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Daniel Levy - Chairman

That "5th biggest revenue to the same ball park now" line completely ignores the interveening years where a vast casm grew financially because of Sky/Top 4/CL money. Closing that gap is no mean feat, let alone over turning it, whislt building a benchmark stadium.
Look at the other traditional big clubs of England (Leeds, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Everton, Villa) who were all at one point in a position to threaten that established order and you'll see why our owners are well supported. Not only did they not put us to the wall or relegate us they actually succeeded in smashing through that glass ceiling - the big 4 is now a big 6 and it's a big 6 because 2 clubs have muscled their way in, one is ourselves and one is oil state funded Emirates Marketing Project....
 
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Spur of the moment said:
You're still overlooking the fundamental point here. If you want to benchmark Levy against other chairmen then how about starting from a relatively level playing field? Choose another chairman who started out with comparatively minimal resources rather than one that won the lottery.

Apples with apples rather than a single apple with a lorry load of them. THEN we can start making realistic comparisons about how much has been invested in the team etc.
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I have. A while ago, I repeatedly made comparisons with a range of chairmen across European football - Jean-Michel Aulas (OL), Andrea Agnelli (Juve), Hans-Joachim Watzke (Dortmund), Enrique Cerezo (Atletico), José Castro Carmona (Sevilla) and so on.

In four of those cases (OL, Juve, Atletico and Dortmund), those chairmen actually took over when their clubs were far lower than where Spurs were when Levy took over. OL were provincial nobodies who had never won anything. Juve had just been relegated, and had finished in the bottom half upon their return to Serie A. Dortmund almost went bankrupt, and were only saved by loans from their former rivals and some astute quick thinking by Watzke. Atletico had been relegated to the Segunda Division, and were teetering on the brink of insolvency.

Many of those chairmen have had tenures comparable to Levy. All of them- *all of them* have won more than we have in the same time-frame, at comparably sized clubs. Four of those five have won their domestic leagues, three of them have won European titles. Three of them have also transformed their clubs into financially secure clubs with new stadiums, while winning.

Those chairmen won trophies. Their focus was not on the prettiest balance sheet, nor on screwing their staff to save pennies on wages in a time of crisis and earn your 3m bonus. That was Levy.

Levy's a competent handler of the club. Competent. Certainly far from the worst. But he's no genius, or the sort of unmatched savant that his completely unconditional fans paint him out to be. And it is this opinion ,along with Joe Lewis being an utterly useless tax exile paperweight, that has caused no end of trouble across a hundred threads and eight years here. :p

I think that's what @Jurgen the German was referring to (if I understand him correctly)- the unconditional, unquestioning support that Levy gets, which is a bit weird when compared to chairmen that actually win things and don't do the sorts of things we've done during this lockdown. That's all.

He even acknowledges that Levy's done an excellent job - I wouldn't go nearly as far myself. :p


 
@Dubai you should know full well that comparing to clubs abroad in leagues where there are only 1 or 2 established giantsis not an even comparison, much easier to take that final step in Germany when there is only Bayern to contend with or in France where there is PSG, in fact PSG weren't even a concern when Lyon were around, there was no established elite in France. In England there was an established 4 and then City to contend with - that's a level of competition that no club of our level on the continent has had to contend with. Take away 3-4 of the teams above us or dramatically strip back their financial power and then you might begin to have a fair point with your list if teams from abroad, but if you do that consider what we may have achieved over the last 10 years +without so many hurdles to overcome...

To see where Spurs have grown during the Enic years you need to look at Everton, Villa, Leeds and Saudi Sportswashing Machine as your comparison points, because they were/are our peers in terms of size/stature - if you still maintain that it is only just competent ownership that puts us where we are in relation to them then i don't think you're arguing in good faith as it's quite clear that all others who tried to do what we do failed.
 
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DubaiSpur said:

I have. A while ago, I repeatedly made comparisons with a range of chairmen across European football - Jean-Michel Aulas (OL), Andrea Agnelli (Juve), Hans-Joachim Watzke (Dortmund), Enrique Cerezo (Atletico), José Castro Carmona (Sevilla) and so on.

In four of those cases (OL, Juve, Atletico and Dortmund), those chairmen actually took over when their clubs were far lower than where Spurs were when Levy took over. OL were provincial nobodies who had never won anything. Juve had just been relegated, and had finished in the bottom half upon their return to Serie A. Dortmund almost went bankrupt, and were only saved by loans from their former rivals and some astute quick thinking by Watzke. Atletico had been relegated to the Segunda Division, and were teetering on the brink of insolvency.

Many of those chairmen have had tenures comparable to Levy. All of them- *all of them* have won more than we have in the same time-frame, at comparably sized clubs. Four of those five have won their domestic leagues, three of them have won European titles. Three of them have also transformed their clubs into financially secure clubs with new stadiums, while winning.

