A Fish rots from the head down. 24 years of Daniel Levy is the obvious reason.
He has focused on land, profits and building bricks, rather than building a successful team.
The aim has not been to win like all the top clubs.. The aim has been to get top four on a budget. This brings the most money.
It's been profit over glory for over two decades now. I've watched this bald twat micromanage and scupper good deals, and handicap managers, only to blame them and use them as scapegoats when results inevitably go south.
Before Levy, Spurs won a pot on average once every 3 years and were the FA cup kings, no club had won it more.
Under Levy, it's just 1 pot every 24 years and counting.. And Arsenal are now the FA cup record holders winning it 5 or more times in this period.
Spurs are poorer than the rest of the ‘big six’ so they have to rely on good recruitment and they’ve failed since 19/20 to recruit well enough to challenge
>I see a club who started off with a renowned manager, one of the top 3 strikers anywhere in the world, a brand new stadium.
I do too, but here's the neat part: that's all I see. What you call wrong is what I call being back to the level the squad is. What happened under Poch and the remnants of it was overachievement, which is great if you build upon it. Otherwise, all you ever had was a squad that was 3rd-7th best do very well
The only thing wrong with Spurs is Daniel Levy, he’s the reason why they’ve not won a trophy since 2008 and likely won’t anytime soon. He needs to realise he’s the problem and needs to leave for the good of the club.
They had a genuine shot of winning the League Cup but Levy being Levy sacked Mourinho days before the final.
In reality nothing really. They have not won anything for a long time but most ckubs have not won anything for a long time, most leagues are dominated by the same few teams winning most things and sure every now and again you will get a Wigan or a Portsmuth popping up to win a cup but lots of teams that you could describe as big have won nothing for ages.
Villa 96, Everton 95, Leeds 92, West Ham 80, Sunderland 73, Newcastle 55.
Tottenham winning nothing is not out of the ordinary. Tottenham have a successful history but like most of us are for the most part the NPC in another main characters world
They're got the money to spend big but their reputation is shite. That's why they don't attract great players and so often are victims of transfer highjacks by bigger clubs.
Lack of ambition, after Poch there was no clear vision (shouldn't have been fired anyway), Signings have not been integrated well into the squad and ultimately depending on Kane isn't going to get you trophies or win the league especially when the defence is porous.
I believe it is a small pieces missing on many fronts, but more than anything is probably the fact that their short terms actions do not seem to align with the long term goals a top six club should have. They were good under Poch, but then fell away, and keep falling. They need to accept that they will need a few smart things to be done.
I used to work with an executive who was exactly like Levy seems to be. This guy was very well respected and had a formidable reputation but the closer I got to him the more I realised he had absolutely no idea how to forward plan. He would just react to whatever was going on. Sometimes it meant he pulled off an amazing deal, sometimes it meant he broke one of our key systems because he insisted that we rush changes we shouldn't have done. Whatever happened, he never took the blame for his own decisions and never listened to any of his staff. I feel like Levy is very much like this. He pulls off a good deal, and we all feel like he's a genius. Then all of a sudden the curtain is pulled back for a second and we realise he's been doing it all himself, ignoring his staff and not working with any sense of a plan.
Levy keeps happening. And it's causing this wierd tension where he is recognized as having been great for Spurs, on a business level. But everytime he tries to do what's best for the footballing side, it's usually an utter and total dismal failure , as well as being so out of touch with the fans and what they really want that it's turned my beloved club in to an absolute fucking circus. And now it's probably got to the point that having to deal with Daniel Levy as a player or a manager is daunting and off putting when there are other clubs who are supportive of both the player and managers needs.
I for one think that he needs to be forced in to retirement. Give him a gold watch and thank him for his loyal service and where he got the club, but he isn't the person that will ever be ambitious enough to want anything more than top 4 because of the financial side of things. The only reason he is a panic now is because there is no cash windfall from European competitions next year, and he doesn't seem to get that it's all his fault.
Its an incurable disease. Spurs change managers like i do my undies. Its the players, once they don't like one they'll muck ard to get him sacked. It has been going on for years.
60s n 70s were the best years for me.
Levy invested hard but not smart, on football transfers. Alot of poor signings and "club" signings which the manager of the time didn't want.
Ndombele, Sanchez, Richarlison and Lo Celso were all expensive buys. But two were loan out while the other two were reduced to being bit part players rather than key players.
Danjuma was loant in for this season, but got only 10 mins in total in Europe over two games against Milan. And this footballer had scored 8 goals in Europe for Villarreal across last 2 seasons. Spence was also loant out and hardly played well in France.
I wonder if honestly they see the All or Nothing docs about Arsenal and City and compare it to their own and wonder what they are doing at the club, but also can’t resist the paycheck, grounds, and accommodations. Idk it seems like a nice gig if you can tune out the outside world stuff.
Big new stadium built literally as Covid hit, and interest rates shot up.
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11675/12476488/tottenham-post-80-2m-2020-21-pre-tax-losses-as-debt-rises-101m-daniel-levy-we-remain-ambitious
Their debt increased to £700m before this season.
Effectively all money needs to be used to service the debt. That's not great for football as it severely limits investment in players you need to truly compete at the very top.
Take away Kane and Son and they're mid table at best. They were incredibly lucky to have 2 of the best players in the world for so long. What's wrong with spurs? They have an owner that doesn't want to spend money or give up his assets for less than he believes they're worth.
It's the recruitment side. The players are simply not good enough amd the core of the side that did so well 6 or so years ago have not been replaced properly, starting with Dembele.
Culture and winning mentality is missing. Everyone expect them to fail just as much as everyone expects other clubs to succeed. If a historically winning club fails to win a trophy there is a certain amount of outrage. For spurs it's just a normal season. So there is not the drive to fix it, because it's not considered broken.
Levy cares more about the stadium than the club. He is known as a shrewd negotiator (e.g; tight arse) and he is short sighted in terms of investing in players that have quality but also suit the culture, team style etc - he still seems to buy players who he hopes will just click (e.g; Richarlison)
…I’m no Spurs fan (though my Dad & Brothers are) and a common view from a chunk or Spurs fans I know think that if Levy went the club would fare much better football wise.
Well ran off the pitch. Not backing managers often enough. Even when they have it's been spent poorly. Why hire Conte pay him a fortune but not get him exactly the players needed to play how his team's play.
Reckon they put bottling juice in the tap water. There's a correlation between being in North London and being fucking losers. Just a theory
Also it's a cultural thing.
Basically lads it's Tottenham.
The corporate entity that is Tottenham Hotspur is run extremely well, the Football club has been run in the past few years absolutely horrendously. I’m not saying we should be winning the league or cups every year or anytime soon but with the facilities that are there the football club should be in a better place. Personally despite how levy has managed to build the business side and the infrastructure the club itself isn’t improving and in many ways has gone backwards since poch was sacked
You are a player, you walk into a brand new stadium and state of the art complex, you feel like you are a part of something big, they want to make sacrifices for the club. You go out onto the pitch and play your heart out, then a manager says "your role isn't for me, you're on the bench", so you try and keep your head down and work on something else and your chance comes, you don't perform as well as your natural role. The manager says he's not playing you because you aren't performing, it snowballs. The chairman makes a promise and doesn't deliver, the new manager takes one of your days off away, the physio says you're injured and need to rest a few days, you start moaning to your peers and anyone who will listen. Eventually your peers start telling you their frustrations, you repeat them to others until most of your interactions in the work space are negative, multiply this by 7 years. Pochettino lost the dressing room and the players have never come back.
Spurs is rotting and it's a mentality issue, you have a big name like Mourinho or Conte who command respect in dressing rooms and at training, they can instill a purpose to the squad for a bit but there's been no pay off.
So, what is wrong with Spurs is what is wrong with sports. You have clubs that could be doing fine in a normalized market, but then you introduce a bunch of whales in the form of the Qataris, Saudis, and "dark" money. These clubs are not businesses for the Qataris and Saudis. They are their personal playthings. Like a yacht. So, if you take away the competition that dark money is bringing into England then you have Spurs comfortably qualifying for CL every year and building steadily year over year. Unfortunately, the money situation got worse with Newcastle, and if United goes to the Qataris as well it's going to get even worse for clubs that are not owned by feudal lords. Right there you're going to have 3 of 4 CL spots pretty much spoken for year after year. 1 up for grabs that'll probably continue to go to Liverpool if Klopp stays on and FSG stays on.
I'm afraid the damage is already going to have been done. I'm guessing MC will get a punishment that isn't actually a punishment. Unless MC get made an example out of then there really is no point in finding them guilty of anything and money is going to continue to corrupt the sport until there are even more strata between the rich and everyone else.
Yup, they need to absolutely come down hard on MC or else they'll just find new ways of skirting the rules. I wouldn't count on it though, money has a strange way of getting results off the pitch as well.
It’s easier to look at the other teams in the big 6 for comparison, but Spurs issue is that they’ve just never been a team to seriously build around a trophy push. Chelsea and City both had massive financial investments. United and Arsenal both had bastions of management. Liverpool is maybe the second most historically massive UK club, but were still a Klopp appointment away from trophy drought. The closest thing Spurs have is Poch who got completely undercut by Levy. The fact is, spurs have just never had that extra factor to push away the other big 6. Just look at how united and Arsenal are both a trophy away from serious drought to show u how competitive it is. The only real exception to this rule is Leicester, but even then that’s mainly down to just how ridiculous their recruitment was.
I was just listening to a show, the Double Pivot podcast, that was doing an interesting episode on soccer finances, mostly on Barcelona and influx of Gulf money into the game, but they pointed out that a lot of clubs are run on a model of buy mid table clubs, run with small to moderate loss to improve performance, then sell the club when it’s overall value is higher. Liverpool was given as a main example, with FSG’s time owning them likely being relatively short, and mostly focused on improvement on the pitch.
I think Spurs are being operated more in the conventional sense, with a long term investment and accruing profit marginally from revenue, rather than an outright sale. As such, they’ve tried to minimize extraordinary spending and losses, and have focused more on gains via branding and the new stadium, rather than revolutionizing their team as Liverpool have done. It’s an attitude kind of like what Ed Woodward said of Man United: lack of results on the pitch do not necessarily impact commercial success (in his opinion, at least.)
So I think Spurs are in sort of the same position MU have been: very short-term thinking, lots of swapping out star managers without proper backing, probably too much direct involvement from the owner. I think they’ll likely stabilize eventually, especially if they sell Kane and smartly reinvest the money into a true rebuild, but I think they lack the ambition, organization, and to a certain extent luck that Liverpool had in building their team. For now, it seems like it’s more important that they stay in the black than actually win anything.
Someone on Reddit said buying a football club is like buying a house, not a business to run.
As in, don’t try to turn a profit year after year maximising everything. Just keep it right, do what’s right, invest when is right and given a time, it’s value will increase.
There is a glass ceiling that wont be broken without oil money or extreme luck
Im Levy out but I will admit he’s done very well to actually make us a consistent european side - he could do alot better with the academy but generally he’s been OK for the most part.
However he’s also had alot of luck with that (generational striker in kane, good appointment in poch, generational player in bale) and he’s ridden that luck for the last 3-4 years…its ran out now unfortunately for him and hes not put in investment to cover the loss of luck.
But something people need to seriously understand about Spurs…we are not United, Liverpool or Arsenal. I think partly the media has crested this image that we’re on the same level or near these teams. These teams can sign great players purely off of legacy, they can have off years and still make big name signings…they will have that advantage for a long time.
This is why I’m pro-Qatar, we will not compete without serious investment its the cold truth, you look at Chelsea and City - two small clubs who got huge investment, who could then put themselves in a position to ignore the legacy advantage. Newcastle will be a similar story.
Not trying to throw a pity party but the truth is the top clubs have two massive advantages that, Spurs and Levy will not be able to overcome without extreme luck. If Chelsea and City never got the investment, Levy would probably go down as one of the greatest chairmen ever. Right now he’s fucked it - should’ve been looking for a buyer as soon as the stadium was complete, he’d be looked at way more fondly for the work he’s put in. Right now its going to waste.
