Glory, What Glory, Tottenham Hotspur?

If he does not 'Dare to Do' this summer, will Levy's Spurs legacy be hanging on a knife edge?

By Luke Saward

Tottenham Hotspur’s gutsy 1-0 win over Burnley, combined with Arsenal’s surprising 2-0 defeat away to Newcastle, means that a draw for Spurs at Norwich on the final day of the season will be enough to secure them top four and a place in next season’s Champions League.

With both their star manager, Antonio Conte, and star striker, Harry Kane, hinting that only a place among Europe’s elite, combined with backing in the forthcoming transfer window, will be suffice to guarantee their respective futures at the club, such a win will be vital if the club are to avoid a sliding doors moment this summer.

Should either of that duo depart, the Tottenham faithful will no doubt revolt against the ownership of Daniel Levy and ENIC in their masses.

After all, this was supposed to be THE time for Tottenham. Their brand new, 62,850-capacity stadium is in full swing, playing host to the biggest names from boxing, NFL and the music industry.

Costing over £1 billion, this Thunderdome of an arena is the largest club stadium in London and the third-biggest in the Premier League.

With the most potent attacking duo in Premier League history being coached by one of the best and most successful managers in the game, those all-important trophies that Spurs fans so desperately crave have arguably never been closer.

Yet, even after Kane converted his penalty past a flat-footed Nick Pope on Sunday, the tension inside the Tottenham Hotspur stadium remained palpable.

One that rang of a fanbase that is used to always being the bridesmaid, but never the bride.

There is no doubt that Tottenham have improved vastly as a club since Levy was appointed Spurs chairman in 2001, shown by their improved points tally in the graphic below.

Harry Redknapp delivered Spurs’ first top four finish in 20 years in 2010, taking them to the Champions League for the very first time, increasing recognition of the club on the global stage.

Closer to home, they have now finished above Arsenal in every one of the last five seasons (and are on course to make it a sixth, should they emerge with a point against the Canaries this Sunday), having failed to do so for the 22 seasons prior to the 2016/17 season.

However, despite all of these achievements, they’ve won just the one trophy in Levy’s 21 years at the helm.

Silverware is quite literally the holy grail that has always just slipped out of reach.

Therefore, despite the undoubted impact that Conte has had on the squad in his short time in charge thus far, despite the presence of two truly generational talents up front in Kane and his partner in crime Heung-Min Son, and despite Levy’s own insistence that funds will be provided to improve the playing squad over the summer, fear still prevails.

The fear that, once again, Tottenham’s quest for major honours will all amount to nothing but mockery from rival supporters, who will poke fun at the dust piling up in Tottenham’s bare-laden trophy cabinet.

With that in mind, now is as apt a time as ever to catch up with some supporters of the club to reflect on how everything came together, such that Levy’s legacy rests on the knife edge that it does today.

“We’ve got to accept that we’re competing with clubs owned by nation states or run by oligarchs.”
Stephen Cavalier, Secretary of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust (THST)

If you ask most football fans about Daniel Levy, one of the first things they’ll probably mention are his renowned skills as a world-class negotiator.

Whether it’s his craftiness in buying players or his gritty determination in retaining his own stars, Levy is best known in the game for getting the perhaps unfairly labelled wheeler dealer Harry Redknapp bargain buys in the lead up to deadline day.

However, the majority of this praise has always come from outside the Spurs camp itself, with many Spurs supporters quick to instead accuse Levy’s resolve, when it comes to spending, as resembling a lack of ambition.

There was the January window in 2012, when Redknapp’s squad were mounting a title challenge, only for it to be derailed by Levy limiting recruitment to the double signing of Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen, both of whom seemed well past their prime.

Then there was the unprecedented decision to go a calendar year without making a signing – a Premier League first – during the peak years of Mauricio Pochettino, the club’s most successful manager in the Premier League era.

When they have spent, young players with significant sell-on value have been prioritised, often at the price of passing up on more experienced, more accomplished alternatives.

It’s an area where many Spurs fans feel strongly.

