I Love Daniel Levy

Firstly, I’ll apologise in advance for anyone who is browsing into this blog for the first time ever. This is an editorial written especially for the girls and boys of the official Tottenham Hotspur forum. I would have signed up to it myself and posted my response there but unfortunately to sign up you need to include info relating to your season ticket or membership. Which means, if I did, I’d be giving away my identity. The thread that has inspired me to write this article is probably no more than a ploy by Daniel Levy to catch me out. I wasn’t born yesterday Mr Chairman, no sir.

So, don’t judge me on the basis of this vanity enriched rant.

To be honest I don’t care whether people like me or this blog. I write for myself and for people who have followed my letters to the chairman over the past several years. Blogging is a bit like Marmite. My articles range from long winded rants to match reports and caption competitions. It’s not a run of the mill everything in black and white website. You’ll have one reaction from one person for a blog entry and a completely opposite reaction to the same entry by someone else. And I love that. Everyone has a differing opinion. Nothing ground-breaking with that.

Opinions aside, it all depends on how serious you take yourself and whether you have an ability to read between the lines. Ironically, I get it that I’m taking myself too seriously by writing this up. But I can assure it has more to do with the fact that I have ten minutes to spare than it does ego.

So this is my reaction to the thread on the official forum that had one brave chap post and tell everyone he likes my blog. What a mistake to make. The reaction, overwhelmingly, was that (according to the residents there) my blog is utter crap. I’m not going to lie. I felt all warm inside. It’s been called worse.

The thread then turned into a pro/anti Levy ‘discussion’ (which included an invite for one of the members to meet up outside the pub to continue the discussion face to face – I guess moderation isn’t a key element in their community).

There are various sound-bites about Levy being a leader and one that we can be proud of and that he makes mistakes but usually gets it right. And that basing our opinion on our league position and transfers is very childish. Levy is apparently a good businessman and one that has made us profitable and respectable. Blaming him is possibly a kneejerk for wanting to place blame on someone, anyone. Probably because we live in a blame culture.

Talking of which, I don’t blame anyone for thinking I’m loony tunes if they glance quickly at my blog. I guess most will browse off and never return because they take every word literally or simply dislike my style. In fact I've changed my mind and I’m not even going to explain myself on this. People who can be arsed will work it out for themselves. If you don’t or can’t then that’s cool. Plenty of forums and blogs out there that I’m sure are tailored just fine for you. I’m not everyone’s English cup of tea. This whole blog was birthed from Glory Glory.co.uk. Maybe it should have stayed there.

Now to attempt to answer one or two of those sound-bites, I’d like to state that Daniel Levy has made some major errors in judgement. Critical ones.

He has already admitted that the reason he appointed a Director of Football was because he needed to entrust someone to take care of the footballing matters because he knows nothing about football. His words. And it turned out great for him because he could blame the Ramos appointment on Comolli and use him as a scapegoat when it all went tits up and then play the PR game by going back to basics with the Harry appointment.

For a club that is so financially stable and quite obviously has money to waste, we don’t actually make any progress. In the true sense of the word. I guess that’s fine in some ways. We are not a yo-yo club like West Ham and we are not shambolic politically like Newcastle. We have our soap opera elements that the press love to hate on us for. But so has every club. But is that a good enough excuse to hide the cracks (the ones purely related to football management) that constantly re-appear no matter how many times we plaster over them?

Back in the day, fans on the terraces never spoke that much about the chairman and the board of directors. It's not lost on me that Irving Scholar messed the club up. And it's not lost on me that to be able to compete in the transfer market you need a foundation.

The foundation is here. It’s holding us up with strong ENIC bricks. We just don’t want to turn the bungalow into a high rise. We want to build on the foundation. We talk the talk. We bring in the builders. They just turn out to be cowboys and the roof caves in.

The footballing side of the club is not run with any cohesiveness. Whether there’s a plan in place or a transfer policy (why nobody dared question the ‘buy them young sell them for a massive profit’ tactic employed by Levy still astounds me) it’s always seemed a little superficial. And now it's almost desperate with the Redknapp appointment and his choice in transfer policy.

When I look back at the summer, so blinded by the Berbatov saga, I actually initially supported Levy's stance until it dawned on me pretty quickly that his actions and delays cost us heavily. But that’s ok. Because we can spend £15M a time on any player we wish because we got no debt, innit. So much so, we no await planning permission for a new stadium.

What? You waiting for me to slate him for that too? Hmm. Nope. But the point is one of overall responsibility.

Maybe, in some ways, expectations from the media and fans, pressure the chairman. Maybe our impatience plays a part. Maybe the chairman is weak.

If you look close enough, you’ll understand the in-joke.

Sorry for being pretentious and cryptic. To be honest, I could be writing a blog article about Darren Bent and his latest whinge, and I’d much rather be doing that. But I guess ego does play a part after all.