Management ENIC

[Tomo]

Quite terrifying to read. There is nobody competent at executive level, not a single person. The Lewis children and their mandarins simply have no idea what they are doing.

That nobody from within the club had the courage to even write an end of season message in the programme, says it all.

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Levy: Shit
Vinai: Shit
Lange: Shit
Joe Lewis: Shit
Kids: out of their depth
Paratici: mediocre therefore the only semi capable one gone

And let’s not forgot the likes of Donna Cullen stinking up the place like Brady before she fucked off. Our boardroom is worse than our attack.

 

[Tomo]

Nice to know we had the option of Lookman in Jan but didn’t want to stress buy. Someone who would be by far our best attacker given the injuries we have. I mean that decision alone when you are heading towards relegation is just unacceptable.

 

[Brian Fantana]

Entirely believable


View: https://x.com/benmcaleer1/status/2058799612463309074?s=61

 

[TeamSpirit™]

Nice to know we had the option of Lookman in Jan but didn’t want to stress buy. Someone who would be by far our best attacker given the injuries we have. I mean that decision alone when you are heading towards relegation is just unacceptable.

Click to shrink...

I hate to be that guy, but Lookman did sweet FA against both us and the scum in the CL.

He’s basically Sancho level.

 

[Tomo]

I hate to be that guy, but Lookman did sweet FA against both us and the scum in the CL.

He’s basically Sancho level.

Click to shrink...

He was poor against the scum but has been one of their best players this season, he would have at least give us 5-10 goals and give us an actual winger. Beggars can’t be choosers.

 

[Tomo]

De Zerbi saved Tottenham from total humiliation. This season was a disaster and must not happen again​

By Jack Pitt-Brooke
May 25, 2026 5:13 am GMT+1

The most remarkable thing about Sunday at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is how much it felt like this time last year.

There was no open-top bus parade, but just after 2pm there were thousands of Spurs fans climbing lamp posts and bus stops, letting off blue and white smoke, children on their fathers’ shoulders, desperate to give the team the most encouraging welcome they could.



There was no trophy on the pitch at the end, but every Spurs fan stayed in the stands to cheer and sing after the final whistle. Manager, staff and players were moved to tears by their achievement and by the communal love from the crowd.

There have not been many moments since this stadium opened in 2019 when it has been as happy, positive and unified as this. The fans reserved their loudest cheers for the manager, Roberto De Zerbi, who looked almost overwhelmed as he stood in front of the South Stand, a sea of white, and the waves of love came down towards him. He is the positive face of this club now, the indispensable man as they plan for next season.

Alex Pantling/Getty Images
Because everyone here knows that it is De Zerbi who saved Tottenham from relegation. Taking 11 points from their last six games, given the issues of confidence and injuries, is nothing short of a managerial triumph. He is the man who has brought this club back together, through the strength of his personality, his ideas, and his radical optimism when things were at their bleakest. And who has permitted Tottenham, for the first time all year, to come together and look forward again. He said on Sunday night it was the best achievement of his managerial career.

You could power the floodlights here for next season on the strength of the feeling of relief. The great existential crisis has been avoided. For months, everyone associated with Tottenham would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about relegation. About the damage to club finances, about player sales, about trips to Lincoln, Preston and Wrexham next season. But above all about the abject humiliation that relegation would have represented. When De Zerbi said earlier this week that the club’s “dignity” was at risk, it was a stark warning of the stakes, and how shaming it would have been for this club to wake up in the second tier.



Tottenham won the Europa League last year. They finished fifth in the Premier League the year before that. They had Harry Kane until 2023. They finished fourth in 2021-22. They reached the Champions League final in 2019. According to a UEFA report released in February, they have the fifth-biggest revenues in England and the ninth-biggest in all of Europe. They play in the best new stadium in Europe. For Tottenham to get relegated would have been a stain on the careers of everyone associated with it.

Visionhaus/Getty Images
That particular fear is over now. Tottenham will still be playing Premier League football next season. Things that have been taken for granted for a generation — north London derbies, the chance to qualify for Europe, being on Match of the Day — will be part of Spurs’ season in 2026-27. The worry about the devastating impact relegation would have on broadcast, ticketing and commercial revenue can be filed away for now.

