and done, when Levy took over we were in a precarious position. Mid to bottom half of the table, a squad overflowing with tripe, a 'tired' stadium, a dump of a training ground etc. We could quite easily have gone the way of a Bolton, Coventry or Blackburn, had it not been for his steady hand, astute financial decision and relative ruthless reaction to failure.
Better late than never!! For years, people have mistaken Levy for ENIC and the club. Apart from being a minority shareholder, he was just an employee...now an ex-employee. I'm sure he'll get a decent pay-off, just like the coaches he sacked for failing to make his increasingly flawed MO work successfully. He's earned his marching orders, many times over. The rumours have long suggested that the Lewis family wanted to commit to a more ambitious approach on the pitch, but COYS Daniel didn't want to dilute his shareholding or alter his safety first approach. His approach has led to us being further away from the top of the league than we were when we were financially preparing to build the stadium and employed a net zero transfer spend. Money and opportunities wasted on bad coaching appointments and bad signings. A constantly poor return from our academy (both in players and transfer fees) and a stunning inability to learn the lessons of failure. His dogged belligerence got the stadium built, but he never got that the point was to make the football club win stuff. In that regard, he was the antithesis of the club motto. So long and thanks for 1 League Cup, 1 Europa League Cup and the stadium. At least you weren't sacked at half time of a home game.
Too early to tell if this is good or bad. Could either be a transition to a better structure...Executive Chairman is not a common role....or the first step in a sale to owners we won't like. I still think he has been a massive success. The final steps to greatness are always tricky.
