How Tottenham started acting like a top club

 

Tottenham has come a long way from the days of blowing their £86 million Bale sale money on mostly, flops. The 'Magnificent Seven' as they were commonly named included a £26 million move for Roberto Soldado who added only seven goals in 52 league games for Spurs and Brazilian Paulinho for £17 million. While Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela were successes, the rest were not. This summer was crazy and came back to the days when Daniel Levy was solely in charge of every aspect of the club. 

Fast forward to 2022 and the London side has completely overhauled everything from recruitment, even a new stadium which is among the best in Europe. Recruitment-wise, Levy has given up the power to former Juventus managing Director Fabio Paratici, who joined the side last summer and was challenged with improving Spurs' recruitment operation. Arguably the biggest win he has had to date has been recruiting former Chelsea boss, Antonio Conte who has turned Spurs around and this season to date they look like title contenders. The changes continued behind the scenes as reported by The Athletic with Gretar Steinsson becoming the Director of Performance across Senior and Youth levels, Andy Scoulding has joined to add his expertise on the British transfer market, and Simon Davies is the new head of coaching methodology. Perhaps most importantly behind the scenes, Leonardo Gabbanini became the clubs' chief scout. These roles previously were all covered by Steve Hitchen who was Levy's right-hand man for so long, but replacing him with four people (not including Davies), shows Tottenham are opting to operate in a more structured and professional way, allowing people to come in to work at where they specialize within a football club. The Athletic add that speaking to people within football recruitment, a common perception of Spurs now is that they operate like a top European outfit. 

Leanardo Gabbianini is a scout with vast experience across Europe, the UK and also South America. At his previous club Watford, he was instrumental in bringing in Richarlison who has now been brought to Spurs for £60 million, also Joao Pedro who has been continuously linked with a big-money move to Newcastle this summer. This experience in scouting successful transfers from South America to the Premier League could see Spurs look to sign exciting young stars in Brazil and across the continent.

Andy Scoulding I believe is a great coup for Spurs as he has shown his excellent squad-building skills at Rangers, being pivotal in creating the super team which reached the Europa League final last season. Scoulding will have a far greater budget to work with at Spurs while also being able to attract higher profile players, the signing of Djed Spence from Middleborough being a classic Scoulding signing.

Spurs have also made capitalising on the youth market an area of importance for them, a move commonly associated with the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea, two extremely well-run clubs who are known to sign lots of young players and loan them out again, to allow them to improve or to increase in value.

While Paratici has been given license to mould the club into his vision, Levy maintains a key role in most important decisions, and while he might have input it appears Paratici has been given unprecedented power at Tottenham in a way his predecessors could only dream of. This is evidenced by the summer 2022 window when the speed and incisiveness of their transfer dealings have been noted as impressive. Not only the speed but how sensible they have been, in signings coming in as replacements for the outgoings, Spurs seem to have a real plan. Allowing football minds to handle the football side of a club, is common sense and something which my club Manchester United could learn a thing or two from.

While transfers can never be 100%, Spurs believe their new foundations will help them have a greater hit ratio in the transfer market. A set-up which has already seen the talented Dejan Kulusevski join and instantly make an impact.