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Management Johan Lange - Technical Director

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Timberwolf said:
Personally I think what Levy's lack of investment over the Poch era (especially the final 3 years) was complacency of the highest order and he wasted a golden opportunity to cement our status as a top club and win silverware.

If we hadn't lucked into Kane, or been as good as we were, Levy would've invested significantly more in the squad to try and get us back into the Champions League over that period, even with the stadium being built. Instead, he felt he could be cheap in the market since Poch was overachieving, and didn't recognise how lucky he was. For me that's far worse than what's going on at the moment, and most of the current fall-out is simply the long term knock-on effects of Levy failing to support the squad under Poch and then making a load of knee-jerk, short-term decisions in the post-Poch years.

In the past few years we've been one of the biggest net spenders in world football. It's miles away from the penny-pinching of the Poch era in terms of overall spending.

The problem is no longer the lack of investment, it's the messy squad-building, priorisiting opportunistic buys over smart buys, spending big on fees rather than salaries, swinging between managers with completely different styles, lacking a coherent footballing vision - our issues are more down to poor decision making than lack of overall spending.

Contrary to popular opinion, I actually think the board are being quite smart and disciplined by waiting until the summer to make the right signings rather than just getting who is available in Jan. But regardless of that, unless we sort out the DoF situation and get someone good in above Lange, we're gonna continue to be a mess.

Get in a proper DoF, sack Frank, demote or sack Lange, and start afresh in the summer with 3-4 serious signings on high wages that genuinely fix the squad. That's what we need.
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As I already alluded to; an investment company taking a risk on the intangibles of on-pitch matters when they were in the thick of a massive project (i.e. the stadium) was always unlikely (to put it mildly) and easily fathomed (regardless of whether fans agree with their decision not to).

.......Yes indeed; we are spending more since the new gaff opened but fair to say they're doing a bad job of it.


The EPL is a clusterfuck this year.... IMO they could have at least taken a (nominal) gamble on getting us into Europe next season (and/or fully fleshed the squad out in the summer given the fortunate springboard the EL win gave us). If we're gonna recede back to only occasionally being in Europe surely - from ENIC's position of interest - that stands to leave a commercial dent in the club over the medium term.
 
Airfixx said:
As I already alluded to; an investment company taking a risk on the intangibles of on-pitch matters when they were in the thick of a massive project (i.e. the stadium) was always unlikely (to put it mildly) and easily fathomed (regardless of whether fans agree with their decision not to).

.......Yes indeed; we are spending more since the new gaff opened but fair to say they're doing a bad job of it.


The EPL is a clusterfuck this year.... IMO they could have at least taken a (nominal) gamble on getting us into Europe next season (and/or fully fleshed the squad out in the summer given the fortunate springboard the EL win gave us). If we're gonna recede back to only occasionally being in Europe surely - from ENIC's position of interest - that stands to leave a commercial dent in the club over the medium term.
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Fair enough, but for me that's simply short-sighted. You need to speculate to accumulate, etc. Even if there was an element of risk, not spending over that period has cost Levy, and the club, far far more in the long run. That's simply how football works - if you let squads stagnate and don't refresh them then you just kick the can down the road and pay more later. Levy should've recognised this imo, especially given we had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to actually win major silverware given one of the world's greatest strikers and wingers landed in our lap.

And I also think it played into Levy's natural tendencies. He was always far more to invest in the squad from a position of weakness than strength. Top 4 was always his goal and as long as we were getting that he'd invest as little as he could...which is a wrongheaded way of looking at it imo.

But anyway, back to the present day, personally I think any short term Jan buys would've been extremely unlikely to push us to European qualification and in all likelihood the effect of clogging up the squad with more medicrity/short-term would've done us more harm. We were clearly willing to spend big on genuine quality (i.e. Semenyo) but it's hard to convince those players to come to us, let alone in Jan.

I think the window could've certainly been better - some kind of game-changing loan signing would've been ideal - but it was the quiestest window in forever and the market was dead for most teams. As long as we can actually stay up, I think holding our nerve and saving our spending for the summer will prove wise in hindsight.
 
