ENIC

[Raziel]

It's been done to death. But :

- ESL : yes, bad idea, certainly in its then proposed format. But if it had gone ahead (and it will, at some stage, in some revised format) and Tottenham were not involved, I am absolutely certain that Levy would be getting pilloried for failing to have us at the top table, by the same people who slate him now for having us involved at that top table.

- Covid Furlough : the scheme that was introduced by government to assist companies through the pandemic? The scheme that benefitted companies throughout the country, including some very large companies with higher revenues and profits than Tottenham? But Tottenham, as a significant contributor to the exchequer, is not allowed to benefit because??? Look at the impact covid had on our finances. Whilst staff wages might be a drop in the ocean, everything would have helped yet certain short-sighted fans lay into the club so they had to back down. Where the club went wrong, imo, was they should have topped up the 20%.
(As an aside, I have yet to meet anyone who was furloughed who was unhappy about it, but of course that's anecdotal and I can't speak for individuals I don't know).

- Money hoarder?

Honestly don't bother, it's just shouting into the dark now

- ESL is actually much better thought out re mismanagement than CL, yes there were concerns re closed shop but instead of having a conversation, all the people that if you don't jump into group think re Levy/ENIC accuse you of being sheeple, ran to protect those bastions of morality/ethics, the FA/UEFA/Sky/BT, because they are who are saving our game

- Furlough, I hope they protested at every fudging bank and oil company that leveraged a perfectly legitimate government scheme, oh right, only Spurs need to be held to that standard?

- Money hoarder, yep, doesn't take much to read the unsaid part there

 

[DubSpur]

That's really well written. I've advocated for the man for 15 years on here, but time's up now.

Winter is an absolute smug arrogant clam who I wouldn't tinkle on if he was on fire. The article isn't well written with little on fact and just opinions like "levy is loathed", he might be loathed by a minority but to lump him in with the Glazers... Calling him thick and the usual BS about him being only concerned about money shows how little it's based on fact.

Oh, did I mention that Winter is a clam?

 

[Jurgen the German]

Winter is an absolute smug arrogant clam who I wouldn't tinkle on if he was on fire. The article isn't well written with little on fact and just opinions like "levy is loathed", he might be loathed by a minority but to lump him in with the Glazers... Calling him thick and the usual BS about him being only concerned about money shows how little it's based on fact.

Oh, did I mention that Winter is a clam?

To be fair, is there anyone who could write an article about Levy that is even slightly critical that wouldn’t provoke a negative reaction in this place? I’d be genuinely interested to see what the fallout would be on here if a legend like Mabbutt or Hoddle were to speak out publicly against ENIC. I bet the same people that back Levy would still be on his side

 

[Raziel]

To be fair, is there anyone who could write an article about Levy that is even slightly critical that wouldn’t provoke a negative reaction in this place? I’d be genuinely interested to see what the fallout would be on here if a legend like Mabbutt or Hoddle were to speak out publicly against ENIC. I bet the same people that back Levy would still be on his side

Or alternatively you could write the most fact devoid brick and as long as it brick on Levy it would get people saying "so true, nothing but facts?"

Lets not try to pigeon hole each other mate ..

 

[DubSpur]

To be fair, is there anyone who could write an article about Levy that is even slightly critical that wouldn’t provoke a negative reaction in this place? I’d be genuinely interested to see what the fallout would be on here if a legend like Mabbutt or Hoddle were to speak out publicly against ENIC. I bet the same people that back Levy would still be on his side

So what if it's Mabbutt or Hoddle that writes it if it isn't factually correct? I'd hope that most people have their own minds and wouldn't follow what someone else says, no matter who they are, like sheep.
If you want to blindly follow others knock yourself out.

If someone wants to write a fact-based analysis of Levy and decide they think he is not doing a good job then fair enough, this is a piece of drivel that is just aimed at playing on the emotional reaction because we have slumped a bit this year. Are there any bs articles like this from Winter about the bigger mess that Chelsea is currently in?

 

[Jurgen the German]

So what if it's Mabbutt or Hoddle that writes it if it isn't factually correct? I'd hope that most people have their own minds and wouldn't follow what someone else says, no matter who they are, like sheep.
If you want to blindly follow others knock yourself out.

If someone wants to write a fact-based analysis of Levy and decide they think he is not doing a good job then fair enough, this is a piece of drivel that is just aimed at playing on the emotional reaction because we have slumped a bit this year. Are there any bs articles like this from Winter about the bigger mess that Chelsea is currently in?

