Credit To Daniel Levy For Tottenham’s Summer Transfer Deals

It’s not often a club Chairman receives any praise from the fans but the Tottenham Chairman, Daniel Levy deserves some credit for Spurs’ transfer activity this summer.

Take a bow Mr Levy. Photo: Jav The_DoC_66]

It has finally dawned on Daniel Levy or Joe Lewis or whoever holds the purse strings at Tottenham that to succeed, Spurs needed to invest and take a risk on the spending front. No-one wants to see the club over stretched financially and Levy has done an exceptional job to ensure that wouldn’t happen. Sometimes, however, fans were left exasperated when previous transfer windows closed without the completion of a signing which could possibly have taken Spurs into the top 4. We cried out for Mr Levy to take a risk for once and speculate to accumulate. A twitter conversation touched on this yesterday.

For the past two seasons it was generally agreed by supporters and pundits alike that Tottenham were only a couple of players away from breaking into the top 4. The signing of a goalscoring striker in any of the past four transfer windows might have done the trick. Or, perhaps, the signing of Joao Moutinho from Porto twelve months ago. It seemed that the whole summer had been devoted to the completion of that transfer, and one that Andre Villas-Boas was very anxious to see completed.  It wasn’t to be and is something which disappointed AVB as he told the Portuguese media in comments which were reported in the Record.

"We did everything to hire him, but we got to the last day, we tried yet we didn’t have time to complete the operation. It was a pity, because the arrival of Moutinho to the club would have been interesting for us."

Like many Tottenham supporters I’ve felt frustrated at how slowly it took Tottenham to close a deal and how they left so many of their negotiations to the very end of August which so often meant that the manager was working with an understrength side in the opening three matches of each season.

In an article last June, I pointed out the need for early action in the transfer and Mr Levy has responded appropriate manner.

Take a Bow Mr Levy

This summer it has been different, the Chairman has taken a different approach. He has:

• held out, to date, in the face of aggressive attempts by Real Madrid and the Spanish press to unsettle Gareth Bale to push through a transfer to the the Bernabeu.

• backed his manger so that it will be AVB’s team in 2013-14 and not a team he inherited.

• continued last summer’s transfer policy and brought in more quality players with experience to strengthen the team and the whole squad in order to cover for injuries and loss of form.

• signed players early and in time to play in Sunday’s opening game at Selhurst Park. Paulinho, Nacer Chadli, Roberto Soldado and Etienne Capoue could all make their Premier League debut against Crystal Palace.

• broken Tottenham’s transfer record twice – unheard of.

• signed a striker with an impressive goalscoring record over the past five seasons in La Liga in Spain.

• removed a number of players who were surplus to requirement and have made little contribution to the Spurs’ cause over the past couple of seasons.

• continued to look for additional players to build on Spurs’ very exciting squad with more signings and departures expected in the final two weeks of the transfer window according to AVB.

That is an impressive amount of work by the Chairman this summer, supported by Spurs’ recently appointed Technical Director, Franco Baldini. AVB clearly appreciates the work Baldini has done and is obviously very happy with the players who have come in to strengthen the team. Speaking to the press his comments were reported by the Daily Mail.

"I have an excellent group of players and the conditions and structures we have at Tottenham are fantastic. The arrival of Franco Baldini takes us to another level so these are the things I had to measure."

The cherry on the cake would be if Mr Levy could hold off any further approaches from Real Madrid for Bale but with the general view being that the player is determined to leave, we may have to face up to that disappointment in the next fortnight. On previous occasions when players left under such circumstances – Michael Carrick, Dimitar Berbatov and Luka Modric – Spurs were greatly weakened but this season, while Bale will be missed, an understatement, Tottenham have attempted to prepare in advance for his leaving White Hart Lane. The Welshman can’t be replaced but Spurs have done the next best thing and signed players to make Spurs stronger as a team. AVB spoke of his aim in the transfer window.

"Our idea is to build a team that has two players per position three in the goalkeeper’s case that allows us to keep the same quality."

If that can be achieved it would eradicate the problem of over reliance on individual players who are over-used and get no opportunity to rest or recover properly from minor injuries which as the season progresses eventually catches up with them.

Well done Mr Levy, you deserve great credit for the transfers that have been completed to date. Come the close of the transfer window in early September, hopefully, you will be able to sit back and enjoy the football while AVB and his team complete the job with a Champions League finish come next May.

If you have any spare time, perhaps, you could push on with the new stadium, that would be appreciated.