Source: Daily_Mail
MARTIN SAMUEL: Why Spurs are loath to fund Harry Redknapp's grand designs
Young Boys 3, Lucky Boys 2, read the headline, but the luckiest Tottenham Hotspur boy was not even on the pitch in Berne last week. Daniel Levy, the chairman, looks to have got away with it, just. Tottenham should achieve the victory that will see them through to the Champions League proper at White Hart Lane on Wednesday night and Levy's caution in the transfer market this summer will not have come at enormous cost. [LNB]It is, however, a close call, and may yet prove disastrous if the Swiss spring a second surprise. Most tellingly, it demonstrates the delicate balancing act that is modern club ownership. Like one of those hotel shower taps where the difference between scalding hot and freezing cold is 0.0007 millimetres, it is an astonishing game of brinkmanship that the money men are now expected to play. [LNB]This time last year, Harry Redknapp, Tottenham's manager, was pushing Levy to buy more players. Redknapp is always short of players. He could have squad numbers running into three figures and there would still be one player needed to make his squad complete. Redknapp's complaint about being down to the bare bones is as much a hardy annual as the post that obscures Arsene Wenger's view of contentious incidents or the referee that has cost Steve Bruce another three points.[LNB] Safe hands: The form of Heurelho Gomes has vindicated Daniel Levy's refusal to buy David James for Spurs[LNB]On this occasion, Redknapp was pushing for two additions and seemed to have a point. He wanted a goalkeeper because Heurelho Gomes was judged too flaky and a centre half because Tottenham have cornered the market in outstanding defenders with injury problems to match.[LNB] Redknapp had targeted David James of Portsmouth and Matthew Upson of West Ham United. Levy would not sanction either transfer and was thoroughly vindicated. Upson had a poor season for his club and James struggled with injury. Redknapp, as he often does, then worked wonders with Gomes, who became one of the Premier League's best goalkeepers, and Michael Dawson pulled through despite an inauspicious start to solve Tottenham's problems in the centre of defence. Tottenham finished fourth and qualified for the Champions League third preliminary round. At which point Levy's stance grew even more interesting. [LNB]Tottenham have not spent big again. Redknapp has attempted to prise Scott Parker from West Ham - without success - and has signed free agent William Gallas after the defender's departure from Arsenal, but the investment that would be expected of a club once it has dived into the elite pool has been missing. [LNB]If Tottenham do not maintain last season's position or, worse, fail to capitalise on that achievement against Young Boys tonight, Levy will be perceived to have frittered away an opportunity to change the status of his club in the modern era. If he bet the farm on taking Tottenham forward, however, and it was still not enough to keep Sheik Mansour and Manchester City at bay, he risks placing a successful, viable business in jeopardy. Why anyone thinks owning a football club is fun in the current climate, heaven knows. [LNB] More from Martin Samuel... MARTIN SAMUEL: Don't mock City, they may not be as silly as you think...22/08/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: A town ruined by Rooneys? I don't buy it19/08/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: England's problems are between the ears, not in footwork17/08/10 Martin Samuel: Carroll had his chance and blew it at Old Trafford16/08/10 Martin Samuel: At this rate, stars won't survive till September... 15/08/10 Martin Samuel: Oh boy, this is what the Premier League is really all about15/08/10 Martin Samuel: Fabio Capello, England's very own Mr Muddle, has really cocked it up this week12/08/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: Come on, Stelios, a refund should be easy-peasy22/07/10 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE Levy might be walking a tightrope but he warrants praise in at least taking responsibility. There are far too many club owners who get into trouble financially and then point the finger at a wasteful manager, as if employees are autonomous and can pull up millions without consultation. Redknapp's powers of persuasion have been blamed for the downfall of Portsmouth and the first of many financial crises at West Ham. This is unfair. Yes, Redknapp's love of a new signing is legendary and his demands can push the resources to the limit, but who can blame him?[LNB]Managers are judged purely on results, and the strongest teams win most matches. There are plenty of good boys out there: managers who watch the chairman's money as if it were their own and they are three straight defeats from the sack just the same. Redknapp fights as hard as he can to give himself the best chance of doing a good job, just as Martin O'Neill did at Aston Villa. Nothing wrong with that. The owner has a tongue in his head and the right to say no. It is a fair fight, as Levy's resilience has proved. [LNB]I made this point last season when Portsmouth hit the rocks and was taken to task by Terence Brown, former chairman of West Ham, who has also blamed Redknapp for financial pressures. 'It isn't as simple as that,' he sniffed, as if Redknapp is some mindcontrol guru. [LNB]Yes it is. If you cannot afford a player you say no, as Randy Lerner said no to O'Neill. Some managers will quit, Redknapp will moan and the supporters may become frustrated, but they will come to understand a reasoned argument for prudence. Levy still has them on his side at White Hart Lane, and he has been saying no to Redknapp for over a year now. [LNB]Whether his caution will prove justified a second time is another matter. Young Boys have presented more difficulty than anticipated, yet, even if Tottenham progress as expected tonight, nobody believes they will become champions of Europe. This means that to maintain their position in the tournament they will have to finish in the top four of the Barclays Premier League again and, with the amount of money thrown at this target by Manchester City, the long-standing superiority of Manchester United and Chelsea, plus Arsenal ' s improvement, this will prove harder than ever. [LNB]Wheeler dealer: Harry Redknapp is constantly on the look-out for new talent[LNB]If Levy does not invest, and Tottenham's challenge fades, he will, like Lerner, be considered a man whose courage faltered when it mattered most. [LNB]Whatever Levy