Daniel Levy - Chairman

[Bedfordspurs]

I said owners not chairman. Two very different things.

I'd rather have a sugar daddy than the owners we have now but no in actual fact I don't want a sugar daddy.... What I would like is for ENIC to inject just a tiny portion of the huge capital gain they have made from owning our club back into the club. An injection/dilution of £200m would still mean that they would probably be sitting on a paper profit of about £1.2 billion on Spurs, and that sort of investment would probably make us hugely competitive in being able to properly challenge for the big trophies again.

I agree with the principle
Where would they get that money from?

 

[DubaiSpur]

I'm simply comparing the existing owners in the PL with our own. A large majority (70%?) have owners who are prepared to put in their own money to try to improve the club. A small amount (15%) neither invest or take out money (us, Saudi Sportswashing Machine and Arsenal). Another 15% of clubs have owners that take money out of the club either via leveraged buy-outs or high interest owner loans. If ENIC were to sell up we effectively have a 15% chance of getting worse owners, 15% chance of getting equally good/bad (depending on your viewpoint) owners and a 70% chance of getting better owners. Seems like a gamble with reasonable odds really.

I'll only add to this excellent point by saying Stan Kroenke put 100m into Arsenal this year that allowed them to buy Partey et al. Even he invested in his side, so I guess ENIC are alone with Ashley on that front.

 

[billyiddo]

The two things are not mutually exclusive. Investing in the team in the interim from a position of strength would likely have:

a) Got us one or more trophies.... you know, the very thing that football is actually all about (despite the view of a few on here).
b) Meant that we still actually had our brilliant manager instead of getting rejected by the managers out there with something of a reputation and now seemingly scrambling around for managers of the calibre of Scott Parker.
c) Ensured that we didn't have two years (and counting) of transition.
d) Not had to waste about £30 million sacking managers.
e) Resulted in us actually having higher revenue anyway due to maintaining our CL status.

And that is before you consider the fact that in many cases we ended up spending (sometimes more) money on worse players after not backing the manager with his actual targets.

We are now in a position where we probably need to spend £150m - £200m on transfers just to get to a place where we can build a challenge again. Some sensible investment in the team during the stadium build would've reduced this number drastically.

I don't really disagree with any of that - more money spent on transfers and/or buying players that worked out instead of the ones that didn't would most likely have seen us perform better - you seem to have confused me with someone who doesn't think either of those things are true though?

 

[Baleforce]

That's a narrow way to look at it. Another way is to invest some of your money to give back a greater return.

if it was guaranteed to do that is it not out of character for them not to do it?

 

[BrainOfLevy]

I also think a lot of the traditional messaging against ENIC; ‘profit over glory’ kind of misses the mark. It’s less profit and more risk. Because they will spend - heavily on infrastructure, and they’ll stump up for a good player every now and again. And clearly some of the calculations around selling players and replacing them with poorer versions, or the sacking of managers, suggests that in some respects they are happy to lose money there rather than consider the likelihood we might lose out on CL revenue for example.

It really is just a matter of the risk they are comfortable in taking. They have calculated they can spend more than 13 other clubs to sustain the level, but not more than 5 others above us. So I think the messaging should shift slightly to that consideration - they do not want to take the risks required, and it means our trophy drought goes on and on.

I suppose we will never know exactly what Poch’s plan was, but I’d like to think there is an alternative universe where they make Poch a Partner in ENIC because they’ve discovered someone that in so many ways, is philosophically aligned to them. He believes in building something over the long term, he believes in developing youth, he believes in a family atmosphere, he believes that it is not all about money, but about effort, desire and spirit. I’m sure he would have presented them a plan that in so many ways, respected the ENIC ethos and worked within their guidelines, but just gave us that little bit of a push where we needed. And Joe Lewis could have gone with it. He could have said ‘Daniel, you’re still the business guy, you’re still gonna negotiate the contracts, and work on the commercial side, but this guy gets us and is our best chance of marrying success with a return on investment’. I really think they could have done that, but instead we stayed all in on Levy.

