The Don Levy Appreciation Thread!

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I think we're broadly in agreement, the problems were obvious and Poch hyperfocused on Ndombele and Lo Celso who were too similar, and not a DM. He got infatuated with Sess (perhaps dreaming of a Sancho 2.0), meanwhile the squad was falling apart around his ears.

My thinking was that Dele would be the other "CM", Sissoko the "DM" cos cleanup duty is really all he's good for, and Tielemans the box to box CM. He's not Ndombele quality but he would have been a lot cheaper, scores a lot more, and was "PL proven" at the time. Plus he played with Toby/Jan for Belgium.

The spare cash would go towards 25-30m FBs, not 20m ones, how many good FBs were out there anyway? Given our lack of success with backup strikers, we would have needed to commit a bit of cash to a quality backup too.

Hence only Tielemans as a new midfielder.

Poch was hellbent on playing that dreadful diamond.... He needed a proper sitting DM to make it work. He'd already deduced correctly that Sissoko isn't suited to such a role. Problem was he'd told himself that Winks was.... Winks has never recovered from this mis-casting.

Add to that the injury niggles of the new lads and Poch's insistence on slow integration of new players and we were stuck playing an ineffective MF3 blend of Winks & Sissoko + 1.
 
Poch was hellbent on playing that dreadful diamond.... He needed a proper sitting DM to make it work. He'd already deduced correctly that Sissoko isn't suited to such a role. Problem was he'd told himself that Winks was.... Winks has never recovered from this mis-casting.

Add to that the injury niggles of the new lads and Poch's insistence on slow integration of new players and we were stick playing an ineffective MF3 blend of Winks & Sissoko + 1.
Isn't that pretty much the role Sissoko is playing now? babysitting Aurier, and where possible plugging gaps in the defence. Providing a bit of muscle in the middle third from time to time.

He's certainly not bringing the ball out of defence or making intriciate plays in the opposition half.
 
Yeh, but your stated 'solution' only brings in 1 (Tielemans) out of 3..... We needed 2 x CMs and 1 x DM.....

My point:

Ndombele - 60m
Another CM - 20m
DM - 20m

...Should have been achievable.

Spend 20m elsewhere on a LB instead of Sess and you can add another 10m to the pot too. Don't buy Clarke and that's enough for 2 x 20m FBs.

I do suspect however that assumptions were being made about a buyer for Eriksen being found..... Another 40/50m in the pot would have gone a long way.

...But yeh, we're in good shape now. Aside for paying our tab for Vinicius, any further money spent now should go a long way.
I personally think Tielemans is overrated anyway. Fine EPL player but I don't think he's all that.
 
Chavs were on our side of the fence too in terms of spending (and also bagged an EPL title during that period). As we already established; a mere 7m (net between the 3 clubs).

Woolwich are a mess.... That only leaves the Mancs who are in another stratosphere of wealth anyway.
my data was only for the transfer windows Poch and Klopp overlapped. If you include the earlier transfer windows of Poch’s time at Spurs, the gap between us and Chelsea grows considerably. And if you think about the kind of spending they did in the years prior to Poch joining, you can see how they had considerably more assets to start with than he did.

Woolwich dramatically outspent us under Poch. The fact that they did so poorly doesn’t mean their manager was less backed. The money was there. If we’d spent Woolwich-esque money under Poch, this would be a different conversation. Maybe Poch would still be here.

And yes, the Manc clubs are in a totally different stratosphere.

Poch consistently delivered results well above our spending weight. Results that prior coaches were unable to achieve.
 
I personally think Tielemans is overrated anyway. Fine EPL player but I don't think he's all that.
Neither do I, but at about 35m, he'd have done at least as much as Lo celso has done for us. He's not quite the tough tackler or dribbler, but he plays well with others and scores a small handful of goals. More importantly, he would have been good enough to tide us over and allow us to fund other expenses.

If not Tielemans, we could have surely looked at some other CMs, I believe Inter got Barella for about 30m the same season. I think we've been tracking Frank Kessie for a while too.
 
Yup, the league is much much more competitive now, yet we're first. I'll take that.

As for opening the wallet, you seem to be forgetting that Poch got a twice as much in his last transfer window as Mou did. Poch got Sess for 30m Mou got fucking Regui. Mou got PEH for KWP + 3m, Poch had KWP sitting on the bench for YEARS and isntead chose to play Sanchez and Foyth at RB.

We couldn't afford a backup striker so Mou settled for Vinicius on loan.

