I agree with the idea of getting a manager in the vein of Xavi in principle but in reality can you honestly say the ongoing battle he had with the Barcelona board in his final season brims you with confidence about his compatibility with Levy/ENIC? Having worked with a difficult board at Barcelona what makes you think Xavi, who will surely be aware of Daniel Levy's reputation (or swiftly become aware of it upon interest being made clear) would want to roll the dice with such a notoriously difficult chairman?
The reality is we may well be very limited in the scope of managers who are both available and interested. Taking on a squad with a very young average age, no obvious star player to build the side around, who had very conflicting results of winning a prestigious trophy and having CL football next season, with having their worst league finish in modern football. I don't get the sense that a guy like Xavi is desperate to take the next job offered to him, I think he would happily sit on his arse until a tailor-made opportunity to print trophies with a team with substantial resources and/or reputation comes along.
That, in essence is why I think it's naive to say that league placement has no bearing on our ability to win things long term, the fact that Mourinho and Conte came here when we were a nearly-there team says that down the line as long as we keep ourselves in the upper echelons of the league, when Levy and ENIC finally fuck off (something I'd say the fanbase is fairly united on) and we get owners who won't sell manager after manager after manager down the river, we could bring a guy in like Conte and actually back him with a huge warchest to build the squad he needs. I truly believe if you go out and furnish him with a £250m net spend window in Summer 2022 the last few years of the club look very fucking different.
I think there's enough of a shout with Frank based on the job he's done with Brentford that we could see consistent scaling up of the side over a 3-5 year period also. Pochettino was less proven, and his Southampton side were not at the same financial disparity to the rest of the league as Brentford. Pochettino was far more pragmatic in his approach with his Southampton side than he immediately was for us when he came to Spurs. I just think it's so naive to assume that because Frank has only achieved what he has thus far he has no capacity to improve and grow as a manager. For every Nuno you have a Poch or Redknapp from that profile of manager.