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- [00:00]
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- [01:27]
Joe from Vanta
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- [02:00]
Ayo Akinwale
The Athletic FC welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akimwale. Spurs are rebuilding after Daniel Levy's exit. So who's running the show now? Are they up for sale? And why is £100 million being put back in to the club? In the studio today we have our spurs reporter, Jay Harris.
- [02:25]
Jay Harris
Thank you very much.
- [02:26]
Ayo Akinwale
Making his Athletic FC podcast debut, Dan Kilpatrick. Good to have you, man.
- [02:31]
Dan Kilpatrick
Hello.
- [02:31]
Ayo Akinwale
Great to be here and twice in two days. We've got Matt Slater with us as well. Good to see you, Matt.
- [02:36]
Matt Slater
Are you bored of me already?
- [02:36]
Dan Kilpatrick
I never.
- [02:38]
Ayo Akinwale
Never, Matt. Never. Never.
- [02:39]
Matt Slater
Okay.
- [02:40]
Ayo Akinwale
All right, let's do it. Jay, let's start with you on this one. Look, Early September, Daniel Levy steps down after 25 years at the helm at spurs. What has it been like since? And, you know, fans happy with the board, happy.
- [02:53]
Jay Harris
I think I'll take the fan perspective first. There were lots of fans who felt quite mixed. We saw lots of protests outside games last season about Daniel Levy's ownership and there were people who were very clearly unhappy. But I think a lot of spurs fans, maybe of the old generation, also respect what Levy had done for the club during his near, I think near 25 years in charge. What's happened in the last month? So much has happened in the last month. It's been hard to keep up with it at times. The announcement came on Thursday, September 4th, and I think it came at half five. And I remember.
- [03:23]
Joe from Vanta
Do you remember that?
- [03:24]
Jay Harris
Because I was going away the next day.
- [03:26]
Ayo Akinwale
Right.
- [03:26]
Jay Harris
And so, you know, you're sort of just settling down into that point thinking, ah, the work day is basically done.
- [03:31]
Dan Kilpatrick
And I was leaving the office. So it was hard.
- [03:33]
Jay Harris
Yeah. And this notification pops up on my phone. It was one of those situations where I had to reread it multiple times because I wasn't too sure if it was a hoax. I didn't want to, you know, drop it into everybody at work only to find out I'd been tricked, but that was the case. And obviously, you know, we just go into, not panic mode, but we go into serious mode and we're all cracking on. So that was on the first day and by the Sunday night, Spurs were releasing statements saying that they were not for sale because they were having all of these different expressions of interest. And I guess in the six weeks or five, six weeks since then, it just feels like every couple of weeks or so, spurs are releasing another statement saying, we are not for sale. There's been expressions of interest from PCP who are linked to Amanda Staveley, Firehawk Holdings, Brooklyn Eric. And it just seems like more and more people were coming out of the woodwork. But spurs are always saying they're not for sale. But then when so many people are putting in offers, it's very hard to sort of tell what the exact truth of the situation is. But since Levy's left, Peter Charrington has become the non executive chairman. Charrington only joined the board in March. Vinay Venkateshem is the CEO. He only joined in April. Earlier in the summer, Donna Maria Cullen, who'd been a really long serving executive, one of Levy's confidants, left. So in the space of six, seven months, that senior leadership at the club has completely changed. And then when you factor into account. They've got a new head coach in Thomas Frank. It's a very new look club and I think we're still working out what all the ramifications of all these different changes are.
- [05:01]
Ayo Akinwale
Yeah, Jay, you're earning your money, mate. Look at all those names just thrown on the table.
- [05:05]
Jay Harris
Just wipe the bead of sweat off my forehead.
- [05:08]
Ayo Akinwale
Well, this is the big one, Dan, and I don't personally know the answer to this, but who actually owns Spurs?
- [05:14]
Dan Kilpatrick
Yes, at this point I could be really boring and just read from the shareholder information page, which is sitting right in front of me. But in a nutshell, Enoch, which is an investment company, owns Spurs. They own 87, little over 87% of spurs and the rest of the club is owned by minor shareholders. And of Enoch, the Lewis family. So certain relatives of the billionaire Joe Lewis own 70% of Enoch and Daniel Levy and certain members of his family own the remaining roughly 30% of Enoch. So the Lewis's own something like 60%, a little over 60% of spurs and levy something like 25% of spurs in a nutshell. But I think, you know, the real takeaway of all this change, as me and our colleague Jack Pickbrook has written really succinctly, is that the impression we got for almost a quarter of a century really was that Daniel Levy was very much in charge of spurs and running the show and his kind of fingers were in every pie. He was almost running the club like a family business. It was very, kind of almost localized. He was surrounded by people he trusted. But in actual fact that what we've learned over the last few months is that he wasn't in charge at all. You know, as soon as the Lewis family decided actually they wanted to make a change, Levy was out. And from the reporting that has been done here at the Athletic, we're led to believe he didn't know that was coming. He was pushed rather than walking away as the club presented at the time. So the ownership model of spurs hasn't really changed at all. In essence it's exactly the same as it was at the end of last season, but it feels like a very, very different club now.
