Daniel Levy's risk-averse strategy threatens Tottenham's place among a new Premier League elite | OneFootball

Only the best-run clubs, who remain ambitious and ahead of the curve, can expect to compete at the top end of the table

Manchester United’s visit to Tottenham on Sunday has not quite assumed the proportions of another 'El Sackico' - as their meeting in October 2021, which spelled the end for Nuno Espirito Santo, was dubbed - but both managers go into the game under a degree of pressure.

Nuno's latest successor in the Spurs dugout, Ange Postecoglou, made a passionate case for his own defence after his side crashed out of a second cup competition in four days at Aston Villa on Sunday, the Australian channelling the energy of a contestant from The Traitors pleading not to be banished at the round table.

If Ruben Amorim, the United coach, was a Traitors contestant, he would be doing an awful job of remaining inconspicuous, having overseen seven defeats in 14 league games while making a succession of careless remarks, including describing his side as the worst team "maybe in the history of Manchester United".

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Change for Tottenham

Having started the season with bold ambitions to build on last term, both clubs have flirted with a descent into a full-scale relegation battle, with 13th-placed United directly above Spurs going into the lower-midtable six-pointer.

Neither Postecoglou nor Amorim are, though, widely considered to be the root cause of their clubs' demises, which instead come back to years of mismanagement at boardroom level.

Amorim gets a free pass, at least for this season, given the Glazers' wretched running of United, which has seemed to improve little since the arrival of part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, while most Spurs fans blame Daniel Levy, the club's embattled chairman, for their current mess. A group of Spurs supporters plan to protest against the ownership before and after the United game.

Talking of careless remarks, Levy began Postecoglou's tenure by proudly telling fans, "We've got our Tottenham back" and, the way things are going, he is spot on - if he meant the Spurs of the late ’90s, who spent every Spring with nothing to hope for except an Arsenal collapse.

With that in mind, it is actually somewhat surprising that neither Levy's Spurs nor post-Ferguson United have had a season anything like as poor as this one before now.

‘Spurs and United should soon improve, but there no longer feels any guarantee they will return to the upper echelons of the Premier League’

In spite of Levy's risk-averse running of the club, Spurs have not finished below eighth since 2007-08 - ironically, the last season in which they won a trophy - and even that year followed two consecutive fifth-placed finishes.

Under Levy, Spurs have been remarkably consistent in punching around the Premier League's European places for going on two decades now.

Similarly, United have not finished below last season's eighth since Sir Alex Ferguson's departure in 2013, despite a haphazard approach to squad building.

As bonafide members of the so-called "big six", Spurs and United may have been chaotic but they have been insulated from truly dreadful campaigns by virtue of being able to attract and keep outstanding individuals.

Spurs remained buoyant through Levy's disastrous 'win-now' era from 2019, largely thanks to Harry Kane and peak Heung-min Son, while a fire-up Antonio Conte briefly raised everyone's levels. United, too, have managed to stay vaguely competitive and even win two trophies.

Six-pointer: Spurs play Ruben Amorim’s struggling Manchester United

REUTERS

Perhaps the lesson from this season for both clubs, then, is that those days have abruptly come to an end.

In the Premier League's new era of equality, underpinned by vast broadcast revenues and strict financial rules, the concept of a "big six" is surely dead; everyone from Bournemouth to Fulham can attract leading players and coaches, so only the best-run clubs, who remain ambitious and ahead of the curve, can expect to compete at the top end of the table.

There are reasons to think both Spurs and United should soon improve – the former when their injuries clear, and up to five players could return this week, the latter when the squad is used to Amorim's approach – but there no longer feels any guarantee that they will return to the upper echelons of the Premier League unless they are run with greater ambition, vision and care from the very top.