I think ENIC and Levy have done brilliant in terms of putting the right infrastructure in place to make us one of the biggest clubs. However, there is more to making a club the biggest and best than simply having the best training ground or stadium.
The way forward
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I think ENIC and Levy have done brilliant in terms of putting the right infrastructure in place to make us one of the biggest clubs. However, there is more to making a club the biggest and best than simply having the best training ground or stadium.
Yes but those two are necessary even if not sufficient. No other owner seemed to know that.
No offence, but ENIC are serious about making profits and profits alone, they are a business, in it for money, not silverware and glory. Fans want trophies, ENIC want profit, its that simple. They have taken it as far as they can, who wants to wait another 10 years for a chance their plan might finally pay off.
There has definitely been a "small club" mentality. Levy is well known to keep salary levels down and not spend too big on transfer fees. I admit he has made some progress recently by offering Kane and Bale top money, but we need to increase the salaries across the whole team to attract better players. He has now splashed the cash on a world class manager.
Levy is making progress on the football side, but there is obviously something not working. It cannot solely be down to the manager. I just think there are deeper issues at stake rather than simply blaming the manager. When I watched the Amazon documentary, I thought it was strange for Levy to be at the training ground all the time. I detected an element of micro-managing from him and I know for sure that I would never perform my best under this way of working.
I thought I Joe Lewis/ENIC have previously suggested that they are ready to sell the club if a suitable offer comes in? They are not doing their cause any good by increasing the value of the club if they wish to sell!
I agree they are necessary steps. That's not my point. As you allude to, they are not enough to get the club back to winning ways.
There is simply no way of maximising the profit without winning trophies. Winning trophies is an outcome whose probability goes up the better the team is. Profit and trophies isn't an either/or. They go together but not with an exact correlation.
For what it’s worth I agree about the salary thing to an extent but two points on that. Firstly it’s usually transfer fees where we suffer rather than wages. We don’t typically target players at their peak in their late 20s where it’s likely to be their last big contract and I think that’s wise in many ways. Second, even a few years ago we were known to have lower base salaries for players but a huge bonus structure that ensured the likes of Kane, Son, and others were getting paid far more than their reported salaries. I believe this has been confirmed by Ally Gold who is pretty reputable on such matters when it comes to Spurs.
I agree that Levy is too involved in many ways though. I think that’s partly because he seems to be a fan and probably finds it hard to keep away. I also think that he knows deep down he hasn’t nailed all these appointments and is trying to show face, when in reality if he made some better decisions he could step back and focus on the non-football side of things which is clearly his strength.
Correct. The problem is that the only possible strategy is the one ENIC have been following. That is gradually increase our financial clout until we reach the same level as our competitors. There isn't another way and there are no short cuts any more.
I would dispute that. Profitability comes from long-term participation in European football, preferably the CL. If we’d won the League Cup every season instead of finishing top 4 in the seasons we did that then we’d be nowhere near where we are now financially.
Logically the more money a club makes the more they can invest in better facilities and players and staff and then they can win trophies more regularly. It’s absolutely not an either/or and you’d expect a team with more money to be better on the pitch and win more trophies but we all know it’s more complicated than that.
Agreed, and it's not just winning one trophy that will maximise our profits and success. We need to do so consistently. So how do we get there?! We have seen £ms invested in the infrastructure. We need to see what the next steps are because their alone does not guarantee success.
Who cares about profits, apart from our owners, plenty of teams have won plenty of trophies while making a loss. The only way to get to the top any time soon is with a City or Chelsea style takeover, using the organic route simply will not work in this climate.
Not sure about this due to the FFP rules in place now?
Sell: Hart, Aurier, Doherty, Dier, Sanchez, Alderweireld, Winks, Sissoko, Lucas, Lamela, Dele and Lo Celso.
Until we have players like this in our squad, who are either poor or often unavailable then you won’t get anywhere in football. Certainly not top six.
Sack: Hitchen, possibly Jose.
Hire: Top DoF in the Edwards/ Monchi/ Zorc/ Campos mould who have a clear footballing philosophy and track record. Learn from how these guys have operated at their clubs, learn from those clubs themselves too, as well as clubs like Ajax and Zagreb, even Brentford and Leicester.
This is a massive period now for ENIC and Levy. Arguably their biggest ever summer coming up. I don’t agree with those who say they’ve reached their ceiling but they’re certainly in a position where their next decisions need to be correct because too many bad ones in recent seasons has seen this club go on a painfully downward trajectory. I also disagree with those who say they’re cheap, I think you’re choosing to use 5-10 year old digs when making those points. We have the 5th highest team salary in the Prem, the idea we still pay peanuts needs to be put to bed. The idea we don’t spend big is also incorrect, we do, we’ve just royally got it wrong when we have spent big. This is why we need a top football man with a proper philosophy when it comes to spotting talent, they are worth their weight in gold and some if you can find the right ones because what Edwards/ Monchi/ Campos etc have done for their clubs has been immense.
So in short:
Sell deadwood, sack Hitchen, possibly sack Jose, hire a top DoF to then replenish the ranks as well as a manager interested in a rebuild who can work with a DoF (my choice is Potter, really like his style, attitude and philosophy), keep Levy away from the footballing side and let him work on the business side where he’s unrivalled at.
Simple, eh?
Until we have players like this in our squad, who are either poor or often unavailable then you won’t get anywhere in football. Certainly not top six.
Sack: Hitchen, possibly Jose.