- [06:52]
Ayo Akinwale
Matt, there's a name Jay spoke about earlier. Peter Charrington, non exec chairman. Firstly, can you just tell us exactly what his role is? But also what is a non executive chairman?
- [07:04]
Matt Slater
First thing to say about Pete Charrington, and this is not a personal criticism of the chap at all, is that he, he is quite boring. And that's the source of the point. You know, they've had, after, after the Daniel Levy experience, they've gone boring. So how do I describe him? He, he made, he's a banker, right? And that's not rhyme and slang. He, that he's made his career his life working for banks. We're not rich enough to have heard of guys like this. He, his specialty is private banking. That is for high net worth individuals. So you know, these large banks, they do the finances of large companies and very, very rich people. And then very rich people will say I need a private banker. You know, I want you to work for me and run my affairs. And Charrington's really good at that, really good at that. He's in fact he's recognized within his industry. I think a few years ago he was named the world's best private banker. So he has basically been working for the Lewis family, Joe Lewis family for years. There's something controversial about that and there's nothing really secret or hidden about that. It's just not that interesting. We know that since leaving Citibank he's taken on a number of roles working more closely with the Lewis family. There's one, I think it's one, it's one of their big luxury hotel businesses called Nexus. And that means that Charrington basically lives in the Bahamas where Joe Louis and his family have, have a, have a big sort of day on an island. They have a big sort of business. And I think Nexus in fact is a joint venture with Tiger woods and Ernie Ells. It's you know, luxury resorts and golf courses. So this guy has spent 25, 30 years, very quietly, very grayly being a banker. He knows nothing about sport, he knows about numbers. So he was appointed in March under the radar, clearly under Daniel Levy's radar though if I bet you know, putting two together. Now he wishes he spotted it. So his job was to go keep an eye on spurs, just attend some meetings, zoom calls, whatever, just listen in and then we get the great defenestration out the window. Complete change. The other thing to mention of course is in June Vinay Venkateshem arrived again, slightly imposed on Levy by the Lewis family. Why haven't we got a chief executive? Because at the moment what spurs had was a slightly unusual structure. Chairman. There's something quite strange about charity's job title, non executive chairman. You could argue the non executive is completely redundant. Chairman are normally non executive executive means you are engaged, you're involved in the day to day running of a business. You're kind of a full time employee. That's what you do. Chairmen are supposed to be kind of above that. Chairman, chair, women chairs, they're supposed to attend the board meetings. They're supposed to sort of, kind of almost hold the executives to account. They're almost there to sort of represent shareholders. A kind of a more strategic view, not day to day minutiae. So that is what Chariton's doing, Vinay, is if you like the hands on doing all the stuff that, you know, made the Daniel Levy legend, you know, the, the transfer stuff, the, you know, the, the obsessing about the stadium and the training ground, that's his job, attending shareholder meetings. So they've basically replaced one man with two. Vinay and Charrington.
- [10:30]
Ayo Akinwale
Well, I mean, from what Matt's saying, it sounds like an episode of Game of Thrones here at spurs, but I mean, there's a lot of movement there, especially exec level. How damaging can that be to the running of a club? Especially when you think about transfers, especially when you think about long term planning.
