The point was that he has done little worse or better than ENIC. He bought the club to try to make money by growing the business. That's what he did. That's what ENIC have done.
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Management ENIC
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We'll call that a minor plot hole shall we.
Levy was courting Jose before firing Poch.
It looks like he thinks an elite manager is like a shortcut to winning, or if we give him a bit more credit than that, he’s been paying for their expertise and experience to learn what it takes to win.
The culture at the club has probably benefited from them being here but they have both also made it clear that to win you need to pay your dues when it comes to the quality in the playing squad. Now he has to decide if he wants to hear that and switch to a more “winning” budget model, or stick to a “project” or “business” budget model.
It looks like he thinks an elite manager is like a shortcut to winning, or if we give him a bit more credit than that, he’s been paying for their expertise and experience to learn what it takes to win.
The culture at the club has probably benefited from them being here but they have both also made it clear that to win you need to pay your dues when it comes to the quality in the playing squad. Now he has to decide if he wants to hear that and switch to a more “winning” budget model, or stick to a “project” or “business” budget model.
The trophies we won in those 30 years were held in much higher regard back then , than the solitary trophy under Levy . the least important of a now devalued domestic trophy system. Our European victories were equally held in much higher regard when we won them .
In terms of prestige those ten trophies are worth in my opinion 30 devalued Carling Cups , would happily win it again though , the trophy drought has been so long
So you're largely ignoring all the CL qualifications, the world class stadium and training facilities, 600% increase in match day revenue and largely finishing in the top 5 for a decade (under Sugar we regularly finished around 10/11th)? I know we've only won a league cu under each of them, but the regimes are chalk and cheese IMO. Sugar took us backwards. From one of the big 5 to a mid table outfit. ENIC took us form a mid table outfit back into a big 5 team. Ultimately neither is any good for winnign trophies, and that is why we need new leadership.
I agree that the league and FA cup are no longer as valuable and I do believe being in the CL regularly is as, if not more, important.
But we've won f-all of those worthless trophies for a very long time. It is starting to get embarrassing for fans, for the players, and surely for the owners.
I actually won the Opus in a raffle , if they ever update it pages about finishing top 4 are not going to feel the same , especially padded out with articles on the Tunnel Club . Football as Billy Nic said is about glory , ENIC have been an unmitigated disaster on the glory front in my opinion
Yeah, I'm ignoring the stadium and the training facilities because you don't go down in history as having built those. They're also having very little positive impact on our fortunes. We don't get a day out at a final because we have them. They don't shut the banter up, do they. Increases in match day revenue seem to have done fuck all, we're still shopping largely in the D bucket for players. Because the club motto is "run it as lean as possible and hope we get lucky" in the 21st century.
How can you say Sugar took us backwards? Backwards from where we were would have been out of business. Sure, he didn't turn us into a world class football team to rival Man United at the time. But we were close to extinction and he sold us in decent shape. As shitty as the football team were at time in his tenure, there were times when he tried to go for glory. He went out and got Kilinsmann, Dumitrescu, Popescu in response to a 12 point deduction and a ban from the FA Cup. He also faught those tooth and nail and eventually got them overturned. He saw the risk and he spent the money.
Compare that to risk averse ENIC who can't seem to see the risk of us slipping out of the CL places and still do fuck all most seasons. They think we're established. Heck, some of the fans think we're established. We're not.
True. But to compare the Sugar regime with the ENIC regime is wildly inaccurate. Under Levy we reached a Champions League Final. Under Sugar we only qualified for Europe once - via the League cup despite finishing 11th that season (98/99).
Lot of good points on here.
I was an 80s kid - so born in the 70s, and crooks and Archibald were my first spurs front two. Hoddle in midfield, and Graham Roberts my Dave mackay I guess.
Probably only towards the end of the 80s with Gazza, linekar and waddle I felt we were buying big players. But then we almost went bust.
Nothing stands out in the 90s as a marquee signing Klinsmann was a good one for sure.
After that Ginola maybe?
We have been close to glory the last 10 years. Squad depth probably failed us most IMO.