spends cannot match the scope of the project at Manchester City and are Tottenham a match for the traditional Champions League elite clubs, the fading Liverpool aside? If Levy plunged into the transfer market with a £50million or £100m investment and it still wasn't sufficient, where would Tottenham be? [LNB]It is a ridiculous balancing act that club owners are being asked to perform these days; and while it is easy to blame Manchester City's owners for distorting the cost of success, they are merely trying to catch up with clubs that have lived off the extraordinary dividend of the Champions League season after season. [LNB]This is the real problem, and Levy's great dilemma. Last year, Liverpool earned £23.6m from UEFA for getting knocked out at the Champions League group stage, while Fulham banked £8.1m for reaching the final of the Europa League. Levy will feel an imperative to invest to keep the good times going, while all the time knowing the calamitous double whammy of failure: a huge transfer deficit and at least £15m knocked off competition revenue streams. It could place his club in jeopardy. [LNB]So he will continue being a hardass. Tottenham, having seemingly given up on Parker, have now turned their attention to Lassana Diarra, who is available for £10m from Real Madrid. It is a sign of the times that this is no longer regarded as a particularly startling or ambitious investment for a club with designs on the Champions League. It made a few paragraphs in the newspapers at the weekend, but no more, confirming the predicament that faces the chairman of every ambitious club.[LNB]Levy is expected to go for it, with no guarantee of what he is going for, his upside being the opportunity to do it all again next year; his downside being ruin and bottles bouncing off his Bentley all the way down Tottenham High Road. What fun.[LNB] It was little more than a week ago that Liverpool were considered to have had a greatly encouraging pre-season. [LNB]Roy Hodgson, the new manager, was popular with the players and had won loyal assurances from Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres; the signing of Joe Cole was hailed as a masterstroke; there was a new buyer on the horizon promising funds, and early form was encouraging. There was even a half-chance of keeping Javier Mascherano. [LNB]Now, the buyer has gone, Joe Cole is banned for two more games after receiving a red card on his debut and hopes of a barnstorming comeback from last season's seventh place suffered hugely with a 3-0 defeat at Manchester City. A tricky tie away to Trabzonspor in Turkey stands between Liverpool and serious involvement in European competition, and Mascherano is on his way to Barcelona. [LNB]Long time, nine days, isn't it?[LNB] So why is Arteta more foreign than Capello?The outrage over the potential selection of Mikel Arteta (below) for England grows more amusing by the day. The idea that the Football Association should advise Fabio Capello against picking him is the most preposterous development yet. [LNB]The FA forfeited any right to lecture on the sanctity and uniqueness of the international game the day it appointed a foreign manager. Indeed, Arteta's five years with Everton indicates greater commitment to English football than Sven Goran Eriksson or Capello had shown before being offered the manager's job. [LNB]Major nations, including Germany, Spain and Portugal, have long considered residency and citizenship issues when it comes to selecting players. How utterly pretentious for England to pretend to be above this, while importing Italian expertise wholesale to run the team. [LNB]International football is a simple concept: the best of yours against the best of theirs. Arteta's time at Goodison Park makes him one of us more than Eriksson or Capello. Also the manager has greater influence than any player; so by appointing an Italian, the FA are as good as cheating, even if they break no FIFA rules. [LNB]There are all sorts of rationalisations now advanced to justify the appointment of a foreign coach. The laziest is to accuse critics of xenophobia, and the most fashionable is extrapolation. It is asked, sarcastically, whether all assistants, coaches, kit men and laundry workers have to be English too? [LNB]The answer, of course, is yes, yes, yes and yes. Seriously, if they can't find an Englishman capable of washing the kit, the FA truly does need overhauling. [LNB]As for the argument that no Englishman is sufficiently qualified to coach England: tough. If our system is so flawed it is producing such limited coaching talent, then the national team should be made to suffer. Throwing the riches of the English game at the problem to mask our own failings is not right. [LNB]So having broken one of the basic tenets of international football, the FA is in no position to advise Capello on whether Arteta, a Spaniard, should be selected. He qualifies for England the same way Cacau, a Brazilian, qualifies for Germany. We cannot have it all ways. We cannot pilfer talent from our rivals one day and wrap ourselves in the flag the next. [LNB]The argument that picking Arteta is a snub to young English players cuts both ways; how must young English coaches feel, then, to be so thoroughly rejected by the system that schooled them?[LNB] The most wonderful sight of the weekend was AFC Wimbledon, second in the Conference, level on points with leaders Luton Town. It is early days, but there are genuine hopes of promotion to the Football League. [LNB]AFC Wimbledon first entered the Isthmian League First Division in season 2002-03, and were they to come up it would expose the falsehood at the heart of Milton Keynes Dons, the club formed from the theft of the old Wimbledon. [LNB]At the time, Pete Winkelman (right), owner of MK Dons, said he could not possibly have invested in the existing team in his locality, Milton Keynes City, because the journey to the Football League would take too long. [LNB]As a result the standard bearers for football in the city since 1974 folded in July 2003, victims of Winkelman's demand for instant promotion and recognition. They were his collateral damage, their passing almost unrecognised. [LNB]It is painful that Milton Keynes and its zombie football club are now considered appropriate hosts for World Cup football in 2018 and, if there is any justice, by then AFC Wimbledon will have a higher league status. [LNB]There is no reason why Winkelman could not have waited for his reward rather than grabbing it. Every true fan would welcome the return of the real Wimbledon next season.[LNB] [LNB] [LNB]
