The Daniel Levy thread

[thfc1973]

On balance I don`t think Enic have the mentality to take us to the next level on the pitch.. They have project and I am sure they will do a good job with the stadium but they just don`t seem like they are excited about football... I want people in charge who dream of winning the league and are willing splash out now and again to give us a chance. These guys just play too safe in everything they do.. ..

Completely agree with this. And it makes me actually wonder if there was ever any real intent to buy the players we had gone in for recently.
Berahino - we supposedly went in for him 4 times yet the 4th & final bid allegedly was a 5M upfront and the rest payable until 2020.
Wanyama - depending on which report we believe we either offered 12.5M for him (less than they paid to buy him) or 20M+Lamela on loan.
Axel Witsel - 13.1M - 18.9M again depending on who you believe.
Kouyate - 15M.

Just looking at those figures, can anyone truly say hand on heart any of those offers are sincere offers that reflect the true value of the player in question and respectful towards the selling club? No way! It snacks of cheek, it appears to be half-hearted and disingenuous offers, the lot of them. So if we were to take Levy's word for it on the other hand, one would have to say then, that he's playing it too safe with his offers. And that's something that wont get us the right players needed to win us trophies in the short to medium term I'd have to say.

 

[Ironskullll]

I see so many contradictions in Enic/Levy/Spurs' behaviour I'm just left baffled.

If they're playing safe then how come we only have one striker and the brinkmanship in the market? How come we can spend modest amounts on decent looking back up players in midfield and defence but not attack? That's not safe! if they're well organised then how come there are holes in the squad? If they're incompetent then how come they've managed to deal with the squad's defensive liabilities? If they are stockpiling players for transfer market speculation, loaning them out a la Carroll and Pritchard then how come they don't stockpile a striker or two along the way? If Levy and co are so astute financially speaking then how come they got sucked in with Adebayor's contract? If they're using the club as a cash cow then how come the investments in stadium and training centre? Why the behaviour in the market that seems so damaging to their own investment? I'm not convinced by any of the arguments at either end of the spectrum, just baffled.

 

[guiltyparty]

Yes he is

Who else can have a salary increment while the whole club is on a austerity drive

David Cameron

 

[ebzrascal]

All the top teams except Man City has been screwing up had we got a DM and Striker before the start of the season we could have made a real impact thats the reality... I am also embarrassed at our antics unsettling players from other teams.. breaking promises to clubs that we might want to do business with in the future.. Levy should not be involved in player recruitment..

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

Levy has achieved his objective, which is to exit this transfer window with a positive net spend. He's bought players and sold players and most importantly by balancing the books.. I doubt other than Southampton, no other PL club will have a positive net spend this summer.

 

[danielneeds]

Levy has achieved his objective, which is to exit this transfer window with a positive net spend. He's bought players and sold players and most importantly by balancing the books.. I doubt other than Southampton, no other PL club will have a positive net spend this summer.

Yes, but why are we looking to have positive net spends for the last four years? Is it a co-incidence that the closer the stadium is getting, the less money is being spent of transfers?

Ultimately maybe some fans want us to spend the TV money on players now, and pay for the stadium with credit, but that way we'll be paying interest, and not seeing as much benefit from the stadium years after it's build. I'd rather take the pain now, and see us debt free.

That's still no excuse for not bringing in Kane cover. Even Lambert on a free - played well for Poch, understands the system he likes to play, would be happy playing in Europe, no pace to lose.

It's the lack of joined up thinking that irks me, not the austerity to fund our new home.

 

[Misfit]

I see so many contradictions in Enic/Levy/Spurs' behaviour I'm just left baffled.

If they're playing safe then how come we only have one striker and the brinkmanship in the market? How come we can spend modest amounts on decent looking back up players in midfield and defence but not attack? That's not safe! if they're well organised then how come there are holes in the squad? If they're incompetent then how come they've managed to deal with the squad's defensive liabilities? If they are stockpiling players for transfer market speculation, loaning them out a la Carroll and Pritchard then how come they don't stockpile a striker or two along the way? If Levy and co are so astute financially speaking then how come they got sucked in with Adebayor's contract? If they're using the club as a cash cow then how come the investments in stadium and training centre? Why the behaviour in the market that seems so damaging to their own investment? I'm not convinced by any of the arguments at either end of the spectrum, just baffled.