But there should be no question about it: this was still a disastrous season for Spurs. Being in a relegation fight in the middle of May is a terrible situation. Relying on West Ham United losing three of their last four to stay up is profoundly embarrassing. Losing 17 league games for the second season in a row makes another mockery of Tottenham’s resources and traditions. Playing in that stadium, charging those prices, and winning just three home league games is nothing short of a joke.

Because this was still a season when years of mismanagement and drift caught up with Spurs. This was still a season when the ownership upended the running of the club and had to desperately piece it all back together again. This was still a season when every constituent part of the club — ownership, board, managers, players, fans — at times felt at odds with the other. It was still a season when the club did not get the positive leadership it needed until the arrival of De Zerbi at the end of March. It was still a season when the club too often looked like it was falling apart.

---

The irony of the scenes at the end on Sunday is that this was, in fact, meant to be the season when everything was different.



Even though Tottenham won the Europa League last season, the theme of the summer was regeneration. The club embarked on another reset, another relaunch. Their aim was to make sure that the 17th-place finish of last May was not repeated. (Who could have imagined that repeating that finish would be such cause for celebration in May?) Ange Postecoglou was out, replaced by Brentford’s Thomas Frank, a coach whose pragmatism and flexibility were seen as the perfect antidote to his predecessor’s brittle ideology.

The logic was that by appointing a safety-first head coach, Spurs would become defensively sound and hard to beat, just like Frank’s Brentford were. The problem was that by turning away from Postecoglou’s positive football, an idea that the players all believed in, they removed the binding identity of the whole club. It was to be the last and worst of all of Daniel Levy’s managerial appointments.

Spurs won just seven of Thomas Frank’s 26 Premier League matches in chargeRobbie Jay Barratt/Getty Images
There were even more profound changes away from the pitch.

The Lewis family knew that Tottenham had been underperforming in recent years, on and off the pitch. They had commissioned management consultants Gibb River to come in and review operations earlier in 2025. This led to the appointment of the first CEO since ENIC, the investment group the Lewises own 70 per cent of, took control of the club in 2001 — Vinai Venkatesham. He arrived at the start of the summer, hoping to bring some transparency, optimism and positivity to Spurs.

At the start, it all felt very unified. Levy and Venkatesham recorded a video for the club’s YouTube channel, in which the new CEO said he and the chairman were “joined at the hip”. Venkatesham and Frank also spoke the same language, talking about culture and communication. The mood swings of the past few years would be replaced by something more patient and process-led. It felt as if Venkatesham, Frank and technical director Johan Lange were all cut from the same cloth, all three of them routinely described by insiders as some of the nicest people in football.



But changing the culture at Spurs was hard. Brentford are one of the most culture-led clubs in the country. Everyone in the building pulls in the same direction. The Tottenham squad Frank inherited was very different. It contained some challenging personalities, players who thought that if they performed on the pitch, their lax attitude to training would be excused. Discipline and lateness were significant issues. And if Frank was to succeed, he would need to get the players to buy into his standards. Which he was fatally unable to do.

The other issue with the squad was that it was simply not very good. Kane left after the 2022-23 season and Son Heung-min departed last summer. Spurs had no world-class players left. The squad had deteriorated after years of under-investment. No club in the top four divisions spent a smaller proportion of their revenues on wages than Tottenham, with a ratio for last season of just 45 per cent. Yes, they had started to spend more on fees, but had seen very little return for it. Knee operations for long-term casualties Dejan Kulusevski in May and James Maddison in August left them even shorter on attacking quality. The pressure for big signings was immense.



Levy pushed for Antoine Semenyo, Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze, but could not secure any of them. Tottenham were forced to look further down their lists. They bought Mohammed Kudus from West Ham United and Xavi Simons from RB Leipzig. Joao Palhinha joined on loan from Bayern Munich.

The scrutiny was not on Venkatesham or Lange but on Levy. He was blamed by the fans, especially for failing to sign Eze, who instead joined arch-rivals Woolwich.

Daniel Levy was unable to get a deal done for Eberechi Eze, who instead joined ArsenalDavid Price/Getty Images
Levy was desperately scrambling around at the end of the window to improve the squad, eventually landing a loan deal for Randal Kolo Muani. But nobody expected the shock that landed a couple of days later on September 4, not least Levy himself.

