Daniel Levy - Former Chairman

[billyiddo]

We needed someone "who knew how to win the big stuff and who could drag us over the finishing line",

No we didn't, not at that time - that team was finished and it was a massive, massive mistake by anyone that thought the only thing missing at that point was a 'winner' of a manager to get them over the line - not only does that opinion show a compete lack of understanding of where that team was at that specific point, it also does a disservice to what the previous manager had been able to eek out of them in the 18/19 season.

 

[Raziel]

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.

People are often so desperate to not give Levy any credit that they fail to understand most of those decisions have a decent amount of the right thinking behind them

Jol - beginning of the modern version of Spurs trajectory, connected with fans, first set of elite players (IIRC), first time back in Europe
Ramos - Got a cup
Harry - a stopgap that turned out to be a stroke of genius, and if he didn't self sabotage himself whoring for the England job could have pushed on even further
AVB - Was a promising manager that stalled
Poch - Another promising manager, this one worked out
Jose - Impossible to evaluate because of Covid, everyone will say "you don't hire Jose unless you open the chequebook", the intention was there, except a few months later the club was losing a 100M+ of revenue.
Nuno - Hindsight says fans/media were the dumbasses here
Conte - Got back to CL, self destructed for personal reasons

Now, do I agree Jose/Conte broadly weren't aligned to our club culturally? yes, do I understand why the decision was made? yes

 

[Muttley]

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.

I genuinely tried to convince myself that Jose would be good for Spurs, but I knew deep down he wouldn't:

- He had not adapted his nurturing of these young guys and it was massively evident at Utd e.g. the Luke Shaw incidences. It's not quite like bringing Brian Clough back from the grave and managing nowadays, but it is the modern equivalent.
- His football tactics had been overtaken by a new generation of managers. You couldn't setup in the way that prevailed in the earlier part of his career, but I did like some his shaping of the team.
- He wouldn't cope with the quality of the players we had, or the lack of, and he wouldn't work with the kids. That proved out as he ended up without a single U21 in his squad.
- Jose was never going to be interested in building a squad the Spurs way. It was always going to be sort term fixes.

Ultimately, Jose has and had lost his superpowers. You don't really believe it until you see it close up and personal when he is at your club. Then you see the narcissism that goes with the man. He is toxic, but he's also not a great manager nowadays.

 

[Bishop]

People are often so desperate to not give Levy any credit that they fail to understand most of those decisions have a decent amount of the right thinking behind them

Jol - beginning of the modern version of Spurs trajectory, connected with fans, first set of elite players (IIRC), first time back in Europe
Ramos - Got a cup
Harry - a stopgap that turned out to be a stroke of genius, and if he didn't self sabotage himself whoring for the England job could have pushed on even further
AVB - Was a promising manager that stalled
Poch - Another promising manager, this one worked out
Jose - Impossible to evaluate because of Covid, everyone will say "you don't hire Jose unless you open the chequebook", the intention was there, except a few months later the club was losing a 100M+ of revenue.
Nuno - Hindsight says fans/media were the dumbasses here
Conte - Got back to CL, self destructed for personal reasons

Now, do I agree Jose/Conte broadly weren't aligned to our club culturally? yes, do I understand why the decision was made? yes

Was hiring either Conte and Jose a bad decision. Yes.

You can dress it however you want to make it seem reasonable. It never was. Jose doesn't need 100m of revenue he needs to spend the most in whichever market he is in for success. We were never going to do that.

 

[Baleforce]

Was hiring either Conte and Jose a bad decision. Yes.

You can dress it however you want to make it seem reasonable. It never was. Jose doesn't need 100m of revenue he needs to spend the most in whichever market he is in for success. We were never going to do that.

I disagree strongly.

They were both excellent decisions because they are both top tier managers and proven winners.

Jose’s greatest successes were at Porto and Inter, where he delivered the CL, despite not spending as much as teams he knocked out on the way. He’s never relied on the Pep way of just buying all the best players. Even at Chelsea, despite the spend, it wasn’t established galatico’s he signed, it was functional performers like Duff and Drogba that made them formidable.

Jose is probably the greatest manager of all time, and if we were going to double down on a manager in a poor run of form, it should have been for a manager like Jose.

(Good to be back disagreeing with you again , feels like we have been having a like love in lately in other certain threads. The man has created strange alliances. Happy Christmas!)

 

[Finney Is Back]

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.

What we needed was for the chairman to listen to the manager who was already in place and had been so for 5 years giving us perhaps (I haven’t looked it up) our best 5 year average league finish in our history.

 

[Bishop]

I disagree strongly.

They were both excellent decisions because they are both top tier managers and proven winners.

Jose’s greatest successes were at Porto and Inter, where he delivered the CL, despite not spending as much as teams he knocked out on the way. He’s never relied on the Pep way of just buying all the best players. Even at Chelsea, despite the spend, it wasn’t established galatico’s he signed, it was functional performers like Duff and Drogba that made them formidable.

Jose is probably the greatest manager of all time, and if we were going to double down on a manager in a poor run of form, it should have been for a manager like Jose.

(Good to be back disagreeing with you again , feels like we have been having a like love in lately in other certain threads. The man has created strange alliances. Happy Christmas!)

Inter had the highest spend in Italy, Porto the highest spend in Portugal and Chelsea the highest spend in England.

