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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Garry Doyle

It is time for a change of direction at Tottenham - Daniel Levy should go

Daniel Levy has completed Tottenham’s first double since 1961. The best chief executive in the club’s history is also the worst.

On the one hand, he can do no wrong.

His buy-them-young-sell-them-on transfer policy has worked - Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Christian Eriksen, Son Heung-Min and Dele Alli all arriving for a combined total of E60m at a time when they weren’t even household names in their own house.

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And those players aren’t the only hot properties Levy has invested in.

Look at the new White Hart Lane compared to the old - a 62,850 capacity making it the third biggest football stadium in England after Wembley and Old Trafford.

Check out Tottenham’s superb training ground - built for a net cost of E30m and regarded as the best in the Premier League.

Impressed? If not then perhaps you should remember the 10 years prior to Levy’s arrival. Tottenham’s highest league finish in that 1991-2001 period was seventh, their lowest 15th.

And look at them now, appearing in their fifth Champions League in seven years even though their budget is the lowest of the Premier League’s Big Six.

Best of all, have a glance at the Forbes list of the world’s richest clubs. Tottenham are right up there, ranked tenth, valued at E2.2 billion. Ten years ago the club's estimated worth was E485m.

That's fine if you are a shareholder. But fans don't get excited about financial league tables - only Premier League ones.

And Spurs haven't finished on top of that since the Premier League began.

In fact since the first league championship was contested in 1888, 14 clubs have won more titles than Tottenham have.

Worse again, since their golden era under Bill Nicholson in the 60s, they have finished runners-up just once - standing aside to watch others climb the podium: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Ipswich Town, Derby County, Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Everton and Leicester.

In Levy’s 22 years at the helm, Tottenham have won one trophy whereas the remaining members of the Forbes Top Ten have shared 92 League titles, 22 Champions Leagues, 11 FIFA Club World Cups and 60 domestic Cups (excluding EFL Cups and their continental equivalents) between them.

That 2007/08 EFL Cup looks lonely in comparison.

If only that was where the shame ended.

But it is 32 years since Spurs last won the FA Cup - a trophy once synonymous with the club.

Since then Arsenal (nine times), United (five), Chelsea (seven times), Liverpool (four times) Portsmouth, Wigan, Leicester (once each) and City (twice) have succeeded where Spurs have failed.

That's before we mention that Tottenham haven’t even reached the final in that timeframe whereas mighty Millwall, Cardiff, Stoke, Hull, Watford, Sunderland, West Ham, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton, Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace, Newcastle and Aston Villa all have.

It makes you wonder why the club’s To Dare is To Do motto hasn’t been replaced by To Balance The Books.

For that’s what Levy’s Tottenham stand for.

They are a commercial success, revenues more than doubling in the last decade, the club raking in E451m last year compared to E211m in 2012.

You can’t fault Levy’s business sense, his genius at striking sharp deals, his prudence when it comes to the buying and selling of players.

But his and Tottenham's strength is also their weakness.

You only have to look at the trophies Modric, Bale and Kyle Walker acquired at Real Madrid and City to get an idea of what could have been had Levy cared more about the team sheet than the balance sheet.

On the one hand it’s deeply admirable he keeps such a close eye on Tottenham’s wage structure - the lowest of the Big Six.

On the other, you wonder if they could have kicked on in 2018 after finishing third, second and third across the previous three years.

But that year they became the first club in Premier League history not to spend in the summer transfer window.

They still managed to reach the Champions League final the following season but the year after that Mauricio Pochettino was gone.

And so was respect for Levy.

Jose Mourinho came in and lasted 17 months.

Next came Nuno Espirito Santo - their sixth manager in a decade.

Four months later Antonio Conte became their seventh.

Antonio Conte is the latest Spurs manager (Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I)

Four months. Is that all it takes to decide whether a man is up to the job?

Surely if a manager was found to be that much out of his depth in such a short period of time then the person who appointed him should also get the sack?

Hindsight may be a wonderful thing but when you are the highest paid chief executive in the Premier League, on a reported E6.76m salary per annum, you are required to have foresight.

But while Levy may be a mastermind at upgrading stadiums and training grounds, adept at cutting transfer deadline day deals to get the optimum value for Tottenham’s players, his record shows that when it comes to hiring and firing, inspired choices (Pochettino, Harry Redknapp) have mixed with average ones (Andre Villas-Boas, Jacques Santini, Juande Ramos, Glenn Hoddle, Mourinho, Santo).

Now it is Conte who he has in charge.

His Spurs team could beat Manchester City one week and then lose 4-1 to Leicester the next.

Their fans even have a word for that maddening inconsistency: Spursy.

The two things they are consistently known for is getting outspent by their rivals, and having indifferent attitudes to domestic cup competitions.

So much for the idea that this 'game is about glory' as their most famous captain once declared.

These days, at White Hart Lane, it seems to be solely about accountancy and that's not good enough for a club that gave the game Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay, Jimmy Greaves, Ossie Ardilles, Glenn Hoddle and the Latin words audere est facere - to dare is to do.

Well, the best thing their chairman could do now is quit.

Daniel Levy should become Daniel Leave-y.

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