Very much this. They definitely have a plan but clearly no idea how to go about achieving it. They get in a new manager and usually after 2 seasons of doing an effective job with the tools given to them and coming in 5th or thereabouts are then moved on and replaced with the next one. DoF - luvvly jubbly, but only if he doesn't actually have control over the transfer philosophy and direction.

BMJ, who kick started the whole thing off and H were 2 managers they didn't actively pursue or want for various reasons and they ended being the two most successful.

This chopping and changing, sometimes down to only a lack of gumption AFAIK, then leads to bloated squads of suddenly surplus players we have to move on before bringing another raft of players the new guy kinda wants. Rinse and repeat.

Things could be a lot worse as I said before but 15 years to implement a 5 year plan is extracting the urine a tad at this point.

 

[Misfit]

Yes, but why are we looking to have positive net spends for the last four years? Is it a co-incidence that the closer the stadium is getting, the less money is being spent of transfers?

Ultimately maybe some fans want us to spend the TV money on players now, and pay for the stadium with credit, but that way we'll be paying interest, and not seeing as much benefit from the stadium years after it's build. I'd rather take the pain now, and see us debt free.

That's still no excuse for not bringing in Kane cover. Even Lambert on a free - played well for Poch, understands the system he likes to play, would be happy playing in Europe, no pace to lose.

It's the lack of joined up thinking that irks me, not the austerity to fund our new home.

Yep. There's never been a coherent direction. I'm convinced the club wants that but DL or whoever else simply can't get it done for myriad reasons.

 

[NEVILLEB]

They're trying to maximise the sale of the club without spending money they won't recoup.

New Stadium
New Training Ground
Young Manager
Young Players

Kerching!!!!!

 

[dontcallme]

Yes, but why are we looking to have positive net spends for the last four years? Is it a co-incidence that the closer the stadium is getting, the less money is being spent of transfers?

Ultimately maybe some fans want us to spend the TV money on players now, and pay for the stadium with credit, but that way we'll be paying interest, and not seeing as much benefit from the stadium years after it's build. I'd rather take the pain now, and see us debt free.

That's still no excuse for not bringing in Kane cover. Even Lambert on a free - played well for Poch, understands the system he likes to play, would be happy playing in Europe, no pace to lose.

It's the lack of joined up thinking that irks me, not the austerity to fund our new home.

Why would we get Lambert on a free if he cost West Brom £3m?

 

[danielneeds]

Why would we get Lambert on a free if he cost West Brom £3m?

Ha, my mistake! Still a minimal outlay!

 

[Trebmint2013]

Yes Levy is holding us back. I hate our last minute transfer policy, as it just makes us look second rate and cheap. And now of course thanks to that we've actually written off a season. One striker is complete madness.
I do understand Levy probably stands back and realizes we could throw 50m,80m or 100m at the transfer window and still not break the top 4 and I think this means he's trying to delay that sort of policy until the stadium. But the football is dull and we wont fill a 61k stadium playing like this or with a team without big name players.
We will never do better than 5-6th with Levy in control, and this season will probably be 8th-12th and get Poch the sack even though it wont be his fault

 

[nicdic]

Yes Levy is holding us back. I hate our last minute transfer policy, as it just makes us look second rate and cheap. And now of course thanks to that we've actually written off a season. One striker is complete madness.
I do understand Levy probably stands back and realizes we could throw 50m,80m or 100m at the transfer window and still not break the top 4 and I think this means he's trying to delay that sort of policy until the stadium. But the football is dull and we wont fill a 61k stadium playing like this or with a team without big name players.
We will never do better than 5-6th with Levy in control, and this season will probably be 8th-12th and get Poch the sack even though it wont be his fault

Wimmer, Trippier, and Alderweireld say hi.

