LEVY SHOULD FOLLOW JOSE OUT TO HELP SPURS GET BEST MAN IN
IT is fair to say Daniel Levy has a lot on his plate right now.
Keeping Harry Kane happy, for starters.
And then addressing a relationship with the club’s fans that has probably gone from fraught to deeply fractured.
On Friday night, the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust called for the executive board of the club to resign.
Board members will, of course, not resign – but this supporter backlash is not going to be a passing fad.
Never mind the craft beer bars, live music and artisan food stalls in the walkways of the £1billion stadium, because when supporters are allowed back in, it will be uprising time.
Meanwhile, Levy, having sacked Jose Mourinho, has to get them a new manager. It would not be surprising if Levy did not put his full heart, full soul and the full might of the owners’ wallet into this one.
Levy, like other key figures in the Super League saga, is surely on borrowed time at the club.
But hopefully, he will want to make what might well be his last managerial appointment a good one.
RB Leipzig boss Julian Nagelsmann would fit the bill.
But how does Levy sell Spurs to Nagelsmann? Or even to someone such as Brendan Rodgers?
Of the top halfdozen in the betting market, Nagelsmann and Rodgers are the stand-out candidates.
Money, as in personal remuneration, of course, might help. It always does.
You can have all the worries about the ambitions of a club you want but a £15million salary is normally a trump card.
Mind you, Nagelsmann and Rodgers are already very handsomely paid, and the German would be well looked after by his alternative suitors, Bayern Munich.
Odd as it seems, Levy is going to have a tough time selling Spurs to some candidates.
Regardless of whether they sneak a Champions League slot – and that looks rather unlikely – Kane will probably decide he could do with a new challenge and try and force a move through.
Even if Kane says he wants to honour his contract, this Spurs squad is not good enough to mount a title challenge.
A Nagelsmann or a Rodgers would need serious guarantees of serious recruitment.
And considering the financial impact of the pandemic on Tottenham – remember, they also have a £175m
Government loan to repay – those
Julian Nagelsmann and Brendan Rodgers would need serious guarantees of serious recruitment ...and those guarantees will be hard to deliver guarantees will be hard to deliver.
Levy’s track record is not exactly stellar in that department, either.
If Nagelsmann does have Bayern as an option, that is hard to compete against.
Quite frankly, so is Leicester City.
And next season, those two organisations will not have to deal with a fanbase that feels betrayed by the ownership of their club.
In Spurs’ case, also by its chairman, its figurehead.
If he wants to get the very best successor to Jose Mourinho, Daniel Levy will have to make a lot of promises. And one of them might be that he himself – no matter how good a job he thinks he has done over the past two decades – will do the honourable thing and walk away.