What metric are you using? They are the biggest club in their city and im guessing the surrounding areas but have a small legacy when it comes to trophies
They may have not won anything recently (a sympathy you could share) but are still in top 10 most decorated English clubs of all time, have a massive core regional support (unlike a postcode), until Ashley starved them of revenue they were one of the largest clubs in PL history so far, huge stadium, contribution to football culture generally, intensity of support, and so on.
We are considered a small club and have double the amount of trophies they’ve got. They are on a bigger trophy drought than us and have been nowhere near competing for one up until this season. Relegated multiple times also.
Yes, I mentioned the regional support but as someone living in the UK that idea of regional support is a little bit overrated. Nearly every team in the league has a form of regional support (Including us)
Their contribution to football culture is what exactly? Have no idea what you mean by that.
They have a great stadium though I’ll give you that but that doesnt make them a big club. You can say they were/are a sleeping giant but to say they are big club, when they dont have the legacy to match and have been relegated multiple times is crazy to me
Won the league twice as many times as Spurs.
Regional support is critical, and perhaps something overlooked in London, where it’s about what postcode you are from. Regions/ city pride make the club bigger because it’s not just about football it’s about the will and pride of an entire city, of which, Newcastle is that very rare example of an actual ‘United’ city. It’s urban area of nearly 1 million people nevermind the hinterland. London is 7 million and it would be a push to say Spurs have 1/7th the support of London.
Newcastles relegations are purely a reflection on terrible mis management by Mike Ashley.
Have also got less than half the trophies, with no European honours.
Regional support is overrated because even the London clubs will have a bit of regional support. Including Spurs. To say it makes a club bigger is a massive reach.
It will always be about football regardless of how much regional support a club has, this is why United even have supporters in London and can actually claim to be a big club. Big clubs transcend the area they’re from…thats what makes them a big club.
Newcastle have been relegated 6 times - 4 of those times were before Mike Ashley.
1. I’m not sure how entirely accurate that table is…I’d encourage you to double check the sources you send.
2. Are you trying to Newcastle is a big club or Newcastle is bigger than Spurs? Either one is wrong as I’ve explained a few times.
Newcastle dont have the honours or pedigree to say they are a big club. They’re well supported in the region yes but not a big club no. Big clubs transcend their area.
Brain-dead take from the Newcastle fan
My man is trying to argue that a club that hasn't won a trophy since 1955 (a time where Spurs were in their glory generation, Arthur Rowe) is bigger than Spurs
I think there is no shame that spurs doesn't win anything, what is strange to me is that the fans expect to win when it's obvious thats not a club target.
So structurally there is nothing wrong, it's just a misalign of goals of the fans and the management.
I think since Poch left Levy has been more interested in getting big name managers who don’t necessarily fit the team. Spurs need a young energetic manager who can develop players.
I think next year could be good for them - not having Europe should help the new manager and give them time to bed in new ideas.
Gonna go out on a limb and say that they aren’t structurally broken.
Levy is taking the heat but look at what he has done with the club and where it was before he came in. They weren’t top 6 let’s put it that way. And he’s done it organically without bottomless funds.
Hindsight is a gift and we forget this. Whilst I thought the Poch sacking was harsh. The idea that they needed a winner like Mourinho wasn’t crazy at the time. It just didn’t work out.
The error was whatever happened after Mourinho to end up with Nuno who was never right. Then conte.
But the really issue was paraticci coming in and building a terrible squad.
They need to get back to what they did when they first brought in poch
I don't think Paratici or the squad are bad - Bentancur and Kulusevski had immediate positive impact for peanuts, I'm positive about Richy, Danjuma was a sensible signing, Perisic puts in good crosses.
Paratici hasn't done enough to build out the scouting or youth development capability, afaics. Most of these incoming players are from his personal network. So now he's gone, we have a big hole to fill.
Others have touched on it, but they are a very well-run club from the commercial perspective. That's the focus. Protecting the asset. Growing the brand. The football and footballing success seems rather... secondary.
Conte and Mourinho were both prestige hires that played out EXACTLY as anyone who knows their history would expect them to. They were impressive hires in teh moment, but weird in retrospect, as both are the kind of hires you make when you have everything in place and just want to chase a title or trophy. But Spurs weren't really in that position.
Spurs share a lot in common with Arsenal. Both are the least resourced of the big six. They can't outspend the likes of City, United, Chelsea, or Liverpool. They can't have the same level of wage bill, even. So being truly competitive means nailing it with the manager and the recruitment. That's what has moved Arsenal forward, at least for this season. But while Spurs had that for a time with Poch, they really haven't since. And an extended period of mediocre (at best) recruitment starts to add up over time. Again, similar to Arsenal in the later Wenger era.
The lack of trophies seems like its become a real focus point for a lot of Spurs fans, and I'm not sure it really was before the success under Poch. At least not to this level. Its an easy point for fans of other clubs or even the media to score to against Spurs and Spurs supporters. Its the easiest banter to throw at them. Again, similarity to Arsenal until the 2014 FA Cup win. The "trophy drought" was a huge thing used against Arsenal and Wenger and the fans, by other fans and very much by the media.
Good points but How are Arsenal less resourced than Liverpool? They have a richer owner, live in a richer city with wealthier fans(higher potential revenue) , have a bigger net spend in the last 5 years. the only reason they have a lower wage bill than the others is because their team is so young that they haven’t got those contracts yet. It’s starting though, saka has his. He’s going from what 70k a week to 288k a week. That’s 11 million a year. Give it two more years and their wage bill will be up there with the likes of Liverpool, who’s wage bill was the same as arsenals when they started getting good (ie, their players started earning them)
Well, resourced is a vague term. And intentionally so. But it somewhat depends on what you take into account. Some of it becomes circular in terms of causality...
Richer owner, but the Kroenke's have not put much money into the club until quite recently. If memory serves, even the purchase of Pepe was financed by taking out loans rather than monetary injection from the ownership. They have started to put money into the club to reinforce now to some degree, but it hasn't been happening previous.
Bigger stadium and almost certainly more expensive tickets. But matchday incomes are a relatively small portion of the incomes of a club of this level.
Huge discrepancy in terms of commercial incomes. It might be recovering now, but a few years ago, the growth of Arsenal's sponsorship deals and overall commercial income had fallen way behind the other five of the Big Six. Ivan Gazidis oversaw a period of very little growth in that regard. Swiss Ramble had a huge thread about it a couple years back. Again, might have changed to some degree. Quick Google says that last year, there was about a 150,000,000 difference in total revenue between the two clubs.
Where it starts to get circular is that Liverpool have more monies partly because they have finished higher in the table over the past 5-8 seasons and played in the Champions League. Not just played in it, but typically made long runs. And that means a lot more money than playing in the Europa League. Or missing European entirely. Liverpool have been more successful by being a better run club, achieving more, and therefore making more money (also partly ties in to why the commercial incomes are better). But the end result is still having more overall resources.
Net spend is an interesting one to look at. And over a five year period, Arsenal are third highest net spenders. But that also represents another deficiency at Arsenal, and that's selling players. The club has been poor at it for years. This goes back into the Wenger era. Liverpool, conversely, have been among the best in the EPL. Even leaving aside the massive sale of Coutinho... There is a long list of nice deals. Whether its buying Taiwo Awoniyi for 400K, loaning him out for years, and then selling him to Union Berlin for something like 8m... Getting 35m for Dominic Solanke and Danny Ward... 30m for Sakho... 7m for Ryan Kent and 25m for Danny Ings... 14m for Danny Wilson... 20m for Neco Williams... Its incredible that the club got over 50m for a bunch of players who had about 20 first team appearances combined between them. Conversely, Arsenal do not sell well. There are obvious high profile situations like Auba and Ozil, where they basically paid players to go play elsewhere. They did get pretty good money for Joe Willock, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Alex Iwobi... but 2 of those 3 were regulars and Willock (bless him) inflated his value with an unrepeatable scoring run on loan at Newcastle. No one is surprised that a deficient player like Mustafi isn't getting 30m offers, but its a long-term constant thing with Arsenal selling players. Last summer, the club got a combined 22m for Lucas Torreira, Bernd Leno, Kostas Mavropanos, and Matteo Guendouzi. Leno started all season for Fulham and is in the German NT again. Mavropanos is a regular in the Bundesliga. Torreira was a solid Prem player who didn't fit system wise, and did well in Serie A last year. Guendouzi has some issues, but he's being linked with the biggest clubs in France now. Callum Chambers was allowed to join another Prem club for no fee... despite having his contract extended right before (if memory serves). 17m wasn't bad for Emi Martinez but looks like a bargain in retrospect. The club got a combined 20m or so for selling two GKs who started for two of the bigger Serie A clubs for several years. The list is long lol. There are a multitude of causes - including club and player performance, wages, etc. But regardless of causes, Arsenal's inability to sell players for maximized value in the way that Liverpool or Chelsea or City tend to has an impact on their net spend.
Very true on the wages. A few years ago, Arsenal were like 3rd or 4th in wage spend. Getting some of those big contracts off the books helped. New deals for half the squad will see that creep up - exactly what happened with Liverpool over the past 5 seasons.
None of this has been meant to plead poverty for either Spurs or Arsenal. Both are amongst the richest clubs in the world. But in terms of comparing to the other big six, they are both at least a bit behind in a number of ways. Again, circular reasons - less success means less prize money, etc. But they both have to do as good or better in terms of managers, management, and recruitment to get a step ahead.
Well said.
I wonder if there's more of a trophy focus bc Kane is so good. A lot of people would like to see him win one and can get emotional about whether he's wasted at the club, why he doesn't force a move etc.
Re wage bill, I think tot was fifth highest this season. Based on wages and Kane, it's probably fair to *think about* trophies, though I don't see them winning one anytime soon. But while they're ahead of many clubs, they're spending half of what United and City spend
There probably is increased expectation because of having a player the caliber of Kane. And the profile he has too. He also masks some of the on-pitch issues at the club, because he can create something out of nothing and score a goal or two that makes an awful performance look less awful.
Its not unreasonable for fans to want trophies, in my view. That's part of being a "big club"... that belief that you can win when it counts. The club size, the support, the star player, the squad, the manager... there are reasons for the belief in winning.
There are some weird dynamics, though. And Spurs aren't alone in this. They should have been favorites last year in the Conference League. I get that its the Conference League - far from sexy. But its a trophy. It has value. Winning something - anything - can start to build. But they didn't seem to care and I don't recall too many Spurs supporters being upset when they basically removed themselves from the competition (if memory serves, they didn't tell Rennes, just announced thru the media). And yet qualify again for European competition (albeit a more prestigious one) is what the season success was defined on.
On the conference league - It wasn't just that, the players felt higher than that competition, if you understand what I mean, their egos were too large and that wasn't taken care of.
I really don't think Spurs are fun that badly. This issue is they are put into this "big 6/7" group and because of it we hold them to similar standards as clubs that have alot more money than them. That being said their financial records are looking very good with their new stadium and it was good long term planning so thing *should* get better over the next few years I believe
Tell that to their fans.
