What time period T from now, do you believe will be the earliest an objective assessment can be made either way ??
For a long time, maybe back to Poch's best days with us, it has been rumoured that Joe Lewis wanted to go after more immediate sporting success and was willing to invest to get it. The problem was that DL didn't have the personal wealth to do likewise and was, consequently, against the proposal, as it would diminish the percentage of his shareholding. Whilst we were making the CL every year, with a very good team and prospects, Lewis let Levy run with his self-sustaining model and supporting attempts to enforce spending restrictions across the PL. Whilst Lewis' powers have waned, Spurs' fortunes have done likewise. Every turn Daniel has made, since sacking Poch, has just made our situation worse...until Ange and 17th place. At that point, Joe Lewis was no longer there to protect his protege...and something was going to have to be done about Daniel. I reckon they tried to get him to limit his meddling, but he wouldn't...so he was treated as he treated all those coaches... "Thanks. Clear your desk and leave your company car keys, phone and building pass with security." It's cruel, but that's life!
This is a valid question, and may be something the younger Lewis generation is pushing for. Joe and Daniel were peas in a pod, the latter basically the adopted prodigal son and padawan of the former. I think what pushed this over the edge is the fact that since moving to the new stadium and increasing revenue and global footprint off the pitch, we've unquestionably gone backwards on it. And for all the arguments in the opposite direction, it is plain to see that almost every decision Levy has made since that time has ranged from openly bonkers (ESL, furlough, appointing Mourinho, sacking Mourinho, Conte) to unwittingly disastrous (Nuno, Ange, Munn, possibly Lange too time will tell). Conducting an all-staff review after Conte left only to announce another one two years later rendered his position untenable imo. He simply showed himself to be an atrocious decision-maker whose decisions were taking us backwards at a rate of knots. History will judge him relatively favourably, but let's not forget: He was a Micky VDV miracle clearance away from leaving under storm clouds.
It's not a coincidence that the more short-sighted decisions started piling up after the stadium build overran Prior to that how many short-sighted decisions can we say Levy made? Obviously there were a few, Ramos certainly springs to mind and I'll probably stick Baldini in there too, but they tended to be rare After the stadium overran there was certainly a noticeable uptick in short-termism. Some can be rationalised, for example bringing in the ubermensch after sacking Poch was the most logical decision available at the time, but Nuno was on a hiding to nothing as he was the Benjamin Stambouli of managerial hires and arguably was less respected by the squad than Dim Sherwood was, and Conte may have fixed that problem but only created another problem because...well, he's Conte And even there there are a few footnotes, for example hiring the ubermensch did mean we got into Jorge Mendes' good graces for a period which happened to be quite useful given the transfer market collapsed due to the global pandemic going on...though that does have the knock-on effect of reflecting badly on Nuno being hired, as reports at the time suggested that Paratici brought him in to try and reconnect a direct line to Mendes, and when that didn't materialise he was dumped at the earliest opportunity for Conte
Chairman- Levy gone. Manager- Ange gone. Captain- Son gone. That Europa League win feels a long time ago doesn’t it
I'd say that Levy starting by having to take an £11m bath on Sergei Rebrov at a time where £11m was a lot of clubs' record signing, and ending by somehow actually getting a transfer fee for Bryan Gil underlines the progress the club had made
Ouch. But still: very weird timing. This has clearly been brewing for a while, why not act in the summer?
Probably because there was no-one else confident or experienced enough to bring in several top class players. We've now got 4 months to put that right. Joe Lewis's children are effectively calling the shots...do they actually know anything about football?
They don't need to know anything about football, as long as they know that they don't know anything about football, and allow people who do know about football to make footballing decisions. This was Levy's cardinal error.
Well lets hope they have brought someone in who does know about football. This Peter Charington fella looks like he could just be another wa, I mean banker. Seems like Levy suffered from a similar thing to Ange in that the reputation of the individual almost eclipses that of the brand of the club in the eyes of some journalists. Levy was probably becoming too notorious, and easy to characterise. Hopefully the focus will now become the team and on pitch activity, rather than the antics of the chairman, or the manager.
Peter Charrington and Vinai are more than capable. Those two and the manager are the team to get behind now.
So fans say but the football staff who have spoken about it claim that Levy didn't interfere in football decisions...he just sets budgets and helped in negotiations.
The perception of Levy was that he was involved in things that he probably wasn’t. In the last few years I felt it was a negative for the club. He got the blame for Eze etc when he might not have even been involved massively.
I don't believe he interfered in choice of players to recruit beyond perhaps a handful of questionable deals that the managers at the time seemed to have no interest in (Sissoko, Richarlison, Bissouma etc.) The most significant footballing decisions at any club are the manager and senior DoF positions, and it is pretty clear Levy made those decisions directly and very frequently got them completely wrong, often to the surprise of no one.
There is no rational way to select a coach or DoF though and since so few actually succeed most hires will be wrong.