Were it not for their May 24 victory over Manchester United in Bilbao, the most historically significant event of Spurs’ 2025 would have come eight months ago.

That was the day when Levy, after almost 25 years running Tottenham as if he owned the club, building them into what they are today, was told that his time was over. Out of his job, off the board, not welcome back on the premises, and with his belongings gathered up and sent to him in a van.

It is impossible to overstate, even with the benefit of hindsight, what a sudden rupture this was. Even though the Lewis family had been considering it through much of last year. It is the single biggest decision they have made since owning Spurs, and the one with the most profound consequences.

Over the course of Levy’s 24-year chairmanship, running the club on behalf of the Lewis family, he accumulated so much power that sources often said it was run like an owner-operated business, or even like a family firm.

Levy was across every little detail at the club, from hiring coaches to signing players to finance and debt to the finest details of the design of the stadium. He was more powerful than any other figure at any other club in the Premier League. The strategy, identity, culture and governance of Tottenham Hotspur, for better or worse, all came back to Levy himself. The Lewis family had been too relaxed about leaving him to it. Now the buck stopped with them.



The Lewis family hoped that removing Levy would allow them to bring the club into the modern era, with a glistening new governance structure. Centralisation was out. Empowerment was in. And the hope was that after recent years of losing money and losing their way on the pitch, this was the way to compete again.

But it was a huge risk. Levy was so powerful, so integral to Tottenham, that removing him meant destabilising the whole enterprise. For all his misjudgments over the years, his blind spots and missteps, he was still the glue that held the whole thing together.

Daniel Levy left Spurs after 25 years in September 2025Tom Jenkins/Getty Images
Tottenham Hotspur without Levy was effectively a new football club. Venkatesham recorded a video at the training ground after Levy’s sacking, telling the world it was “business as usual”. But the reality was very different. The whole club, post-Levy, had to be reorganised almost from scratch. As Venkatesham often said privately, it was like rebuilding a plane while keeping it in the air.

Venkatesham was himself at the heart of that rebuilding project. As CEO, he was no longer underneath Levy but now reporting into the new non-executive chairman, private-banking veteran Peter Charrington, who had first joined the board in March, representing the Lewis family. Charrington chaired the first post-Levy board meeting on September 26. No member of the Lewis family joined the board, but one month later, a fifth member was added to it, U.S. aviation executive Eric Hinson, who had run pilot simulator training companies in Florida.

In this brave new world, Venkatesham would be empowered to run the club through the Executive Leadership Team he was putting together. New appointments were made over the course of the season to join this group. In October, the football structure was changed too, with Fabio Paratici, one of Levy’s closest advisors over the years, returning as one of two sporting directors, alongside the promoted Lange.

It was the most radical structural transformation imaginable. Tottenham went from being a club where all power was concentrated in one person to one where it was diffused between many. The talk was all about empowerment and co-operation. But some staff thought that it had become effectively run by committee, with too many decision-makers. Between Venkatesham, the two sporting directors, the board and the Lewises, it was not as clear as it used to be where the power and responsibility lay. It left people wondering: how would this new-look Tottenham fare if faced with a crisis?

Everyone at Spurs had wanted Frank to succeed. He was popular, polite, and personable, going out of his way to get to know everyone he worked with. He was deeply committed to coaching his new team, working 16-hour days in his attempts to instil that Brentford culture. And nobody wanted him to achieve that more than the Tottenham hierarchy. This was their chance to prove that this new era would be different.



But after a good start, things soon turned sour. In a series of miserable home performances in the autumn — Bournemouth (0.19 xG), Wolves (0.87), Aston Villa (0.80), Chelsea (0.10), Fulham (0.86) — Spurs looked miles away from the team their fans wanted them to be.

They had no ideas or imagination in possession. Opponents came away shocked at how easy Spurs were to predict and how easy they were to stop. Every move was the same: centre-back, full-back, winger, repeat. Fans and players lost faith quickly. One player remarked in private that Frank’s approach was more suited to a “smaller team”, and that he only felt he could play at “10 per cent” of his potential because of the restrictive tactics.

