CAN DANIEL LEVY REBUILD HIS REPUTATION?

It was a rare apology from a man who prefers to stay in the shadows. “I feel we lost sight of some key priorities and what’s truly in our DNA,” Daniel Levy said in his programme notes for Tottenham’s final home game last season.

It was an admission that Spurs’ much- mocked European Super League involvement was a mistake. Supporters need no reminding that Wigan have won a trophy more recently, and rebelled at the attempt to cheat their way into the elite permanently.

It was also a tacit acknowledgement that hiring Jose Mourinho was a grave error, undoing much of Mauricio Pochettino’s fine work, to the point even talisman Harry Kane lost faith in Levy’s Tottenham. Kane’s 23 league goals and 14 assists could still only take them to seventh spot, earning the unwanted distinction of being England’s first representatives in the Europa Conference League.

Lessons would be learned. Trust would be regained. A chairman who, according to Damien Comolli, was once called one of the best executives in all sports by baseball’s iconic Moneyballer Billy Beane, would rebuild his reputation. Spurs, Levy vowed, would promote youth and play “free- flowing, entertaining football”. Spurs would again stand for something progressive. They would not be blinded by stardust.

The hunt for Mourinho’s successor took on farcical proportions. It encompassed Julian Nagelsmann, Hansi Flick, Erik ten Hag, Brendan Rodgers, Pochettino, Antonio Conte, Paulo Fonseca, Gennaro Gattuso, Julen Lopetegui and Nuno Espirito Santo, but after two months, some had found other jobs, or pledged to stay with their existing employers. Or just not join Tottenham. In the end, they went back to the latter. Forget a Levy masterplan: was there any plan? After all the talk of DNA, he had approached managers whose only common denominator is that they are managers. Try finding a shared ethos among them.

It also amounted to a wretched start for Fabio Paratici, Spurs’ new managing director of football. His arrival may yet prove a coup – though the same could have been said of Gareth Bale last season, and instead Mourinho proved reluctant to pick him – or it could be another piece of scattergun thinking. Levy merits sympathy in one respect – this is the worst time to have a £ 1 billion stadium to repay, when it had appeared his greatest achievement – but the 2019 Champions League Final feels like another era.