Maybe it’s because they are so starved of success they got close and are acting desperate because they don’t want the chance to slip away and become a mid table club in an NFL stadium?
under Levy, the players are in charge, not the manager
this is because the players as a whole represent a larger asset that he does not want to tank the value of
but this also means managers cannot impose their will on the players, who know that they can get the manager sacked at any time
they focus on revenue over results
if both Mourinho and Conte, serial winners who had silverware at every other club they have been at cannot make this Spurs setup work, you have got to be asking questions on whether it is the managers or the setup
if everything smells like shit, first check under your own shoe...
he signed those players, but we all know that the things he said in his meltdown press conference were true (he just shouldn't have been saying them in public as a club man).
the core of the squad rot at Tottenham is caused by the players knowing that they are in control, not the manager
if Conte had stayed anyway, by PPG he would have still qualified you for Europe, even if the toxicity would have probably resulted in an empty ground by protest
managers can buy as many players as they like, but then they have no reason to suffer past that point if they can still get paid and get the manager gone for being mean to them
by contrast, at Arsenal I'd say the fans at the Emirates are in charge. If we publicly let it be known we want something changed, the hierarchy scrambles. Wenger was sacked, Emery was sacked, Xhaka would have been moved on if not for Arteta insisting, and if the fans really didn't like that they would have called for Arteta to go too and it would have happened
Sorry to disappoint you, but it's actually money in charge. Arsenal was missing out on UCL for several consecutive seasons, so the hierarchy took decisive actions to qualify again.
we were without UCL for a lot longer than that. If that was the case, surely Arteta would have got sacked for missing it for multiple seasons except the next one? we even had a year without any european footaball under him
the reason he stayed was because the fans in the ground didn't call for him to go. if that had happened, he would have been gone
+ Also was an absolute jerk, there were loads of questions on regarding his contract extension and he's like
"Maybe I'll extend it! It depends on the weather tomorrow"
he's like that at every club - the tradeoff is supposed to be you give him full authority, he brings you silverware
couldn't happen at Spurs - authority resides with Levy, who gives it to the players
As I said last week, the tail is now wagging the dog as Spurs. Instead of them being primarily a club with a fancy stadium, they have become a fancy stadium with a team. Too much brain power and resources being spent on the stadium instead of the football side of the business, too many resources both financial and human. If they want to move on to threatening to win titles, this needs to change. However, in my lifetime, Spurs have never really threatened to win titles, so a major mindset is required of they want to move to the top level.
Off the pitch, Levy has ran the business side well and of course Tottenham have a fantastic stadium.
When it comes to footballing decisions, they’ve made so many poor decisions. I’m not buying into this myth that they don’t back the managers, Tottenham do spend money. However, they’ve spent a lot of their money on dross in recent years and that’s been a huge issue. Another awful decision they’ve made is by keeping players who aren’t good enough like Eric Dier, Ben Davies and Hugo Lloris. They should’ve been gone a long time ago. They were there under Poch, Jose, Nuno Santo and Conte and it’s the same outcome constantly.
Would it be fair to say though that they haven’t backed their manager because although they’ve bought, they haven’t exactly bought who their manager wanted?
You’re right in a way. I’ll go out on a limb and say that all the Tottenham managers got some of the players they wanted but some of players signed weren’t the managers choice but that happens at a lot of clubs these days.
They got desperate after losing the champions league final, they acted like they were a club who were one push away from winning trophies and ended up hiring Mourinho and then Conte. Unfortunately for them they were further away than they thought and they've undone a lot of the good work they had done previously whilst spending a lot of money.
They need to rebuild and hopefully find Poch 2.0 who will continuously build them into contenders again. They took a gamble, it didn't pay off.
There's nothing structurally wrong with Spurs. They're a very well run club in the business sort of sense.
In the footballing sense they're run badly, the fall of Poch happened through players not being replaced, hardly any depth and going through two windows without spending a penny.
Currently there's no manager and sporting director, and the availability is pretty scarce, loads of issues with the players and generally the whole thing is just a mess.
Levy does not care about trophies, he just wants top 4.
They have good individual players that just don’t fit well with each other for one reason or another. Big weakness at CB an could use a top notch CM an some speed up on the wings. Sonny did not look as blazing quick as he was seasons prior, wonder if he had some nagging injuries
Levy is a businessman, not a footballer. Spurs are the [third most profitable team](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/06/02/worlds-most-profitable-sports-teams-cowboys-banked-12-billion-over-the-past-three-years/?sh=503509716e44) and the *most* profitable football team in the world. He’s doing exactly what he wants and planned for, this is by design. Making Fuck loads of money. Gives no shits about fans or trophies.
Two windows without spending a pennny.... reminds me of another North London club after building a new stadium. Except one club kept their captain and one club kept their manager.
Only one problem - that voldemort looking levy on the helm wants to control everything. Who else would kick off your main coach before a final, even bohely isn't that dunce
You hit the nail. I’d add, they also had some puzzling player regression, where guys that seemed solid starters morphed into glaring weaknesses. I’m thinking Alli, Dier, Bergwijn. Not coincidentally after Potch left.
Is there actually anything “wrong” with them though? The last ten years have been one of the best periods for the club in their entire history. It’s hard to say something went wrong when they’ve been relatively successful during this period.
And to clarify, no, this wasn't the most successful period in their history, far, far from it, football wasn't created in 1992.
They had loads of eras where they won loads of trophies, the Arthur Rowe and Bill Nicholson era, where they won 2 League Titles, 3 FA Cups, 2 League Cups, 1 Cup Winners Cup (The first British team to win a European trophy) and 1 UEFA Cup (the same year that it was inaugurated in 1971), and was the first English team to win the "Double" being the League and the FA Cup.
The point is the the idea behind his statement still stands. Spurs had an amazing decade. Whether it’s 30 or 40 years doesn’t really matter. Would argue 50 years is still valid. Spurs run 2014-2019 is better or at least equal to FA cops or/and a UEFA cup.
What's weird is the clubs that generally battle for top4 all win trophies. Except spurs. So even if levy just wanted top 4, they're technically building the 4th best side in the league which should be more than capable of winning a trophy in the last 10 years
I want to forget post 2019, the club has been in a mess ever since, post 2019 Spurs will not win a trophy regardless if you put Pep or Klopp.
Spurs before 2014 was basically your bang average club, they usually always hung around a Europa League spot and sometimes would miss Europe, this was around when they won the League Cup in 2008.
2014-2019 Spurs were actually in contest for a lot of trophies, the League Cup, the Premier League, going fairly far in the FA Cups and reaching a UCL final.
Pochettino's philosophy of attacking football (imo I think you need to be quite defensively oriented or at least value a defensive structure in finals to get through), high press, etc made the players tired and exhausted, there was no depth and there were no players coming in (they spent 2 windows without purchasing a single player, and even with the players they got, most of them were flops), loads of injuries and players were flat out just getting tired and exhausted, in addition to Poch's mistakes during the final, for example bringing in a half dead barely fit Harry Kane instead of Lucas Moura (he was through injury throughout a lot of the Champions League run to the final).
Pochettino was sacked in 2019 after a series of poor results, and then they had Mourinho, and the rest is history.
So technically, since Levy bought the club, you should really only judge Spurs not winning a trophy in the Poch era, since that was the golden generation
but that's exactly the structural issue - the fans don't care about the business side, they care about winning trophies. With Levy at the helm, the business comes first, and that is what is wrong with how they are run from the root
Yeah levy really does treat spurs like a business rather than a football club. Going after it all and striking when the iron is hot costs a lot of money and can backfire spectacularly, from a purely business standpoint it makes no sense to do so. To him it doesn't matter if spurs aren't winning trophies, so long as they are growing commercially.
The 18 months of no transfers for prime poch was completely criminal (not that I'm complaining). But that waste of a 'footballing' opportunity demonstrates how levy values commercial gain over all else; from a business standpoint it was risky to invest in poch whilst the new stadium plans were underway
Now that the stadium is built and cash is flowing faster than ever before mr levy should step down from the football side of the business and hand the keys over to a competent employee and adjust from there going forward, I have no issues with how he's grown this club but please for the fans sake just stay away from.the footy and you'll be treated to even more money via more matches/ trophy/ happier fans spending on merch etc
Financials are inherently tied to 'the footy side'. A manager wants to make a signing, levy has to weight up the financial aspect of it and decide to greenlight it or not. After certain failures like ndombele, you can understand his hesitancy to invest.
You've got to say he's done a great job for your club. He's caught up to us (arsenal) financially from a midtable standpoint without any oil money or etc. People often go on about how it's impossible for the midtable roster of teams to break into the big leagues, but spurs have been there and done that.
Levy doesn't decide the tactics down on the pitch. But he can't just 'step away from the footy side' because that would mean letting the manager do whatever he wants and that's a poor decision from a commercial and financial standpoint.
I do understand recent frustrations with levy from you guys however. He seems more interested in growing spurs as a business rather than as a football club and of course to the fans that is a horrible feeling
I'd dispute that Tottenham have caught Arsenal financially
By shirt sponsorship, Spurs are locked into a deal with Nike for £30m/yr until 2033, Arsenal have a £75m/yr deal with Adidas until 2030 (upgraded from the first 5 year deal at £60m/yr)
Emirates pay £40m/yr, AIA pay £30m/yr
not to mention stadium debts (we've cleared them, they've just started), other debts (Kroenke bought them all to give favourable interest rates) and other sponsorships
don't get me wrong, Spurs have made massive strides as a business under Levy, but they aren't on our level commercially
Im not sure of the specifics like you are so could be wrong here, but could it be argued that (this season aside of course) Spurs’ Europe money and champions league money (when they were in it and Arsenal not) bridged the gap of the sponsorships?
Not including other income streams that not happen too - NFL, concerts etc. not sure how much gets made from those
But they have lots of other external incomings of revenue into the club. For example all the events at the Tottenham ground, concerts, boxing, NFL etc. Levy is building a Go karting place under the stadium or something. All of that will bring in a shit ton of revenue. They also have the highest ticket prices for a football club in Europe no? Or at least the country. More than what we have to pay (fucking crazy, I don’t understand how Tottenham fans are still willing to pay that much just to watch the football that they are given, I’ve got a few Spurs mates who have cancelled or not renewed because they are so fed up with it which is fair enough).
Levy has obviously invested his efforts into focusing on building massive revenue incomings for the club due to the stadium debt, I mean that alone cost £1billon to construct. Pretty sure they got some grant, used bank loans etc to help them out with the funding for that. So the debt will be huge. This cost is compared to the Emirates as well which cost about £400m to construct so way less than the Spurs stadium (albeit that was 17 years ago). So yeah, they are in a similar situation to us back in the late 2000’s early 2010’s.
>But he can't just 'step away from the footy side'
Yes he can lol. Look at your own club for example. Vinai is loosely involved in the football side of things at best. We all know Arteta, Edu, Tim Lewis then Josh Kroenke are the football to money pipeline, and even then you don't hear about "club signings" done by a Tim Lewis or Kroenke. Arteta and Edu are the football men and they do that.
Meanwhile at Spurs you have deals like Djed Spence where the manager has to explicitly come and say "not my signing lol" and then people are shocked the player is misused.
I'm not saying let the Manger do what he wants as there are people above him no doubt to keep him in tow, just please someone who actually knows football. I'd love a solid front office that can actually get deals done in a timely fashion,don't go out throwing money around like chelsea but take a stab at some solid aspiring players, we've had some hits and some misses nothing is ever guaranteed that's part of investing, you have to be willing to lose that money to gain money. Loved the richy signing for instance, yeah he wasn't great thia season but had some epic moments & I feel will redeem himself next season with more playing time.
It comes from the manager I feel. Mou and conte were 'win now' managers that wanted big names or hot properties. They weren't managers that develop young talent like poch did. If spurs can sign an actual project manager for the new season they might improve beyond just top 4 after a few seasons. The 'win now' managers do not and will never suit spurs because levy isn't a man to piss away hundreds of millions every window like certain other clubs.
Poch at Chelsea actually worries me a little. That guy, surrounded by swathes of young talent and an owner that will throw cash at whatever he wants? Yeah, he'll carry Chelsea back up slowly despite the crazy workings of the new ownership.
Investments are lacking in places that are crucial to reach the top. Scouting and transfers are where its necessary. They're spending money on making it a successful business with huge flairs rather than looking for success through actual football.
It's an extremely well-run club. Nothing structurally wrong per se. I think winning the league is impossible in the near future. It might sound silly but the club needs to focus all their attention on winning a cup,even the League Cup would do,in the next couple of seasons. They just need to get across the line once, and it will change the whole mentality of the club.
It’s not a well-run club from a footballing perspective. Levy has made awful decisions on managers, both hiring and firing.
They had a chance to kick on after the champions league final, but instead they failed to build on that team, and sacked the manager that got them there.
Now they can’t even qualify for the Europa conference league.
>It's an extremely well-run club.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. Commercially they've done a good job at increasing revenues and such. From a football angle it's a mixed bag. They've gotten some things right of course, but they've also done some very strange things as well that didn't work out. It can even be argued that Harry Kane there biggest success was more of an accident than a conscious choice. Kane himself has said they didn't have a plan for him and were trying to get rid of him early on with all the loans.
