• 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

Daniel Levy - Chairman

braineclipse said:
When evaluating someone's decision making and there isn't a huge sample size I think looking also at what lead them to making that decision is relevant.

To the extent it's down to luck it can't be ascribed to skill or knowledge. That's not to say skill or knowledge isn't also a factor.

Similarly Levy gets credit for Pochettino and imo deservedly so. I really wanted Pochettino at the time, but he wasn't a super obvious pick. But Pochettino being THAT good for us can't just be ascribed to skill or knowledge for Levy. Luck was a factor.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Neither Levy -or some of our fanbase- ever fully appreciated the full scope of that magical convergence of factors. Talent, necessity, management, luck of course, that magical alchemy. What made it so special for me was that we were achieving incredible football and results without financial doping (or any doping for that matter)! It is why losing that CL Final broke my heart so much. Not only would it have been winning THE big one, it would've been showing the world that it can be done 'this' way, that you don't need financial steroids. Football lost as much as we did that day. It is also why I remain incredibly fudging bitter about the 'penalty' that wasn't.

That last season at the Lane was incredible. We deserved to be champions that season IMO. And it will always be impossible for me to not speculate how far we'd have gone with just one or two of those players he really wanted that summer. I freely admit it is the era which made me believe again more than any other and the era which broke my Tottenham heart more than any other (1982 was the other but I was young and we were winning trophies that I was seeing).

While I'm here in full confessional, I will freely admit that I can also never, ever forgive Levy for not only bringing in Mourinho, but bringing him in less than 24 hours after sacking Poch. I knew Mourinho would fail. If he wanted to go 'instant success' route, I'd have tolerated trying an Ancelotti, who might at least have made sense to who we are as a club. Mourinho's vulgar hubristic dingdong nature was counter to all I think of when you say our name. I despise him and his era here, and whether irrational or not, I hold Mourinho partially responsible for what happened to Dele.
 
mudshark said:
Levy totally lucked into Pochettino's success. He knows nothing about the game. He's been here 25 years and he still doesn't have a clue. Quite remarkable in itself. It's almost as if his interests lie elsewhere ...
Click to expand...
Common denominator for all of our failings and our success off the pitch.
 
thfcsteff said:
It is known that Poch told Levy we should sell Eriksen once it was clear he would not sign a new deal (they had lunch in CPH at which moment Poch realised he was not in, this a concequence of fall-out between Eriksen and Levy). As we know, he wanted Grealish, had Grealish, Daniel looked to shave a little more off a done-deal and we ended up losing him. Remember, too, Poch wanted to sell Toby as he felt he'd lost something. Moussa? Let's face it, that Poch got anything from him is incredible. Remember, he came at the end of that summer window when neither Mane or Winaldjum ended up with us, we lost Mitchell, and Daniel presented Moussa on deadline day.

Poch was definitely in a 'war of attrition' at the end, hindsight makes that clearer to me than it was at the time for sure. The right thing would've been summer departure, the other right thing would've been backing him through at least that season. As we know, covid changed everything. I have pondered how Poch would've done with (essentially) the break and reset? Still, history now and a discussion which will never grow old!
Click to expand...

With all of this, you don't win with Levy. When he over-empowers himself and forces his lack of football DNA into the equation, it breeds failure. It always has done whether it is judgment on managers, valuation of players in negotiations or him trying to manage the in player-agent relationship for the club. I've always said this but Levy should stay at Lilywhite House. He should not be at the other facility, the training ground. His lack of football DNA has got in the way of progress on the football ops side.
 
Muttley said:
With all of this, you don't win with Levy. When he over-empowers himself and forces his lack of football DNA into the equation, it breeds failure. It always has done whether it is judgment on managers, valuation of players in negotiations or him trying to manage the in player-agent relationship for the club. I've always said this but Levy should stay at Lilywhite House. He should not be at the other facility, the training ground. His lack of football DNA has got in the way of progress on the football ops side.
Click to expand...

What is his football DNA count?

How is this measured?

Is there a table published somewhere of chair person FDNA?

If so, who is top?
 
thfcsteff said:
While I'm here in full confessional, I will freely admit that I can also never, ever forgive Levy for not only bringing in Mourinho, but bringing him in less than 24 hours after sacking Poch. I knew Mourinho would fail. If he wanted to go 'instant success' route, I'd have tolerated trying an Ancelotti, who might at least have made sense to who we are as a club. Mourinho's vulgar hubristic dingdong nature was counter to all I think of when you say our name. I despise him and his era here, and whether irrational or not, I hold Mourinho partially responsible for what happened to Dele.
Click to expand...

It was all circular with Dele. He had been burnt out by overplaying because we never found suitable squad players in that area to give Dele and Eriksen a rest. They both run marathons in the early days for Poch and it took its tool on them both. So the soft tissue issues started with Dele and he could never get back to his former self. Load on all of the childhood trauma from the family situation that he wasn't addressing in his adulthood.

Then he met the narcissist who just do what narcissists do when they see vulnerability. My guess is that Dele was totally gas-lighted by Jose in their relationship. Dele would have feared ever being one-on-one with Jose. That's the way it works.

Hugo alluded to the player relationships in his book. Can't remember the exact words but he said something like there was a big section of the changing room that Jose had lost.

Jose was a bad appointment and sacked way too late. Football ops under Danny boy.
 
Baleforce said:
What is his football DNA count?

How is this measured?

Is there a table published somewhere of chair person FDNA?

If so, who is top?
Click to expand...