I just find it weird that people on here back Levy to the hilt so vociferously but don’t do the same for the players whether that’s ex players or the current squad. 9 times out of 10 they back Levy. Even now when it’s absolutely farcical what is going on our/Levy’s club you still get people defending him and claiming we can’t do any better

 

[Baleforce]

I just find it weird that people on here back Levy to the hilt so vociferously but don’t do the same for the players whether that’s ex players or the current squad. 9 times out of 10 they back Levy. Even now when it’s absolutely farcical what is going on our/Levy’s club you still get people defending him and claiming we can’t do any better

where we are now, which feels like a pit of despair, was dreamland when they took over

we were irrelevant, we were a joke, more likely to be in division 1 than Europe

when you scale a mountain, you don't panic when you take a couple of missteps near the top

 

[DubSpur]

I just find it weird that people on here back Levy to the hilt so vociferously but don’t do the same for the players whether that’s ex players or the current squad. 9 times out of 10 they back Levy. Even now when it’s absolutely farcical what is going on our/Levy’s club you still get people defending him and claiming we can’t do any better

He's not perfect and made mistakes. Personally, I think he shouldn't have sacked Conte and should've kept him until the summer unless he had his replacement ready to go (other decisions I don't agree with as well). But I don't know what was said in the meetings between Levy and Conte after the outburst. If Conte wasn't willing to tone down the press conferences, wasn't committed or other issues that came up in the meetings then maybe he was right to sack him. It's nothing unusual for a club to see out the last games with a caretaker. People are blowing everything out of proportion, losing their brick about missing on CL, and making out that we're the biggest basket case of a club when it's really just some short-term turmoil.

If we can do better then show me who that person is. Show me who has done better than him at growing a club from outside the top 4, when he came in, and has them competing at the top of the table, building the best infrastructure in England, all without having billions pumped into them by nation-states or dodgy oil money. If you can find that person and they are interested in taking over then I'd be all for it, but so far nobody has been able to show me that person.

 

[Bullet]

Hopefully Levy will employ a "decent-level manager and DoF" in coming months and allow them to both get on with their jobs, using the financial might Levy amassed over the last 20 years.
Hopefully 95% of people will get on board with that.
Hopefully it all pans out and the team wins lots of matches for a long time and we get some respite.
But eventually the results will falter and Levy will get blamed and we can have all of these conversations again. Such fun. Until Levy employs another "decent level manager and DoF".
Rinse and repeat for the next 20 years.

 

[harr1984]

Sacking Conte was a mistake. Who knew!? Plenty on here posted at the time, let Conte see out the season.

Our season fell apart for two reasons. Conte being off after surgery. And sacking Conte with the run-in still to finish.

DL acting like a fan or because of them. It’s great he goes to games and all, but he needs to step back and make rational business decisions. He’s too flippant, reactionary and ‘fan-like’.

The third key failure this season, and why I’m not so worried Paratici is going, is our failure to sign a commanding CB. Maybe with our targets unavailable we didn’t feel we could improve the defence. What a mistake that was.

I was also one that said we should have kept Conte. However, he wasn't sacked - it was by mutual consent. And it is being reported that Levy still wanted to keep Conte until the end of the season but Conte insisted on staying in Italy. What I do blame Levy for is that from day dot he should have had a contingency for Conte leaving, as every man and his dog knew he could self implode at any minute. Anything on the financial side he is on it, proactive, and innovative. On the football side a lot of the time he is anything but. Hopefully this Munn guy along with new DoF will see him being less involved and let him concentrate on what he does best....

 

[Jurgen the German]

He's not perfect and made mistakes. Personally, I think he shouldn't have sacked Conte and should've kept him until the summer unless he had his replacement ready to go (other decisions I don't agree with as well). But I don't know what was said in the meetings between Levy and Conte after the outburst. If Conte wasn't willing to tone down the press conferences, wasn't committed or other issues that came up in the meetings then maybe he was right to sack him. It's nothing unusual for a club to see out the last games with a caretaker. People are blowing everything out of proportion, losing their brick about missing on CL, and making out that we're the biggest basket case of a club when it's really just some short-term turmoil.

If we can do better then show me who that person is. Show me who has done better than him at growing a club from outside the top 4, when he came in, and has them competing at the top of the table, building the best infrastructure in England, all without having billions pumped into them by nation-states or dodgy oil money. If you can find that person and they are interested in taking over then I'd be all for it, but so far nobody has been able to show me that person.

It would be churlish of me not to admit that ENIC have grown the club and raised our profile compared to what it was before they took over. I’m critical of them but I don’t lack perspective and they have done some great things for us. I do take issue that the turmoil is short term. Granted we did well to finish 4th last season but it’s been 3 bad seasons out of 4. All in all it’s been a downward curve since we moved into the stadium. Missing CL whilst not ideal isn’t the end of the world, all the top clubs (bar Emirates Marketing Project) have missed out at least once in the last 10 years. 6 doesn’t go into 4. It’s the way we are missing out, the poor managerial selections, timings of sackings, failing to have an understanding of how football works after more than 20 years of running a football club.

