• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

The Current State of Spurs (and some sympathy for Thomas Frank)

MartyFunkhouser said:
This is very good IMO explaining where we are, even with the "they are mates" angle

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
Click to expand...
Just watched this, and agree with Jordan. He has a pragmatic view of the club as a business and I think he’s correct in what he says
 
DeanoAustin said:
I think it's too early to be definitive on Levy yet. To be fair, what we're seeing now is partially his responsibility and partially an outcome of decisions he made.

That said, I actually agree with you and think history will be kind to Levy. He had us top 6 for pretty much 20 years and we challenged for the title 2 or 3 times in that time period as well as reaching the CL final. The problem was as you say - over expectation. We've won the league twice in almost 150 years and not challenged for it much more often. Yet, he was pilloried because the club didn't challenge for the big prizes more often. While we should always aspire to do better, I think some fans need to remember that they support Tottenham Hotspur. As harsh as it sounds, we aren't Liverpool or Man U (or the northern and southern lottery winners).

I said it while he was here so this isn't some nostalgia tinted declaration but I think, even acknowledging his mistakes, Levy was incredible for this club.

It looks very bleak at the moment. I've no enthusiasm for anything Spurs and I think a lot of fans feel the same. We'll keep going because that's what supporters do but it's as bad as I remember it for a long time. I take some consolation in the fact that you're never as high as you think you are when you're soaring and you're never as low as you think you are when you're down.

I'm sure we'll have some more dark says in our short term future but Tottenham Hotspur will rise again.
Click to expand...

I agree with a lot of it — we’ll look back on Levy’s’ time fondly. That said, I think he’s just as much at fault for setting expectations higher than our standing. Sacking Poch 6 months after the CL final, Mourinho on the eve of another (even if I agreed with that) and then finally Ange when he actually did deliver what we all wanted sends a very clearly confused message of (imo) “we don’t actually know what we want.”
 
Bedfordspurs said:
No clear leadership being shown form the very top to the very bottom
Only one part of the club looks like it has a plan and that’s the ladies team which says how things have evolved
And I do mean from the very top down so board.. football management and on pitch leaders
Click to expand...

Where is this so called famous VV PR and leadership?
 
DeanoAustin said:
I think you're right. Proof of the pudding will be in the January and summer windows. The Lewis' have made a lot of noise about wanting to be competitive but it's easy to say that in September when you can't do anything about it. I'm very, very skeptical that the family who've owned this club through 25 years of prudence are suddenly going to start splurging especially if we are bound to lenders on the wage structure as Simon Jordan has strongly hinted at.

Levy, whatever his faults, was at least a figurehead for the club and you had a good idea how things were going to be run because he always seemed to do what was best for business.
Click to expand...

It's as I said above, the biggest single determination of the club changing will be the squad strategy and it's evolution. Groundhog day could be at the end of August where we've seen another major overhaul and we've gone down the quantity over quality route again. Then we should expect exactly the same outcome as previously. It will serve us right.

I'm hoping this new regime will finally figure out that this squad is stacked. It needs big money 1st team signings like we've had with VDV and Kudus and more quality. It needs academy promotions. It needs churning of the players who can't make the next level. What it doesn't need is 6 or 7 signings in a summer window.
 
tommysvr said:
I agree with a lot of it — we’ll look back on Levy’s’ time fondly. That said, I think he’s just as much at fault for setting expectations higher than our standing. Sacking Poch 6 months after the CL final, Mourinho on the eve of another (even if I agreed with that) and then finally Ange when he actually did deliver what we all wanted sends a very clearly confused message of (imo) “we don’t actually know what we want.”
Click to expand...
I guess we'll never know his thought process but you could argue that what Levy did with Ange was entirely in keeping with how he's always run the club.

Lots of people in the know, including those who've worked for Levy, have stated that the main ambition was to get into the Champions League. By December or January last year, the only realistic way for us to do that was to win the Europa. Arguably, keeping Ange rather than the upheaval of a new manager was the best way to do that. However, by finishing 17th (which was unacceptable regardless of context) it became clear to Levy that Ange would never get us top 4 consistently and he wasn't ever going to repeat the trick of winning the Europa to offset that. Therefore, for a club where top 4 and CL football is the goal, Ange was never going to work.

Or maybe I'm talking gonads. Who knows.
 
Muttley said:
I'm still not convinced Levy leaving has changed a single thing at the club.

What do people think is running differently under the new regime? What would Levy have done better or worse? What decisions would he have made differently?
Click to expand...
Primarily Levy wanted fresh external investment.

That died when he was removed.