- [10:45]
Dan Kilpatrick
It's sort of succession meets Game of Thrones, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I think obviously stability is important for any club. You know, every club wants a certain level of stability and that's how they tend to thrive and, and be successful. I, I think there's a compelling case at spurs that there'd been too much stability, to be honest, over the last 25 years. I mean, Levy had run the club more or less in the same way for that length of time. He'd surrounded himself by exactly the same people. The boardroom makeup hadn't really changed much and I think spurs had gone stale. I think pretty much every supporter I know had a view on Levy that just wasn't going to change. You know, there was some, there was sort of 25 years of frustrations and people were annoyed about different things but, or pleased about different things. You know, there were still some fans supporting Levi, we should say that. But, you know, some fans were still annoyed that he bought Louis Sahar and Ryan Nelson for Harry Redknapp in January 2012 or whatever. And some fans were still annoyed about the delays to the new stadium. You know, and these positions were entrenched and I think on the other side of it, Levy was entrenched in the way he was running the club. You know, the Leopard was not about to change his spots. He'd run it in a certain way for years and years and he wasn't about to dramatically change that. So it felt like spurs had gone stale. So actually, I think this change at executive level has kind of refreshed everyone associated with the club, certainly the fan base. As Jay touched on, you know, there is a new kind of intrigue and optimism and excitement about what spurs might be trying to do that I don't think was there when Levy was in charge. So we have to wait and see what. Where spurs are going, what the Lewis family plan to do, because we should say, and we'll get onto this, that we don't really know what their intentions are, what they're planning. There's a lot of guesswork going into this, but I think it's a strange situation because as I said at the top, the ownership of spurs hasn't really changed at all. The makeup hasn't really changed, but it feels like a completely new era. It feels like there's been a takeover almost. There's new people in the boardroom, there's new people we're writing about, and there's new people effectively calling the shots.
- [12:49]
Joe from Vanta
And.
- [12:49]
Dan Kilpatrick
And yet nothing materially has kind of changed behind the scenes in terms of the way the club's structured. So I think the stability spurs had before wasn't necessarily a great thing. Now we've had a lot of change, but that in turn might also be a good thing.
- [13:05]
Jay Harris
The one thing we should point out, obviously Dan's just touched upon that Levy was never really going to change. But in the summer, Levy did an interview for the club within. I venkateshem a joint interview, and then he obviously appeared on the overlap with Gary Neville. And one of the biggest criticisms over the years that spurs fans had with Levy is that he never spoke. I remember me and Dan speaking about this last year that you compared him to the. The Queen, right, Where he'd do like a he. He'd speak once a year when the financial statements came out.
- [13:36]
Dan Kilpatrick
He behaved like the monarch. He would. He would speak twice to his subjects. I think the queen did, obviously, Christmas Day and her birthday and Levy did last home game of the season and the financial results. And it's like, that is not. You are not the monarch. It's not a way to communicate with people who you should be accountable to.
- [13:53]
Jay Harris
But we did briefly wonder, okay, maybe the influence of Villabe contession is going to have quite a positive impact on Daniel Levy, and he is going to be pushed to sort of be a bit more open and communicative. But then we just didn't realize that the chess pieces were being moved in a very different way behind the scenes.
- [14:11]
Podcast Producer/Host
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- [15:26]
Matt Slater
As.
- [15:26]
Ayo Akinwale
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- [16:49]
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- [17:21]
Ayo Akinwale
Let's move on because look, there's been lots of speculation as to whether or not the Lewis family want to sell the club. Spurs CEO Vinay at Venkateshem was asked about this after Levy's exit. Here's what he had to say.
- [17:35]
Dan Kilpatrick
Yeah, I've seen that. Very quickly, as you say, there's been a lot of newspaper articles and a lot of media speculation around takeover. So I can be really clear on this. So the Lewis family are really clear. They see their involvement in Tottenham Hotspur being long term and they see their involvement continuing through the generations. We made a statement very late last night and the statement, I hope, was on an ambiguously clear that Tottenham Hotspur is not for sale.
- [17:59]
Ayo Akinwale
Tottenham Hotspur is not for sale. I'm going to put it out onto the table. You take this one first, Matt. Are Tottenham Hotspur not for sale? Because Jay's alluded to a few sort of people who've been sort of flirting around the club so far.
- [18:11]
Matt Slater
Right, I'm going to answer this, put it this way. What I do here is I talk to people about the buying and selling of football clubs all the time and these people don't want to go on the record. So apologies for people who are obsessed about things like that. You know, they just don't. And they are lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc.
- [18:32]
Joe from Vanta
Etc.