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Kevin Ball said:
Didn't Poch say before/after the CL final that we needed a painful rebuild , that's not the words of someone that doesn't want/need new players . It was that long ago I can't remember exactly

www.standard.co.uk

Pochettino warns of 'painful' rebuild ahead of summer transfer window

Mauricio Pochettino warned Tottenham that a "painful" rebuilding job is required to bring their squad to the same level as the new stadium.
www.standard.co.uk www.standard.co.uk
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Yup he did, he said it in May, a month before the CL final, because Levy spent £0 strengthening the squad in the three previous windows leading up to the CL final.

And by that time it was too little to late, Poch was a broken man... And then Levy went on to not back the 3 next manager, Mourinho, Nuno, and Conti. And by that time the club was in free fall, then we got Ange, with broken clusterfuck of a squad.

Wasting the best years of Kane and Son, who carried the team, until Conte's second year when everything imploded.
 
Timberwolf said:
Fair enough, but for me that's simply short-sighted. You need to speculate to accumulate, etc. Even if there was an element of risk, not spending over that period has cost Levy, and the club, far far more in the long run. That's simply how football works - if you let squads stagnate and don't refresh them then you just kick the can down the road and pay more later. Levy should've recognised this imo, especially given we had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to actually win major silverware given one of the world's greatest strikers and wingers landed in our lap.

And I also think it played into Levy's natural tendencies. He was always far more to invest in the squad from a position of weakness than strength. Top 4 was always his goal and as long as we were getting that he'd invest as little as he could...which is a wrongheaded way of looking at it imo.

But anyway, back to the present day, personally I think any short term Jan buys would've been extremely unlikely to push us to European qualification and in all likelihood the effect of clogging up the squad with more medicrity/short-term would've done us more harm. We were clearly willing to spend big on genuinely quality (i.e. Semenyo) but it's hard to convince those players to come to us, let alone in Jan.

I think the window could've certainly been better - some kind of game-changing loan signing would've been ideal - but it was the quiestest window in forever and the market was dead for most teams. As long as we can actually stay up, I think holding our nerve and saving our spending for the summer will prove wise in hindsight.
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That is why Levy was not a good a business man as people think... 1) He rode the rise of the PL as dominant force in football and massive increase in wealth it generated. 2) He failed as you say, to invest from a position of strength.

And those three windows, and the lack of investment in the following managers of Mourinho and Conti, who he left Deir as a CB with... Has ultimately, left us were we are today.
 
GinolasLeftFoot said:
That is why Levy was not a good a business man as people think... 1) He rode the rise of the PL as dominate force and massive income of wealth it generates. 2) He failed as you say, to invest from a position of strength.

And those three windows, and the lack of investment in the following managers of Mourinho and Conti, who he left Deir as a CB with... Has ultimately, left us were we are today.
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Yeah, he's a weird one.

We did massively improve on the pitch under his tenure over that initial 15 year period - going from perennial lower mid-table nobodies to title challenging and CL finalists - and I think for that Levy deserves more recognition and credit than he gets. He often did things in an awkward and haphazard way, but over that period we were actually often ahead of the curve with things like directors of football (Comolli, Arnesen), using data, making game-changing cheap signings from the lower leagues and abroad. Pound-for-pound he was the best chairman in the league from about 2000-2015. Even with us riding the PL's wave of growth, no other club was able to break out of the middle-classes and consistently challenge the established elite like we did.

But fuck me, he's also deeply flawed, stubborn, and managed to fumble that incredible opportunity that fell into his lap with Kane and hitting the jackpot on Poch, Son, etc. The way he managed the club from about 2016-2025 is almost Shakesperean in how fucking flawed it was - usually directly as a result of his poor decision making, ego, short-termism, etc.

Still reckon we could've had it so, so much worse than Levy, and for the off-the-pitch stuff he's almost unparalleled. But fuck me, he was infuriating at times and could be his own worst enemy.
 
Timberwolf said:
Yeah, he's a weird one.