I thought when we sold Walker the plan was working really well. A player wanted out. We extracted the maximum (again, well done Levy) and replaced him but also got one of the top prospects in the world in his position to the club too, in Sanchez. I think Poch’s plan was to be smart and decisive in those situations, and I think we could have kept going that way. Somewhere along the line, we decided who we trusted more on the football side, and I’ll forever be annoyed we went the wrong way.

 

[billyiddo]

It really is just a matter of the risk they are comfortable in taking. They have calculated they can spend more than 13 other clubs to sustain the level, but not more than 5 others above us. So I think the messaging should shift slightly to that consideration - they do not want to take the risks required, and it means our trophy drought goes on and on.

We've outspent 3 of those 5 clubs in the transfer market since we've moved in to the stadium though?

 

[BrainOfLevy]

I don't really disagree with any of that - more money spent on transfers and/or buying players that worked out instead of the ones that didn't would most likely have seen us perform better - you seem to have confused me with someone who doesn't think either of those things are true though?

I think because it seems like you are suggesting it would have been a binary choice between doing what Levy did, or potentially jeopardising the financial future of the club by being more decisive in some key moments, especially given the decisions as taken cost us needless money too.

If ENIC really wanted to push on, and trust in a Manager that got us so close, they could have done more to try and put us on that level, without needing us to have officially moved into the stadium or reaped the revenues for 2-3 years. At the time it wasn’t multiple more 100s of millions. It was just smart, decisive action. Giving a little bit, being willing to lose the reputation as the worst person to negotiate with, if it meant we got in a player we really needed. That sort of thing.

But giving a little kicks us off the financial prudence path, losing that reputation means we might have to pay a bit more in subsequent deals too, and it goes back to ENIC not wanting to risk more than they ideally have to to maximise ROI. We go back to Levy’s plan rather than trust that another decision in a key moment might have gotten us closer to a trophy.

Honestly I think a big reason for my lack of support for ENIC is that the trophy jibes have finally gotten to me. I was totally happy to laugh them off when I knew we were building a stadium and that was going to set us up well for the future, but the decisions since being in there, and the position we find ourselves in with this current manager hunt, it suggests to me things won’t really change as much as we need them to.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

We've outspent 3 of those 5 clubs in the transfer market since we've moved in to the stadium though?

After 18 months of signing nobody though, right?

 

[SpurMeUp]

Not true. Rose was at Watford and had agreed a deal there only for the chairman to try to up the price. We've since paid a pretty much unused player about £7 million quid in wages.

Can you back this up with anything?

 

[billyiddo]

After 18 months of signing nobody though, right?

What's the thinking here - that we put those unspent transfer budgets in a safe place for later? Doesn't really stack up with our net spend of zero trend of the previous windows imo

 

[BrainOfLevy]

And I will say the other reason the trophy jibes have gotten to me is because I think they are getting to the players too. Kane’s comments. Son and Dier’s reactions at Wembley. I think they are really looking at the club and thinking ‘is it ever gonna happen here?’.

And I think for Kane and Son in particular, it’s important for them to feel that the club is on the cusp of something. That they can win trophies here. If this becomes just a paycheque, even if they end up staying I don’t think we get them pushing to the heights that we know they can reach. In 2018 when Kane signed his contract I think he really thought we were going to make the leap, and now I think it is dawning on him that we don’t really intend to.

Another reason why, having come so close, losing the players that helped us get there just means we will have to do the painful rebuild anyway. We could have done it from a position of strength. We could have seized the initiative. I think this Manager appointment is really key, because as much as Kane is going to like Scott Parker, if it ends up being him I think Kane has every right to say he signed his contract under the auspices of a club moving in a different direction.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

What's the thinking here? we put those unspent transfer budgets in a safe place for later? Doesn't really stack up with our net spend of zero trend of the previous windows

I’m just saying clearly we needed to sign some players. Maybe the purse strings are loosened slightly (I can definitely already agree on the wages side). But in the natural cycle of a squad, I think we needed to make signings, and that surgery was probably postponed through the 18 months that Poch was asking us to sign some players with some level of proven capability and was being offered Ligue 2’s YPOTY. (I’m being deliberately facetious here but you get my point)

We lost Dembele and desperately needed a replacement. We lost Eriksen and desperately needed a replacement. Could have sold Eriksen way earlier and probably saved on the net spend there, mind, but couldn’t have Levy looking like someone had gotten one over on him.