We spent weeks faffing about for 75m Dybala while we had no DM, no starting RB all summer, you goldfish memory cunt.
Are you honestly suggesting that Poch received the same or more level of financial backing as Mourinho???

Go look up our average net spend per year under Poch and then compare it to Mourinho. Report back with your findings.

Spoiler: Mourinho’s received more net spend per year.

I’m not having a dig at Jose or saying Poch was perfect. Nor am I having a dig at Levy, who had to save his pounds to build the stadium. But it is what it is. There’s been more money available for Jose than there was for Poch. And Jose honestly got lucky with this pandemic, it riled some clubs’ finances and got us some transfer bargains.

I’m not taking anything away from the business we did this Summer. It was fantastic. But the amount of money we’ve net spent over the last 2 transfer windows was generally unavailable to Poch.
 
Are you honestly suggesting that Poch received the same or more level of financial backing as Mourinho???

Go look up our average net spend per year under Poch and then compare it to Mourinho. Report back with your findings.

Spoiler: Mourinho’s received more net spend per year.

I’m not having a dig at Jose or saying Poch was perfect. Nor am I having a dig at Levy, who had to save his pounds to build the stadium. But it is what it is. There’s been more money available for Jose than there was for Poch. And Jose honestly got lucky with this pandemic, it riled some clubs’ finances and got us some transfer bargains.

I’m not taking anything away from the business we did this Summer. It was fantastic. But the amount of money we’ve net spent over the last 2 transfer windows was generally unavailable to Poch.
We maintained good net spend by being able to unload players like Chadli, Wimmer, Bentaleb, Mason, Soldado, Paulinho, Capoue, Siggurdsson for reasonable fees. Who we generally replaced with better players.

So what if we got Dele and Dier for 10m total. These are very good players.

So what Trippier cost about 3.5m. He's currently favourite to win a La Liga title.

Under Poch we started breaking our transfer fee record every other year, but it hasn't translated to a better squad. Once again it's the cheap options like PEH and a repurposed Dier proving to be key to our resurgance.

Mourinho's net spend is high because we have more money, and a more urgent need to refresh the squad (thanks in part to the gaps left under the previous manager), and because we were unable to unload any players for a decent price. Going forward we will be selling Winks, Sanchez, Gazzaniga and possibly Dele, which will bring the net spend down a bit. Our squad is more or less complete, all we'll do is sell Moura/Lamela etc for other reasonably priced options.
 
Isn't that pretty much the role Sissoko is playing now? babysitting Aurier, and where possible plugging gaps in the defence. Providing a bit of muscle in the middle third from time to time.

Not really, no.

We is one of two players patrolling their respective side of the pitch and to whatever extent roams that whole area to intercept, dispossess and disrupt.

The DM in a 41212 diamond is required to be far more disciplined; patrolling horizontally covring space left behind by both #8s pushing on whilst also recycling possession.

He's certainly not bringing the ball out of defence or making intriciate plays in the opposition half.

Things aren't as black and white as merely 'DMs tackle, CMs play ball'.
 
We maintained good net spend by being able to unload players like Chadli, Wimmer, Bentaleb, Mason, Soldado, Paulinho, Capoue, Siggurdsson for reasonable fees. Who we generally replaced with better players.

So what if we got Dele and Dier for 10m total. These are very good players.

So what Trippier cost about 3.5m. He's currently favourite to win a La Liga title.

Under Poch we started breaking our transfer fee record every other year, but it hasn't translated to a better squad. Once again it's the cheap options like PEH and a repurposed Dier proving to be key to our resurgance.

Mourinho's net spend is high because we have more money, and a more urgent need to refresh the squad (thanks in part to the gaps left under the previous manager), and because we were unable to unload any players for a decent price. Going forward we will be selling Winks, Sanchez, Gazzaniga and possibly Dele, which will bring the net spend down a bit. Our squad is more or less complete, all we'll do is sell Moura/Lamela etc for other reasonably priced options.
So Poch was able to get very good players cheap, but doesn’t get credit for that? But yet you were cunting him off for some of his other purchases. Which is it, does he get credit for the transfers or not?

At a 30,000 foot level, Poch received relatively weak financial support but delivered consistently very good results. That pretty much tells the story. He did a great job here.
 
Are you honestly suggesting that Poch received the same or more level of financial backing as Mourinho???

Go look up our average net spend per year under Poch and then compare it to Mourinho. Report back with your findings.

Spoiler: Mourinho’s received more net spend per year.