We did massively improve on the pitch under his tenure over that initial 15 year period - going from perennial lower mid-table nobodies to title challenging and CL finalists - and I think for that Levy deserves more recognition and credit than he gets. He often did things in an awkward and haphazard way, but over that period we were actually often ahead of the curve with things like directors of football (Comolli, Arnesen), using data, making game-changing cheap signings from the lower leagues and abroad. Pound-for-pound he was the best chairman in the league from about 2000-2015. Even with us riding the PL's wave of growth, no other club was able to break out of the middle-classes and consistently challenge the established elite like we did.

But fuck me, he's also deeply flawed, stubborn, and managed to fumble that incredible opportunity that fell into his lap with Kane and hitting the jackpot on Poch, Son, etc. The way he managed the club from about 2016-2025 is almost Shakesperean in how fucking flawed it was - usually directly as a result of his poor decision making, ego, short-termism, etc.

Still reckon we could've had it so, so much worse than Levy, and for the off-the-pitch stuff he's almost unparalleled. But fuck me, he was infuriating at times and could be his own worst enemy.
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It all really started with Martin Jol, and his "lets do business" when we started to get in to European Football on a regular basis. Btu it was always Levy, that just made everything so much difficult. Like selling Berbatov and Keane in the same windows and bringing in Pavlyachenko and Campbell, After Ramos won the LC. Talk about holding us back...

Honestly think, that an owner with more nuance than Levy and the club would have reached even greater heights, as throughout that whole time, it was always the starting 11 that got some kind of investment, but never the squad as whole to really push on.

He gambled with injuries, in the hope that we wouldn't get any, ala Poch's three £0 windows, Ange, left short on real squad depth, and the same with Frank after the summer windows and no real functioning left hand side. Conti and Mourinho windows too... Even going back to HR and Jol, the squad never really had the depth required to really challenge despite things slowly improving over the first few years. And it was really Comolli and Arnesen that built the squad that ultimately pushed, not Levy. But then Levy’s ego somehow got in the way and it all went tits up at that point.

And I can never forgive Chelsea for taken Arnesen from us.
 
GinolasLeftFoot said:
It all really started with Martin Jol, and his "lets do business" when we started to get in to European Football on a regular basis. Btu it was always Levy, that just made everything so much difficult. Like selling Berbatov and Keane in the same windows and bringing in Pavlyachenko and Campbell, After Ramos won the LC. Talk about holding us back...

Honestly think, that a owner with more nuance than Levy and the club would have reached even greater heights, as thoughout that whole time, it was always the starting 11 that got some kind of investment, but never the squad as whole to really push on.

He gambled with injuries, in the hope that we wouldn't get any, ala Poch's three £0 windows, Ange, left short on real squad depth, and the same with Frank after the summer windows and no real functioning left hand side. Conti and Mourinho windows too... Even going back to HR and Jol, the squad never really had the depth required to really challenge despite things slowly improving over the first few years. And it was really Comolli and Arnesen that built the squad that ultimately pushed, not Levy. But then Levy’s ego somehow got in the way and it all went tits up at that point.
And I can never forgive Chelsea for taken Arnesen from us.
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Yeah fair, hence I said he did things in a clumsy and haphazard way. But even if there were some comically bad moments like the whole Berba/Keane affair, we did continue to grow and improve as a club over that period. Scouting and attracting players like Modric and Bale were, by proxy, down to Levy and I don't think that kind of long term upward trajectory is possible by accident. No other chairman managed it at all of our respective competitors, so I think it's fanciful to think some other imaginary chairman would've done better.

But yeah, he's always been a deeply flawed character who consistently danced between the sublime and the ridiculous across his tenure. Regardless I think the club's growth and improvement from 2000 to 2018 both in terms of football and infrastructure, is one of the greatest achievements in modern football, though. And whether we like it or not Levy was the main man behind that.

And he's also the architect of our subsequent collapse...so he deserves a ton of criticism for that too.
 
