Tottenham chief slams untrue claims and reveals summer transfer plan | Football | Sport

Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has pushed back against reports that the club was “passive” during Thomas Frank’s tenure. The long-time Arsenal employee assumed control of the club after Daniel Levy departed in September, after 25 years in charge.

Spurs opted to dismiss Frank in mid-February, following a 2-1 home defeat to Newcastle United, as the club edged ever closer to the Premier League relegation zone. Before his exit, Spurs had endured a miserable run of just one victory in 11 top-flight fixtures stretching back to December.

Many of their supporters felt the club were too slow to pull the trigger on Frank, believing action should have happened far sooner, given that results and performances had been well below standard for a considerable period. Venkatesham and the Spurs board eventually concluded that a change was necessary following the Newcastle defeat, with former Juventus figure Igor Tudor handed the reins on a short-term basis.

Now, speaking to the BBC, Venkatesham has hit back after suggestions emerged that Spurs were inactive and disengaged throughout a period that saw them dragged perilously close to the drop zone. He said: “There’s been plenty of coverage that the club was passive during this period, and that’s absolutely not true.

While Tudor was handed the role until the end of the campaign, Roberto De Zerbi, now the club’s permanent head coach, had been identified as Spurs’ top target following his departure from Marseille. However, at the time, Tottenham were unable to convince De Zerbi to step straight into the managerial role and instead appointed Tudor, who departed Spurs by mutual agreement after merely seven fixtures.

Tottenham subsequently turned to De Zerbi, and the Italian kept the club in the Premier League, securing three victories and two draws from his seven matches in charge. It was a sequence that enabled them to finish 17th in the table, two points behind 18th-place West Ham, who suffered relegation to the Championship. Venkatesham has acknowledged that a fourth-bottom finish falls short of expectations and conceded he recognises the frustration amongst supporters, following mounting anger from disgruntled sections of the fanbase.

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He said: “I understand the frustration around supporters. I think Tottenham supporters have been frustrated for some time. This is two 17th-place finishes in a row. It’s clearly not good enough. I think that is rational, normal, sensible, and is what we would expect from supporters.

“The club had some serious challenges that it needs to address on the football side. We know what those are. We are addressing them. We are fixing them. Those challenges have not disappeared overnight. They built up over many years. I wish I could wave my magic wand and fix them overnight, but that is not possible. It takes some time to fix those issues, so I have complete confidence in what we’re doing, how we’re doing it. But supporters are rightly impatient. So I have to weather that storm.”

With a pivotal summer on the horizon for Tottenham, as they seek to bounce back from a disappointing campaign, the club are reported to have entered into discussions with Borussia Dortmund’s outgoing sporting director Sebastian Kehl. Additionally, Venkatesham has confirmed that the club have increased their wage budget in a bid to attract top-tier talent.

He added: “The squad needs work, and the squad hasn’t got the right balance. We need experience and leadership, and also that kind of physical robustness to play in the most demanding league that exists. We need to strengthen the club over multiple transfer windows, but this transfer window, in particular, is going to be critical.”