Spurs fans were frustrated with a home defeat to Fulham in NovemberMark Leech/Getty Images
What Tottenham needed was positive leadership to get them through. Postecoglou had always known that he had to project strength as head coach, to stick up for the club in public, something that nobody else ever did. His willingness to stick his neck out kept the players on board during difficult times. But Frank, as intelligent and thoughtful as he was, did not seem to have the same understanding of the demands of being the public face of a big club. The players knew this as well as anyone, and some felt that Frank did not have the strength of personality for such a high-profile job.

So much of the focus had been on culture, unity and standards. But there was no positive leadership from the players either. Under Frank, according to one training-ground source, they did not train with the same intensity they brought to sessions with Postecoglou. When Djed Spence and Micky Van de Ven walked straight past Frank after the Chelsea defeat in early November, ignoring his requests that they applaud the fans, it was one small moment that said a lot about the players’ lack of respect for their head coach (lateness remained a persistent issue under Frank), and their lack of respect for the supporters.

The defining theme of the next few months — even more than the miserable football — was rancour. The fans turned on the players, booing goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario’s kicking against Fulham. The players were increasingly turned against the fans, Van de Ven rowing with the away end after a defeat at Bournemouth in early January. And the fans turned on Frank, booing him personally and directly throughout that month. The whole club was falling apart.

Spurs players clashing with the travelling fans at full-time at the Vitality Stadium pic.twitter.com/csDvgKbIze

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) January 7, 2026

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After a home defeat to West Ham United on January 17, the hierarchy had a decision to make. The fans had clearly made up their minds. So too had Paratici, who had concluded as early as November that Frank was not the man for the job and that he needed to be replaced (Paratici himself made a swift departure to Fiorentina in his native Italy at the end of the winter transfer window).

There is little question that Levy would not have allowed this situation to drift had he not been sacked. He knew that it was better to fire someone too soon than too late, an insight that sadly appeared to leave the building with him.



But at the moment when Spurs needed decisive leadership to change course, they hesitated. Frank stayed in post.

During that winter window, Tottenham made one big signing, breaking their restrictive wage policies to get Conor Gallagher from Atletico Madrid. It turned out to be a valuable signing in the end, with Gallagher excellent under De Zerbi. But they were not moving fast enough to plug the gaps in an injury-ravaged squad, especially in attack.

When Lange said there was no point in making “stress purchases”, it felt as if the hierarchy thought they were playing with a stronger hand than they actually held.

Johan Lange was confident Spurs didn’t need ‘stress purchases’ in JanuaryCatherine Ivill/Getty Images
After a home defeat to Newcastle United on February 10, though, Venkatesham and Lange had no option but to act. They called Frank in for a meeting, but he knew what was coming. He was gone, unable to deliver any of the changes, football or cultural, that he was brought in to deliver. Someone else would have to try to repair the sinking ship.

The day Tottenham sacked Frank, Marseille decided to part company with Roberto De Zerbi. Paratici had been making a case internally for De Zerbi for some time. But in February, it was just too soon for his compatriot to jump straight into the Spurs job. Devoid of alternatives, Tottenham ended up implementing another plan Paratici had been pushing for a while: a short-term deal for Igor Tudor. (Paratici had already left for Fiorentina by this point, but his ideas clearly still held sway.)

The logic was that Tudor, even with no experience of English football, was at least a specialist firefighter. He ran the players hard in training and delivered some home truths. But injuries had decimated an already-patchy squad. Maddison, Kulusevski, Kudus, Wilson Odobert and Rodrigo Bentancur did not play one single minute for him.

Justin Setterfield/Getty Images
It never looked like working. Whenever anything went against Spurs, they collapsed, with defeats to Crystal Palace, Atletico Madrid and Nottingham Forest. Five crucial league games were wasted under Tudor, who made even less of an impression on the club than Frank. And the misstep of appointing him further underlined the fear that the hierarchy did not grasp how much water they had taken on.



