I think it's a really interesting piece, and ultimately I think what happened is that where Poch and Levy were once perfectly aligned, in terms of strategy and how to operate, they started to diverge. This divergence led to Poch's frustration, and it meant that the club stopped progressing. Inertia set in due to a lack of alignment, and if Poch does come back, we absolutely need that alignment. If we don't have it, Poch should not come and Levy shouldn't do it.
Could Poch have been more ok with some younger players from the football league? Maybe. Could he have loaned out more players and used that as a way to finance our transfer spending ala Chelsea? Maybe. But I trust his opinion that to make a real next step to winning the biggest prizes, it isn't as easy as that. Even Man United, who had a spirit and a culture and would be willing to trust young players and sign up and comers, still sprinkled the side with stardust to get it done in the biggest moments. I think Poch wanted us to be brave and do something like that.
I really expect Levy and Poch to have both gone away, done some deep thinking, and have understood where it went wrong. I hope it was a breakup that needed to happen in our mid 20s, so we can get the final mistakes out of a system and settle into a SAF like marriage in our 30s, once we've realised what we needed.
I think Levy:
- Under-estimated how much Poch was a difference maker, and allowed himself to be seduced by the idea of Jose as a miracle worker who could squeeze more out of the core of the squad that Poch could.
- Forgot that strategically, if we aren''t going to spend the most money, we need a culture, a system and a spirit which allows us to compete. The DNA he now talks about. We hired a chequebook manager for a squad that had over-performed thanks to Poch's methods. It was wrong strategically.
- Was wrestling with the fact that if Joe Lewis isn't going to put more money in, and we had some stadium financing difficulties, that as much as he wanted to satisfy Poch and in some ways knew if he was backed how he wanted he would deliver more success, he couldn't do it. But this is because...
I think Poch:
- Felt he had elevated the club on from 'competing for the European places' to being able to 'compete for the biggest trophies'. He thought the club had an opportunity.
- Felt that the job needed to change. We needed to sign a more elite mentality style of player that can cope with pressure in the biggest moments.
- Felt we needed to sell players to maintain a spirit and a culture that was sliding away.
Ultimately, where once they were aligned, they ended up diverging and it caused real inertia in the progress of the squad. I think Levy was offering Poch players like Clarke and Poch was annoyed that we weren't spending money on more proven players. So we ended up doing nothing. Because in some ways, Levy did trust Poch. And so rolled with it as much as he could. But it's still mis alignment, it's still not good for the club.
I think they both had points, and both made mistakes. I think maybe Poch could have appreciated that it might have taken a couple more years to get the club on a sounder footing to be able to start making the big moves he would want. And I think Levy could have done more to show Poch that if he gave us another couple of years, he had a job with Spurs for as long as he wanted it. So that the imperative of 'this being our only chance!' wasn't as much of a thing. We could have signed some good young english players, sold some older players who didn't want to run as much, and probably kept qualifying for the top 4, in preparation for a real push in a couple of years time.
So for me, it comes down to alignment. They need to agree on Spurs' place in the world, Spurs ambitions, and Spurs' strategy to compete. If they aren't aligned, they shouldn't do it. If they both feel like they know where they are, and what the job is, and what they need to get back to, and the timeline for doing it, then I think it will be one of the best things to happen to our club in a long time.