 

[Baleforce]

And I will say the other reason the trophy jibes have gotten to me is because I think they are getting to the players too. Kane’s comments. Son and Dier’s reactions at Wembley. I think they are really looking at the club and thinking ‘is it ever gonna happen here?’.

And I think for Kane and Son in particular, it’s important for them to feel that the club is on the cusp of something. That they can win trophies here. If this becomes just a paycheque, even if they end up staying I don’t think we get them pushing to the heights that we know they can reach. In 2018 when Kane signed his contract I think he really thought we were going to make the leap, and now I think it is dawning on him that we don’t really intend to.

Another reason why, having come so close, losing the players that helped us get there just means we will have to do the painful rebuild anyway. We could have done it from a position of strength. We could have seized the initiative. I think this Manager appointment is really key, because as much as Kane is going to like Scott Parker, if it ends up being him I think Kane has every right to say he signed his contract under the auspices of a club moving in a different direction.

if you look at the relevant games though, who let us down, who didn't turn up, who put in a performance lesser than their average, the players who supposedly deserve trophies, Kane has now played in a LC final, a CL final and a World Cup SF, and not made a dent in any of them, Son and Eriksen went missing in key games too

I really have a burr up my arse about such "players needing to leave to win trophies", they need to go and win them, fudge everyone else on the pitch just go and take it, that's what the truly great players do

 

[billyiddo]

I’m just saying clearly we needed to sign some players. Maybe the purse strings are loosened slightly (I can definitely already agree on the wages side). But in the natural cycle of a squad, I think we needed to make signings, and that surgery was probably postponed through the 18 months that Poch was asking us to sign some players with some level of proven capability and was being offered Ligue 2’s YPOTY. (I’m being deliberately facetious here but you get my point)

We lost Dembele and desperately needed a replacement. We lost Eriksen and desperately needed a replacement. Could have sold Eriksen way earlier and probably saved on the net spend there, mind, but couldn’t have Levy looking like someone had gotten one over on him.

Slightly? Come on, net spend of zero stretching back years and then straight 3rd/4th highest spenders as soon as we move in to the stadium - yeah we needed to buy players but we have done in the past and not done so at that level so...

 

[SpurMeUp]

Of the present owners in the PL I think that the owners of Emirates Marketing Project, Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton, Leeds, Aston Villa, Leicester, Wolves, Crystal Palace, Sheffield United, Fulham and Brighton are all better. All are/have injected capital into their clubs in an attempt to improve them.

I think our owners are better than Man Utd's and Burnley's (leveraged buy outs) and also West Ham's (owner loans at high interest).

I'd say our owners are on a par with the current owners of Arsenal and Saudi Sportswashing Machine (thank GHod Saudi Sportswashing Machine's Saudi takeover didn't happen as that would've been us locked out of the CL places for (at least) the short to medium term.

So deluded. We are far better run than almost all of those clubs. Of those sides that are "all better" how many of them have developed their facilities for the long-term future of the club? Creating fresh revenue and added value. How many have spent money with little return or stability?

When ENIC took over we were midtable, and on a par with many of them. We didn't have to advance, but we did. I linked a Forbes article on how Randy Leaner spent $100,000 a day for a decade on Villa. Why would you swap his failure for our successes? Injecting money does not trump performance. And Spurs have performed. Okay we didn't win in the cup against City or in the CL, but we're in the mix. Had we won, would you still have an axe to grind?

"After failing to record a single top-six finish in the decade before Levy's arrival, Tottenham have done so 13 times in the two decades since" Cut and dry.