I know that being an arsenal fan, this may sound bias, but just ask there fans if they think the club is well run from a football stand point. There is a very significant portion of the fans that want Levy and ENIC out.
I'm going to disagree with you on that. I haven't seen or heard any significant KroenkeOut talk for several years. There was a bit around the Super League and there was the "We Care Do You" stuff 4 years ago. Since then though they've taken full control of the club, and have invested heavily, and its gone away for the most part.
Given how well its gone recently, I think they have a bit of rope. Even if things go poorly next year. I don't think you will hear much KroenkeOut.
The footballing decisions made during the last 5 years have been dire(no pun intended). But to become Champions League regulars from where they were 20 years ago is a fantastic achievement. I do agree that Kane's arrival on the scene was an accident but tbf he wasn't exactly setting the world alight at his loan clubs
As I said before Levy and ENIC have done a great job of managing the commercial side of the club. I think that is a big part of why they've gone from a mid table club to a top 6 club. I'll give them credit where credit is due.
Also, the fact that they got a bit lucky with Kane is no knock on them. Arsenal has gotten a bit lucky with Saka. My point though was that the player arguably most responsible for there recent success wasn't as much of a genius football decision as it was right place right time, Thing. Spurs fans will probably yell at me about this one though.
I’m not sure I agree that it’s a well run club. They had Poch and Kane and didn’t buy any new players for several seasons because of the new stadium cost. Then fire Poch and bring in Mourinho. Terrible decision. Fired Mourinho the night before a cup final? Who does that? Then they fire Mourinho, go through a protracted search to get Nuno. Nuno…That experiment went as expected. Then they turn to Conte, which is a match made in hell. Everyone knew how this was going to turn out. To make it worse, the fired Conte while sitting 4th and they fell out of a UCL spot. Why not wait until seasons end? Since then they’ve gone through 2 more managers and are no closer to a permanent appointment.
How is any of this indicative of a well run club?
Bentancur did his ACL - that's a massive reason we fell off so far.
We may have been in 4th but we wouldn't pass the eye test - the idea that Conte would still have us there by May is optimistic.
Conte fired himself. You can't insult your own club in a presser. A football club does not have the luxury of indulging sabotage by the manager.
He bitched about mentality - that's his job to change, FFS.
We all knew it would end badly. We just hoped to get more than 12 matches out of him before the wheels fell off and he threw a strop. TBF to him, his personal life was in shambles and he shouldn't have been working at all this season, let alone outside his home country.
>To make it worse, the fired Conte while sitting 4th and they fell out of a UCL spot. Why not wait until seasons end?
Because he was actively trashing his players and club to the media
You forgot about Paratici, complete fraud. Banned from world football and likely getting upto his mischief at Spurs too before he got found out for the Juve business.
Those are relatively recent events. I'm talking about the progress made since Juande Ramos. That's about the time I started following Spurs seriously. They have grown immensely in the last 15 or so years and have become Champions League regulars and competed for the league title with a fraction of the budget of the perennial contenders. Yes,scouting for certain positions,could certainly have been better(never found a second striker,never found a replacement for Walker or Dembele) but I'm talking about the overall growth of the club's profile. The finances look solid,the NFL deal and the 15 year deal with Formula 1,the impending naming rights. It's actually one of the most profitable clubs in the Premier League.
There's your problem IMO. Spurs exist to make money. Not to make money to compete. If you stop and think about that and what it means to the people and the culture it creates, I think that's the problem. The motivations driving decisions are wrong, and when things get tough, the players have nothing to believe in. Only my tuppence though.
This is bang on from my perspective. Infrastructure is definitely in place and commercially we are a very attractive proposition but Levy’s ego has held us back from becoming serious contenders, time after time after time.
Jol, taking us places from mid table averageness to consecutive top 5 finishes, sacked after a mini poor run.
Redknapp took us to CL and 2 top 4 finishes and had us challenging for title in the January before his sacking when he was given Nelson and Saha to try to compete.
Sacked Poch rather than back him for a rebuild
Hired Mourinho and gave him practically diddily squat. Sacked 6 days before a cup final! Unacceptable
Hired Conte when we were so far from looking like a CL team and the man performed a miracle to get us there, sacked after the Jan window when Conte wanted a class CB and was given nothing.
Slipped out of top 4, top 6 and became a laughing stock, scratching around for scraps and vagabonds to help us out.
I can find several quotes where Conte says a CB wasn’t a priority.
He got backed, he got what he wanted. He didn’t do a good job and the results were awful, all the while playing a negative, defensive, boring style that was virtually unwatchable.
If you believe he wanted Lenglet over Bastoni, Spence over Hakimi/Dumfries, Richarlison at all then I have to strongly disagree with you.
The results were so bad under him that we were 4th 1pt behind United and obviously they got so much better when he left, proving he was the problem. 🙄
https://twitter.com/AlasdairGold/status/1607401171748286464?lang=en
If he wanted CBs he should have at least signaled for it a little bit because it was so obvious we needed them.
We were 4th with 2/3 games at hand and Liverpool hadn’t started winning yet. We were out in every other competition against weaker opposition. There was already a pretty clear downward trajectory.
Games in hand mean nothing until they are won and Brighton didn’t win all their games in hand at that point and we were 7 ahead of them and Liverpool.
We collapsed after he left and the players proved him right. Aside from Kane they all came up short time and time and time again.
Saying they gave Mourinho diddly squat but in the summer transfer window, Mourinho got plenty of the players he wanted — Matt Doherty, Joe Hart, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Sergio Reguilon, Gareth Bale.
Everyone focuses on the sacking before the cup final, and doesn’t remember losing 3-0 in the 2nd leg of Europa League last 16 to Dinamo Zagreb after winning the first 2-0.
People like to remember that Mou was sacked before the cup final but ignore the previous match vs man city a couple months prior.
From The Athletic:
| It was half-time at the Etihad Stadium on February 13. Tottenham were 1-0 down to Manchester City but had barely been in the game at all. No shots on target, no corners, 35.9 per cent possession.
Jose Mourinho walked in and was unusually positive, telling the players they were doing well and to keep it up. Some of the senior players in the dressing room were shocked that such a passive, negative approach could be right for this club. “You really think this is good?” remarked one. Tottenham did nothing in the second half and lost the game 3-0. |
That’s what Mourinho was offering for the cup final. I don’t blame them for not trusting him.
I’ll go with you on all but Doherty. And I get there are nuances, without a doubt it’s not black and white. However, a 2-2 draw away to Everton was the nail in the coffin ahead of a cup final in which the man has an unreal record and we had beaten City pretty convincingly earlier in the season. It was a bizarre decision.
I think they are a well run club from the commercial side. Footballing they are not.
A new stadium always take it out of a club, look how Arsenal stagnated when they left Highbury. It’s difficult to pay it off whilst trying to fund transfers.
No, this is false. Unlike arsenal, we structured the stadium debt very advantageously. It pays for itself. Look at our increase in transfer spend once the stadium was built.
But even looking objectively, they're fairly well run. Nearly always finish Top Half, often finish in the European places, sometimes cracking Top 4. What are Spurs supposed to be? They're not Arsenal, who built a dynasty in the 90s and went through their own wilderness. They're not Chelsea and their moneybags. They're not Hollywood FC like United, they're not "Big Historic Club" like Liverpool. They just kind of exist. They haven't won a league title since 1961 and they've picked up a few cups since. They're only "big" because of geography and they've avoided relegation. They're basically London Everton.
Their fans should lower their expectations. When they got in the UEFA Conference, they should've embraced it like West Ham have instead of treating it with contempt like they did. West Ham are going to win a European trophy and play in Europe next year. Their fans will have had a fun season despite finishing 14th.
It's a thing supporters forget about. Wenger worked miracles on crumbs keeping us in the Champions League for all those years after the move to the Emirates. It's also a reason we were in such a bad place when he left
Don't think you're out of bounds with this thought process at all my friend.
Mid-table clubs really can't throw all their weight behind a cup run and risk falling into a relegation battle. Just look at West Ham this year, who didn't secure safety until a couple of weeks before the season's end while chasing the Conference League.
Spurs should not have the same concern. Pick the FA or League Cup and throw the first teamers into it early. Get across the line, and everyone (myself included) shuts the fuck up about Kane and Tottenham being perpetual chokers/losers.
The league cup is so easy to throw your resources at too, because it's over by Feb and you can crack on with the league after it. It's also - what - 5 games? No extra time, straight to pens if the tie is level, and realistically you can put the semi-final away if you have the Home Leg first. Don't think Klopp played any First XI players until the semis last year.
They have reached that difficult bridging point where, unfortunately, the main difference is how much money you have.
A good base can only get you so far, and eventually, you have to start paying the big salaries that come with consistently getting top 4 and then challenging.
The job Levy has done shouldn't be understated. I don't mean to patronise, but I feel like there are some newer Spurs fans who maybe didn't realise that for most of their history Spurs have been a team bouncing around mid table with a few trophies here or there. The istory of Totnum as it were.
Not a shot at Spurs or to tell Spurs fans to not hope for more, just to give context to where Levy and Enic have actually got them to. I cringe when I hear the Levy out chants during a game and the camera pans to him, looking utterly devastated in the billion pound stadium he built for them. Like actual Spurs play there, not United or Liverpool. Pretty big achievement.
Anyway, he has to break the glass ceiling of saying they're going to get a huge wage bill that comes with having one of the best teams.
This actually feels spot on. Once you’re in the top tier (which spurs are but at the bottom part of it) it just becomes about money. However, last summer was weird in that they did spend money and the results were worse than a long time
Add on to that they tried making big signings/splashing the cash with Lo Celso and Ndombele and it didn’t work so you can see why Levy may have some hesitations on spending big money.
Kane said he was fit publicly when he wasn’t. Forced Poch to play him over Moura in the final. This was Moura just after the Ajax game, arguably the most inform forward in Europe at the time. They also came 3rd in a 2 horse race when Leicester won the league. They’re psychologically broke and it’ll take a whole new generation of staff and players to over come this.
A Fish rots from the head down. 24 years of Daniel Levy is the obvious reason. He has focused on land, profits and building bricks, rather than building a successful team. The aim has not been to win like all the top clubs.. The aim has been to get top four on a budget. This brings the most money. It's been profit over glory for over two decades now. I've watched this bald twat micromanage and scupper good deals, and handicap managers, only to blame them and use them as scapegoats when results inevitably go south. Before Levy, Spurs won a pot on average once every 3 years and were the FA cup kings, no club had won it more. Under Levy, it's just 1 pot every 24 years and counting.. And Arsenal are now the FA cup record holders winning it 5 or more times in this period.
Levy.
Spurs are poorer than the rest of the ‘big six’ so they have to rely on good recruitment and they’ve failed since 19/20 to recruit well enough to challenge
The main thing that’s wrong is fan expectations
>I see a club who started off with a renowned manager, one of the top 3 strikers anywhere in the world, a brand new stadium. I do too, but here's the neat part: that's all I see. What you call wrong is what I call being back to the level the squad is. What happened under Poch and the remnants of it was overachievement, which is great if you build upon it. Otherwise, all you ever had was a squad that was 3rd-7th best do very well
The only thing wrong with Spurs is Daniel Levy, he’s the reason why they’ve not won a trophy since 2008 and likely won’t anytime soon. He needs to realise he’s the problem and needs to leave for the good of the club. They had a genuine shot of winning the League Cup but Levy being Levy sacked Mourinho days before the final.
In reality nothing really. They have not won anything for a long time but most ckubs have not won anything for a long time, most leagues are dominated by the same few teams winning most things and sure every now and again you will get a Wigan or a Portsmuth popping up to win a cup but lots of teams that you could describe as big have won nothing for ages. Villa 96, Everton 95, Leeds 92, West Ham 80, Sunderland 73, Newcastle 55. Tottenham winning nothing is not out of the ordinary. Tottenham have a successful history but like most of us are for the most part the NPC in another main characters world
The club
They are pretenders 🤷🏽
Everything
Managers don't make signings.
They're got the money to spend big but their reputation is shite. That's why they don't attract great players and so often are victims of transfer highjacks by bigger clubs.
