Chairman Levy gets it wrong… again and again

DANIEL LEVY stares down from the Tottenham directors’ box, his face as blank as an empty dinner plate. His public statements are rare, unconvincing and usually delivered while washing the blood from his hands after sacking his latest manager.

You will recall: ‘This decision in no way detracts from the excellent work Harry has done during his time with the club’ — Harry Redknapp, June 2012. Or: ‘We feel honoured that

Martin has been manager at our club’ — Martin Jol, October 2007. Or, most recently: ‘I should like to state our thanks for all his efforts during his years with us. We wish him great success in his managerial career’ — Tim Sherwood, May 2014.

In his 13 years as chairman, he has dusted down a version of that speech on nine occasions, as he stuffs their pockets with banknotes and ushers them off the premises. Leave aside George Graham, who he dismissed just a month after assuming the chair, and we find that Levy has hired eight managers, including the so-called ‘caretaker’ David Pleat, and fired them all. Their average tenure was a shade under 20 months.

Each of these men was Levy’s choice and carried Levy’s confidence. Redknapp lasted longest at 44 months, Jol 36 months and Glenn Hoddle 29 months. Sherwood and Jacques Santini stayed for just six months apiece.

In many cases, their arrival and departure involved the hiring and firing of support staffs, with the heavy attendant costs. And the only trophy they have to show for all that expense, all that upheaval, is the League Cup, won in 2008.

In the past, the chairman has treated his critics with disdain but his latest misadventure may prove a sacking too many. For every time Levy jettisons a manager, he effectively admits that he chose the wrong man.

When people like Sherwood, Santini, Pleat and Juande Ramos are sent packing after less than a year in the post, those admissions become damning.

The manager is the single most important appointment that a club chairman makes, yet Levy’s record reads like a string of errors. Imagine the reaction of shareholders if the chairman of a public company were to make a similar number of misjudgments when choosing chief executives.

The man who holds the real power at Spurs is the absentee owner and billionaire tax exile, Joe Lewis. One wonders how he feels about so much bloodletting, so much expenditure, so much shabby chaos, and all for so little reward?

After 13 years of Chairman Levy, the Tottenham followers surely deserve an answer.