And then some messages came out about ambition and since then I don’t know if I have heard anything from the regime.
 
DeanoAustin said:
I guess we'll never know his thought process but you could argue that what Levy did with Ange was entirely in keeping with how he's always run the club.

Lots of people in the know, including those who've worked for Levy, have stated that the main ambition was to get into the Champions League. By December or January last year, the only realistic way for us to do that was to win the Europa. Arguably, keeping Ange rather than the upheaval of a new manager was the best way to do that. However, by finishing 17th (which was unacceptable regardless of context) it became clear to Levy that Ange would never get us top 4 consistently and he wasn't ever going to repeat the trick of winning the Europa to offset that. Therefore, for a club where top 4 and CL football is the goal, Ange was never going to work.

Or maybe I'm talking gonads. Who knows.
Click to expand...

And this season the only pathway is to win the Champions league 😜.
 
Last edited:
DeanoAustin said:
I guess we'll never know his thought process but you could argue that what Levy did with Ange was entirely in keeping with how he's always run the club.

Lots of people in the know, including those who've worked for Levy, have stated that the main ambition was to get into the Champions League. By December or January last year, the only realistic way for us to do that was to win the Europa. Arguably, keeping Ange rather than the upheaval of a new manager was the best way to do that. However, by finishing 17th (which was unacceptable regardless of context) it became clear to Levy that Ange would never get us top 4 consistently and he wasn't ever going to repeat the trick of winning the Europa to offset that. Therefore, for a club where top 4 and CL football is the goal, Ange was never going to work.

Or maybe I'm talking gonads. Who knows.
Click to expand...

Maybe he realised that...but he still talked about how much he wanted to win something, how much it meant when we did and that the ultimate reason for sacking Ange was because he expected us to compete on all fronts. That's where Levy's expectations don't much his actions. We haven't had the squad to do that for about 6 years now. Frank's been setup to fail massively with that being the expectation.

I also think Ange would still be in the job had we finished 8th and lost vs Frankfurt in the quarter finals. But that's obviously impossible to prove.
 
johnola said:
Primarily Levy wanted fresh external investment.

That died when he was removed.

And then some messages came out about ambition and since then I don’t know if I have heard anything from the regime.
Click to expand...

It's a great shout. Fresh external investment would have distilled everyone's share. Eventually. Levy / ENIC plus the shares of the external investors together would have been a bigger voice against the holding Tavistock group.

Who knows whether Levy's external investment was a power shift, a strategy to get more on-field success or even to increase the size of the club overall. We clearly could have had all 3 happening at the same time.
 
I tried to put it in the Frank thread, possibly explained it badly

When Frank took over we had won 2 home games in 2025, one of them was against Southampton, Fans were already annoyed at losing almost everything home game and paying £60 plus for the privilege of doing it

Adding to the losing it seemed like it was deemed OK to be losing these games, it seemed like the players/managers were just turning up like a pub team on a Sunday with zero prep or care and the manager was calling out fans publically for daring to criticise it.

We were awful

Frank takes over and the fans are already on edge about the home form and a couple of defeats and they are on his back already, that's not to say he's completely blameless, but he seems to be getting the flack for our home form for the entire year.

Losing every week becomes habit and it's a hard one to break, whoever took over would be facing the same sort of issues.
 
Muttley said:
I'm still not convinced Levy leaving has changed a single thing at the club.

What do people think is running differently under the new regime? What would Levy have done better or worse? What decisions would he have made differently?
Click to expand...

It has 100%

- Number one is there is no target for fan frustration, the booing that players and manager get now, would have been (mostly) directed to Levy/Levy out, the only reason Ange's team made to the end of the season last year was fans instead of turning it on team/manager, vented/protested against Levy.
- The second is going to be harder to see, Levy put huge stock in European qualification every year, hence certain things were predictable, e.g. Frank would probably be gone by now, and we would spend in January to correct course. Levy could be very decisive when needed, e.g. Nuno

I am genuinely worried that Frank is likely out of all cup competitions and we may keep a lame duck manager until end of season (that worry would not happen under Levy)

DeanoAustin said:
I'm very, very skeptical that the family who've owned this club through 25 years of prudence are suddenly going to start splurging especially if we are bound to lenders on the wage structure as Simon Jordan has strongly hinted at.

Levy, whatever his faults, was at least a figurehead for the club and you had a good idea how things were going to be run because he always seemed to do what was best for business.
Click to expand...

Same, the timing of "we are going to invest" statements when the window just closed doesn't inspire confidence.
 
Legohamster said:
Adding to the losing it seemed like it was deemed OK to be losing these games, it seemed like the players/managers were just turning up like a pub team on a Sunday with zero prep or care and the manager was calling out fans publically for daring to criticise it.
Click to expand...