With all due respect, not really our job to say who would be a better fit than Levy. It’s akin to when someone says they want a new CB or a goalkeeper and you get posters retort with “who can we get that’s better?” The club are very deliberately on a charm offensive to appease fans with the FAB, reimbursing fans for the tickets on Sunday etc. I don’t blame them for doing it, they’re afraid of a backlash tomorrow and for the rest of the season.

 

[Baleforce]

I was also one that said we should have kept Conte. However, he wasn't sacked - it was by mutual consent. And it is being reported that Levy still wanted to keep Conte until the end of the season but Conte insisted on staying in Italy. What I do blame Levy for is that from day dot he should have had a contingency for Conte leaving, as every man and his dog knew he could self implode at any minute. Anything on the financial side he is on it, proactive, and innovative. On the football side a lot of the time he is anything but. Hopefully this Munn guy along with new DoF will see him being less involved and let him concentrate on what he does best....

he did, Mason

 

[glorygloryeze]

It would be churlish of me not to admit that ENIC have grown the club and raised our profile compared to what it was before they took over. I’m critical of them but I don’t lack perspective and they have done some great things for us. I do take issue that the turmoil is short term. Granted we did well to finish 4th last season but it’s been 3 bad seasons out of 4. All in all it’s been a downward curve since we moved into the stadium. Missing CL whilst not ideal isn’t the end of the world, all the top clubs (bar Emirates Marketing Project) have missed out at least once in the last 10 years. 6 doesn’t go into 4. It’s the way we are missing out, the poor managerial selections, timings of sackings, failing to have an understanding of how football works after more than 20 years of running a football club.

With all due respect, not really our job to say who would be a better fit than Levy. It’s akin to when someone says they want a new CB or a goalkeeper and you get posters retort with “who can we get that’s better?” The club are very deliberately on a charm offensive to appease fans with the FAB, reimbursing fans for the tickets on Sunday etc. I don’t blame them for doing it, they’re afraid of a backlash tomorrow and for the rest of the season.

That last paragraph is so key; the same people saying "who could do a better job" or "well what would you know about how to run a club/corporation" are only too happy to judge players, coaches etc from the same position of "lack of knowledge".

Unlike many other clubs, we have more than 20 years of a body of work to judge things...i have often seen 20 odd years of excuses for:

- getting players in late, close to or on deadline day
- getting players in that the coach doesn't want
- not getting players in that the coach wants or needs (but still able to find effort to do the above)
- "not being able to compete because we aren't in Europe/aren't in CL/haven't had ten years straight in CL/haven't got a big enough stadium/need to watch FFP rules"
- acting 'big' in getting 'win now' coaches, but still acting as though we have a 'builder' coach and are still building the stadium

ENIC/Levy are running out of excuses and hence the decisions are becoming more and more farcical.

I wonder if Levy will go and talk to the "players committee" again if we get tonked in our next two games...

 

[DubSpur]

I was also one that said we should have kept Conte. However, he wasn't sacked - it was by mutual consent. And it is being reported that Levy still wanted to keep Conte until the end of the season but Conte insisted on staying in Italy. What I do blame Levy for is that from day dot he should have had a contingency for Conte leaving, as every man and his dog knew he could self implode at any minute. Anything on the financial side he is on it, proactive, and innovative. On the football side a lot of the time he is anything but. Hopefully this Munn guy along with new DoF will see him being less involved and let him concentrate on what he does best....

It's very hard to have a contingency plan when the managers available seems to be changing every week.
The only real stable contingency plan is if we have someone in already in the club as the backup.

 

[DubSpur]

It would be churlish of me not to admit that ENIC have grown the club and raised our profile compared to what it was before they took over. I’m critical of them but I don’t lack perspective and they have done some great things for us. I do take issue that the turmoil is short term. Granted we did well to finish 4th last season but it’s been 3 bad seasons out of 4. All in all it’s been a downward curve since we moved into the stadium. Missing CL whilst not ideal isn’t the end of the world, all the top clubs (bar Emirates Marketing Project) have missed out at least once in the last 10 years. 6 doesn’t go into 4. It’s the way we are missing out, the poor managerial selections, timings of sackings, failing to have an understanding of how football works after more than 20 years of running a football club.

With all due respect, not really our job to say who would be a better fit than Levy. It’s akin to when someone says they want a new CB or a goalkeeper and you get posters retort with “who can we get that’s better?” The club are very deliberately on a charm offensive to appease fans with the FAB, reimbursing fans for the tickets on Sunday etc. I don’t blame them for doing it, they’re afraid of a backlash tomorrow and for the rest of the season.

If it's easy to do what Levy has done then why haven't other clubs managed to get in a better chairman and done the same with consistently better results on the pitch?

 

[Jurgen the German]

If it's easy to do what Levy has done then why haven't other clubs managed to get in a better chairman and done the same with consistently better results on the pitch?