After so much failure, the damage to the players’ confidence was profound. The lack of leadership in the squad, according to a source close to one player, meant that there was nobody to pick them up or reset the mood after a defeat. During the Tudor period, The Athletic reported that one player had told team-mates he was not too worried about relegation, because he was confident of getting a move in the summer. And it was this total collapse in leadership, unity — but above all belief, more than anything — that was dragging Tottenham down.

Something needed to be done. Venkatesham knew that what Spurs needed was a ‘one-club mentality’, a reminder that everyone is pulling in the same direction. This had been a focus for a while. In January, during the final weeks of Frank’s reign, he had introduced a coffee and cake stand at the reception of the training ground to encourage the players to mingle and chat.

Vinai Venkatesham (right) with Vivienne LewisChris Brunskill/Getty Images
In March, the pressure to finally find that much-needed sense of unity and confidence was more urgent than ever. Venkatesham told a meeting of the Fans Advisory Board on March 3, in which he detailed the many long-standing issues with the running of the club, that his job was to “stay positive”.

Before the Palace game on March 5, Venkatesham wrote a letter to all staff acknowledging the “anxiety” caused by Spurs’ league position but also attempting to strike an encouraging note. “Let’s be all in together,” he wrote. “Let’s continue to stay calm in the moment, confident in how we navigate it, and know that we will come through it. Stronger together.”

A whiteboard was put up in Lilywhite House, the club’s offices, on which staff were asked to write encouraging messages to the players. While some players appreciated the gesture, staff were less than enthusiastic about this, given it was the players’ underperformance that had led to this crisis.

In the end, the only thing that could save Spurs was a new manager. And in March, they went back to De Zerbi again. They were prepared to give him a long-term contract and one of the best salaries in the Premier League. They hoped to have him in place for the Forest game on March 22, the final fixture before an international break, but eventually secured him at the end of the month. He only took his first training session on April 3.

Marc Atkins/Getty Images
His first and most important job, the necessary first step to keeping Spurs up, was to clear the mental block that had stopped Spurs from playing. By recognising that the players initially needed a “brother or father” rather than a coach, De Zerbi was able to undo the spell that had Spurs in its grip.



It was immediately clear that De Zerbi, the last roll of the dice from the hierarchy, was the only man capable of delivering what Spurs had been missing all season. The playing identity they had lacked since Postecoglou. The positive message people could rally behind. The clear sense of mission and purpose that lifted the players. No one else could have delivered this.

Even the 2-2 draw with Brighton, as painful as it was, felt like a turning point in terms of positive intent. And the courage, organisation, unity and belief Spurs showed in wins against Wolves, Aston Villa and Everton were unlike anything they had summoned before in this miserable season.

De Zerbi saved Tottenham at the last possible moment. He alone deserves the credit. Everyone else needs to ensure this never happens again

 

[Tomo]

By the sounds of the article above Levy really was the death of Stalin figure. Someone who controlled and did everything himself and made it all go through him to the point when he was removed there was never a competent leadership below him as why would there be if you are the dictator. Lewis family clearly didn’t recognise when Levy was removed they needed a top sport executive team to come in and push the club forward and instead relied on people who had never been empowered before.

We went from a dictatorship to an anarchy.

 

[Shadydan]

View: https://x.com/BenMcAleer1/status/2058799612463309074

What the fuck do we have running this football club

 

[Tomo]

View: https://x.com/BenMcAleer1/status/2058799612463309074

What the fuck do we have running this football club

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Why are people shocked. Last person we had with any football knowledge and I mean the game itself was Paratici and even he was average. Our leadership is accountants and lawyers. Science is part of football but football is mostly emotion, it’s not for nothing the best managers like Fergie and Klopp and Pep are emotional lunatics. Charrington is by all accounts a man Lewis used to assess and fix up businesses, he will just be looking at numbers. ENIC are who they are, a property company who happen to own football clubs.

Last time we had an owner who actually really cared about success was pre-Sugar. We are just an asset to these people.

 

[Nobody3]

Imo not to much will change at THFC, unless Enic sell.
THFC are making a profit and paying those that run it handsomely. The football side is now just another "branch" of this.

De Zerbi will do his best with the usual restrictions put on our managers, and I believe he will do a good job. What constitutes as a good job? Top 6-7 attractive football to appease the Tottenham faithful every week and continue to financially benefit those upstairs, as other clubs push to improve.

