A comment on Daniel Levy
Okay, this is very lazy, I admit, but there's a big post coming up soon so I just want to keep you all reading. Plus this my blog, my creative place, so I can do whatever the fuck I want. It's my latest Spurs Community column (for those who don't know, Spurs Community = largest unofficial Tottenham Hotspur website online), entitled 'Ah, Mr Levy...'. At the time, many people were critical of me for being harsh on the Spurs chairman, mainly citing the fact that I assumed that Santini didn't actually quit for "personal reasons" at all and just wanted out. Since then, Jacques Santini has indeed stated that he quit because he was not happy with his role at the club, so I was right and they were wrong, and now they all look stupid. Which is nice.
If you were to walk by the training ground of a Premier, Coca-Cola or even non-league football team, you could bet your house that you'd at some stage hear the phrase "Keep it simple!" being bellowed forth from the mouth of the manager. It is therefore even more of a shame that Daniel Levy had no one to tell him this on either of the occasions he embarked upon a search to find someone to issue this command to his legion of Spurs players.
Let’s step back to March 2001, back in the early days of the ENIC administration. Spurs have battled their way through to an FA Cup semi-final with Arsenal, with form to suggest that they could go all the way, and although Premiership progress has been far from spectacular it has been solid enough for Levy, a self-proclaimed Spurs fan, to take us on to something maybe a bit special. The stage seems set for a return to the glory days. And yet, with rather bizarre timing (less than a month before the big match at Old Trafford), Levy decides to sack George Graham, the man behind these foundations and winner of the Worthington Cup two years previous, allegedly for a breach of trust.
The sacking was a clever one. A certain portion of fans never truly accepted Graham, and the blabbing to the press provided an ideal excuse to sack him without having to pay any settlement. He could then bring in his own man, someone that all the fans would look up to, thus gaining respect himself, and it was the worst kept secret in football (possibly right up until the ‘secret’ that Jol was going to be appointed to replace Santini) that Hoddle was going to be this man. But clever isn’t always good. The appointment made an enemy of Rupert Lowe, inflicting some damage on the club’s reputation, but it more significantly meant that we once again had to start from scratch, a fact that became even more frustrating when Hoddle’s period in charge ultimately ended in failure.
In retrospect, it appears that Levy didn’t learn from this mistake. Since Monsieur Santini’s departure, and, to some extent, his appointment, it has been speculated, apparently justifiably so, that the Frenchman was only hired as a figurehead, as appeasement for us, the fans. Once Arnesen had taken up the role of Sporting Director the plan was to bring Jol in to take control of matters on the pitch, but Levy believed he needed the big name to keep us happy after months of waiting. Once again, this was an unnecessary complication. Whether Jacques’s “personal reasons” really did exist or not, I don’t care, but the fact is that anything other than his own or a family member’s severe illness would not merit resignation by itself. It is therefore more likely that his resignation could be put down to either a combination of some private issues, building pressure and frustration at being out of the loop in a system he just didn’t fit into, or merely a combination of the latter two. With this in mind, we have taken another step perilously closer to being the laughingstock of the Premiership, because of another error of judgment by Levy in trying to be too clever.
I don’t blame Levy. You hardly can. His duty is to the club and, in turn, to the fans. Keeping us happy is effectively his job. But he has undeniably been misguided. Let’s just ignore our existence for a moment. If there were no fans complaining about his links with Arsenal, would it have made sense to sack a man who had won us our first trophy in eight years and was on the brink of winning us another? No, it wouldn’t. If there were no fans just waiting to be disappointed by the appointment of an unknown mid-table, Eredivisie coach, would it have made sense to appoint the French national team coach to watch over him, knowing full well that, barring considerable success, the Frenchman would ultimately make way for his Dutch understudy? Once again, the answer’s no. Yet I for one would have been far more satisfied if Graham had remained or if Jol had been given the job of Head Coach in the first place, if these things would have meant more success.
So the problem is that Daniel Levy has no balls. He’s afraid of being cruel to be kind, of saying “I know what you want, but this’ll be best for you in the long term, so shut up”. Maybe it’s just because he’s one of us, he feels like every move he makes should be one that makes us happy. As admirable as that is, it is naïve, and with Santini’s departure it wasn’t far off being too much. Should he have stepped down before the promotion of Jol? If he had done, it would have been the bravest move he’s made as chairman. It might have been perceived as cowardice under similar conditions to those in which Santini left us, but at the same time he would have been admitting that he got it wrong. As it is, I’m prepared to give him another chance. He’s far from being a figure of hate, more an amiable, bumbling fool who's yet to completely screw things up; there’s no need for urgency. So third time lucky, as they say, but I hope that in future the saying Danny L. is paying most attention to is the one Jol has now been given license to use – keep it simple.