 

[For the love of Spurs]

Yes Levy is holding us back. I hate our last minute transfer policy, as it just makes us look second rate and cheap. And now of course thanks to that we've actually written off a season. One striker is complete madness.
I do understand Levy probably stands back and realizes we could throw 50m,80m or 100m at the transfer window and still not break the top 4 and I think this means he's trying to delay that sort of policy until the stadium. But the football is dull and we wont fill a 61k stadium playing like this or with a team without big name players.
We will never do better than 5-6th with Levy in control, and this season will probably be 8th-12th and get Poch the sack even though it wont be his fault

Great point personally with holes at DM and striker I assume most Spurs fan will give Poch a pass this year. We get 10th or higher and Poch has done alright in my books, any anger I have ain't going his way.

 

[DEFchenkOE]

Personally, I think we got our priorities completely wrong in this window. We signed Trippier, Alderweireld, Wimmer, and Alli before the season started. While Alderweireld is a good signing, and I'm sure/hope the other 3 will also prove to be. Were they really needed?

Wimmer has barely made the bench, Trippier I don't think has featured at all, and Alli has made some good cameos off the bench. He was actually signed in January so shouldn't really count.

What we absolutely needed before the season started, was a striker to give competition to Kane, an experienced midfielder, and at least 1 wide player. So not only did we sign none of the players in positions that were essential before the season started, we've only addressed one of those positions now that the window is shut.

I just don't understand how our club works. It's not that we don't spend money. We've bought players, and bought early, but we leave the most important positions once again until the last minute. I still can't believe that Levy and the recruitment team have done this... again.

 

[Donki]

Personally, I think we got our priorities completely wrong in this window. We signed Trippier, Alderweireld, Wimmer, and Alli before the season started. While Alderweireld is a good signing, and I'm sure/hope the other 3 will also prove to be. Were they really needed?

Wimmer has barely made the bench, Trippier I don't think has featured at all, and Alli has made some good cameos off the bench. He was actually signed in January so shouldn't really count.

What we absolutely needed before the season started, was a striker to give competition to Kane, an experienced midfielder, and at least 1 wide player. So not only did we sign none of the players in positions that were essential before the season started, we've only addressed one of those positions now that the window is shut.

I just don't understand how our club works. It's not that we don't spend money. We've bought players, and bought early, but we leave the most important positions once again until the last minute. I still can't believe that Levy and the recruitment team have done this... again.

The 2 positions mentioned are in very high demand at the moment as we seen with Man U, just look how much a 19 yo went for, Schneiderlin too. Alot of other teams were looking for similar players to us, we were in first for both these players but couldnt reach a deal for the money the clubs were looking for. I will admit that I thought we could have maybe took a risk on a lesser known out and out stiker but for some reason we didn't. We have however strenghened our first team attacking line enormously in that we now have real pace. Lets see how we go with what we got, apart from the obvious lack of cover at CF I think we have a better balance in the first team than we did.

 

[talkshowhost86]

Yes Levy is holding us back. I hate our last minute transfer policy, as it just makes us look second rate and cheap. And now of course thanks to that we've actually written off a season. One striker is complete madness.
I do understand Levy probably stands back and realizes we could throw 50m,80m or 100m at the transfer window and still not break the top 4 and I think this means he's trying to delay that sort of policy until the stadium. But the football is dull and we wont fill a 61k stadium playing like this or with a team without big name players.
We will never do better than 5-6th with Levy in control, and this season will probably be 8th-12th and get Poch the sack even though it wont be his fault

We are all disappointed with the transfer window but this is a massive exaggeration.

Our transfer policy was no more last minute than any other clubs this season (even Chelsea and City were at it) and I don't see how it can be said we're being cheap when we apparently bid upwards of 25m for Berahino. The issue there, and with the DM situation, was not having the requisite backups lined up (which isn't easy) meaning that we didn't get the players we need. I genuinely don't believe it was due to being 'cheap'.

You say our football is dull, but we've signed two very exciting attacking players in this window, and you say you want big names, but the last time we brought in big names they were almost all flops...so maybe that isn't the way to go?

We may never do better than 5th/6th with Levy in control but that's because financially we simply can't compete. Look at the sort of fees the top four were throwing about this Summer....it's absolutely ridiculous and the only way that we could compete is if we were sold to the oil men or equivalent.