He will be gone by the beginning of the 28/29 season after competing for 2 seasons on the pitch and with the board.

Leopards never change their spots and THFC won't change unless it's sold!

 

[TeamSpirit™]

He was poor against the scum but has been one of their best players this season, he would have at least give us 5-10 goals and give us an actual winger. Beggars can’t be choosers.

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I honestly don’t think he’d even get that in the prem.. hence the Sancho comparison.

There’s a reason he never pulled up trees at Fulham or Everton.

 

[Brian Fantana]

Tottenham Hotspur love to tell us that “to dare is to do”. However, it is another D-word – delusion – that resulted in the club leaving it until the final day to secure their Premier League survival.
For all of the untold stories and behind-the-scenes briefings, the biggest examples of that failing are hidden in plain sight in two interviews – one in June last year and another this February.

Daniel Levy and Vinai Venkatesham – June 17, 2025​

Rewind to just over a year ago and Spurs released a video on the club’s YouTube channel in which Levy, the former chairman, and Venkatesham, the chief executive, went on a smarm offensive about their shared love of red wine and boldly declared: “We want to win the Premier League. We want to win the Champions League. We want to win.”
Had it not been for a João Palhinha goal and a stunning save from Antonin Kinsky against Everton on Sunday, then Tottenham might have been contemplating trying to win the Championship next season.
Levy and Venkatesham’s soundbites proved to be nothing more than delusional drivel and both men should cringe with embarrassment if they ever watch it back. The video was released less than a month after Tottenham had sacked their first winner in 17 years and replaced him with a man who had never won a trophy and had never managed in the Champions League.

Events since have shown Daniel Levy and Vinai Venkatesham’s interview from June last year to be delusional Credit: Marc Atkins/Getty Images
If ever there was a wrong man at the wrong time, then it was Thomas Frank at Tottenham. He is a talented coach and an impressive individual, but Spurs were the worst fit possible for somebody who had come from such a settled and supportive environment at Brentford.
Levy, Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange were delusional in their belief that Frank could somehow pick up where Ange Postecoglou had left off by winning the Europa League. They conveniently forgot the squad the Dane inherited had finished 17th in the Premier League table and had, along with supporters, been desperate for Postecoglou to stay.
Frank quickly found he had a group devoid of any real leaders, the type of quality Tottenham’s so-called rivals would be envious of, or any tangible culture within the club to fall back on. At the end of Frank’s first transfer window at Spurs, in September, Levy was shown the door by the Lewis family owners and Venkatesham was placed in charge of the entire football operation.
One of his first acts after the departure of Levy was to formalise the return of Fabio Paratici as joint sporting director. After resigning from his post following his ban for his role in alleged false accounting at Juventus, the Italian had been working as a contracted consultant for the club.
Shortly after Paratici’s official return in October, Frank prepared for a Champions League game against Monaco by going for a dip in the Mediterranean Sea and it was clear he was already swimming against the tide at Spurs.

Thomas Frank proved to be the wrong man at the wrong time for Tottenham Credit: Glyn Kirk /AFP
Paratici had wanted Frank out before Christmas and put forward alternatives, one of which was thought to have been a certain Igor Tudor. However, he was overruled and three months after officially returning, Paratici left Tottenham to join Fiorentina and create even more instability at the London club.
Just as Levy’s Champions League and Premier League ambitions had been delusional, so too was the belief of the Lewis family that they could simply pick up the reins and do a better job. An equity boost of £100m was small change in the billionaires’ playground that is the Premier League.
Sources claim that Peter Charrington did not know how many players were on a football team when he first took up his post as non-executive chairman and in many respects it has been the blind leading the blind.

A familiar sight the season: a Tottenham fan looking less than impressed
Left to fend for himself, Frank did not do himself any favours by holding up Woolwich as the shining example for his players to follow. He referenced the Gunners in his first press conference and continued to do so in team meetings – much to the frustration of members of his squad.
As the relationship between players and the fans broke down completely, with the issue even being raised in team meetings, Frank simply lost control. Rebel captain Cristian Romero escaped any serious punishment for accusing the club’s hierarchy of telling “lies” shortly after a 3-2 defeat by Bournemouth.
It was before that game, at the start of January, that Frank invited ridicule by holding an Woolwich-branded coffee cup and by then the writing was already on the wall. That did not stop Tottenham adding John Heitinga to Frank’s staff less than a month before they sacked him.

