“They don’t act like a big club” – Former Spurs midfielder takes aim at Levy

Former Tottenham midfielder Jamie Redknapp has launched a scathing attack on Daniel Levy and the way he runs the club.

In an interview that Redknapp gave to Sky Sports before Spurs announced that they would be reversing their decision to place non-playing staff on furlough, the former midfielder insisted that he was unsurprised by the Tottenham chairman’s initial decision to utilise the Government’s Job Retention Scheme.

The ex-England midfielder, who played at White Hart Lane for two and half years before leaving in 2005, claimed that there were problems with the way the club handled issues even during his playing days in North London.

Redknapp said: “Kane would have been extremely disappointed with how Tottenham have acted (furlough and wage cut decisions) but I have to be honest, having been around Tottenham and played for them, it didn’t surprise me how Levy acted in this.

“You learn a lot about someone in difficult times and he was one of the first to furlough staff. There’s no doubt at all that Kane would have been disappointed with that, but I certainly wasn’t surprised.

“He [Levy] gives me a lot of opportunities [to have a pop at him]. I’ve got nothing against him, and some people have levelled that it’s because he sacked my dad.

“It was such a long time ago, and I have to be honest – a lot’s happened since then. I just feel at times they don’t act like a big club and the club that they should be.

“Other clubs have done it… Newcastle, Norwich, I get that. But Tottenham? No, I know their finances – they’ve got plenty of money behind them, and it just didn’t sit right with me.

“There’s been plenty of times where [I questioned the way] they looked after players and staff when I was there… it was very disappointing and unfortunately it’s arisen again.”

While the 46-year-old admitted that Levy was a good business man, he insisted that his footballing decisions have held Tottenham back over the years and questioned if the Spurs supremo was interested in taking the club to the next level.

The former Liverpool and Spurs star said: “I think Daniel’s a really good businessman in terms of negotiating, it’s very difficult at times, and that’s why you see a lot of players unhappy there and a lot of players wanting to leave. I just feel the club, the fans they deserve better than what they get sometimes.

“Yes, he’s spent a lot of money on the stadium and the training ground, but I feel if they really wanted to push on, they’ve had that opportunity and the ability to do so.

“Daniel Levy hasn’t wanted to press the button because he doesn’t really want to spend the money to push Tottenham onto the next level. He sometimes tries to do things on the cheap, so it’s got nothing to do with being a personal thing at all.”

Spurs Web Opinion

I find the anti-Levy part of the fanbase to be intolerable because some of the people in that camp seem to lack any nuance in their criticism of the Tottenham chairman.

Does Levy deserve criticism for holding us back on occasions and for some of his tactics backfiring in the transfer window? Absolutely. But does he also deserve credit for how far he has taken the club both on and off the pitch during his time at the club? 100 per cent. Fans who watched us in the late nineties and the early 2000s know that we could have well ended up as another Aston Villa, Leeds or Newcastle, and the fact that we are instead a part of the ‘big six’ is down to Levy.

Someone who isn’t interested in the club’s ability to compete with the best teams in the long-term wouldn’t fork out a billion pounds on a new stadium. Levy has set us up financially to compete with the big boys for decades to come.

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