- [18:32]
Matt Slater
Who, who facilitate this stuff. And there's a real industry, you know, these people do all over the world, you know, the growth of. The growth of the sports industry. Right? And it's not just it can be football, but it could be other sports as well. But it's mainly football and there's a lot of gossip in the same way, there's gossip about players, right. There's almost a kind of mirror of the micarto. It's not as big because, you know, there's just not as many. There's way more players than clubs. But it's a similar sort of vibe. I can tell you right now. The consensus amongst that lot when Daniel Levy was chopped, you know, and see you later, was, I would say, 100%. This is about a sale. Now, Tottenham have done and said things since then, including that clip we heard, you know, a very emphatic we're not for sale and things like they have effectively sacked. Not sacked, but they stood down the investment bank Rothschilds, who have been advising them, by the way, on things like a for sale, a sale or inward investment for some time. They've stood them down, but at the moment they don't have a named large bank that a company like Spurs, a football club like spurs would have. You would think they would have. They would almost have to have if they were for sale. They don't have one at the moment. And they've done things like this recent capital injection, you know, and the, the way they've treated the offers that have come in their statements to London Stock Exchange. They're certainly projecting we're not for sale. Now, that has shifted opinion in the industry from about 100% there for sale to, I would say, 80% they're for sale. 75% they're for sale. Maybe it's going to take a bit longer than I thought. Maybe they're going to take their own sweet time over this. Maybe they're playing a really, really cute, clever, you know, let's just pause for a bit. Let's just properly take stock of what we've got. But this is going to be a more orderly sale than perhaps it looked like. And I think, if I'm going to be honest, that's where I'm at. I still think they're for sale. I think, you know, Tottenham have been one of those classic sort of cases of we haven't got a for sale sign outside, but someone walks in through the door and makes us an amazing offer. Yep, let's talk. And I think they've ratched it up of that. You know, that's, that's. That was the operation that Daniel Levy was effectively running. I think the Lewis family didn't like what he was doing. And I think we have talked about that before. You know, basically he was trying to sort of do a management buyout that kept him in, kept him in post. They don't like that. There's been a colossal falling out, a succession style falling out. And I think they're still for sale. I'm not accusing them of lying. They're, you know, are they for sale right this instant. No, they've just very politely by the way, I thought it was really interesting the way they rejected Brooklyn Eric. Having said unsolicited, unnecessary initially when they put their statement out on October 6th which was Brooklyn has basically shut up. They get, they sent, they put out what they call a put up or shut up message out file on the stock exchange. He shut up. You know they said you got till October 24 to come forward with a proper bid. He didn't. They were very polite. They, they talked about it being constructive and they sort of said thank you. Blah blah, blah blah blah. They're, they're for sale but they are not as for sale as the market. And people like me thought a month.
- [21:57]
Ayo Akinwale
Ago if the highest bid had come in do you reckon?
- [22:00]
Dan Kilpatrick
I mean, yeah, I guess every club I suppose is for sale for the right price. Yeah. Enoch are an investment company. You know, they bought spurs all those years ago in order to turn a profit. The value of the club now compared to what it was then, the difference is remarkable. You know, we've seen spurs grow, we've obviously seen the whole industry grow. So I think, you know, my gut feeling is that at some point in the not too distant future spurs will, will be sold. Interesting listening to that clip of Vinay he said, you know, generations of, of the Lewis family which kind of suggests that they're looking to, to sort of build a dynasty. I'd be pretty surprised if that was the case to be honest for people.
- [22:43]
Jay Harris
Who are not aware. So Vivian and Charles are Joe Lewis's children who've been spotted at a lot of spurs games recently. And I think it's Vivian's son in law Nick Boucher who's expected to play some sort of role in, in the operation of spurs at moment. And you know we're talking about these expressions of interest being rejected etc to take Brooklyn Eric for example. I felt like that was a little bit performative what he was doing in trying to, he was a chance.
- [23:09]
Ayo Akinwale
It felt like, it felt like it from the outside.
- [23:12]
Jay Harris
But you know he was, he was tweeting the back pages of the sun where he was on, you know, the back page of the sun and he was tweeting photos of it saying like, oh it's been a busy Monday morning. You know, he was tweeting about play Xavi Simmons in the number 10 and let him cook. You know, he's this former, this DJ and tech investor. But it just felt to me quite unserious. I wasn't really surprised that it got rejected. It was 11 days, as Matt said earlier, I think he had until the 24th of October to sort of tell people what he was going to do. And he did it 18 days early. It never felt like that had any genuine legs. So we should also say that, yes, there's been expressions of interest, but I don't know how genuine any of those bids have been or how close they've come to doing anything really well.