I’m not having a dig at Jose or saying Poch was perfect. Nor am I having a dig at Levy, who had to save his pounds to build the stadium. But it is what it is. There’s been more money available for Jose than there was for Poch. And Jose honestly got lucky with this pandemic, it riled some clubs’ finances and got us some transfer bargains.

I’m not taking anything away from the business we did this Summer. It was fantastic. But the amount of money we’ve net spent over the last 2 transfer windows was generally unavailable to Poch.

Comparing to Jose's budget at other clubs merely serves to muddy the water.... Particularly if you have latter-day United in mind.

Away from the financials, I'm not sure comparing Poch's 5 1/2 years here vs Jose's 1 year stands to establish anything.

Both took over the club in troubled times, so why not compare first years.....? (If that is such a debate holds any genuine interest... It doesn't to me tbh).
 
So Poch was able to get very good players cheap, but doesn’t get credit for that? But yet you were cunting him off for some of his other purchases. Which is it, does he get credit for the transfers or not?

At a 30,000 foot level, Poch received relatively weak financial support but delivered consistently very good results. That pretty much tells the story. He did a great job here.
It's well established that it was a persistent scout rather than Poch or Levy that should be credited for Dele.

You can give Poch credit for his early year transfers, that's fine. What we're discussing is whether he was backed or not. He was backed. These were cheap but good players.

In his final year we were once again in the same position of needing to find a few cheap but effective player given the number of positions we were lacking in. Instead he insisted on Ndombele, Lo celso and Sess.

That's the crux of the issue. Regardless of how much was spent for Mourinho, he was flexible enough to accept an old player, a player on loan, a young player with a buyback clause, as well as a super cheap DM. Poch clearly became big headed towards the end, and we deviated from what worked for us. We fixed the issues that needed to be fixed without splashing out.
 
Comparing to Jose's budget at other clubs merely serves to muddy the water.... Particularly if you have latter-day United in mind.

Away from the financials, I'm not sure comparing Poch's 5 1/2 years here vs Jose's 1 year stands to establish anything.

Both took over the club in troubled times, so why not compare first years.....? (If that is such a debate holds any genuine interest... It doesn't to me tbh).
I’m not comparing to Jose’s tenure at other clubs....
 
I have shown data that shows Liverpool actually spent slightly more than us during the Poch Klopp overlap.

In any case, our net spend was quite low by any metric.

You made a ridiculous post saying that Poch had almost 100 million pounds to spend so if that’s not backing blah blah blah.

The answer is yes, Poch was not backed nearly as much as our top 6 rivals. Liverpool are the closest to us in terms of less backing. What they’ve done given their relative lack of spending is sensational. But what Poch did given his relative lack of backing is also outstanding.
A fact is a ridiculous post ? Ok, if you say so.

But let's actually look at facts;

Poch was given nearly £100m per year to spend on players
Our net spend was higher than the Dippers during his reign (or as near as makes no difference)
Our net spend during the league was @ 14th or 15th in terms of the PL net spend table. (Very low)
In one year Poch spent £133m on players.
Poch didn't want a DoF and Levy backed him on that.
There was money to spend in 2018, the year of no transfers

So lets look at Poch's transfers, it has to be said there is some very poor signings in there;

Was Poch backed;
In reality it depends on (as someone else has said) the base level you start at.
I have criticised Levy consistently on here for our transfer policy, i.e. buying promising young players instead of proven older players. I would much prefer us to buy 1 or 2 proven players each year rather than 3 or 4 or 5 young talents.

So this is where we get into supposition and opinions regarding our transfers;
Let's start with 2018. There was money to spend, so who is to "blame" for us not spending it ?
Levy, can't be because there was money to spend, maybe because of wages
Poch for being to picky on players
The scouting team for not identifying the right players.

Who is to blame for the fact that didn't we sign a striker since forever ?
Levy, can't be because, again, money was available (£130m in one year)
Poch, again, for being too picky.
The scouting team for not identifying the right striker.

See the above for a DM, RB, LB and CB. We needed all these positions and instead we kept on signing AM after AM.

The truth is that on all these matters is that we don't know, as none of us are involved in these things. The only direct quote we have from someone involved in our transfers is Coutinho's agent who said that the deal was all agreed but Poch, rightly or wrongly, didn't want him.

It is far too simplistic to say Poch wasn't backed due to low net spend, or indeed that he was backed due to high gross spend.

For the record, I love Poch, didn't want him sacked, was gutted when he was, but I understand why he was. I also agree that he was perfect for us at that time and worked miracles for most of his tenure.
 
What a wonderfull couple "Levy , Mourinho", they need to recruit Campos soon. Only him can find the perfect young players for the futur.
 
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