Matt Jarvis, the owner of Matt Jarvis Writing, former managing editor of LastWordOnSports.com and life-long Spurs fan said: “Levy’s transfer policy has been appalling.”

“If you look at it, Spurs do spend money and have spent money under Levy. But what he’s done over the years is having people like Steve Hitchen – who thankfully has now left the club – who prioritised quantity over quality.

“We sold Bale and ok, Eriksen stayed, but we tried to replace him with six or seven players. You can’t do that and be successful.”

“Purely for a footballing point of view, the best signing of Levy’s era is Rafael Van Der Vaart. When he came in, he instantly brought star quality and really got Spurs fans believing that they could operate on another level, after they saw that the club could bring in that calibre of player. His passing, his tackling and his work rate were incredible.”
Matt Jarvis, the owner of Matt Jarvis Writing, former managing editor of LastWordOnSports.com and life-long Spurs fan
“At the time, the big six wasn’t really a thing and Tottenham were really trying to show that they could dine at that top table. Van Der Vaart was a real spark, showing that we were a big enough club to sign ready-made world-class players. Also, as he was there for such a short space of time, it almost makes him more revered in that he came, he conquered and then he left.”
Dan Tracey, host of both the Come On You Spurs Podcast and the Real Football Cast
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“Based on how he played, [Roberto] Soldado was one of the worst. I don’t know how much blame for that you can leave at Levy’s door, given that he was scoring goals for fun beforehand, but he’s someone who clearly never really settled in England. A very close second would be Tanguy Ndombele, given that he was the club’s record signing. With him, it’s a simple case of attitude, where he’s not got the right frame of mind to play at that level in the Premier League week in, week out, where he just wants to be doing the fancy bits.”
Matt Jarvis
“In terms of value for money, there’s people like Soldado, but we’ve also had a few who are just rank, bad players. I’d go for Grzegorz Rasiak, as he was absolutely useless. He just looked lost. Martin Jol described him as a tall target man, hardworking, honest player, with a good goalscoring record and we saw absolutely none of that.”
Dan Tracey
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“The stadium is Levy’s legacy. It’s extraordinary and certainly the best stadium I’ve ever been to. You’re always struck by the faces of people going for the first time, whether it’s Spurs or opposition fans, or even those going to an NFL or boxing event.”
Stephen Cavalier

Clearly, the building of Tottenham’s new stadium and redevelopment of the surrounding area is a massive feather in Levy’s cap.

Although plans for a VIP cheese room were sadly abandoned, Spurs’ new stadium has its own microbrewery, the longest bar in Europe – the Goal Line Bar, standing at 65 metres long – and a 17,000 single-tier south stand, inspired by Borussia Dortmund’s amphitheatre of a Yellow Wall at Signal Iduna Park.

You can even get a beer that fills from the bottom. As if by magic!

Yet it too is arguably one of the reasons why Levy is currently under such pressure to deliver trophies.

As soon as you create a world-class stadium, the profile of the club is raised.

This is what Levy wanted, of course.

But with that heightened profile comes the expectation to build a playing squad to match these top-of-the-range facilities.

Likewise, Spurs fans are well aware of the ticking clock that exists, in which they can still claim to possess the best stadium and training facilities in the world, with a host of Europe’s biggest clubs, including the likes of Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea, all having plans to redevelop their home grounds sooner rather than later.

The time to capitalise, on what is a global draw, is now.

The idea of a transition period, not dissimilar from that experienced by Arsenal when they moved from Highbury to the Emirates, is not one that sits well with supporters.

Stephen Cavalier, Secretary of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust (THST) added: “We don’t just want the club to be a stadium, with an underachieving football team attached; you’ve got to have the success on the pitch to go with it as well.

“To be fair, if you compare where Spurs were as a club before Levy and ENIC came in – ok we’ve only won the one League Cup in 2008 – but since the creation of the Premier League, we’d not finished in the top six or the bottom six. We were firmly a mid-table club.

“However, for all fans, success on the pitch if the main thing. For most Spurs fans, that success is winning trophies.