- [23:56]
Matt Slater
I was only going to make the point that Jay's just made really about when the generational point who we're talking about here. And the thing I'll say there is that people think that Joe Lewis has been to about a dozen games in the last decade or so. You know, this is, this is a, you know, a guy in his 80s, lives in the Bahamas. He's not been attending games regularly and his children, prior to, to this most recent phase, whatever it is we're in, hadn't been going either. I haven't yet to talk to anybody who genuinely believes that Charles and Vivian have suddenly become the biggest first fans in the world and see this as like what they're going to dedicate their lives to. I, I have heard the son in law story as well, but this is not like this is our family business. This is, this is really important to the Lewis clan. On the contrary. And then I would completely reiterate what Jay has said about those three particular bids. You know, none, none of them really have any substance. They're all very PR led, You know, combinations of kind of tire kicking, showing off. Sometimes people kind of put their name out there to sort of try and attract investment as well. I think with Brooklyn Eric in particular, I have heard from people I trust that there was a tiny bit more to him than met the eye in that he does have, he's a great networker and he does have some interesting friends and very, very wealthy friends, some very wealthy contacts. I, I just always, my, my, my gut reaction was the same as many anybody else's was really, are those people going to work out that they don't actually need him? If they want to buy Tottenham, they, they don't need him. So, you know, one of the names that that was, that has, I think entered sort of, you know, public discourse is Dan Gilbert, who is an incredibly wealthy American billionaire from, from Detroit, but is, is very well known as the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, runs this massive mortgage business called Rocket. I'm told there is, there was a link and maybe Brooklyn Eric was just sort of trying it on a bit Can I create some momentum around a beard and maybe I can bring Gilbert, but no, you know, I. Guys like Dan Gilbert do not need Brooklyn, Eric. And I'm not for one minute suggesting that, that Dan Gilbert is serious spurs either, because I just, I'm told there. There was a sort of connection at some point and I don't think it's ever really come to anything. But yeah, that, that, that one evaporated, as did the Staveley one evaporated, as did the Firehawk one. There. There was very little momentum, credibility. And you certainly don't blab to the Sun. You certainly don't start posting stuff on Instagram. That is not how you buy big football clubs.
- [26:35]
Dan Kilpatrick
Well, to that point, it does feel like spurs are behaving differently since Levy's departure as well. And there's much more openness. They're keen to do everything by the book, hence these announcements. Stock Exchange, which Matt alluded to. And, and that obviously presents an opportunity for someone who wants to drum up publicity for themselves or for their business or for their investments, whatever, to, I guess, pretend or kind of flirt, as you put it, with, with making a bid for a club when they're not particularly serious.
- [27:03]
Ayo Akinwale
Matt, let's talk about this £100 million equity injection by the club. I mean, look, should spurs fans be clasping their hands at possible new signings? I mean, where's this money going?
- [27:15]
Matt Slater
Right, well, again, I'm going to sort of divide my answer into two, right? So let's, let's go with, let's go with the statement, you know, this is about a capital injection into the club. It's. This is like, as a fan, this is exactly what you want. It's not a debt, it's not a loan. Spurs, God knows, have got a lot of that, though. Don't panic. Most, nearly all of it is connected to the stadium, which I think everyone would agree is a. Is a good thing. You don't want to load too much more debt on. On Tottenham, though. So this is a capsule injection. New shares were issued. They have not really communicated, unless I've missed it, Jay or Dan, as to specifically what this for. I don't think this is about a war chest. I think this is about a cash requirement. Whilst spurs fans and even fans of other clubs like to hit spurs over their head with, you know, you. You like ambition, you don't win anything, you don't spend anything. They actually had. They've a huge, like, transfer installment debt. You know, everyone pays on, you know, transfers on installments. Nearly Everybody and Totten slightly unbeknownst to me a very quietly accrued a massive basic credit card bill for transfers. I think it was up to about 270 million as of June last year. I think it was the biggest in the Premier League.
- [28:23]
Jay Harris
279.3 million I think.