Yes he didn't buy absolute galacticos at Chelsea but he buy the next best thing. Robbed was next up, Duff was starting in the PL we've never bought players of that calibre and probably never will. Jose was a poor buy for a Levy led Spurs because we were never going to spend in the manner he requires. Besides all of that, he was a busted flush at the time as demonstrated by his time at Chelsea and Manchester United.

 

[SubZero]

I genuinely tried to convince myself that Jose would be good for Spurs, but I knew deep down he wouldn't:

- He had not adapted his nurturing of these young guys and it was massively evident at Utd e.g. the Luke Shaw incidences. It's not quite like bringing Brian Clough back from the grave and managing nowadays, but it is the modern equivalent.
- His football tactics had been overtaken by a new generation of managers. You couldn't setup in the way that prevailed in the earlier part of his career, but I did like some his shaping of the team.
- He wouldn't cope with the quality of the players we had, or the lack of, and he wouldn't work with the kids. That proved out as he ended up without a single U21 in his squad.
- Jose was never going to be interested in building a squad the Spurs way. It was always going to be sort term fixes.

Ultimately, Jose has and had lost his superpowers. You don't really believe it until you see it close up and personal when he is at your club. Then you see the narcissism that goes with the man. He is toxic, but he's also not a great manager nowadays.

Absolutely, didn't he even say that he wasn't planning on staying more than a couple of seasons, or was that Conte? I don't think many believed he would be good for Spurs in the long run, but he would get us a trophy. We knew and accepted that it wouldn't be pretty, but at least we would win something, right? The stick many used to beat Poch with in that last season, was just that he wasn't an experienced winner, he was "unable to go those last steps". Mourinho was all about exactly doing that. Or at least that was the narrative presented. And I think quite a few forget how many actually wanted Poch out at the end, or at least wanted a major change. He, much like Ange got a lot of flak as well for being too late with substitutions and running players into the ground.

And Jose may have inherited a great squad on paper, but the decline was there for all to see. I still believe there was something going on within the squad in Poch's last season, most apparent in the sudden decline of Eriksen. It looked like the hunger and belief had vanished, the team spirit which was so good prior to that wasn't really there. I still have an unfounded, but nevertheless nagging feeling that Kane had something to do with it. But I definitely agree with that appointing Mourinho was never about building anything, he was brought in to end the trophy drought.

 

[Stiff_Swede]

Levy out or in is the most meaningless discussion ever. You can buy the club tomorrow if you stamp up the money. The club will be sold when a good enough offer comes in. What I or someone else thinks have zero influence what so ever.

 

[Mikey10]

Levy out or in is the most meaningless discussion ever. You can buy the club tomorrow if you stamp up the money. The club will be sold when a good enough offer comes in. What I or someone else thinks have zero influence what so ever.

I think life could be made difficult enough for the owners that they would be minded to sell.

Do I think that will happen at Spurs?

No.

 

[Robspur12]

When I think about it, did we onLy get rid of Nuno because Conte finally changed his mind to join us? Did seem pretty hasty at the time as he only managed us for 1/2 a season.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

When I think about it, did we onLy get rid of Nuno because Conte finally changed his mind to join us? Did seem pretty hasty at the time as he only managed us for 1/2 a season.

100%
We didn’t have a plan and conte then went, yeah I’ll come

 

[glasgowspur]

When I think about it, did we onLy get rid of Nuno because Conte finally changed his mind to join us? Did seem pretty hasty at the time as he only managed us for 1/2 a season.

It wasn’t pretty and wasn't very good, not as I remember it anyway.
I can imagine if we rehired nuno and he served up what he served up today for the next season, because tbh they weren't very good and for better or worse our fans demand better.
But then I don’t think our fans really know what they want.

 

[billyiddo]

When I think about it, did we onLy get rid of Nuno because Conte finally changed his mind to join us? Did seem pretty hasty at the time as he only managed us for 1/2 a season.

I thought that was the accepted turn of events? We may not have persued Conte if Nuno had started well though tbf but he didn't and we did

 

[Gazza]

I thought that was the accepted turn of events? We may not have persued Conte if Nuno had started well though tbf but he didn't and we did

Nuno was a desperate appointment after scouring and being linked to every man and his dog … but conte was an even more desperate appointment given the number of games he was in charge of.

 

[billyiddo]

Nuno was a desperate appointment after scouring and being linked to every man and his dog … but conte was an even more desperate appointment given the number of games he was in charge of.

Nuno was the bird you grab before the lights come on at 2am so you don't go home alone.

No harm in booting them out a little later if you get a "wyd?" text from the mental milf you'd been chasing all night

 

[Gazza]

Nuno was the bird you grab before the lights come on at 2am so you don't go home alone.

No harm in booting them out a little later if you get a "wyd?" text from the mental milf you'd been chasing all night

Just another waste of time and recruitment

 

[SpiderSpurs]

Bit shocked there's no protest planned for this weekend. Half hearted as those before them then.

 

[Lemonade Money]

Nuno was the bird you grab before the lights come on at 2am so you don't go home alone.

No harm in booting them out a little later if you get a "wyd?" text from the mental milf you'd been chasing all night

...and you'd heard the mental milf has got a magic vagina.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Genuine question, how much more time should Levy get running the club? I understand it’s a hypothetical question and he’s not gonna sack himself, but does he deserve 1 more managerial appointment? 5 more years? Until the stadium is fully paid off?