Sheikh Mansaur and John Henry are top in my mind. As leaders, they know they don't have any football DNA so they build their organisation on that premise. They empower others with the nous required. None of us could even name their Chief Football Officers without google. I'm hoping this is the way it will be with Scott Munn as he quietly goes to work and adds that much needed layer of expertise into our club. Such a shame that Trevor Birch never stuck around in 2019.
 
Muttley said:
Sheikh Mansaur and John Henry are top in my mind. As leaders, they know they don't have any football DNA so they build their organisation on that premise. They empower others with the nous required. None of us could even name their Chief Football Officers without google. I'm hoping this is the way it will be with Scott Munn as he quietly goes to work and adds that much needed layer of expertise into our club. Such a shame that Trevor Birch never stuck around in 2019.
Click to expand...

How do they know they don’t have it?

Is it like Midi-chlorians?
 
Muttley said:
Sheikh Mansaur and John Henry are top in my mind. As leaders, they know they don't have any football DNA so they build their organisation on that premise. They empower others with the nous required. None of us could even name their Chief Football Officers without google. I'm hoping this is the way it will be with Scott Munn as he quietly goes to work and adds that much needed layer of expertise into our club. Such a shame that Trevor Birch never stuck around in 2019.
Click to expand...
Mansaur?
If spending billions and having your club dragged through every court possible with every pot they've ever won done in dubious circumstances is football dna then you can keep it.
 
glasgowspur said:
Mansaur?
If spending billions and having your club dragged through every court possible with every pot they've ever won done in dubious circumstances is football dna then you can keep it.
Click to expand...

lol - I think I was arguing exactly the opposite about the man himself.
 
For the CL final, I really wonder what would have happened if Moura started that game .. This discussion brings up memories - some good, some sad. At the end of the day, COYS..
 
Muttley said:
Jose was a bad appointment and sacked way too late. Football ops under Danny boy.
Click to expand...
I agree with most of what you said prior to this, but I will never concede that hiring Jose was a bad decision by Levy. And I have always loathed Jose, both his manners and his football. And no one would argue that he was anything other than a bad appointment - in hindsight.

BUT general consensus was that we never hired managers who had led anyone into battle on the big stage and won anything. We needed someone "who knew how to win the big stuff and who could drag us over the finishing line", and that Levy shopped managers off the discount shelf. Jol, 'Arry, Jose's errand boy, Nuno, even Poch and Santini, all pretty much nobodies in the grand scheme and/or who failed when it really mattered. Exception perhaps being Ramos with his UEFAs, and he won us the only trophy in 25 years, the coveted Audi Cup excepted.

Then suddenly THE Jose Mourinho becomes available. Yeah, a little rusty around the edges and he didn't exactly cover himself in glory at Utd, but nevertheless he still won something there. A proven winner of the biggest trophies and at multiple clubs, and a manager who would've laughed himself silly if we had approached him 15 years earlier. He had won something at every fekkin club he'd been at. A manager supposedly ingrained with that "winning mentality" that everyone said we'd lacked for eons. If anyone - honestly - didn't see him as our opportunity to finally win at least a cup, well, hats off to them for being clever. And then they can go to bed with the shame of lying both to us and themselves.

Bad manager yes, but not a bad decision.
 
Last edited:
SubZero said:
I agree that much of what you said prior to this, but I will never concede that hiring Jose was a bad decision by Levy. And I have always loathed Jose, both his manners and his football. And no one would argue that he was anything other than a bad appointment - in hindsight.

BUT general consensus was that we never hired managers who had led anyone into battle on the big stage and won anything. We needed someone "who knew how to win the big stuff and drag us over the line", and that Levy shopped managers off the discount shelf. Jol, 'Arry, Jose's errand boy, Nuno, even Poch and Santini, all pretty much nobodies on the grand stage and/or who failed when it really mattered. Exception perhaps being Ramos with his UEFAs, and he won us the only trophy in 25 years, the coveted Audi Cup excepted.

Then suddenly THE Jose Mourinho becomes available. Yeah, a little rusty around the edges and he didn't exactly cover himself in glory at Utd, but nevertheless he still won something there. A proven winner of the biggest trophies and at multiple clubs, and a manager who would've laughed himself silly if we had approached him 15 years earlier. He had won something at every fekkin club he'd been at. A manager supposedly ingrained with that "winning mentality" that everyone said we'd lacked for eons. If anyone - honestly - didn't see him as our opportunity to finally win at least a cup, well, hats off to them. And then they can go to bed with the shame of lying both to us and themselves.

Bad manager yes, but not a bad decision.
Click to expand...
And then sack him before the cup final …. Levy is a belter when it comes to matters on the pitch. Gets managers who cannot work to the tight budgets put in place.

Fans pay a premium while we penny pinch. I admire his commercial ability and matters off the pitch but on them he is a failure.

It’s like ange all attack great but no defence.

This is a nightmare
 
Gazza said:
And then sack him before the cup final …. Levy is a belter when it comes to matters on the pitch. Gets managers who cannot work to the tight budgets put in place.

Fans pay a premium while we penny pinch. I admire his commercial ability and matters off the pitch but on them he is a failure.

It’s like ange all attack great but no defence.

This is a nightmare
Click to expand...
Agree, but that tenure had become unbearable, and I honestly believe we would've lost more with him at the sideline. Pure speculation on my behalf of course, but I cannot remember a manager I wanted more out at that time, any time, than Mourinho. That includes Pleat and Goonersaurus. I even think I would have accepted him being sacked at half time of a random game. He had lost all but his parking space.

Point being that my impression is that Levy often does things many fans agree with and sees must be done, but he's poor with the timing. Like really poor at times. But the only decision I thoroughly disagree with (off the top of my head) is the dreaded transferless window, which I consider as the beginning of the end. And many on here were even supportive of us not spending in that window.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back