The fact is that unless we get in a billionaire playboy to run the club, we won't be able to compete with the big boys. So in that sense yes Levy is holding us back...but it's perhaps unrealistic to expect otherwise.

Other than that, he's generally got us to being in as high a position as we can expect, and on a pretty consistent basis. I suppose it then boils down to what your definition of 'holding us back' is. I think a lot of people's definitions may be a bit oversimplistic/unrealistic.

 

[nicdic]

We are all disappointed with the transfer window but this is a massive exaggeration.

Our transfer policy was no more last minute than any other clubs this season (even Chelsea and City were at it) and I don't see how it can be said we're being cheap when we apparently bid upwards of 25m for Berahino. The issue there, and with the DM situation, was not having the requisite backups lined up (which isn't easy) meaning that we didn't get the players we need. I genuinely don't believe it was due to being 'cheap'.

You say our football is dull, but we've signed two very exciting attacking players in this window, and you say you want big names, but the last time we brought in big names they were almost all flops...so maybe that isn't the way to go?

We may never do better than 5th/6th with Levy in control but that's because financially we simply can't compete. Look at the sort of fees the top four were throwing about this Summer....it's absolutely ridiculous and the only way that we could compete is if we were sold to the oil men or equivalent.

The fact is that unless we get in a billionaire playboy to run the club, we won't be able to compete with the big boys. So in that sense yes Levy is holding us back...but it's perhaps unrealistic to expect otherwise.

Other than that, he's generally got us to being in as high a position as we can expect, and on a pretty consistent basis. I suppose it then boils down to what your definition of 'holding us back' is. I think a lot of people's definitions may be a bit oversimplistic/unrealistic.

The whole back up thing is tricky too. It's all well and good us saying we should have had back ups, but it may well have been the case, and seemed it with Berahino, that he was the one that we wanted, and there weren't really other options. In many ways I think that that is an encouraging thing. It's also good that we weren't bent over backwards for him. We were clearly serious and offered big money, but I expect no one on here would have valued Berahino at £25m and up before the window, and no one would have wanted us to pay it.

 

[Donki]

The whole back up thing is tricky too. It's all well and good us saying we should have had back ups, but it may well have been the case, and seemed it with Berahino, that he was the one that we wanted, and there weren't really other options. In many ways I think that that is an encouraging thing. It's also good that we weren't bent over backwards for him. We were clearly serious and offered big money, but I expect no one on here would have valued Berahino at £25m and up before the window, and no one would have wanted us to pay it.

The whole "we should have back up options" is really a lot of shit when you think about it. We believed that we had a good chance on Berahino, all the ITK said it, IMO the player himself believed it (hence his reaction) so thats who we went for. The idea of having one or 2 other targets in reserve if that fails doesn't work as the selling teams themselves dont want to be left short and need time to buy players themselves. Of course people will say "well get our bussinees done sooner then", well thats not quite as cut and dried as it sounds as to buy early u need to spend even bigger, which we can't do.

 

[Blockbuster]

Once again Levy has failed to back a manager.

Poch clearly had a midfield target in mind for 2 summer transfer windows now, that is clear to see, and he hasn't been given sufficient options.

What bugs me is the way we as Spurs fans now 'accept' we are not going to be Top 4.

Levy made Top 4 the benchmark in which he sacked managers, Harry sacked for not getting CL, AVB, Tim all sacked for not getting top 4.

Levy/Baldini sold our best players, and brought replacement which have not worked out, why should we now suffer for that?
I'm sorry but Levy simply has to make amends for selling our best players and not proving adequate replacements.

Yes he took some risk and it didn't work out, so what, he needs to make amends.

We've only spent what we make from sales, hell even this summer we've trimmed our wage bill! Why when every other club is spending are we not?
We all know the stadium will mostly be funded by sponsors, I find it hard to support Levy.

Poch will get the blame when we are not pushing top 4 come the end of the season and we will be in turmoil again... we will lose our key players like Lloris, Eriksen, Kane etc and when Levy sells them on deadline day we will all say 'Well done Levy for getting such a good fee for a wantaway player' no sorry im not accepting that.

These players WANT to be here, but they want to be successful and failing to back the manager isn't going to bring success.

Fuck you Levy.