This, as only Spurs can do, we broke the trophy hoodoo which is supposed to make us winners while simultaneously instilling it's an ok to lose mentality in the squad (and creating a reputation of being easy to play against, easy to get at)

That I have some sympathy for Frank, the last manager gave that gift plus the major injuries that we are still not recovered from.
 
Raziel said:
It has 100%

- Number one is there is no target for fan frustration, the booing that players and manager get now, would have been (mostly) directed to Levy/Levy out, the only reason Ange's team made to the end of the season last year was fans instead of turning it on team/manager, vented/protested against Levy.
- The second is going to be harder to see, Levy put huge stock in European qualification every year, hence certain things were predictable, e.g. Frank would probably be gone by now, and we would spend in January to correct course. Levy could be very decisive when needed, e.g. Nuno

I am genuinely worried that Frank is likely out of all cup competitions and we may keep a lame duck manager until end of season (that worry would not happen under Levy)



Same, the timing of "we are going to invest" statements when the window just closed doesn't inspire confidence.
Click to expand...
Levy alone didnt make the decision of sacking the manager, he said it on tv - that it's down to the board as a collective to come to a decision....
 
harr1984 said:
Levy alone didnt make the decision of sacking the manager, he said it on tv - that it's down to the board as a collective to come to a decision....
Click to expand...

All decisions in large companies are usually done with consultation, however you always need someone to make the call.

I've talked about it over the years, I've worked for bigger companies than Spurs and am pretty accustomed to board decisions, one of the credits I gave Levy was, he made mistakes, then (with the board or not), he would act to correct it. I'm very concerned we could lose the next 4 games (or not win any of them) and I'm not sure Frank is out, and I'm not sure we have been talking to a replacement, I would not have that concern if Levy was here.
 
Something I’ve been thinking about is that Frank is actually the perfect coach for the ENIC ethos, in that you make the ‘right’ plays over and over at the ‘right times’ and over the long term it pays off for you. My opinion is that the way Frank thinks about football is the way Levy thought about the transfer market. Eg you have a price for this player, you don’t really compromise. You don’t take the big swing. So you make a number of smaller moves. And over the longer term maybe those players all improve around the same time.

Compared to Liverpool. Who made big swings. Fist with eg selling Torres and getting Carroll and Suarez. And then again to get Allison and Van Dijk. Maybe other clubs wouldn’t have valued them as highly, but Liverpool made sure they got them. Because rather than judging the exact ‘right’ value for a player, they calculated that the extent to which getting world class missing pieces would elevate the club and win them trophies was an intangible that you couldn’t as easily fit into a model. Equally Ange took a big swing to win the Europa. I’m not bringing this up to debate the merits of that decision, merely to say it was a big swing, a gamble that ended up paying off. But completely out of sync with the ENIC ethos that values stable long term decision making.

So all of that to say, I can see why they hired Frank. I think maybe he fits with the club extremely well because of the culture, regardless of individuals that have a spot in the org. Because I think whoever we’ve lost will get replaced by people that also likely suit the culture of the org.
 
Raziel said:
All decisions in large companies are usually done with consultation, however you always need someone to make the call.

I've talked about it over the years, I've worked for bigger companies than Spurs and am pretty accustomed to board decisions, one of the credits I gave Levy was, he made mistakes, then (with the board or not), he would act to correct it. I'm very concerned we could lose the next 4 games (or not win any of them) and I'm not sure Frank is out, and I'm not sure we have been talking to a replacement, I would not have that concern if Levy was here.
Click to expand...
I'm convinced as soon as we have mopo wrapped up for the summer franks gone and a caretaker is coming in (Mason?!)

Till that point I believe the board don't see the point in sacking him with no new manager announcement.
 
Legohamster said:
I'm convinced as soon as we have mopo wrapped up for the summer franks gone and a caretaker is coming in (Mason?!)

Till that point I believe the board don't see the point in sacking him with no new manager announcement.
Click to expand...
Might as well do it now if that's the case. No one cares who will be on the bench when USA whimper out to Paraguay and Australia.
 
Muttley said:
I'm still not convinced Levy leaving has changed a single thing at the club.

What do people think is running differently under the new regime? What would Levy have done better or worse? What decisions would he have made differently?
Click to expand...
We've also gone from someone who knew what he was doing (30 years in the game, including Prague and Rangers as steps up to us), to someone who used her trust fund to support her husband's crap design football boots, and someone who used his trust fund to tinkle it all against the wall in Argentine golf clubs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back