I don’t think anyone said it’s easy or that Levy hasn’t done good work but no one in football gets a life pass. I could flip the question round and ask why if other chairmen at their respective PL clubs can get managerial appointments right, back them, not fudge the timings of sackings, not take an age In appointing managers then why can’t Levy after more than 20 years. Should we just accept things as they are forever because the next chairman “do a Leeds”?

 

[Raziel]

With all due respect, not really our job to say who would be a better fit than Levy. It’s akin to when someone says they want a new CB or a goalkeeper and you get posters retort with “who can we get that’s better?” The club are very deliberately on a charm offensive to appease fans with the FAB, reimbursing fans for the tickets on Sunday etc. I don’t blame them for doing it, they’re afraid of a backlash tomorrow and for the rest of the season.

That last paragraph is so key; the same people saying "who could do a better job" or "well what would you know about how to run a club/corporation" are only too happy to judge players, coaches etc from the same position of "lack of knowledge".

ENIC/Levy are running out of excuses and hence the decisions are becoming more and more farcical.

I wonder if Levy will go and talk to the "players committee" again if we get tonked in our next two games...

If it's easy to do what Levy has done then why haven't other clubs managed to get in a better chairman and done the same with consistently better results on the pitch?

So here is where the disconnect is

- No one is saying Levy/ENIC haven't made errors
- Most people (there are few on a tangent) admit Levy/ENIC has made a significant positive difference to the club over the tenure
- Most people (again a few outliers) realize there is a limit to how much success you can achieve on a self funded model (hence agreement with ownership change may be required)

The above once we remove the emotion, most of us kinda of say .. yes

The challenge is when people harp on about mistakes the club has made, bad buys, bad managers, having a budget, whatever (and a lot are legitimate)

- Where is the example club that has done better over the same 20 year period, that either wasn't already established top 4 or money doping? and is still on the up?
- Where are the clubs in the same category that improved their infrastructure in that same category that wasn't a government gift?

So when the answer to the question to who has done better seems to be a sample size of zero, people who are acknowledging the positive side of ENIC's time are not shills/fan boys/happy clappers or whatever disrespectful brick people seem to need to come with when others disagree with them, it's a point of caution. It seems that the overwhelming attitude is "we have had 20 years, we are fed up and I'm willing to take a punt on literally anyone else" regardless of the fact that data/odds show that the "anyone else" unless it comes with money doping (has it's own implications) is most likely to be worse

 

[Gazza]

So here is where the disconnect is

- No one is saying Levy/ENIC haven't made errors
- Most people (there are few on a tangent) admit Levy/ENIC has made a significant positive difference to the club over the tenure
- Most people (again a few outliers) realize there is a limit to how much success you can achieve on a self funded model (hence agreement with ownership change may be required)

The above once we remove the emotion, most of us kinda of say .. yes

The challenge is when people harp on about mistakes the club has made, bad buys, bad managers, having a budget, whatever (and a lot are legitimate)

- Where is the example club that has done better over the same 20 year period, that either wasn't already established top 4 or money doping? and is still on the up?
- Where are the clubs in the same category that improved their infrastructure in that same category that wasn't a government gift?

So when the answer to the question to who has done better seems to be a sample size of zero, people who are acknowledging the positive side of ENIC's time are not shills/fan boys/happy clappers or whatever disrespectful brick people seem to need to come with when others disagree with them, it's a point of caution. It seems that the overwhelming attitude is "we have had 20 years, we are fed up and I'm willing to take a punt on literally anyone else" regardless of the fact that data/odds show that the "anyone else" unless it comes with money doping (has it's own implications) is most likely to be worse

I think you have made some good points, but levy and Enic are not the be all and end all ... if they continue with their current form ofcourse fans will not be happy.

In ten years time if we still are in the same place .. will you be saying we'll 30 years ago ...

Enic invested well in Tottenham but let's not get it twisted by thinking no one else could have pushed this club forward from sugar.

 

[johnola]

To be fair, is there anyone who could write an article about Levy that is even slightly critical that wouldn’t provoke a negative reaction in this place? I’d be genuinely interested to see what the fallout would be on here if a legend like Mabbutt or Hoddle were to speak out publicly against ENIC. I bet the same people that back Levy would still be on his side

Why would I, for example, change my mind based on Mabbutt or Hoddles views?

 

[glorygloryeze]

When it is essentially the same missteps on the footballing side going back 20 odd years (with different sets of conditions, different advantages/disadvantages over those times but essentially the same end points) then the need for a change becomes neccesary.
Of course ENIC/Levy have done wonders on the commercial side of the club and they will always get/deserve praise for that.

But improving the commercial side of the club was for the purposes of footballing excellence. Footballing excellence means just that: being the absolute best you can be football-wise.

If it was a business with the sole goal of "footballing excellence" Levy would have been pushed out years ago.