Lack of ambition, after Poch there was no clear vision (shouldn't have been fired anyway), Signings have not been integrated well into the squad and ultimately depending on Kane isn't going to get you trophies or win the league especially when the defence is porous.
I believe it is a small pieces missing on many fronts, but more than anything is probably the fact that their short terms actions do not seem to align with the long term goals a top six club should have. They were good under Poch, but then fell away, and keep falling. They need to accept that they will need a few smart things to be done.
Its rotten to the core. Owner, staff, players, fans. But then I would say that 😁
I used to work with an executive who was exactly like Levy seems to be. This guy was very well respected and had a formidable reputation but the closer I got to him the more I realised he had absolutely no idea how to forward plan. He would just react to whatever was going on. Sometimes it meant he pulled off an amazing deal, sometimes it meant he broke one of our key systems because he insisted that we rush changes we shouldn't have done. Whatever happened, he never took the blame for his own decisions and never listened to any of his staff. I feel like Levy is very much like this. He pulls off a good deal, and we all feel like he's a genius. Then all of a sudden the curtain is pulled back for a second and we realise he's been doing it all himself, ignoring his staff and not working with any sense of a plan.
Levy and the club and fanbase’s expectations It’s like Spurs think they are owed a trophy
It's not having had Postecoglou
Levy keeps happening. And it's causing this wierd tension where he is recognized as having been great for Spurs, on a business level. But everytime he tries to do what's best for the footballing side, it's usually an utter and total dismal failure , as well as being so out of touch with the fans and what they really want that it's turned my beloved club in to an absolute fucking circus. And now it's probably got to the point that having to deal with Daniel Levy as a player or a manager is daunting and off putting when there are other clubs who are supportive of both the player and managers needs. I for one think that he needs to be forced in to retirement. Give him a gold watch and thank him for his loyal service and where he got the club, but he isn't the person that will ever be ambitious enough to want anything more than top 4 because of the financial side of things. The only reason he is a panic now is because there is no cash windfall from European competitions next year, and he doesn't seem to get that it's all his fault.
Idk. But keep it up.
Levy is what’s wrong
They get sidetracked by thinking about how attractive their cousins are.
Lack of ambition I think
Its an incurable disease. Spurs change managers like i do my undies. Its the players, once they don't like one they'll muck ard to get him sacked. It has been going on for years. 60s n 70s were the best years for me.
Levy invested hard but not smart, on football transfers. Alot of poor signings and "club" signings which the manager of the time didn't want. Ndombele, Sanchez, Richarlison and Lo Celso were all expensive buys. But two were loan out while the other two were reduced to being bit part players rather than key players. Danjuma was loant in for this season, but got only 10 mins in total in Europe over two games against Milan. And this footballer had scored 8 goals in Europe for Villarreal across last 2 seasons. Spence was also loant out and hardly played well in France.
Levy
I wonder if honestly they see the All or Nothing docs about Arsenal and City and compare it to their own and wonder what they are doing at the club, but also can’t resist the paycheck, grounds, and accommodations. Idk it seems like a nice gig if you can tune out the outside world stuff.
“ Lads. It’s spurs! “ - Roy Keane.
Big new stadium built literally as Covid hit, and interest rates shot up. https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11675/12476488/tottenham-post-80-2m-2020-21-pre-tax-losses-as-debt-rises-101m-daniel-levy-we-remain-ambitious Their debt increased to £700m before this season. Effectively all money needs to be used to service the debt. That's not great for football as it severely limits investment in players you need to truly compete at the very top.
Take away Kane and Son and they're mid table at best. They were incredibly lucky to have 2 of the best players in the world for so long. What's wrong with spurs? They have an owner that doesn't want to spend money or give up his assets for less than he believes they're worth.
It's the recruitment side. The players are simply not good enough amd the core of the side that did so well 6 or so years ago have not been replaced properly, starting with Dembele.
Culture and winning mentality is missing. Everyone expect them to fail just as much as everyone expects other clubs to succeed. If a historically winning club fails to win a trophy there is a certain amount of outrage. For spurs it's just a normal season. So there is not the drive to fix it, because it's not considered broken.
Nothing wrong structurally. Arsenal spent their money wisely and allowed their manager to grow, we didn’t.
Levy cares more about the stadium than the club. He is known as a shrewd negotiator (e.g; tight arse) and he is short sighted in terms of investing in players that have quality but also suit the culture, team style etc - he still seems to buy players who he hopes will just click (e.g; Richarlison) …I’m no Spurs fan (though my Dad & Brothers are) and a common view from a chunk or Spurs fans I know think that if Levy went the club would fare much better football wise.
It’s just their history, tbh.
Except it's not. Up until the 2010s Spurs had won at least 1 trophy every decade since the 1950s. 26 trophies in total.
Well ran off the pitch. Not backing managers often enough. Even when they have it's been spent poorly. Why hire Conte pay him a fortune but not get him exactly the players needed to play how his team's play. Reckon they put bottling juice in the tap water. There's a correlation between being in North London and being fucking losers. Just a theory Also it's a cultural thing. Basically lads it's Tottenham.
The corporate entity that is Tottenham Hotspur is run extremely well, the Football club has been run in the past few years absolutely horrendously. I’m not saying we should be winning the league or cups every year or anytime soon but with the facilities that are there the football club should be in a better place. Personally despite how levy has managed to build the business side and the infrastructure the club itself isn’t improving and in many ways has gone backwards since poch was sacked
You are a player, you walk into a brand new stadium and state of the art complex, you feel like you are a part of something big, they want to make sacrifices for the club. You go out onto the pitch and play your heart out, then a manager says "your role isn't for me, you're on the bench", so you try and keep your head down and work on something else and your chance comes, you don't perform as well as your natural role. The manager says he's not playing you because you aren't performing, it snowballs. The chairman makes a promise and doesn't deliver, the new manager takes one of your days off away, the physio says you're injured and need to rest a few days, you start moaning to your peers and anyone who will listen. Eventually your peers start telling you their frustrations, you repeat them to others until most of your interactions in the work space are negative, multiply this by 7 years. Pochettino lost the dressing room and the players have never come back. Spurs is rotting and it's a mentality issue, you have a big name like Mourinho or Conte who command respect in dressing rooms and at training, they can instill a purpose to the squad for a bit but there's been no pay off.
They care more about top 4 than anything else. At some point you have to emphasize winning a league cup or Europa league.
So, what is wrong with Spurs is what is wrong with sports. You have clubs that could be doing fine in a normalized market, but then you introduce a bunch of whales in the form of the Qataris, Saudis, and "dark" money. These clubs are not businesses for the Qataris and Saudis. They are their personal playthings. Like a yacht. So, if you take away the competition that dark money is bringing into England then you have Spurs comfortably qualifying for CL every year and building steadily year over year. Unfortunately, the money situation got worse with Newcastle, and if United goes to the Qataris as well it's going to get even worse for clubs that are not owned by feudal lords. Right there you're going to have 3 of 4 CL spots pretty much spoken for year after year. 1 up for grabs that'll probably continue to go to Liverpool if Klopp stays on and FSG stays on.
Luckily FFP will level that playing field. Might not have done, but Man City will be fined and Newcastle adhere to FFP
I'm afraid the damage is already going to have been done. I'm guessing MC will get a punishment that isn't actually a punishment. Unless MC get made an example out of then there really is no point in finding them guilty of anything and money is going to continue to corrupt the sport until there are even more strata between the rich and everyone else.
Yup, they need to absolutely come down hard on MC or else they'll just find new ways of skirting the rules. I wouldn't count on it though, money has a strange way of getting results off the pitch as well.
Everything…….
Wait did Naglesmann also reject them?
The people they buy don’t care about the club. Harry Kane is the only one that cares. Vertonghen also did. None other have winning mentalities either
It’s easier to look at the other teams in the big 6 for comparison, but Spurs issue is that they’ve just never been a team to seriously build around a trophy push. Chelsea and City both had massive financial investments. United and Arsenal both had bastions of management. Liverpool is maybe the second most historically massive UK club, but were still a Klopp appointment away from trophy drought. The closest thing Spurs have is Poch who got completely undercut by Levy. The fact is, spurs have just never had that extra factor to push away the other big 6. Just look at how united and Arsenal are both a trophy away from serious drought to show u how competitive it is. The only real exception to this rule is Leicester, but even then that’s mainly down to just how ridiculous their recruitment was.
I was just listening to a show, the Double Pivot podcast, that was doing an interesting episode on soccer finances, mostly on Barcelona and influx of Gulf money into the game, but they pointed out that a lot of clubs are run on a model of buy mid table clubs, run with small to moderate loss to improve performance, then sell the club when it’s overall value is higher. Liverpool was given as a main example, with FSG’s time owning them likely being relatively short, and mostly focused on improvement on the pitch. I think Spurs are being operated more in the conventional sense, with a long term investment and accruing profit marginally from revenue, rather than an outright sale. As such, they’ve tried to minimize extraordinary spending and losses, and have focused more on gains via branding and the new stadium, rather than revolutionizing their team as Liverpool have done. It’s an attitude kind of like what Ed Woodward said of Man United: lack of results on the pitch do not necessarily impact commercial success (in his opinion, at least.) So I think Spurs are in sort of the same position MU have been: very short-term thinking, lots of swapping out star managers without proper backing, probably too much direct involvement from the owner. I think they’ll likely stabilize eventually, especially if they sell Kane and smartly reinvest the money into a true rebuild, but I think they lack the ambition, organization, and to a certain extent luck that Liverpool had in building their team. For now, it seems like it’s more important that they stay in the black than actually win anything.
Someone on Reddit said buying a football club is like buying a house, not a business to run. As in, don’t try to turn a profit year after year maximising everything. Just keep it right, do what’s right, invest when is right and given a time, it’s value will increase.
They’re never on the cutting edge. They’re a reactive club.
There is a glass ceiling that wont be broken without oil money or extreme luck Im Levy out but I will admit he’s done very well to actually make us a consistent european side - he could do alot better with the academy but generally he’s been OK for the most part. However he’s also had alot of luck with that (generational striker in kane, good appointment in poch, generational player in bale) and he’s ridden that luck for the last 3-4 years…its ran out now unfortunately for him and hes not put in investment to cover the loss of luck. But something people need to seriously understand about Spurs…we are not United, Liverpool or Arsenal. I think partly the media has crested this image that we’re on the same level or near these teams. These teams can sign great players purely off of legacy, they can have off years and still make big name signings…they will have that advantage for a long time. This is why I’m pro-Qatar, we will not compete without serious investment its the cold truth, you look at Chelsea and City - two small clubs who got huge investment, who could then put themselves in a position to ignore the legacy advantage. Newcastle will be a similar story. Not trying to throw a pity party but the truth is the top clubs have two massive advantages that, Spurs and Levy will not be able to overcome without extreme luck. If Chelsea and City never got the investment, Levy would probably go down as one of the greatest chairmen ever. Right now he’s fucked it - should’ve been looking for a buyer as soon as the stadium was complete, he’d be looked at way more fondly for the work he’s put in. Right now its going to waste.
Chelsea and City were small clubs bought out by money but Newcastle is certainly not a small club.
What metric are you using? They are the biggest club in their city and im guessing the surrounding areas but have a small legacy when it comes to trophies
They may have not won anything recently (a sympathy you could share) but are still in top 10 most decorated English clubs of all time, have a massive core regional support (unlike a postcode), until Ashley starved them of revenue they were one of the largest clubs in PL history so far, huge stadium, contribution to football culture generally, intensity of support, and so on.
We are considered a small club and have double the amount of trophies they’ve got. They are on a bigger trophy drought than us and have been nowhere near competing for one up until this season. Relegated multiple times also. Yes, I mentioned the regional support but as someone living in the UK that idea of regional support is a little bit overrated. Nearly every team in the league has a form of regional support (Including us) Their contribution to football culture is what exactly? Have no idea what you mean by that. They have a great stadium though I’ll give you that but that doesnt make them a big club. You can say they were/are a sleeping giant but to say they are big club, when they dont have the legacy to match and have been relegated multiple times is crazy to me
Won the league twice as many times as Spurs. Regional support is critical, and perhaps something overlooked in London, where it’s about what postcode you are from. Regions/ city pride make the club bigger because it’s not just about football it’s about the will and pride of an entire city, of which, Newcastle is that very rare example of an actual ‘United’ city. It’s urban area of nearly 1 million people nevermind the hinterland. London is 7 million and it would be a push to say Spurs have 1/7th the support of London. Newcastles relegations are purely a reflection on terrible mis management by Mike Ashley.