Hire: Top DoF in the Edwards/ Monchi/ Zorc/ Campos mould who have a clear footballing philosophy and track record. Learn from how these guys have operated at their clubs, learn from those clubs themselves too, as well as clubs like Ajax and Zagreb, even Brentford and Leicester.
This is a massive period now for ENIC and Levy. Arguably their biggest ever summer coming up. I don’t agree with those who say they’ve reached their ceiling but they’re certainly in a position where their next decisions need to be correct because too many bad ones in recent seasons has seen this club go on a painfully downward trajectory. I also disagree with those who say they’re cheap, I think you’re choosing to use 5-10 year old digs when making those points. We have the 5th highest team salary in the Prem, the idea we still pay peanuts needs to be put to bed. The idea we don’t spend big is also incorrect, we do, we’ve just royally got it wrong when we have spent big. This is why we need a top football man with a proper philosophy when it comes to spotting talent, they are worth their weight in gold and some if you can find the right ones because what Edwards/ Monchi/ Campos etc have done for their clubs has been immense.
So in short:
Sell deadwood, sack Hitchen, possibly sack Jose, hire a top DoF to then replenish the ranks as well as a manager interested in a rebuild who can work with a DoF (my choice is Potter, really like his style, attitude and philosophy), keep Levy away from the footballing side and let him work on the business side where he’s unrivalled at.
Simple, eh?
I also found this very strange, although we'll never know to what extent he was just 'doing it for the cameras' at a time when fan sentiment toward him was on the decline. The whole Danny Rose 'I'll speak to Daniel' thing before chatting with him in the fecking CAFETERIA IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, and then sitting down with NDombele to give him a pep talk...all very strange. Why is Levy that accessible? Why is he getting involved with the minutiae of the footballing side of things? To my mind, save for severe issues of discipline (e.g. the Covid breach) or perhaps extenuating personal circumstances (e.g. what happened to Aurier's brother), the only players he should EVER be speaking to are the club captains. That's it. The rest of them can live with the message that the chairman of the 12th most valuable club in world football couldn't give a steaming ****e about their haircuts, chrome cars, clothes ranges or even recent charity work in the local community as he is FAR too busy attending to more important things.
I admire and indeed want a chairman who takes an active interest in the club's day to day affairs - hell of a better arrangement than what the likes of Arsenal or United put up with. But there is taking an interest and there is being totally overbearing.
I sometimes worry that the fact that Levy grew up standing on the terraces of WHL is part of the problem - he does sometimes come across as a 'starry eyed fan' playing a computer game, getting involved in every intricate decision just because he loves doing it, not because it helps the situation. But having a chairman who is that accessible is damaging for the modern footballer. They are molly-coddled enough as it is without being given the impression that the most powerful man at the club is their mate who'll have a coffee and a croissant with them in the morning. No. the only time regular players should so much as see the chairman up close is either if they win a trophy, or are in a ****load of trouble (i.e. 'you're being sold at the earliest opportunity').
Times have moved on CK To be fair your Modus Operandi is still used in call centres and Sports Direct but if we want a modern football club and to keep our millionaire footballers happy we need to move on from 'The great days of the Empire' (although Brexit suggests a lot of our dinosaurs think we can return) as indeed we have done. We do not have a problem with retaining footballers who play for us (the opposite) we do have a problem with the reality of accepting that football is never going to provide the consistent results that you look for in car production for example. Both Redknapp, Pochettino were sacked after making considerable progress but then reaching a plateau that required a rethink. In both cases we would have been better off retaining the proven managers and working through the issues. The moment of crisis is when you most need stability, sacking the boss at the point of vulnerability only makes sense if there is no track record of success.
Football is a game but at this pro level it ceases to be just a game and becomes a business. Levy is a successful business leader who has had no problem in seeing the development of Spurs infrastructure to the highest possible level but he is clearly conflicted when it come to football as we all are. Even fans now spend much time talking about the financial transactions of the club. Are you football fans or business heads? I suppose it reflects how we have built a society that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. The current manager does not appear to be a fit with the culture of Spurs, I hope right now we are looking to find a suitable successor, if not, getting Redknapp back as a caretaker would not be a bad move.
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Yes, that is a possible outcome, but I don't see how you could do it on purpose.
Remember how, two years ago, we were the 8th most profitable team in the world? What trophies did we win that season?
Trophies don't make teams profitable. If they did, Monster Energy Dusseldorf would be penniless due to never winning a major trophy in their entire existence
Really interesting post and I agree with a lot of it.
Where I disagree is about Redknapp being sacked. I think his sheer arrogance (as I saw it) brought that about. When he was found not guilty of tax fraud at the beginning of 2012 he was supported by the club every day in court and on the terraces we sang that we wanted him to stay.
He was offered a new contract but refused to sign it cos he thought England were interested in him. Our results went down the toilet, he started messing around with formations (as part of his England interview) and when asked said, over and over again that players did not care whether managers signed new contracts.
Then Roy Hodgson got the England job at the End of the season and Redknapp, on live TV while being a pundit during the Euros, said him not being offered a new contract was unsettling the players. Levy was in America at his mother's funeral at the time iirc.
For me he deserved the sack...was a really awful way to treat the club and the fans.
I liked Redknapp too...in my view he was my favourite spurs manager after Burkinshaw in term of playing style.
As for bringing him back I'd worry it worry be like when pleat returned in 2003 after Hoddle was sacked.