“Teams that win trophies cement their places in history.

“Others can be forgotten.”

“You see tweets about Game Zero [the first Premier League match to achieve net zero carbon emissions] and topping the sustainability table from Spurs’ official accounts and people will latch on to that and ask why is that the focus when we’re still not successful. If Tottenham were winning trophies, we’d be lauded at this future-thinking club, but, as it is, it’s almost being used as a stick to beat Levy with. Football fans, without sounding harsh, they just don’t really care about that sort of thing. They just want to win.”
Dan Tracey
“I’d refer to the Tottenham way as quite maverick, attacking, free-flowing football. Harry Redknapp’s sides did it best, as they played exciting, front-foot stuff.”
Matt Jarvis
“I think the whole history of Spurs would’ve been different if we’d won that Champions League final. It’s a great shame that Mauricio Pochettino didn’t win a trophy with the club, as it was a great team playing great football under a fantastic manager.”
Stephen Cavalier

A bone of contention for many of the Spurs faithful is Levy’s tendency to chop and change the club’s coaching staff with ruthless efficiency.

In Levy’s 21 years as Spurs chairman, the Lilywhites have had 11 permanent managers, with several others also assuming the position on a caretaker basis.

“It’s been a theme under Levy, this consistent hiring and firing of managers, which he has never seemed to learn from,” said Jarvis.

“Jacques Santini was a colossal mistake, Juande Ramos too.

“You’ve got to have that stability.”

However, many who make this critique forget that, when José Mourinho was announced as Pochettino’s replacement, it was largely heralded as a sensible appointment.

They had seemingly replaced a manager who had taken the club as far as he could, with a perennial winner who could finally get Tottenham over the line with regards to winning a trophy.

Few could have predicted how quickly Mourinho’s demise would come about.

“There’s this sense that there’s been a couple of wasted years where results haven’t been good enough and the style of play hasn’t been there either,” commented Cavalier.

“You’d be shocked at any other club if a José Mourinho team threw away leads like we did and although I’m no expert on the matter, we seemed to be inviting pressure and the results really bore that out.

“If we’d held on to those games, people may have taken a different view.”

That being said, the decision to replace Mourinho with the untested Ryan Mason just six days before a League Cup final was seen as inexplicable in many quarters.

The debacle, which ended in a seeming inevitable 1-0 defeat, led to a ridiculous comparative graphic being shown on-screen, highlighting how Guardiola had managed 694 games of senior football, compared to Mason’s two.

It also muddied the waters as to whether Mourinho was truly appointed to win trophies, or whether he brought in to boost Spurs’ brand at a time when the Amazon cameras were being granted unprecedented access into the club’s inner workings.

Levy’s current predicament, though, is another matter altogether.

Conte, Levy’s latest appointment, arguably possesses more power at the club than any of his predecessors, largely owing to his willingness to walk away from projects that do not match his ambition, as he demonstrated at Inter Milan.

The Italian is well aware that Spurs’ golden partnership of Kane and Son are running out of time to collect the titles befitting of their talents and plans to exploit the pressure Levy is under to deliver these trophies, in order to get the backing he feels he requires in the forthcoming summer transfer window.

If Levy does not buckle to these demands, it’s clear that many Spurs fans will make their displeasure known to the Tottenham chairman.

“Conte’s shown in his short period in charge that he’s one of the best coaches in world football, making rather ordinary players very effective,” said Jarvis.

“He did it at Chelsea, winning the league with the likes of Victor Moses who, with all due respect, seemed an extremely average footballer.

“I think there’s of lot of Spurs fans – myself included – that believe if Conte stays and is backed sufficiently in the summer, then they could challenge for the title next season and I don’t think it’s too outlandish to say that.

“Simply put, Levy has to back him, or risk losing him.”

Lose Conte, and risk losing Kane. Lose both, and the road to redemption for Levy begins to look very long indeed.