Timberwolf said:
Yeah fair, hence I said he did things in a clumsy and haphazard way. But even if there were some comically bad moments like the whole Berba/Keane affair, we did continue to grow and improve as a club over that period. Scouting and attracting players like Modric and Bale were, by proxy, down to Levy and I don't think that kind of long term upward trajectory is possible by accident. No other chairman managed it at all of our respective competitors, so I think it's fanciful to think some other imaginary chairman would've done better.

But yeah, he's always been a deeply flawed character who consistently danced between the sublime and the ridiculous across his tenure. I think the club's growth and improvement from 2000 to 2018 both in terms of football and infrastructure, is one of the greatest achievements in modern football, though. And whether we like it or not Levy was the main man behind that.
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I kind of agree with that. The stadium as well is something special, just a shame the money it was supposed to generate for better player wages just failed to materialise... There is always a bad taste to everything...

Grrrrrrr

He did a lot of good charities too... Pretty hot on that IIRC, we do a lot of good in the local community.
 
Furball man said:
We’re like the classic LinkedIn, bureaucratic nonsense . You used to get people who just knew football , these days it’s full of suits with “ blue sky ideas” “ Bandwidth “ to “ push the needle “


In Ya Face Good Night GIF by Studio Hamburg Serienwerft GmbH
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Thanks for reaching out with this 360º post Furball.

I particularly liked how you focused on taking best-in-class content with a view to moving cohorts through the engagement funnel in order to enhance direct traffic.

For the record, I didn't make this up. These are the exact words of editorial director Ben Bailey in an email to Daily Mail staff. Bring on the meteor.
 
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Bill Madrid said:
Thanks for reaching out with this 360º post Furball.

I particularly liked how you focused on taking best-in-class content with a view to moving cohorts through the engagement funnel in order to enhance direct traffic.

For the record, I didn't make this up. These are the exact words of editorial director Ben Bailey in an email to Daily Mail staff. Bring on the meteor.
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I think i just got ptsd
 
Bill Madrid said:
Thanks for reaching out with this 360º post Furball.

I particularly liked how you focused on taking best-in-class content with a view to moving cohorts through the engagement funnel in order to enhance direct traffic.

For the record, I didn't make this up. These are the exact words of editorial director Ben Bailey in an email to Daily Mail staff. Bring on the meteor.
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Thank you for reaching out & increasing the velocity

I’m just happy to support the collective
 
Timberwolf said:
Fair enough, but for me that's simply short-sighted. You need to speculate to accumulate, etc.
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They already were with the stadium project.

It's all rather easy to sit on the sidelines and urge "more risk... more risk".... Especially at a time when PSG had just wrecked the trf market by blowing 200m on 2 x players in the same window from an entirely different level of wealth to that which Joe Lewis occupies.

Timberwolf said:
Even if there was an element of risk, not spending over that period has cost Levy, and the club, far far more in the long run. That's simply how football works - if you let squads stagnate and don't refresh them then you just kick the can down the road and pay more later. Levy should've recognised this imo, especially given we had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to actually win major silverware given one of the world's greatest strikers and wingers landed in our lap.

And I also think it played into Levy's natural tendencies. He was always far more to invest in the squad from a position of weakness than strength. Top 4 was always his goal and as long as we were getting that he'd invest as little as he could...which is a wrongheaded way of looking at it imo.

But anyway, back to the present day, personally I think any short term Jan buys would've been extremely unlikely to push us to European qualification and in all likelihood the effect of clogging up the squad with more medicrity/short-term would've done us more harm. We were clearly willing to spend big on genuine quality (i.e. Semenyo) but it's hard to convince those players to come to us, let alone in Jan.

I think the window could've certainly been better - some kind of game-changing loan signing would've been ideal - but it was the quiestest window in forever and the market was dead for most teams. As long as we can actually stay up, I think holding our nerve and saving our spending for the summer will prove wise in hindsight.
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This convo has come full circle; positioning from the idea that Levy himself (not Joe/ENIC) was the ultimate purse-strings and lack of ambition that held the club back.........

We're in the midst of a period that is seemingly set to prove that was not the case.... Much as I suspected all along.
 
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