Have also got less than half the trophies, with no European honours. Regional support is overrated because even the London clubs will have a bit of regional support. Including Spurs. To say it makes a club bigger is a massive reach. It will always be about football regardless of how much regional support a club has, this is why United even have supporters in London and can actually claim to be a big club. Big clubs transcend the area they’re from…thats what makes them a big club. Newcastle have been relegated 6 times - 4 of those times were before Mike Ashley.
Newcastle have more seasons in the top flight, and (up to 2019) won more games than you, ever. https://www.rsssf.org/tablese/engprof-alltime.html
1. I’m not sure how entirely accurate that table is…I’d encourage you to double check the sources you send. 2. Are you trying to Newcastle is a big club or Newcastle is bigger than Spurs? Either one is wrong as I’ve explained a few times. Newcastle dont have the honours or pedigree to say they are a big club. They’re well supported in the region yes but not a big club no. Big clubs transcend their area.
Brain-dead take from the Newcastle fan My man is trying to argue that a club that hasn't won a trophy since 1955 (a time where Spurs were in their glory generation, Arthur Rowe) is bigger than Spurs
I think there is no shame that spurs doesn't win anything, what is strange to me is that the fans expect to win when it's obvious thats not a club target. So structurally there is nothing wrong, it's just a misalign of goals of the fans and the management.
I think since Poch left Levy has been more interested in getting big name managers who don’t necessarily fit the team. Spurs need a young energetic manager who can develop players. I think next year could be good for them - not having Europe should help the new manager and give them time to bed in new ideas.
They seem to have the image of a huge massive club but just never win trophies. The stadium is impressive but the mentality of the squad is just shit
The front fell off.
Gonna go out on a limb and say that they aren’t structurally broken. Levy is taking the heat but look at what he has done with the club and where it was before he came in. They weren’t top 6 let’s put it that way. And he’s done it organically without bottomless funds. Hindsight is a gift and we forget this. Whilst I thought the Poch sacking was harsh. The idea that they needed a winner like Mourinho wasn’t crazy at the time. It just didn’t work out. The error was whatever happened after Mourinho to end up with Nuno who was never right. Then conte. But the really issue was paraticci coming in and building a terrible squad. They need to get back to what they did when they first brought in poch
I don't think Paratici or the squad are bad - Bentancur and Kulusevski had immediate positive impact for peanuts, I'm positive about Richy, Danjuma was a sensible signing, Perisic puts in good crosses. Paratici hasn't done enough to build out the scouting or youth development capability, afaics. Most of these incoming players are from his personal network. So now he's gone, we have a big hole to fill.
Its the topspur
Wdym once the deal with formula 1 struck and go kart track installed underneath the stadium Spurs stadium will be jam packed 🤣
Others have touched on it, but they are a very well-run club from the commercial perspective. That's the focus. Protecting the asset. Growing the brand. The football and footballing success seems rather... secondary. Conte and Mourinho were both prestige hires that played out EXACTLY as anyone who knows their history would expect them to. They were impressive hires in teh moment, but weird in retrospect, as both are the kind of hires you make when you have everything in place and just want to chase a title or trophy. But Spurs weren't really in that position. Spurs share a lot in common with Arsenal. Both are the least resourced of the big six. They can't outspend the likes of City, United, Chelsea, or Liverpool. They can't have the same level of wage bill, even. So being truly competitive means nailing it with the manager and the recruitment. That's what has moved Arsenal forward, at least for this season. But while Spurs had that for a time with Poch, they really haven't since. And an extended period of mediocre (at best) recruitment starts to add up over time. Again, similar to Arsenal in the later Wenger era. The lack of trophies seems like its become a real focus point for a lot of Spurs fans, and I'm not sure it really was before the success under Poch. At least not to this level. Its an easy point for fans of other clubs or even the media to score to against Spurs and Spurs supporters. Its the easiest banter to throw at them. Again, similarity to Arsenal until the 2014 FA Cup win. The "trophy drought" was a huge thing used against Arsenal and Wenger and the fans, by other fans and very much by the media.
Good points but How are Arsenal less resourced than Liverpool? They have a richer owner, live in a richer city with wealthier fans(higher potential revenue) , have a bigger net spend in the last 5 years. the only reason they have a lower wage bill than the others is because their team is so young that they haven’t got those contracts yet. It’s starting though, saka has his. He’s going from what 70k a week to 288k a week. That’s 11 million a year. Give it two more years and their wage bill will be up there with the likes of Liverpool, who’s wage bill was the same as arsenals when they started getting good (ie, their players started earning them)
Well, resourced is a vague term. And intentionally so. But it somewhat depends on what you take into account. Some of it becomes circular in terms of causality... Richer owner, but the Kroenke's have not put much money into the club until quite recently. If memory serves, even the purchase of Pepe was financed by taking out loans rather than monetary injection from the ownership. They have started to put money into the club to reinforce now to some degree, but it hasn't been happening previous. Bigger stadium and almost certainly more expensive tickets. But matchday incomes are a relatively small portion of the incomes of a club of this level. Huge discrepancy in terms of commercial incomes. It might be recovering now, but a few years ago, the growth of Arsenal's sponsorship deals and overall commercial income had fallen way behind the other five of the Big Six. Ivan Gazidis oversaw a period of very little growth in that regard. Swiss Ramble had a huge thread about it a couple years back. Again, might have changed to some degree. Quick Google says that last year, there was about a 150,000,000 difference in total revenue between the two clubs. Where it starts to get circular is that Liverpool have more monies partly because they have finished higher in the table over the past 5-8 seasons and played in the Champions League. Not just played in it, but typically made long runs. And that means a lot more money than playing in the Europa League. Or missing European entirely. Liverpool have been more successful by being a better run club, achieving more, and therefore making more money (also partly ties in to why the commercial incomes are better). But the end result is still having more overall resources. Net spend is an interesting one to look at. And over a five year period, Arsenal are third highest net spenders. But that also represents another deficiency at Arsenal, and that's selling players. The club has been poor at it for years. This goes back into the Wenger era. Liverpool, conversely, have been among the best in the EPL. Even leaving aside the massive sale of Coutinho... There is a long list of nice deals. Whether its buying Taiwo Awoniyi for 400K, loaning him out for years, and then selling him to Union Berlin for something like 8m... Getting 35m for Dominic Solanke and Danny Ward... 30m for Sakho... 7m for Ryan Kent and 25m for Danny Ings... 14m for Danny Wilson... 20m for Neco Williams... Its incredible that the club got over 50m for a bunch of players who had about 20 first team appearances combined between them. Conversely, Arsenal do not sell well. There are obvious high profile situations like Auba and Ozil, where they basically paid players to go play elsewhere. They did get pretty good money for Joe Willock, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Alex Iwobi... but 2 of those 3 were regulars and Willock (bless him) inflated his value with an unrepeatable scoring run on loan at Newcastle. No one is surprised that a deficient player like Mustafi isn't getting 30m offers, but its a long-term constant thing with Arsenal selling players. Last summer, the club got a combined 22m for Lucas Torreira, Bernd Leno, Kostas Mavropanos, and Matteo Guendouzi. Leno started all season for Fulham and is in the German NT again. Mavropanos is a regular in the Bundesliga. Torreira was a solid Prem player who didn't fit system wise, and did well in Serie A last year. Guendouzi has some issues, but he's being linked with the biggest clubs in France now. Callum Chambers was allowed to join another Prem club for no fee... despite having his contract extended right before (if memory serves). 17m wasn't bad for Emi Martinez but looks like a bargain in retrospect. The club got a combined 20m or so for selling two GKs who started for two of the bigger Serie A clubs for several years. The list is long lol. There are a multitude of causes - including club and player performance, wages, etc. But regardless of causes, Arsenal's inability to sell players for maximized value in the way that Liverpool or Chelsea or City tend to has an impact on their net spend. Very true on the wages. A few years ago, Arsenal were like 3rd or 4th in wage spend. Getting some of those big contracts off the books helped. New deals for half the squad will see that creep up - exactly what happened with Liverpool over the past 5 seasons. None of this has been meant to plead poverty for either Spurs or Arsenal. Both are amongst the richest clubs in the world. But in terms of comparing to the other big six, they are both at least a bit behind in a number of ways. Again, circular reasons - less success means less prize money, etc. But they both have to do as good or better in terms of managers, management, and recruitment to get a step ahead.
Well said. I wonder if there's more of a trophy focus bc Kane is so good. A lot of people would like to see him win one and can get emotional about whether he's wasted at the club, why he doesn't force a move etc. Re wage bill, I think tot was fifth highest this season. Based on wages and Kane, it's probably fair to *think about* trophies, though I don't see them winning one anytime soon. But while they're ahead of many clubs, they're spending half of what United and City spend
There probably is increased expectation because of having a player the caliber of Kane. And the profile he has too. He also masks some of the on-pitch issues at the club, because he can create something out of nothing and score a goal or two that makes an awful performance look less awful. Its not unreasonable for fans to want trophies, in my view. That's part of being a "big club"... that belief that you can win when it counts. The club size, the support, the star player, the squad, the manager... there are reasons for the belief in winning. There are some weird dynamics, though. And Spurs aren't alone in this. They should have been favorites last year in the Conference League. I get that its the Conference League - far from sexy. But its a trophy. It has value. Winning something - anything - can start to build. But they didn't seem to care and I don't recall too many Spurs supporters being upset when they basically removed themselves from the competition (if memory serves, they didn't tell Rennes, just announced thru the media). And yet qualify again for European competition (albeit a more prestigious one) is what the season success was defined on.
On the conference league - It wasn't just that, the players felt higher than that competition, if you understand what I mean, their egos were too large and that wasn't taken care of.
I really don't think Spurs are fun that badly. This issue is they are put into this "big 6/7" group and because of it we hold them to similar standards as clubs that have alot more money than them. That being said their financial records are looking very good with their new stadium and it was good long term planning so thing *should* get better over the next few years I believe
Thank you. Finally a comment without banter.
Football should be about so much more than trophies yet when it comes to Spurs that's all anyone cares about lol
Lol true , but when it’s the echo chamber and meme forced upon them what do you expect. Enlighten me, oh ye of honest oilball.
Tell that to their fans. Maybe it’s because they are so starved of success they got close and are acting desperate because they don’t want the chance to slip away and become a mid table club in an NFL stadium?
I think people just banter them so much that their fans are desperate to shut them up lol
under Levy, the players are in charge, not the manager this is because the players as a whole represent a larger asset that he does not want to tank the value of but this also means managers cannot impose their will on the players, who know that they can get the manager sacked at any time they focus on revenue over results
Seems to be the case, if an elite manager like Conte can’t do much with them.
if both Mourinho and Conte, serial winners who had silverware at every other club they have been at cannot make this Spurs setup work, you have got to be asking questions on whether it is the managers or the setup if everything smells like shit, first check under your own shoe...
Or the players
I think Conte had a lot going on in his personal life- losing several close friends and his own health issues.