- [28:26]
Matt Slater
There you go. I mean I, that slightly surprised me. Now they, they're a well run business. They're absolutely fine for PSR because nearly all of their losses are associated as I said with this depreciation cost of their stadium. Their wage bill is famously you know, tight but they have been buying players on, on the credit card. So I think this is about that at the same time as the 100 million at the beginning of the season. Again this is, you know lots of clubs do this. They took some money up front so they basically factored their next installment of Premier League money and they to take it now. So that gets you know dribbled to you over the course of a season. Let's just for argument's sake say you know a club like spurs is owed 100 million by the Premier League. They took 1995 from Macquarie bank and Macquarie Macquarie's profit will be to take the, take the hundred from the Premier League and there's their 5,5 million pound profit. The numbers are slightly off but I just did it on 100 because it's an easy index. So they've put about 200 million worth of cash into the business and I think it really is about dealing with that, that historic transfer spend. Here's the other explanation. I think Dan explained on the ownership that Enoch own it was about 87% post buying 100 million pounds worth of new shares newly issued shares that only they have bought. It dilutes everybody else. So the minority share guys go down to 12 and a half whatever and Enix stake is now up to nearly 88, 87 point something. Now this is where it gets interesting. Dan mentioned that Enoch is 7030 owned by the Lewis family trusts. Is the split on the family trust still the same? Because that suggests that the Lewis family and the Levy family trusts did this jointly. So they've issued new shares and they've both bought at the same ratio at the same proportion. That is what the club website is trying to tell us. But no one I talk to believes that because the Lewis and the Levy family trusts are not talking. One's just sacked the other unceremoniously. And do we really think the levy family have 30 odd million lying around? We know the Lewises do. If the Levy family trusts did not contribute to this share raise, this capital increase. They have just been knocked down below 25%. Why is that important? Because it means they have just lost a lot of blocking rights under UK Company act law. Right? They have, they, they have less oversight of what's really going on and they certainly can't block things anyway. I know that was very complicated, but this is a theory that is that I say is, is, you know, if rumour mill is spinning on this one, why have they done this? Is this about taking Levy down below 25%?
- [31:25]
Ayo Akinwale
I mean, Dan, you've covered spurs for a while and I'm interested in this because naturally, as a fan I'm thinking 100 million back into the club and as Matt's just indicated, perhaps this is more about having more of a lion's share and more, dare I say it, control.
- [31:40]
Dan Kilpatrick
Yeah, I mean, it's funny, like I'm a Spurs fan and I've covered Spurs for the last decade and the amount of times I've heard kind of fans say, and it's kind of often kind of wishful thinking, oh, if only kind of Uncle Joe would just kind of turn on the cash taps and start enjoy injecting money into the club, then, then we'll be fine. And it did. You know, from the outside looking in on the, on the face of it, it does look a little bit like that's finally happened. You know, when Levy went, the message from a source close to Lewis family was, you know, we're with fans, I think we want more wins more often was what they said, wasn't it? And then all the implication there being Levy's been holding us back. You know, he hasn't been prioritizing the football, which is what a lot of fans were saying. You know, we are now going to prioritize trying to win stuff on the pitch. And that's been repeated by Vinay in the weeks since. I think, you know, the answer is we will have to wait and see. I don't think you learn too much from January transfer windows. Generally, it's such a hard time to do business, but next summer, if the ownership of the club's still as it is now, we might find out if this really is a new era by the way they behave in the summer transfer window. Personally, you know, as I said before, the lesson of Levy's exit was that he wasn't as in charge as he appeared to be to everyone outside the club. I find it quite hard to believe that for 25 years Joe Louis and Latterly, members of Joe Louis family were just kind of sitting back saying to Levy, you run it exactly as you want, we're not gonna be involved at all. You know, this is your baby, you do your thing. I imagine there was some directive from above. So are they really about to kind of rip up that model and go with a completely new one of spending big sailing close to the wind on PSR and all the rest of it? Find it hard to imagine, but again we will just have to wait and see.
- [33:32]
Jay Harris
One thing I've always been intrigued by is the timing of getting rid of Levy. Because it was four or five days after the end of the transfer window. And if you're really displeased with what he's done, why do you let him have the summer and execute your transfer plan under a new head coach? Why? You know, when the statement was released, when Ange Postecogly was sacked, Levy was the one who sort of took complete ownership of, of that decision. But if people higher above are thinking we're not too sure about Levy's long term future, then why do you allow him to take complete control of that situation? Is it a case of you're thinking, you know, if we let him go before the start of the summer when we've just got a new CEO, we might have a new head coach. Is there going to be too much disruption? And it's difficult to factor in those transfer plans. But I still think it's is quite.
- [34:18]
Dan Kilpatrick
Muddied thinking smart enough because Levy signed off every deal, you know, any big deal. He was doing the last phase of negotiations, which again was a frustration for supporters. I wonder if they were just smart enough to realize that if they got rid of him at the end of last season or during the window, before the window, they might have a kind of Newcastle like summer where it was completely rudderless and they were unable to do anything. Whereas actually getting rid of him just after the window closed gave gives them the maximum amount of time to get their ducks back in a row before the big summer ahead.
- [34:53]
Ayo Akinwale
Do you know what? Funny enough you talk about Danny Levy signing off things and also this sort of new era. We haven't spoken about the stadium, Jay. And the fact is this is another sort of money making thing for Spurs. The Broncos just narrowly beat the jets this weekend. Beyonce's played there. There's a go kart track which I've driven on under the stadium. And I'm not going to lie, it's a lot of fun and there's a lot of people going there for these things. I mean that, that's a really good revenue bus, isn't it?