Those chairmen won trophies. Their focus was not on the prettiest balance sheet, nor on screwing their staff to save pennies on wages in a time of crisis and earn your 3m bonus. That was Levy.

Levy's a competent handler of the club. Competent. Certainly far from the worst. But he's no genius, or the sort of unmatched savant that his completely unconditional fans paint him out to be. And it is this opinion ,along with Joe Lewis being an utterly useless tax exile paperweight, that has caused no end of trouble across a hundred threads and eight years here. :p

I think that's what @Jurgen the German was referring to (if I understand him correctly)- the unconditional, unquestioning support that Levy gets, which is a bit weird when compared to chairmen that actually win things and don't do the sorts of things we've done during this lockdown. That's all.

He even acknowledges that Levy's done an excellent job - I wouldn't go nearly as far myself. :p

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Sorry but your using examples of one horse leagues here so it’s really not the same...
may as well use a chairman who has taken over a team in the US Soccer League while your at it

PSG have shown how easy it is to fix a one horse league... they didn’t even have to do much

atletico is the most pertinent example there though for me as under Poch we had a similar mantra (play my way), were building a new stadium (there one really is poor though having went there for the CL final), and we’re trying to play catch up
A Difference though was additional investment that they had from China to give them a bump up. Their not a self sufficient side are they? I know they were going bust a weak times including 2011
 
In my opinion there is a fear of on field success that runs through the club.
It comes in many forms and in DLs case it is about spending a lot of money with no guarantee of success.
As long as we can maintain top 5 with good cup runs with CL qualifications every other year and have balanced books DL will be happy. His fear I imagine is that a dose of success goes to people's head, and as expensive as it is to win trophies, it's even more expensive to keep winning trophies.

All purely my opinion and tbh I have no real beef with that.
 
Parklaner81 said:
Going off at a tangent, weren't about two-thirds of our squad permanently injured during that era...?
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I can’t remember a time when that wasn’t the case, although there have been plenty of periods when two-thirds of the squad have equated to the one good player.
 
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galeforce said:
I can’t remember a time when that wasn’t the case, although there have been plenty of periods when two-thirds of the squad have equates to the one good player.
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I seem to remember it suddenly becoming 'a thing' in the early-mid 90's. Prior to that time we had smaller squads, and might have one or two players injured at a time, but would fairly often be at full strength. Then squads ballooned in size, and suddenly everyone was injured all the time. Sheringham and Anderton were trailblazers for the trend as I recall, and the former's almost season-long injury in 93/94 was so painful for me at the time as an enthusiastic relative youngster...
 
Parklaner81 said:
I seem to remember it suddenly becoming 'a thing' in the early-mid 90's. Prior to that time we had smaller squads, and might have one or two players injured at a time, but would fairly often be at full strength. Then squads ballooned in size, and suddenly everyone was injured all the time. Sheringham and Anderton were trailblazers for the trend as I recall, and the former's almost season-long injury in 93/94 was so painful for me at the time as an enthusiastic relative youngster...
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I think before that players were still injured but also constantly hungover so didn’t realise.
 
Hootnow said:
Realistically, even the players we call 'brick' in the top 2 leagues especially in the UK are amongst the top 0. something percent in the world for their field in terms of talent.
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We hold the players here in very high regard here something that is not universally acknowledged across the world.
 
Hootnow said:
With respect mate (and happy to be corrected if I've also gotten the wrong end of the stick) but I think you've misunderstood what the original poster was saying.

He's saying that he thinks Levy has done a very good job but he doesn't understand the sometimes undying loyalty he gets from some on here.

On the other hand, he understands why some Chelsea fans may feel that way towards RA because he literally saved the club from bankruptcy. To provide a less emotive example, I could also see why Bournemouth fans for instance would feel undying loyalty to Howe and their chairman, having come up from league 2 and having (I believe) the smallest stadium and budget in the PL consistently.

He is not saying that Levy (or Lewis) should have pumped in lots of money or that you need to do so to get undying loyalty. He is, I believe, saying that while Levy has done a generally excellent job, especially in the infrastructure department, he has ultimately taken a club with the 5th biggest turnover when he came and 20 years later...we're roughly in the same ballpark. And that the majority of this incredible on field success has so far come under 1 manager so let's see if it carries on before jumping to conclusions (this is more me).

This is of course a ridiculous over simplification and I'm incredibly grateful for all Levy has done.
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I'd agree the comparison with Bournemouth is a much fairer one. It was at best unfortunate and at worst ridiculous to compare us with Cheatlski.

If Abramovitch was able to command loyalty it was because he had the wherewithal in the first place to cheat his way to instant success. He got in before FFP pulled up the drawbridge. That's the reason I scorn any comparison with that brickhole.
 
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