Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy is a busy man. Since the departure of Damien Comolli, he has taken on the task of signing players on top of his already lengthy list of responsibilities. Given the problems Tottenham have had during this transferwindow, is it fair to conclude that he needs some help?
In the last couple of days, Tottenham appear to have got their act together. After months of endless speculation with no real signs of movement it appears the club have finally stirred themselves into action. Emmanuel Adebayor has been confirmed on a season-long loan from Manchester City and Iago Falque, an attacking midfielder from Juventus has also agreed to join for a season (although how he will fit in is hard to say). On top of these moves, Spurs are now in talks with Joe Cole whilst Lassana Diarra remains ‘a real possibility’ according to Harry Redknapp.
However, it seems strange that throughout the summer, Tottenham maintained that the squad needed cutting down before new players could be brought in and yet so far, of all the unneeded high earners, only Robbie Keane has been sold. In May, this was Levy’s primary task, to offload Bentley, Keane, Krancjar, Bassong and Palacios amongst others. This has not been done.
Levy has always overseen Tottenham’s sales, developing a reputation for driving a particularly hard bargain, but this summer that hard stance does not appear to have worked and the fringe players remain on their exorbitant salaries.
In the end, the era of Comolli did not work out. His track record had some impressive successes, such as Bale and Modric and some startling failures such as Bentley and Dos Santos, but at least he was decisive. He got things done. Whilst I’m eternally grateful for Levy for keeping transfers out of Harry ‘administration’ Redknapp’s hands, it has felt this summer that he is biting off more than he can chew.
If Levy had succeeded in offloading the squad players at the start of the summer, Tottenham may have been in a better position to actually do some buying. The loan deals are a temporary fix but the fundamental problem remains, Spurs cannot pay too many people too much money and it is this that Levy was supposed to address. Of course he has been distracted by endless stadium shenanigans and the Luka Modric situation but in the end the squad should have been trimmed and quality players actually purchased instead.
This recent activity is good but with a bit of help this summer Levy and Tottenham could have done a lot more and done it quicker.
Written by Philip Wroe for FootballFancast.com.
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well keep giving money to redknapp, and we sure as hell will get joe cole and cbellamy. and if we are lucky, sol campell and david james. harry hasn`t got a clue what will make spurs a better team. well we are now officially the new p,mouth. we got the same results as they got when redcrapp was manager there, and a coupple of the same players.