Could Tottenham have scored any more own goals?
REMEMBER at the start of this, the club it was thought would benefit most from football’s lockdown? Tottenham. By the time the sport resumed, it was reasoned, Jose Mourinho’s injury worries would be over. He would have Harry kane fit, he would have Son Heung-min back. Tottenham would be at full strength again, ready to take advantage of the hiatus. Since when, the coronavirus crisis has gone a bit, well, Spursy. Furloughing non-playing staff on the day the chairman, Daniel Levy, announced a £4million wage, and £3m bonus, was a PR disaster. kane has given an interview hinting, for the first time, that he is growing tired of his empty trophy cabinet. Mourinho was pictured flaunting the lockdown and social distancing rules, during a training session with three players on Hadley common, earning the condemnation of, among others, London Mayor Sadiq khan. a story has appeared suggesting Levy is considering employing underused Tottenham staff to work on his estate. Finally, industry experts believe the economic crash will greatly reduce what Tottenham had hoped to bank for a naming rights deal on the new stadium. Much of this is beyond Levy’s control. He cannot put a tail on Mourinho, or affect the inevitable financial collapse that follows a modern pandemic. as for mowing his grass, if Levy is so tone deaf that he would consider such a measure — having so far refused to top up the 20 per cent of salary missing after furlough — then he might find people heading his way with pitchforks and flaming torches rather than hedge-clippers. The furloughing decision, however, is the nub of it: Tottenham’s worst business since making Roberto Soldado their record signing in 2013. it alienated the club overnight: from its supporters, from the casual fan, from the wider public. if Tottenham really are in such a parlous state that they cannot afford to pay non-playing staff for a matter of months, then the merit of Levy’s bonus is questionable. There is, however, an interesting issue around kane this summer. His answer to a question about his future was hardly mutinous. He merely said that he had ambition and would not stick with Tottenham indefinitely without evidence of progress. What player, in his position, would? in the past, however, kane’s language has been more cautious. This seemed like an opening gambit from a player who will be 27 in July and may feel he misses the boat if he stays another season. Perhaps he considered the state of football when it emerges from this crisis and wondered if he had already waited too long. Equally, knowing what Spurs will want for him, and the depressed state of the market, how could any agreement be reached? ‘Daniel loves a deal.’ That is the perception of Levy inside football, certainly at Manchester united, who could be among kane’s suitors. But Daniel also effectively shut down Tottenham’s recruitment department at the time of furlough, and his statement explaining the wider decision did not suggest spending time and money searching for a decent striker when he already has an extraordinary one on the books. ‘When i hear stories about player transfers this summer like nothing has happened, people need to wake up to the enormity of what is around us,’ Levy said. ‘We need to realise football cannot operate in a bubble. We may be the eighth largest club in the world by revenue, but all that data is irrelevant.’ That does not sound like a man, or a club, having a ‘good’ coronavirus. That sounds like a man who thinks the world is about to end.