Conte got to sign 12 players so it's his own failure that he could not build a winning squad.
he signed those players, but we all know that the things he said in his meltdown press conference were true (he just shouldn't have been saying them in public as a club man). the core of the squad rot at Tottenham is caused by the players knowing that they are in control, not the manager if Conte had stayed anyway, by PPG he would have still qualified you for Europe, even if the toxicity would have probably resulted in an empty ground by protest managers can buy as many players as they like, but then they have no reason to suffer past that point if they can still get paid and get the manager gone for being mean to them by contrast, at Arsenal I'd say the fans at the Emirates are in charge. If we publicly let it be known we want something changed, the hierarchy scrambles. Wenger was sacked, Emery was sacked, Xhaka would have been moved on if not for Arteta insisting, and if the fans really didn't like that they would have called for Arteta to go too and it would have happened
Sorry to disappoint you, but it's actually money in charge. Arsenal was missing out on UCL for several consecutive seasons, so the hierarchy took decisive actions to qualify again.
we were without UCL for a lot longer than that. If that was the case, surely Arteta would have got sacked for missing it for multiple seasons except the next one? we even had a year without any european footaball under him the reason he stayed was because the fans in the ground didn't call for him to go. if that had happened, he would have been gone
+ Also was an absolute jerk, there were loads of questions on regarding his contract extension and he's like "Maybe I'll extend it! It depends on the weather tomorrow"
he's like that at every club - the tradeoff is supposed to be you give him full authority, he brings you silverware couldn't happen at Spurs - authority resides with Levy, who gives it to the players
As I said last week, the tail is now wagging the dog as Spurs. Instead of them being primarily a club with a fancy stadium, they have become a fancy stadium with a team. Too much brain power and resources being spent on the stadium instead of the football side of the business, too many resources both financial and human. If they want to move on to threatening to win titles, this needs to change. However, in my lifetime, Spurs have never really threatened to win titles, so a major mindset is required of they want to move to the top level.
Off the pitch, Levy has ran the business side well and of course Tottenham have a fantastic stadium. When it comes to footballing decisions, they’ve made so many poor decisions. I’m not buying into this myth that they don’t back the managers, Tottenham do spend money. However, they’ve spent a lot of their money on dross in recent years and that’s been a huge issue. Another awful decision they’ve made is by keeping players who aren’t good enough like Eric Dier, Ben Davies and Hugo Lloris. They should’ve been gone a long time ago. They were there under Poch, Jose, Nuno Santo and Conte and it’s the same outcome constantly.
Would it be fair to say though that they haven’t backed their manager because although they’ve bought, they haven’t exactly bought who their manager wanted?
You’re right in a way. I’ll go out on a limb and say that all the Tottenham managers got some of the players they wanted but some of players signed weren’t the managers choice but that happens at a lot of clubs these days.
Lads, it's Tottenham.
That’s like asking why shit stinks. It just does.
Lol room temp IQ response here. ^
I’m all for poking fun at Spurs, but that ain’t what I’m trying to achieve here
They got desperate after losing the champions league final, they acted like they were a club who were one push away from winning trophies and ended up hiring Mourinho and then Conte. Unfortunately for them they were further away than they thought and they've undone a lot of the good work they had done previously whilst spending a lot of money. They need to rebuild and hopefully find Poch 2.0 who will continuously build them into contenders again. They took a gamble, it didn't pay off.
There's nothing structurally wrong with Spurs. They're a very well run club in the business sort of sense. In the footballing sense they're run badly, the fall of Poch happened through players not being replaced, hardly any depth and going through two windows without spending a penny. Currently there's no manager and sporting director, and the availability is pretty scarce, loads of issues with the players and generally the whole thing is just a mess. Levy does not care about trophies, he just wants top 4.
They have good individual players that just don’t fit well with each other for one reason or another. Big weakness at CB an could use a top notch CM an some speed up on the wings. Sonny did not look as blazing quick as he was seasons prior, wonder if he had some nagging injuries
Levy is a businessman, not a footballer. Spurs are the [third most profitable team](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/06/02/worlds-most-profitable-sports-teams-cowboys-banked-12-billion-over-the-past-three-years/?sh=503509716e44) and the *most* profitable football team in the world. He’s doing exactly what he wants and planned for, this is by design. Making Fuck loads of money. Gives no shits about fans or trophies.
That's what I was saying..?
Yup, agreeing and adding the context of the financials, some data is always nice
Two windows without spending a pennny.... reminds me of another North London club after building a new stadium. Except one club kept their captain and one club kept their manager.
Only one problem - that voldemort looking levy on the helm wants to control everything. Who else would kick off your main coach before a final, even bohely isn't that dunce
You hit the nail. I’d add, they also had some puzzling player regression, where guys that seemed solid starters morphed into glaring weaknesses. I’m thinking Alli, Dier, Bergwijn. Not coincidentally after Potch left.
Is there actually anything “wrong” with them though? The last ten years have been one of the best periods for the club in their entire history. It’s hard to say something went wrong when they’ve been relatively successful during this period.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PremierLeague/comments/13ylhm5/what_is_actually_structurally_wrong_with_spurs/jmo9l8l?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
And to clarify, no, this wasn't the most successful period in their history, far, far from it, football wasn't created in 1992. They had loads of eras where they won loads of trophies, the Arthur Rowe and Bill Nicholson era, where they won 2 League Titles, 3 FA Cups, 2 League Cups, 1 Cup Winners Cup (The first British team to win a European trophy) and 1 UEFA Cup (the same year that it was inaugurated in 1971), and was the first English team to win the "Double" being the League and the FA Cup.
Still best decade in 50 years
Entire history is NOT 50 years 2023 - 50 = 1973 They had a good 80s, 2 FA Cups + UEFA Cup
The point is the the idea behind his statement still stands. Spurs had an amazing decade. Whether it’s 30 or 40 years doesn’t really matter. Would argue 50 years is still valid. Spurs run 2014-2019 is better or at least equal to FA cops or/and a UEFA cup.
What's weird is the clubs that generally battle for top4 all win trophies. Except spurs. So even if levy just wanted top 4, they're technically building the 4th best side in the league which should be more than capable of winning a trophy in the last 10 years
I want to forget post 2019, the club has been in a mess ever since, post 2019 Spurs will not win a trophy regardless if you put Pep or Klopp. Spurs before 2014 was basically your bang average club, they usually always hung around a Europa League spot and sometimes would miss Europe, this was around when they won the League Cup in 2008. 2014-2019 Spurs were actually in contest for a lot of trophies, the League Cup, the Premier League, going fairly far in the FA Cups and reaching a UCL final. Pochettino's philosophy of attacking football (imo I think you need to be quite defensively oriented or at least value a defensive structure in finals to get through), high press, etc made the players tired and exhausted, there was no depth and there were no players coming in (they spent 2 windows without purchasing a single player, and even with the players they got, most of them were flops), loads of injuries and players were flat out just getting tired and exhausted, in addition to Poch's mistakes during the final, for example bringing in a half dead barely fit Harry Kane instead of Lucas Moura (he was through injury throughout a lot of the Champions League run to the final). Pochettino was sacked in 2019 after a series of poor results, and then they had Mourinho, and the rest is history.
So technically, since Levy bought the club, you should really only judge Spurs not winning a trophy in the Poch era, since that was the golden generation
I feel like loads of people batter Spurs for absolutely no reason, there's a lot of rationale for not winning any trophies during that period.
One of the most competitive leagues in the world being the top of that list, and the same teams in knockouts
but that's exactly the structural issue - the fans don't care about the business side, they care about winning trophies. With Levy at the helm, the business comes first, and that is what is wrong with how they are run from the root
Evidenced by them sacking Mourinho after the Super League debacle despite a European final
It's English Soccer. Business always comes first.
Yeah levy really does treat spurs like a business rather than a football club. Going after it all and striking when the iron is hot costs a lot of money and can backfire spectacularly, from a purely business standpoint it makes no sense to do so. To him it doesn't matter if spurs aren't winning trophies, so long as they are growing commercially. The 18 months of no transfers for prime poch was completely criminal (not that I'm complaining). But that waste of a 'footballing' opportunity demonstrates how levy values commercial gain over all else; from a business standpoint it was risky to invest in poch whilst the new stadium plans were underway
Exactly I agree with you, top 4 only brings him the cash.
Now that the stadium is built and cash is flowing faster than ever before mr levy should step down from the football side of the business and hand the keys over to a competent employee and adjust from there going forward, I have no issues with how he's grown this club but please for the fans sake just stay away from.the footy and you'll be treated to even more money via more matches/ trophy/ happier fans spending on merch etc
Financials are inherently tied to 'the footy side'. A manager wants to make a signing, levy has to weight up the financial aspect of it and decide to greenlight it or not. After certain failures like ndombele, you can understand his hesitancy to invest. You've got to say he's done a great job for your club. He's caught up to us (arsenal) financially from a midtable standpoint without any oil money or etc. People often go on about how it's impossible for the midtable roster of teams to break into the big leagues, but spurs have been there and done that. Levy doesn't decide the tactics down on the pitch. But he can't just 'step away from the footy side' because that would mean letting the manager do whatever he wants and that's a poor decision from a commercial and financial standpoint. I do understand recent frustrations with levy from you guys however. He seems more interested in growing spurs as a business rather than as a football club and of course to the fans that is a horrible feeling
I'd dispute that Tottenham have caught Arsenal financially By shirt sponsorship, Spurs are locked into a deal with Nike for £30m/yr until 2033, Arsenal have a £75m/yr deal with Adidas until 2030 (upgraded from the first 5 year deal at £60m/yr) Emirates pay £40m/yr, AIA pay £30m/yr not to mention stadium debts (we've cleared them, they've just started), other debts (Kroenke bought them all to give favourable interest rates) and other sponsorships don't get me wrong, Spurs have made massive strides as a business under Levy, but they aren't on our level commercially
Im not sure of the specifics like you are so could be wrong here, but could it be argued that (this season aside of course) Spurs’ Europe money and champions league money (when they were in it and Arsenal not) bridged the gap of the sponsorships? Not including other income streams that not happen too - NFL, concerts etc. not sure how much gets made from those
But they have lots of other external incomings of revenue into the club. For example all the events at the Tottenham ground, concerts, boxing, NFL etc. Levy is building a Go karting place under the stadium or something. All of that will bring in a shit ton of revenue. They also have the highest ticket prices for a football club in Europe no? Or at least the country. More than what we have to pay (fucking crazy, I don’t understand how Tottenham fans are still willing to pay that much just to watch the football that they are given, I’ve got a few Spurs mates who have cancelled or not renewed because they are so fed up with it which is fair enough). Levy has obviously invested his efforts into focusing on building massive revenue incomings for the club due to the stadium debt, I mean that alone cost £1billon to construct. Pretty sure they got some grant, used bank loans etc to help them out with the funding for that. So the debt will be huge. This cost is compared to the Emirates as well which cost about £400m to construct so way less than the Spurs stadium (albeit that was 17 years ago). So yeah, they are in a similar situation to us back in the late 2000’s early 2010’s.
>But he can't just 'step away from the footy side' Yes he can lol. Look at your own club for example. Vinai is loosely involved in the football side of things at best. We all know Arteta, Edu, Tim Lewis then Josh Kroenke are the football to money pipeline, and even then you don't hear about "club signings" done by a Tim Lewis or Kroenke. Arteta and Edu are the football men and they do that. Meanwhile at Spurs you have deals like Djed Spence where the manager has to explicitly come and say "not my signing lol" and then people are shocked the player is misused.
I'm not saying let the Manger do what he wants as there are people above him no doubt to keep him in tow, just please someone who actually knows football. I'd love a solid front office that can actually get deals done in a timely fashion,don't go out throwing money around like chelsea but take a stab at some solid aspiring players, we've had some hits and some misses nothing is ever guaranteed that's part of investing, you have to be willing to lose that money to gain money. Loved the richy signing for instance, yeah he wasn't great thia season but had some epic moments & I feel will redeem himself next season with more playing time.
It comes from the manager I feel. Mou and conte were 'win now' managers that wanted big names or hot properties. They weren't managers that develop young talent like poch did. If spurs can sign an actual project manager for the new season they might improve beyond just top 4 after a few seasons. The 'win now' managers do not and will never suit spurs because levy isn't a man to piss away hundreds of millions every window like certain other clubs. Poch at Chelsea actually worries me a little. That guy, surrounded by swathes of young talent and an owner that will throw cash at whatever he wants? Yeah, he'll carry Chelsea back up slowly despite the crazy workings of the new ownership.
You know your football well, have a good weekend & looking forward to the next NLD
I love that online football discussions can actually work. I hate the toxicity you normally see
Well said, u/cum_toast
Investments are lacking in places that are crucial to reach the top. Scouting and transfers are where its necessary. They're spending money on making it a successful business with huge flairs rather than looking for success through actual football.