- [35:19]
Jay Harris
Yeah, it's helping them generate loads of revenue. As you mentioned, Beyonce's been there, SZA's been there, Kendrick Lamar's been there. What it offers as a stadium is far superior to the other stadiums in the country, potentially in, in the world. And just the fact that they've earned so much money from that and what it enables the club to do in other areas. And so if you're a prospective investor, that's probably quite a, an attractive factor that you've got a brand new stadium in the middle of London that's hosting all these different events. Of course that would be appealing to people and it's helped spurs out. But also that was very much Daniel Lev Child. Right. He was so involved in the, the design of it, the architecture. He was heavily involved in getting the NF in forging that partnership with the NFL. Etc. It will also be intriguing to see whether that lasts now that he's left because he was such an integral figure to all of it.
- [36:08]
Ayo Akinwale
Okay, Matt, we better say thank you for your sermon and you really appreciate you joining us, mate.
- [36:14]
Matt Slater
Yes, go in peace.
- [36:17]
Ayo Akinwale
Good to you, man. All right, so we've talked about change off the pitch. What about on it? Think enterprise software is too costly, too complex and takes too long to get up and running? Think again. Workday Go makes simplifying your small or mid sized business simple. HR and finance together on one powerful AI platform right at your fingertips. Workday Go gets you live fast and fits the needs of your business. Find out what Workday Go can do for you. Go with Workday Go group health insurance can put businesses in a tough position with rising costs and plans that don't fit everyone's needs. Now a new form of employer coverage called an Ichra or Ichra can help Ichras make costs predictable with stable pre tax contributions. And they make health plans personal because each employee can pick any plan and carrier that meets their needs. Get coverage you control. Learn more@ambetterhealth.com Ichra Pura brings smart fragrance and function together. Premium scents, smart app control and sleek design. And here's the best part. Your first set of fragrances is free. Hurry to pura.com now and upgrade your home. Today.
- [37:48]
Podcast Producer/Host
You'Re listening to the Athletic FC podcast with Ayo Akinwaleere Jay.
- [37:53]
Ayo Akinwale
We have to talk about Thomas Frank. I know you know very well from your days at Brentford.
- [37:59]
Jay Harris
Why do you say it like that?
- [38:04]
Ayo Akinwale
I just feel like every time. I have to caveat it with the time you were at Brentford. You know, it's not a documentary on Brentford guys. I don't know if you've listen to it, go check it out. But real talk though, 10 games in Thomas Frank era. What have you made of it so far?
- [38:16]
Jay Harris
I think it's been a decent start. I went on their pre season tour to Hong Kong and South Korea in the summer and got the opportunity to speak to a few different players. And one thing Ben Davies said, who's a veteran of 10, 11 years at the club, maybe the only surviving member of the 2019 Champions League final now that son's gone, I think. But anyway, someone who's been there for a long time had been really impressed by Frank and one thing he said which has really stuck in my mind was there's low hanging fruit that we can sort of pick at and we'll improve quickly. And I think the obvious area is the defense. They've been so much tighter at the back. They seem to have this newfound resilience. You know, they've scored quite a lot of late equalizers in games recently. They just seem to be a little bit more compact and you know, I think they've got 14 points from their first seven games. Joint second best defensive record, third in the Premier League table. I think all the signs are very encouraging. The only think, you know, they lost to Bournemouth and that was disappointing. You know, it's a shame to lose the UEFA super cup in the manner that they did, but the base level of the performances has been pretty good and I think is a strong foundation for what's to come.
- [39:20]
Ayo Akinwale
And what about the fans perspective? Much more pleasurable watch than potentially high octane football from last season?
