da betway： Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has scotched talk that he is one of the most fearsome negotiators in world football, per The London Evening Standard.
What’s the word?
da prosport bet： The Spurs supremo drew the ire of former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson amid talk over a deal for Dimitar Berbatov back in 2008, claiming that negotiations were “more painful than my hip replacement”, per the aforementioned report.
The Standard also claims that Levy has gained a reputation for doing deals on deadline day – notably signing Rafael van der Vaart from Real Madrid before the deadline, while also recruiting both Giovani Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon on the final day of the 2019 summer window – but he insists that these are merely misconceptions.
He said: “The perception and the reality, I can tell you, can be very different.
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“Best negotiator? I think that’s just false. There’s no such thing. You can be good, fair, hard. I don’t think anyone can define themselves as the best.
“I can’t help what other people say, but all I am doing is trying to become a bigger club and I am just protecting my assets.”
Asked if he liked doing deals just before the window shuts, he added: “No. But if you look at the market overall, there are a number of transactions that happen at the beginning of a window, then it tends to be very quiet and the last five days is when the rest happens. That’s how it is.
“I’ve got that reputation, but it is not out of choice.”
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Merely a ditherer
Perhaps, then, Levy simply dithers in the transfer market.
Take the summer window as a prime example. Football FanCast sources confirmed that Sessegnon was a target for the duration of the summer window; Mauricio Pochettino, the club’s former manager, informed Levy of his desire to sign him before it even opened.
The deal dragged and dragged and was eventually pulled over the line on deadline day because Josh Onomah was sent the other way.
It was a move that could easily have been done earlier, sources say, had Levy been more willing to budge on certain conditions, such as Sessegnon’s price. He ended up costing £25m.
He claims that his reputation isn’t out of choice but one feels that if he were more proactive he would shed the tag pretty quickly.
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