BEFORE LEVY: please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image SINCE LEVY: please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image I think that's fairly conclusive
I loved 'that' Klinsmann season… man that guy scored some goals and I'll admit I detested him until he signed for us (no doubt a German thing). I miss those days strangely even though we finished lower in the league. We were an exciting team to watch.
"I think that's fairly conclusive" PNP, I think there are ... issues again. For some reason Waddle and Gazza being sold are not showing in the "Before Levy" piccies.
It was far from perfect but my god it was far better. If we had Hoddle know he would have been sold off by time he was 23. Today we would not be capable of signing the new Gazza. Most of all we won real silverware . For me both the Levy/sugar years have been equally fruitless .
Losing 7-0 to Liverpool and 7-1 to Newcastle are both absent, too. As has... please log in to view this image
For Levy - he's a shrewd businessman. Against Levy - he's a shrewd businessman. I'm sure many of you will know exactly what I mean.
Oh christ, I was hoping I'd never have to see that guy's mug again. I don't know what bothered me the most that day he was unveiled. The stupid train ticket speech, his suit or Alan Sugar's smug looking face. All three probably... Did anyone see Gary Lineker's class reply to Lord Sugar's usual dimwitted tweeting the other day. Quality! https://twitter.com/GaryLineker/statuses/412558799111979009
Before Levy you have to go back to the mid sixties to find when it was better. However, Levy has set the bar so high he is a victim of his own ambition. With little patience a lack of progress is not an option. If he can't stick he has to twist. His decisions from a football point of view are questionable because they are intrinsically linked to finances, i.e. spend the Bale money all at once because if other teams know we have spare cash they will attempt to over-charge us in the transfer market. Noble but floating somewhere between realistic and paranoid. Most clubs are going to try to over-charge Spurs anyway. The outcome of the spend, spend, spend under AVB was a team that doesn't know each other and are struggling to gel. Just like Bruce, Paulo DC and quite a few others before, it is not going to happen immediately. 12 to 18 months will be necessary for the necessary understanding between new team-mates to develop. To compound the issue he chose a manager who tried to make the players fit a system rather than design the system to suit the available players. Much of Redknapps success came from letting the players do what they knew how to do rather than impose a system. Redknapp was a strange choice, he was probably the only manager that Levy chose himself because he was forced into a corner. The football was threatening the financial stability under Ramos and Redknapp had a track record of rescuing those in trouble. The downside for Levy was that Redknapp refused to work with a DoF, which took Levy out of his comfort zone. Levy likes to use a DoF to advise him on footballing matters, probably to avoid letting the football cloud his financial judgement. Great signings are not like London busses, nothing for ages and then all coming along together. They are few and far between and need to be picked up when they become available or at an opportunistic time. Levy missed a trick with Real Madrid, if they had been so hell bent on signing Bale , then he should have shoe-horned a decent player or two out of them rather than taken the money and run. He screwed them into the ground so far they had to part with one of their better players to our North London Rivals to balance the books. A pyric victory at best. Levy strikes me as the kind of guy who will have a price in his mind when he goes in to buy or sell a player and then sticks to it. A great technique in a horse auction but footballers aren't horses, a player is worth how much you need him and how much to selling club need your money. Daniel Levy is now going to have to be very careful with transfer dealings and in choosing his next manager, Uncle Joe is either very patient or silly and I doubt if it's the latter. He is however probably guided by the bottom line, which could easily disintegrate with the wrong choices.
Only good thing about gross was David Ginola played the best football of his career that season, with Johan Cruyff calling him world class!
In fairness though, I think Ginola would have played out of his skin under most managers because the guy was pure class. That was back in the days when I used to go to the Lane quite a lot. and enjoy the likes of Ginola and quality chopping by Justin Edinburgh haha!
Or Hoddle or Klinsmann moving on. Twice. Or bottom half finishes, fights against relegation and Gary Mabbutt desperately trying to stop us getting battered on his own. I'll see what I can do...
Yeah same, lived in London back then and was regular at most home games, which is probably why I enjoyed the 90s! Ginola that year was in such great form but considering Gross never had much to gloat about we can say he had a little impact on David!
I remember a story about Gross offering Ginola a bottle of expensive champagne if he scored a header, as he very rarely did so, and the next game he went out and did exactly that!
Hopefully it was clear how far into my cheek my tongue was with that post, in fact, I think it might have bored through to the other side.
I think to be honest,Levy would love to sit in his seat and watch us collect trophies,but he is a book keeper and not a player scout.So he should stick to his books and find someone who can find good players who will work their butts off for us. But they are paid so much today,where are they?
That source of unbiased and non-spiteful comments Jamie Redknapp says Levy wishes he was manager rather than chairman, dutifully regurgitated in the Standard. Funny how he's never volunteered that opinion about Abramovich...
Levy as manager.Sounds bloody scary....but then again,he is in charge of the players money and if they don't do well they don't get paid.......yeah,I know.Some hopes!!!!!
You may follow, or I expect not, Scottish football. Hearts had a chairman called Vladimir Romanov who was suspected of picking the actual team. George Burley was sacked after being top of the league and unbeaten. Later he hires Graham Rix who no one else was employing due to his trouble with the law and it was said he employed Rix as he was perfect as the yes man-ager !......... Of course no proof One day we may get fans voting on team, tactics, or managers employed for their football manager record (step forward HBIC) Levy as manager? He would have David Pleat on speed dial and that's even more scary!!