- [39:28]
Dan Kilpatrick
Well, yeah, I mean when you're not losing every week in the Premier League fans, fans are generally happier. There are supporters I've seen on social media who are frustrated that there always will be, you know, unless you're, you know, having a kind of Guardiola 100 point season, there's going to be people moaning about something and there's been a degree I think of frustration about the pragmatic approach under Frank this season. But I think it's been a great start to the season really, all things considered. Third in the Premier League, unbeaten, two Champions League games through in the League cup and missing some really important players, you know, notably Solanke, Madison and Kulasevski who are three starting forwards when fit and on form. So he's made a good start. It was always going to be a big, big change from Postecoglou who obviously was all about high octane front foot attacking football. Frank was always going to be a little bit more pragmatic. As Jay says. There's been a shift to. I think low hanging fruits are a brilliant way to describe for instance the set piece improvement, the improvement in the back. I think it's fair to say that spurs are better at the moment or have looked better punching up. They were brilliant against PSG and Man City. Those are the two best performances under Frank. That was kind of true of Frank's Brentford I think as well. They haven't looked so good punching down. The attacks looked clunky at times. Kudas and Xavi Siemens are still bedding in and clearly their two most important attackers. As it stands already, I think that clunkiness going forward is sort of understandable and it was a feature under Postecoglou as and I think it will improve. It makes a lot of sense to me that the defense should be prioritized and is doing well because I think a lot of spurs best players are in defence as well. You know, Romero, Van de Ven, Poro, you know, New England international Jed Spence. You know, these are really good players and they're kind of in a consistent back four. So really encouraging start. A lot of improvement still to come. But you kind of back Frank as the coach that he is to do that and get that out of the players.
- [41:27]
Ayo Akinwale
Okay, well, talking about, you know, games to come. October, November.
- [41:31]
Joe from Vanta
Look meaty.
- [41:33]
Ayo Akinwale
Villa Monaco, Newcastle, Chelsea, Man United. Let's not forget the North London Derby and then PSG in the Champions League. Thomas France, first real outing in the Champions League. I mean what, what can you expect from that bunch of matches?
- [41:44]
Jay Harris
Yeah, this is actually what I'm writing about at the moment because we should say he's playing Newcastle twice at St James's park because of the, the Carabao cup as well. It's going to be really difficult. I think a really key thing for him is how he rotates the team. And from his very first press conference in the summer that I went to, he said that he was really, I guess intrigued about the injury issues that they'd had last year. From what I understand in the hiring process he had asked, you know, the people, you know, Levy, Venkateshm, etc why spurs had suffered so many injuries. He was very aware of it and I think he has made a few clever selection gambles. Maybe for example, he drops Rodrigo Benton Ker and Ja Polinia for the first game of the season against Burnley because they played in the super cup brings Lucas Bergval and Archie Gray alongside Pape Matar. Quite a youthful midfield, but they get the job done and I think that's going to be interesting to see over the coming weeks. It was sort of at this stage of the season a year ago. Things started to unravel under Pogu. I think they lost four of their next eight league games after the October international break, lost to Galatasaray in the Europa League, then drew two games as the fixtures piled up, the injuries piled up. Dan's mentioned it. Arguably the two most important players to this team are Van De Ven and Romero and they had a lot of selection issues last year with injuries. How Frank manages them is going to be key. He needs to get some minutes out of Kevin Danso. Radi Dragonson's coming back from an acl. How he manages all that and also makes the team create more chances is a conundrum because before I, I finish up, I was looking at this earlier, but spurs have scored, I think it's 13 goals in the Premier League from seven games, which sounds good. Only Arsenal, Man City have better records, but their XG is 7.9, I think. So they're massively overperforming it. The next highest overperforming team is over performing it by 2.2. So not only are they not creating a lot of chances, they're scoring bad chances at a very good rate at the moment, but they've been doing it against teams towards the bottom of the table. So the worry is now they're coming up against yet Man United. Maybe I shouldn't include United in that.
- [43:54]
Ayo Akinwale
Don't do that. Just put it on the table. I'm not going, I'm not going into that right now. Just put it on the table.
- [44:00]
Jay Harris
You know, Arsenal, Aston Villa, psg, Chelsea, Newcastle, Man United. Their chance creation is going to be tested in a very different way. And I think that's going to be where this is going to be a real stern test for them. And it's where I think by the end of this six, seven week period, we'll have a much better idea of what they can achieve in Frank's first year.
- [44:21]
Ayo Akinwale
All right, gents, let's leave it there. Jay, Dan, Matt, thanks for joining us and also thank you guys for listening as well. We'll be back tomorrow.
- [44:31]
Podcast Producer/Host
You've been listening to the Athletic FC podcast. The producers are Guy Clark, Mike Stabre and Jay Beale. Executive producers are Abby Pats and Aid Morehead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, including our dedicated club shows. Search for the Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. You'll also find us on YouTube at the Athletic FC Podcast, so make sure you subscribe. The Athletic FC Podcast is an athletic media company production.
- [45:09]
Ayo Akinwale
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- [45:14]
Joe from Vanta
I never looked so good.
- [45:15]
Ayo Akinwale
You look the same, but with this.
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Joe from Vanta
Camera everything looks better. Especially me.
- [45:19]
Ayo Akinwale
You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.
- [45:21]
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Ayo Akinwale
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