The Premier League Owl
This month will mark the twelfth anniversary of Daniel Levy’s appointment as Chairman of Tottenham, and in that time he’s shown himself on more than one occasion to be a very astute negotiator and prudent businessman. Transfer windows though, clearly bring out the worst in him.
If the media reports are to be believed, Tottenham spent almost all of yesterday negotiating the potential transfer of Leandro Damiao from Internacional until the deal’s inevitable collapse late in the evening. The failure to complete the deal was obviously met with disappointment by the Spurs fans, and partly because yesterday was an exact replica of what now seems to be transfer window tradition at White Hart Lane.
Decide on a target too late, leave far too much to do and too little time within which to do it.
For a smart man, Levy doesn’t half make a lot of baffling decisions. Damiao’s talent and price tag make him a prime transfer target, and his ownership situation ( Internacional have only a 70% share of him) and geographical location mean that any potential deal is complicated and time-consuming – yet Tottenham insist on forcing pressure onto themselves and allowing no margin for error. With all those moving parts and such little time, that deal was doomed to failure before it even began
The paucity of forwards at the club is a problem which has been obvious since the close of the last window in August, and yet nobody seemed willing to make a preliminary enquiry or do any groundwork on a deal for Damiao until the very last minute.
Why?
This habit of trying to squeeze new players through the door as it closes is, I’m sure, very entertaining for neutrals and it’s certainly a Godsend for Sky Sports’ inane coverage with deadline day, but it’s quite obviously counter-productive. Tottenham weren’t forced into any sales yesterday, and there were no sudden injuries which forced a last minute move – the needs and requirements of this squad have, Sandro’s knee-injury aside, been the same for the last six months.
There are many virtues to having Daniel Levy as a Chairman, and his acquisition of Lewis Holtby shouldn’t be seen as anything other than outstanding business, but I’m yet to hear a plausible explanation for why he insists on backing himself into a corner so willingly.
@ MikeN – no-one is saying Levy is a great manager, he isn’t – he’s a chairman ;-/
@ Ceegee – the last I looked, 4th, 5th, 4th and, currently, 4th, is not what most folk mean when they say ‘mid-table’ ;-/
Trying to do business concerning certain targets while you know you have little chances to meet the asking price is the same ineffective as spending money to buy players who lack certain important skills and character traits.
It just shows lack of serious ambition.
Failing to strengthen your squad and address certain shortcomings indicates, next to lack of ambition, also lack of appropriate organisation and well qualified staff, lack of proper football knowledge and, as well, inability to follow proper methods in order to achieve your targets.
For a big and popular club like Spurs, keeping a solid and healthy financial position makes sense and can be regarded as success only if it goes together with winning also a silverware from time to time or/and regular participation to the CL.
Levy and Co have clearly failed to guide Spurs to achieve successes on the field.
Their way of running and doing business with the club wasn’t successful.
Their only achievement until now was that they didn’t bankrupt the club!
the answer is in the caribbean, where in luxurious tax exile resides one joe lewis, known to some spurs fans as ‘mean joe’. a multi-billionaire, joe is the real power in the sours set up and controls the purse strings. if levy spends it is because ‘mean joe’ says yes; if not it is because ‘mean joe’ says no. ‘mean joe’ has no interest in football; he just wants to make money and his eventual plan is to see spurs for a huge profit. so when it comes to transfer strategy, levy’s hands are tied by ‘mean joe’ and his business plan for spurs.
Sandro took prolonged negotiations – it goes with the territorywith Inter, seemingly. Seeing the impact that he is now making (or, rather, was before his injury), if we went through a time-slip and anyone said that the negotiations were taking too long and we should move on, we would call him crazy.
And that is the key to understanding the Leandro situation: Levy isn’t looking for a player to come in and do a job for a season, he is looking for a medium to long term solution to the striking problem. Finding that type of solution is far from easy, and, even when found the costs (especially for a striker) are prohibitive – how much did Chelsea pay for Drogba, for instance?
What Levy is about is indentifying ‘that’ player for us and getting him at a price we can afford. I am not saying Leandro will turn out to be that man, and I am not saying should continue the pursuit endlessly. But surely it is better to take this approach than to just buy one short term solution after another?
The people that say Levy is a great PL manager should look at his record. What have we won in the way of silverware during his 12 year reign. Virtually nothing. Unfortunately, this will continue until his removal. Levy is interested in counting beans not winning football trophies. Yes, we don’t have the resources of Man City but I would like to know where the money we make from the many sales he makes goes? In his pocket and the shareholders I suspect.
State o the art training ground, with a midtable club using it! Well done daniel n by the way, this little act u do pretending to bid for players isn’t foolin anyone anymore, except for sky sports!!!!!
Well said Carl.
Levy is the best football club owner in the PL and we are lucky to have him.
An astute businessman and very generous at the same time.
We are talking about Brazil’s number one striker here. Spurs can not compete financially with the top 3 and probably arsenal. So Levy uses a different model, trying late and hoping that chairman buckle.
Whether its right or wrong im not sure but what i do know that having the best training ground around, a new 56k+ stadium and a squad competing for top 4, and only making a small loss is pretty damn good in my eyes.
Id rather do this than be put at risk and end up like pompey, leeds, etc
Or its just fabricated and put out by the PR machine to make it look like Levy was trying his hardest up until the last minute. When was the last time a ‘major’ deal was completed by Spurs just before the window closed? Yet we hear it each time. After a while the little boy cries wolf so much only a willing audience (i.e. eager fanbase) actually believes him.