“We would certainly say there is a lack of transparency and we’ve experienced that in our dealings as a trust with the club. Some of my colleagues were told that there weren’t any discussions about a breakaway league and obviously that wasn’t correct.”
Stephen Cavalier

The European Super League was a truly horrendous idea, that goes against everything that we as football fans hold dear and one that was always destined to be a non-starter.

Firstly, in the sporting merit – or rather complete and utter lack thereof – of the proposal, which was an exclusive competition for football’s wealthiest clubs.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, in the disregard shown for fans at every stage in the planning of the announcement of this breakaway league.

After all, the project was allegedly in the works for three years, an inordinate amount of time to keep loyal fans completely in the dark about a proposal which would permanently alter the way in which the beautiful game operates.

Cavalier added: “I think the European Super League caused a real rift between the fans and the board and that’s still yet to be repaired.

“Now I appreciate that there are some things that are commercially sensitive and you don’t want your own club to be damaged by giving that away. That being said, and I think this is probably true for others as well, there is too much of a curtain over things that should be revealed.

“Part of our push is for proper governance and involving fans in discussions is not just for the cosmetics of it, it’s to make sure that Tottenham make the right decisions to honour the heritage of the club.”

After the debacle was finally quashed, THST urged the entirety of the club’s board to resign over their involvement in the European Super League.

The board’s compromise was to respond with the creation of new ‘club advisory panel’, whose chair will sit on the Spurs board.

THST insist this gesture alone simply isn’t good enough.

Cavalier said: “We asked Daniel Levy if the club advisory panel had been in place when you were having discussions of the European Super League, would you have been obliged to disclose this or would you have been prevented from doing so by your agreements with the league?

“He said they’d have been prevented from doing so.

“That can’t be good enough.

“The bare minimum should be such that, anything like the European Super League which would fundamentally change or damage the competitions Tottenham play in, has to be subject to discussions with fan groups right at the outset, not when it is launched on an unsuspecting public.”
“It is ridiculous that a club of Spurs’ size and stature has not won a trophy in all those years.”
Matt Jarvis
“We’ve now got an excellent manager. If Antonio Conte is there for a long time and money is spent on new players, there’s a chance Levy’s legacy could revolve around that. There’s 100% support for Conte at the moment. The worry is whether that will be built upon, whether Conte will stay, whether Kane will stay.”
Stephen Cavalier

So, what exactly is Levy’s Spurs legacy?

The stadium? The development of Tottenham into a Champions League club? The sense of missed opportunities?

Perhaps it’s a mixture of all three.

However, should Conte stick around, could it yet be something else?

Certainly, it could be argued that Levy has been the maker of his own downfall by heightening expectations at the club through his success.

Indeed, in the last three seasons, as you can see in the graphic below, Spurs have actually outspent both Manchester City and Liverpool, the two clubs at the pinnacle of English football.

They’ve hired Mourinho and Conte, both perennial winners.

The spend may not have always been on the right players, but it has been there.

As such, if the club’s new director of football Fabio Paratici – who knows Conte well from their time together at Juventus – can improve Tottenham’s recruitment, there is hope for the future.

“You only have to look at the January transfer window to see that you don’t have to spend loads to get there, you’ve just got to get the spending right,” added Jarvis.

“Those two [Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski] have already shown more than expensive buys like [Érik] Lamela and [Giovani] Lo Celso ever did. He [Paratici] clearly knows the profile of players that work well in a Conte system.

“Hopefully Levy’s learnt from his mistakes and he’ll back the manager this summer as, if he doesn’t, Conte won’t be in charge next season.

“There is a genuine fear that Levy won’t back him, as that’s what he’s always done wrong. If he doesn’t, it will be his biggest mistake bar none.”

This fear will likely persist until Levy’s one major trophy – the 2008 Carling Cup – is added to.

Of course, get a result on Sunday and pip Arsenal to fourth spot and all will be forgotten.

For the time being, at least…

If you enjoyed this article, then you’ll probably love the quiz below!

From Chas and Dave to Chirpy to Teemu Tainio, how big of a Spurs fan are you? Well, now’s your chance to find out…

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