Frank’s holding up of Woolwich as the team to emulate and then holding an Woolwich-branded cup did him no favours with players or fans...

...and led to humiliation in the stands with his face plastered on to an Woolwich inflatable Credit: David Klein/Reuters
Appointing a man whose pragmatic approach was almost the polar opposite of what had gone before under Postecoglou was never going to work, particularly in the space of eight turbulent months.
Frank will be all the better for his Spurs experience, however bruising it was. Tottenham trumped their own pre-season delusion by believing that replacing him with Tudor – one of the men Paratici had recommended – as interim head coach was the right move. Heitinga responded by following Frank out of the exit door. Deckchairs and the Titanic sprang to mind.

Lange – February 20, 2026​

There was no more talk of red wine when Lange sat down with external media in February and, fortunately for him, the interview was not filmed for YouTube. But it was every bit as delusional as Levy and Ventakesham’s horror show.
Talking about a January transfer window that Tottenham started by selling Brennan Johnson and finished by failing to sign a replacement – despite what proved to be a season-ending injury to Mohammed Kudus – Lange insisted that players of sufficient quality had not been available.
Well-placed sources, however, claim that Tottenham could have signed versatile forward Ademola Lookman, who was available and deemed good enough for Atlético Madrid.

The Tottenham players, until recently, have looked far from happy this season Credit: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images via Reuters
It was Atlético who knocked Spurs out of the Champions League a month after Lange’s interview, in which he also claimed that Tottenham’s lack of transfer activity in January was partly down to the challenges it would have presented in terms of European registration.
If Lange really thought that registering new players for the Champions League was Tottenham’s biggest problem, then he was living on another planet.
Tudor’s abrasive approach immediately failed with the Spurs players, who had already proved themselves to be a fragile bunch. Postecoglou had mollycoddled them to Europa League glory. Frank was ignored when he tried to get tough, illustrated by Djed Spence and Micky van de Ven snubbing his attempts to make them acknowledge supporters.

Igor Tudor’s abrasive style did not sit well with the Tottenham players Credit: Marc Atkins/Getty Images
So being constantly shouted at and sworn at by Tudor came as an unwelcome shock and Tottenham’s unhappy players quickly realised there was no point pushing themselves for a guy who was scheduled to leave at the end of the season regardless.
The treatment of goalkeeper Kinsky – who was substituted and then ignored by Tudor as he made his way off the pitch just 17 minutes into a calamitous performance at Atlético – was the final straw for many of the Spurs players.




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“It broke my heart” Joe Hart and Steve McManaman criticise Igor Tudor for his handling of the substitution of Antonín Kinský…@tntsports & @discoveryplusUK

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Shortly before that 5-2 defeat in Madrid, Venkatesham had used a fans’ forum to try to shift the blame for Tottenham’s embarrassing campaign towards Levy – the man he had claimed he would form “a really powerful partnership with” in June last year.
Venkatesham admitted that he had misread the club’s situation ahead of his appointment and outlined where he believed Levy had got it wrong.
It may be some time before the two men get together for a glass of red wine again, given an ally of Levy responded to the comments made at the fans’ forum by saying: “Do you really believe supporters believe such s---?” The same ally also pointed to Tottenham’s record of qualifying for Europe 18 times in 20 seasons under Levy.
Levy certainly could not be blamed for the fact that Tudor lasted 44 days as interim head coach and picked up just a single Premier League point. It was a return that was not a surprise to anyone who had spoken to agents of players and staff who had worked under him at previous clubs.

For the most part this campaign has been embarrassing for Tottenham Credit: Ben Stansall/AFP
Tottenham’s due diligence had been so lacking that they had even failed to account for the fact that Tudor’s trusted right-hand man, Ivan Javorcic, did not qualify for a work permit in time to join the Croatian in London. Given Lange had needed help from a club official when asked how long his own contract ran for, perhaps it was not surprising.
“I need to get this correct on English employment law, but I’m on a rolling contract,” said Lange, before the club clarified that he is on a standard employment contract with no set end date, rather than a rolling deal.
Finally, Venkatesham and Lange came to their senses and threw money and control at Roberto De Zerbi to convince the Italian to take on the Spurs rescue mission as the club’s permanent head coach.
De Zerbi turned to YouTube for help, making his players watch highlight reels of their careers to remind them what they were capable of.