---
If you were to walk by the training ground of a Premier, Coca-Cola or even non-league football team, you could bet your house that you'd at some stage hear the phrase "Keep it simple!" being bellowed forth from the mouth of the manager. It is therefore even more of a shame that Daniel Levy had no one to tell him this on either of the occasions he embarked upon a search to find someone to issue this command to his legion of Spurs players.
Let’s step back to March 2001, back in the early days of the ENIC administration. Spurs have battled their way through to an FA Cup semi-final with Arsenal, with form to suggest that they could go all the way, and although Premiership progress has been far from spectacular it has been solid enough for Levy, a self-proclaimed Spurs fan, to take us on to something maybe a bit special. The stage seems set for a return to the glory days. And yet, with rather bizarre timing (less than a month before the big match at Old Trafford), Levy decides to sack George Graham, the man behind these foundations and winner of the Worthington Cup two years previous, allegedly for a breach of trust.
The sacking was a clever one. A certain portion of fans never truly accepted Graham, and the blabbing to the press provided an ideal excuse to sack him without having to pay any settlement. He could then bring in his own man, someone that all the fans would look up to, thus gaining respect himself, and it was the worst kept secret in football (possibly right up until the ‘secret’ that Jol was going to be appointed to replace Santini) that Hoddle was going to be this man. But clever isn’t always good. The appointment made an enemy of Rupert Lowe, inflicting some damage on the club’s reputation, but it more significantly meant that we once again had to start from scratch, a fact that became even more frustrating when Hoddle’s period in charge ultimately ended in failure.
In retrospect, it appears that Levy didn’t learn from this mistake. Since Monsieur Santini’s departure, and, to some extent, his appointment, it has been speculated, apparently justifiably so, that the Frenchman was only hired as a figurehead, as appeasement for us, the fans. Once Arnesen had taken up the role of Sporting Director the plan was to bring Jol in to take control of matters on the pitch, but Levy believed he needed the big name to keep us happy after months of waiting. Once again, this was an unnecessary complication. Whether Jacques’s “personal reasons” really did exist or not, I don’t care, but the fact is that anything other than his own or a family member’s severe illness would not merit resignation by itself. It is therefore more likely that his resignation could be put down to either a combination of some private issues, building pressure and frustration at being out of the loop in a system he just didn’t fit into, or merely a combination of the latter two. With this in mind, we have taken another step perilously closer to being the laughingstock of the Premiership, because of another error of judgment by Levy in trying to be too clever.
I don’t blame Levy. You hardly can. His duty is to the club and, in turn, to the fans. Keeping us happy is effectively his job. But he has undeniably been misguided. Let’s just ignore our existence for a moment. If there were no fans complaining about his links with Arsenal, would it have made sense to sack a man who had won us our first trophy in eight years and was on the brink of winning us another? No, it wouldn’t. If there were no fans just waiting to be disappointed by the appointment of an unknown mid-table, Eredivisie coach, would it have made sense to appoint the French national team coach to watch over him, knowing full well that, barring considerable success, the Frenchman would ultimately make way for his Dutch understudy? Once again, the answer’s no. Yet I for one would have been far more satisfied if Graham had remained or if Jol had been given the job of Head Coach in the first place, if these things would have meant more success.
So the problem is that Daniel Levy has no balls. He’s afraid of being cruel to be kind, of saying “I know what you want, but this’ll be best for you in the long term, so shut up”. Maybe it’s just because he’s one of us, he feels like every move he makes should be one that makes us happy. As admirable as that is, it is naïve, and with Santini’s departure it wasn’t far off being too much. Should he have stepped down before the promotion of Jol? If he had done, it would have been the bravest move he’s made as chairman. It might have been perceived as cowardice under similar conditions to those in which Santini left us, but at the same time he would have been admitting that he got it wrong. As it is, I’m prepared to give him another chance. He’s far from being a figure of hate, more an amiable, bumbling fool who's yet to completely screw things up; there’s no need for urgency. So third time lucky, as they say, but I hope that in future the saying Danny L. is paying most attention to is the one Jol has now been given license to use – keep it simple.
posted by Adam at
11:39 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home