Your points about Sugar are also consistently wide of the mark. Far from making Levy look good, Sugar took Spurs from bankruptcy and gave us a foundation. Do you have any notion of how businesses are run and how they need to be built up from the ground? How could any rational person want their team to gamble and put their side in a precarious position a la Leeds; over a stable, well-run incremental improvement club we see today?

 

[SpurMeUp]

I don't know of a single other club that has sacked multiple managers who have consistently overachieved compared to resources.

You don't see the paradox of what you are saying? While the managers have changed....what has stayed consistent while we have "overachieved" and who puts all the ingredients together for that overachievement?

 

[Baleforce]

You don't see the paradox of what you are saying? While the managers have changed....what has stayed consistent while we have "overachieved" and who puts all the ingredients together for that overachievement?

I don't think Levy considers us to have overachieved, ever.

 

[billyiddo]

I think because it seems like you are suggesting it would have been a binary choice between doing what Levy did, or potentially jeopardising the financial future of the club by being more decisive in some key moments, especially given the decisions as taken cost us needless money too.

If ENIC really wanted to push on, and trust in a Manager that got us so close, they could have done more to try and put us on that level, without needing us to have officially moved into the stadium or reaped the revenues for 2-3 years. At the time it wasn’t multiple more 100s of millions. It was just smart, decisive action. Giving a little bit, being willing to lose the reputation as the worst person to negotiate with, if it meant we got in a player we really needed. That sort of thing.

But giving a little kicks us off the financial prudence path, losing that reputation means we might have to pay a bit more in subsequent deals too, and it goes back to ENIC not wanting to risk more than they ideally have to to maximise ROI. We go back to Levy’s plan rather than trust that another decision in a key moment might have gotten us closer to a trophy.

Honestly I think a big reason for my lack of support for ENIC is that the trophy jibes have finally gotten to me. I was totally happy to laugh them off when I knew we were building a stadium and that was going to set us up well for the future, but the decisions since being in there, and the position we find ourselves in with this current manager hunt, it suggests to me things won’t really change as much as we need them to.

It's easy to talk about just a little bit more to give you that push but look at some of the money thrown away on players recently/over the years - not just us but our peers, transfers are hit and miss at the best of times, there are no guarantees. Had we spent more and still come up short people wouldn't be sat here saying fair play. They aren't saying fair play now that we are spending are they?!?

A point i always come back to is the only comparable club to have gone through a stadium build situation behaved pretty much exactly the same way in the transfer market, coincidence? I guess if you think that our transfer spend rocketing since having moved in is a coincidence then you'll think that is to. Everton will be a good case study in the next few years i guess.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Slightly? Come on, net spend of zero stretching back years and then straight 3rd/4th highest spenders as soon as we move in to the stadium - yeah we needed to buy players but we have done in the past and not done so at that level so...

I'm just saying I'd rather wait for more data to prove out how much ENIC are now willing to spend given it came off an 18 month period of signing absolutely nobody.

I think we have had periods of absolute net spend during out time with ENIC, typically when the squad has needed surgery. I'm thinking back to the period between 2003-2005 where we did the share issue and signed Reid, Dawson, and a few others.

I'm just going off a very quick scan of Transfermarkt, but it seems like we also made profit in a bunch of windows. So I think when you consider the inflation in the game that has taken place, we have definitely had periods before where we've spent a good amount net, to refresh the squad when absolutely necessary. We also made a profit in a few of the windows leading up the most recent one. And we also didn't sign anyone for 18 months. So I just want to hold off before deciding that the game is massively changing and ENIC are going to do what is required to have us genuinely compete. And the fact that we couldn't find a way to work with Poch, and that ETH isn't jumping all over our job, suggests the game isn't changing that much.

 

[SpurMeUp]

I don't think Levy considers us to have overachieved, ever.

I don't think we have either. The frustration is shared by all of us. That is: we have been mighty close to succeeding, and haven't quite got over the line with the footballing side of things. But what do you do? Cry about it, and blame the person who's created the opportunity to challenge for the league and CL, OR recognise the incremental improvements made so far and let the same executive management team get on with it?

@Finney Is Back et al, will you be joining the marches and the Trust?