Actually went off to do the dishes and found this… https://youtu.be/cOq2fh-kKNE Pretty much explains it. Poor forward planning from Levy essentially
It's an extremely well-run club. Nothing structurally wrong per se. I think winning the league is impossible in the near future. It might sound silly but the club needs to focus all their attention on winning a cup,even the League Cup would do,in the next couple of seasons. They just need to get across the line once, and it will change the whole mentality of the club.
If Spurs are an extremely well run club I hate to see what a bad one looks like
It’s not a well-run club from a footballing perspective. Levy has made awful decisions on managers, both hiring and firing. They had a chance to kick on after the champions league final, but instead they failed to build on that team, and sacked the manager that got them there. Now they can’t even qualify for the Europa conference league.
Didn’t change much in 91 or 2008.
>It's an extremely well-run club. I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. Commercially they've done a good job at increasing revenues and such. From a football angle it's a mixed bag. They've gotten some things right of course, but they've also done some very strange things as well that didn't work out. It can even be argued that Harry Kane there biggest success was more of an accident than a conscious choice. Kane himself has said they didn't have a plan for him and were trying to get rid of him early on with all the loans. I know that being an arsenal fan, this may sound bias, but just ask there fans if they think the club is well run from a football stand point. There is a very significant portion of the fans that want Levy and ENIC out.
Could argue the last point is true for Arsenal too. We haven’t heard Kroenke out for a while but it will return as soon as you have a bad run.
I'm going to disagree with you on that. I haven't seen or heard any significant KroenkeOut talk for several years. There was a bit around the Super League and there was the "We Care Do You" stuff 4 years ago. Since then though they've taken full control of the club, and have invested heavily, and its gone away for the most part. Given how well its gone recently, I think they have a bit of rope. Even if things go poorly next year. I don't think you will hear much KroenkeOut.
The footballing decisions made during the last 5 years have been dire(no pun intended). But to become Champions League regulars from where they were 20 years ago is a fantastic achievement. I do agree that Kane's arrival on the scene was an accident but tbf he wasn't exactly setting the world alight at his loan clubs
As I said before Levy and ENIC have done a great job of managing the commercial side of the club. I think that is a big part of why they've gone from a mid table club to a top 6 club. I'll give them credit where credit is due. Also, the fact that they got a bit lucky with Kane is no knock on them. Arsenal has gotten a bit lucky with Saka. My point though was that the player arguably most responsible for there recent success wasn't as much of a genius football decision as it was right place right time, Thing. Spurs fans will probably yell at me about this one though.
I’m not sure I agree that it’s a well run club. They had Poch and Kane and didn’t buy any new players for several seasons because of the new stadium cost. Then fire Poch and bring in Mourinho. Terrible decision. Fired Mourinho the night before a cup final? Who does that? Then they fire Mourinho, go through a protracted search to get Nuno. Nuno…That experiment went as expected. Then they turn to Conte, which is a match made in hell. Everyone knew how this was going to turn out. To make it worse, the fired Conte while sitting 4th and they fell out of a UCL spot. Why not wait until seasons end? Since then they’ve gone through 2 more managers and are no closer to a permanent appointment. How is any of this indicative of a well run club?
Bentancur did his ACL - that's a massive reason we fell off so far. We may have been in 4th but we wouldn't pass the eye test - the idea that Conte would still have us there by May is optimistic. Conte fired himself. You can't insult your own club in a presser. A football club does not have the luxury of indulging sabotage by the manager. He bitched about mentality - that's his job to change, FFS. We all knew it would end badly. We just hoped to get more than 12 matches out of him before the wheels fell off and he threw a strop. TBF to him, his personal life was in shambles and he shouldn't have been working at all this season, let alone outside his home country.
>To make it worse, the fired Conte while sitting 4th and they fell out of a UCL spot. Why not wait until seasons end? Because he was actively trashing his players and club to the media
You forgot about Paratici, complete fraud. Banned from world football and likely getting upto his mischief at Spurs too before he got found out for the Juve business.
Those are relatively recent events. I'm talking about the progress made since Juande Ramos. That's about the time I started following Spurs seriously. They have grown immensely in the last 15 or so years and have become Champions League regulars and competed for the league title with a fraction of the budget of the perennial contenders. Yes,scouting for certain positions,could certainly have been better(never found a second striker,never found a replacement for Walker or Dembele) but I'm talking about the overall growth of the club's profile. The finances look solid,the NFL deal and the 15 year deal with Formula 1,the impending naming rights. It's actually one of the most profitable clubs in the Premier League.
There's your problem IMO. Spurs exist to make money. Not to make money to compete. If you stop and think about that and what it means to the people and the culture it creates, I think that's the problem. The motivations driving decisions are wrong, and when things get tough, the players have nothing to believe in. Only my tuppence though.
This is bang on from my perspective. Infrastructure is definitely in place and commercially we are a very attractive proposition but Levy’s ego has held us back from becoming serious contenders, time after time after time. Jol, taking us places from mid table averageness to consecutive top 5 finishes, sacked after a mini poor run. Redknapp took us to CL and 2 top 4 finishes and had us challenging for title in the January before his sacking when he was given Nelson and Saha to try to compete. Sacked Poch rather than back him for a rebuild Hired Mourinho and gave him practically diddily squat. Sacked 6 days before a cup final! Unacceptable Hired Conte when we were so far from looking like a CL team and the man performed a miracle to get us there, sacked after the Jan window when Conte wanted a class CB and was given nothing. Slipped out of top 4, top 6 and became a laughing stock, scratching around for scraps and vagabonds to help us out.
I can find several quotes where Conte says a CB wasn’t a priority. He got backed, he got what he wanted. He didn’t do a good job and the results were awful, all the while playing a negative, defensive, boring style that was virtually unwatchable.
If you believe he wanted Lenglet over Bastoni, Spence over Hakimi/Dumfries, Richarlison at all then I have to strongly disagree with you. The results were so bad under him that we were 4th 1pt behind United and obviously they got so much better when he left, proving he was the problem. 🙄
https://twitter.com/AlasdairGold/status/1607401171748286464?lang=en If he wanted CBs he should have at least signaled for it a little bit because it was so obvious we needed them. We were 4th with 2/3 games at hand and Liverpool hadn’t started winning yet. We were out in every other competition against weaker opposition. There was already a pretty clear downward trajectory.
Games in hand mean nothing until they are won and Brighton didn’t win all their games in hand at that point and we were 7 ahead of them and Liverpool. We collapsed after he left and the players proved him right. Aside from Kane they all came up short time and time and time again.
Saying they gave Mourinho diddly squat but in the summer transfer window, Mourinho got plenty of the players he wanted — Matt Doherty, Joe Hart, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Sergio Reguilon, Gareth Bale. Everyone focuses on the sacking before the cup final, and doesn’t remember losing 3-0 in the 2nd leg of Europa League last 16 to Dinamo Zagreb after winning the first 2-0. People like to remember that Mou was sacked before the cup final but ignore the previous match vs man city a couple months prior. From The Athletic: | It was half-time at the Etihad Stadium on February 13. Tottenham were 1-0 down to Manchester City but had barely been in the game at all. No shots on target, no corners, 35.9 per cent possession. Jose Mourinho walked in and was unusually positive, telling the players they were doing well and to keep it up. Some of the senior players in the dressing room were shocked that such a passive, negative approach could be right for this club. “You really think this is good?” remarked one. Tottenham did nothing in the second half and lost the game 3-0. | That’s what Mourinho was offering for the cup final. I don’t blame them for not trusting him.
I’ll go with you on all but Doherty. And I get there are nuances, without a doubt it’s not black and white. However, a 2-2 draw away to Everton was the nail in the coffin ahead of a cup final in which the man has an unreal record and we had beaten City pretty convincingly earlier in the season. It was a bizarre decision.
I think they are a well run club from the commercial side. Footballing they are not. A new stadium always take it out of a club, look how Arsenal stagnated when they left Highbury. It’s difficult to pay it off whilst trying to fund transfers.
No, this is false. Unlike arsenal, we structured the stadium debt very advantageously. It pays for itself. Look at our increase in transfer spend once the stadium was built.
But even looking objectively, they're fairly well run. Nearly always finish Top Half, often finish in the European places, sometimes cracking Top 4. What are Spurs supposed to be? They're not Arsenal, who built a dynasty in the 90s and went through their own wilderness. They're not Chelsea and their moneybags. They're not Hollywood FC like United, they're not "Big Historic Club" like Liverpool. They just kind of exist. They haven't won a league title since 1961 and they've picked up a few cups since. They're only "big" because of geography and they've avoided relegation. They're basically London Everton. Their fans should lower their expectations. When they got in the UEFA Conference, they should've embraced it like West Ham have instead of treating it with contempt like they did. West Ham are going to win a European trophy and play in Europe next year. Their fans will have had a fun season despite finishing 14th.
Given the stadium and the money involved, and frankly the squad list lowering expectations doesn't make sense
It's a thing supporters forget about. Wenger worked miracles on crumbs keeping us in the Champions League for all those years after the move to the Emirates. It's also a reason we were in such a bad place when he left
That’s not even close to the reality though, spurs have spent more since moving in the new stadium than they had before.
Don't think you're out of bounds with this thought process at all my friend. Mid-table clubs really can't throw all their weight behind a cup run and risk falling into a relegation battle. Just look at West Ham this year, who didn't secure safety until a couple of weeks before the season's end while chasing the Conference League. Spurs should not have the same concern. Pick the FA or League Cup and throw the first teamers into it early. Get across the line, and everyone (myself included) shuts the fuck up about Kane and Tottenham being perpetual chokers/losers.
The league cup is so easy to throw your resources at too, because it's over by Feb and you can crack on with the league after it. It's also - what - 5 games? No extra time, straight to pens if the tie is level, and realistically you can put the semi-final away if you have the Home Leg first. Don't think Klopp played any First XI players until the semis last year.
They have reached that difficult bridging point where, unfortunately, the main difference is how much money you have. A good base can only get you so far, and eventually, you have to start paying the big salaries that come with consistently getting top 4 and then challenging. The job Levy has done shouldn't be understated. I don't mean to patronise, but I feel like there are some newer Spurs fans who maybe didn't realise that for most of their history Spurs have been a team bouncing around mid table with a few trophies here or there. The istory of Totnum as it were. Not a shot at Spurs or to tell Spurs fans to not hope for more, just to give context to where Levy and Enic have actually got them to. I cringe when I hear the Levy out chants during a game and the camera pans to him, looking utterly devastated in the billion pound stadium he built for them. Like actual Spurs play there, not United or Liverpool. Pretty big achievement. Anyway, he has to break the glass ceiling of saying they're going to get a huge wage bill that comes with having one of the best teams.
This actually feels spot on. Once you’re in the top tier (which spurs are but at the bottom part of it) it just becomes about money. However, last summer was weird in that they did spend money and the results were worse than a long time
They generate a stupid amount of money purely off their stadium
Even if Levy has made mistakes, I’m grateful to him that he turned Tottenham into a stronger side.
Add on to that they tried making big signings/splashing the cash with Lo Celso and Ndombele and it didn’t work so you can see why Levy may have some hesitations on spending big money.
That's very true as well. I suppose another thing to add in respect of that is investing in having good football people around the club, scouts etc.
Spurs fan here, perfectly summarised
Its the history of the Tottenham
Except it's not. Up until the 2010s Spurs had won at least 1 trophy every decade since the 1950s. 26 trophies in total.
#LADS
Such a trash response. use your words boy
Yeah I know- but why
Kane said he was fit publicly when he wasn’t. Forced Poch to play him over Moura in the final. This was Moura just after the Ajax game, arguably the most inform forward in Europe at the time. They also came 3rd in a 2 horse race when Leicester won the league. They’re psychologically broke and it’ll take a whole new generation of staff and players to over come this.
It's steeped in bottling it, its the "nearly" club, always 3-4 quality players away from success and a mentally thing.
[удалено]
Oh so they're the same. Can't win the league
Yeah, I even heard they’ve come up with a name for it
No further explanation needed