When he arrived, Roberto De Zerbi made sure he lifted the players’ confidence by showing YouTube clips of them playing well Credit: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
With Guglielmo Vicario needing surgery on a hernia, De Zerbi’s positive attitude helped Kinsky complete a remarkable personal redemption arc, as the Czech produced superb saves that secured precious points against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leeds United and Everton.




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What a SAVE from Kinsky!!

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5:06 PM · May 24, 2026
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Anybody deluded enough to think Tottenham’s self-inflicted problems had been cured in a few short weeks by De Zerbi, however, was brought back down to earth by a limp defeat at Chelsea and a final act of nonsense from Romero.
A few days before Sunday’s survival showdown against Everton, it emerged that the Argentine was back in his home country preparing for the World Cup. He had not been scheduled to return to England for Tottenham’s final game, but managed to get himself back following a barrage of criticism.
Breaking from Levy’s tradition of using the last home game of the season to write a message to supporters, the Lewis family and Venkatesham chose not to address fans in the match-day programme. One Spurs observer remarked: “No surprise the owners cower away. Their leadership summed up.”
The Tottenham fans deserved to celebrate wildly when the final whistle blew against Everton on Sunday to confirm Premier League safety. Those who spent much of the season in a state of delusion, however, should be thanking their lucky stars. It is time to get

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Lange sounds like an utter fuckwit

 

[Shadydan]

I hate to be that guy, but Lookman did sweet FA against both us and the scum in the CL.

He’s basically Sancho level.

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Yeah but due to the lack of talent in the LW market he represents one of the better players playing in that position in Europe.

Unless your name is Vini, Barcola or Krava then you're not going to be attracting top players in that position. You're left with the likes of Summerville and Ndiaye and you'd never say they were better than Lookman.

Yildiz is the other one who has got high potential and you'd argue that he hasn't surpassed Lookman either.

 

[James Cook]

Kehl is as bad, if not worse than Lange.

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All I know about Kehl is he is not Lange.

Which is a great start.

Why is he worse?

 

[HotShotTottenham]

Season 3 of Ange and Levy combo would have created movies

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Kill Bill volume 1 on the pitch?

Night of the living Dead in the boardroom?

 

[TeamSpirit™]

Yeah but due to the lack of talent in the LW market he represents one of the better players playing in that position in Europe.

Unless your name is Vini, Barcola or Krava then you're not going to be attracting top players in that position. You're left with the likes of Summerville and Ndiaye and you'd never say they were better than Lookman.

Yildiz is the other one who has got high potential and you'd argue that he hasn't surpassed Lookman either.

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Seeing spurs fans work themselves into a Frenzy over a player like Lookman just proves how sad this season was.

 

[Shadydan]

Seeing spurs fans work themselves into a Frenzy over a player like Lookman just proves how sad this season was.

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Well we almost got relegated mate

 

[docomospur]

Wasn’t sure where to post this, but I think ENIC deserves most of the credit


View: https://x.com/solventspurs/status/2002495882827333825?s=46

 

[GinolasLeftFoot]

By the sounds of the article above Levy really was the death of Stalin figure. Someone who controlled and did everything himself and made it all go through him to the point when he was removed there was never a competent leadership below him as why would there be if you are the dictator. Lewis family clearly didn’t recognise when Levy was removed they needed a top sport executive team to come in and push the club forward and instead relied on people who had never been empowered before. yeah,

We went from a dictatorship to an anarchy.

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Well , yeah. The kids coming in were always going to take a year or two find their feet.

It is what they do this window that is important, I think the ambition is there, but unless they get in a DoF who understand RDZ and finds the quality and actually players he needs...

Otherwise, they are going to in trouble.

 

[Tottenham Massive]

Tottenham survival celebrations cannot cover up Premier League embarrassment

can't really disagree with any of this