Mate I am agreeing with you , my point is 10 in 30 v 1 in 20 is not a fair reflection of ENIC’s failings . If you factor in the prestige of those 10 trophies the comparison is even worse regarding ENIC’s abject failure on the pitch
Those ten trophies meant the world to us when we won them
The CL final and run to it is clearly a highlight , which in the end reflects badly on Levy when you see the debacle he quickly oversaw afterwards . So if you want to praise him for improving us post Sugar , he has taken us massively backwards since the CL final. In fact the search for a manager and hiring of Nuno was a public humiliation for the club , as well as an incompetent disaster in my view
I’m not what I would call me a fan of ENIC at all. But I’m not blind to their positives.
Their ticket pricing has annoyed me no end and it’s clear they value the tourist money more than long term support. They are business people. Not football fans. That’s the simple truth.
But they have improved the club to a huge extent. We could have won the league and the CL. Been in multiple semi finals. Just lacked the final piece of the puzzle.
In terms of recent appointments did Levy feel that the manager was the final piece? Maybe.
Even allowing for wages and sacking a manager it’s cheaper than buying 3 players. So there’s the clever financial move too.
It keeps bums on seats having a big name manager as well.
Replacing son and Kane is going to be a huge cost. He’s going to need to show some serious intent there.
If he felt a manager was the final piece his hiring of Nuno beggars belief . Managers are a sticking plaster to be applied and ripped off as deemed necessary at any given moment. A scapegoat , sometimes a cheap scapegoat, occasionally an expensive one if the fans are particularly restless. Smoke and mirrors to deflect the fans anger
But the starting point was vastly different.
And the landscape was vastly different. In Sugars ownership only the champions got in the champions league. Although money was growing in the game, it was a tiny fraction of today. When he sold up there was basically Man United and everyone else. Even Woolwich who were well ahead of us by then were miles behind United in terms of power and wealth.
Sugar dug us out of a very deep hole and stabilised the finances of the club. When he realised he wasn't going to improve any further he fucked off.
ENIC have failed to see the stagnation.
Aye, it’s shite. Probably right on the button for our stature of a club, against the competition we have now and had then. I’m purely pointing out that to listen to some, we were this constant winning machine until ENIC showed up and deliberately fucked us over by buying Joe a yacht, just for a laugh. But we weren’t. We were pretty good. When everyone was winning cups.
Take the FA Cup as an example - maybe 8 winners this century? I’d be pretty sure there were that many winners in the sixties alone. Then Chuck in Ipswich, Southampton, Sunderland, etc in the seventies. Everton, Coventry, Wimbledon in the eighties? Everyone won cups in the 60s-90s. Whilst they may have been better regarded, they were easier to win. So much easier. Winning has been getting more difficult over the years as the richest and biggest just keep getting stronger.
I’d contend that us getting relatively regular CL qualification is a lot harder than winning the FA Cup in 81. The year after West fucking Ham did the same thing.
As was Gross and Graham by Sugar, Rioch by Woolwich, Moyes and Rangnick by Man U, and Hodgson by Liverpool. All clubs hire bad managers.
Here's the rub. We were a big club in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80's, but after a decade of Sugar we had 1/4 of the revenue of the Sky "big four", the smallest stadium, and we sold our best players to domestic rivals. The gap was widening and we were being left behind. Now we have probably the biggest match day revenue in the league, the best stadium in the world (on the original site), and can hire top managers like Conte and Mourinho.
However, we might as well agree to disagree on Sugar vs ENIC to save boring everyone else.
The one area where I think we do agree) is that we definitely need to spend more money on 'first team ready' players who are better than what we have,. And we need a new chairman / owners who are prepared to put on pitch success first and foremost from now onwards and not interfere with recruitment.
Be careful what you wish for in a new owner , you could end up with another ENIC
They are in it to make money, the ground was the next step of their master plan so they could put events on etc, they do not care how we play (unless it impacts ticket sales) as long as we finish 4th every year, year in year out. Hence their interest in the Super League (admittedly with other clubs here) where the money of finishing 4th was guaranteed by a lack of relegation. That should tell you all you need to know really
Don't forget, Levy's words when he took over at spurs.
He was quoted as saying, that football was not a passion for them, it was purely financial and for them to make money.
Now even, Levy's disciples can't argue with that, because levy said those words himself.