Thursday 22 August 2013

Never mind Willian or Bale, Levy is Spurs' best player of the summer

CAN Daniel Levy fight off Chelsea's bid to land our target Willian?  Don't put it past him, as this transfer window is turning into his finest yet.

At Taxi For Maicon, we have often maligned the chairman as saga after saga ruined the start of seasons and came back to bite us on the Arsenal  - but this time it looks like he is coming up trumps.

It was always going to be a difficult window but Levy has put the fans at ease over the sale of our prize asset. We're all now more focused on new - and future - signings. 

It hardly takes a genius to figure out that, with the extra cash we're threatening to splurge, Gareth Bale is on his way to Real Madrid - selling Steven Caulker, Tom Huddlestone and Scott Parker just doesn't generate the sums being talked about.

True, we're a wealthy club AND there was a big Premier League broadcasting deal but the board has a new stadium to finance and you don't see Stoke or Norwich  throwing extra money around like us.

We had already spent £60m this summer but if Brazilian midfielder Willian arrives this week and Roma's Eric Lamela follows then our spending will smash the £100m mark.

Bale's departure had the potential to tear the heart out of the squad while branding the words "selling club" on to  the sign above the front gate.

But the chairman has played it right every step of the way, proving that he has learned valuable lessons from the late-window departures of Dimitar Berbatov and Luka Modric.

In each case the pre-season was disrupted and we were left struggling to sign replacements at 11.55pm on deadline day.

This time round Paulinho was secured early in the summer and followed up with Soldado in good time. It has settled the supporters' nerves and showed prospective targets that we still mean business.

Any squad disruption was nipped in the bud and "injured" Bale was hooked out of the first-team as Real speculation began to swirl around our Enfield training complex. 

Now if he does leave, any hole in the dressing room has already had time to heal.

Levy has a reputation for quibbling over the odd million quid and missed out on Joao Moutinho from Porto when last year's window slammed shut on his fingers. No such problem now.

Paulinho for £16m, then Soldado for £26m. Yet he still gets to practice hardball over Bale's move to Real. And therein lies the chairman's trump card.

In delaying the Bale deal, Levy has been able to spend the winger's transfer fee before other clubs hold us to ransom.

Willian has supposedly passed a medical and Roma forward Eric Lamela is also a big-money target. If Spurs had sold Bale for a world-record fee, then rest assured all of these signings would have cost far more.

Newcastle stung Liverpool to the tune of £35m when the Reds wanted Andy Carroll to replace £50m man Fernando Torres.

Levy brought in Franco Baldini came in as our technical director in June. Those who remember Jacques Santini and Juande ramos will know that this continental structure has failed for Spurs TWICE before.

But in the modern-day game - of transfer fees that sound more like the budget deficit and of contract battles that could be turned into epic Hollywood movies - maybe we're beginning to think Levy is right.

Big teams need big arrivals. And big arrivals are a big job, not a sideshow for the guy who already has to design the tactics, coach the players and manage a happy dressing room of inflated egos.

Levy's approach to this difficult window has to be applauded as it has given us the best chance possible of progressing to the next level - with or without Gareth Bale.

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