A couple of days ago, the subtext of Tottenham Hotspur non-executive chairman Peter Charrington seemed to suggest that everything was business as usual and trust the process regarding the executive leadership positions at the club. I took that to mean that both CEO Vinai Venkatesham and Sporting Director Johan Lange had the vote of confidence from the Powers that Be and were both safe in their jobs, with Sebastian Kehl coming in as a new co-Sporting Director to work alongside Lange.
Tottenham’s non-executive chairman Peter Charrington wrote in an open letter to the supporters on Monday that “the board are committed to this leadership group and will give them the stability and support they need to run this club in the right way”.
That was assumed to include Lange but football.london understands that while CEO Vinai Venkatesham remains part of the club’s plans moving forward, there are those inside and outside the north London outfit who believe it is increasingly unlikely that Lange makes it through the summer, as the football figurehead for a horrendous season, and if he does, it will be in a role supporting a new sporting director.
It’s no secret that I, the rest of the masthead, and the vast majority of regular commenters on this blog dot com are united in the idea of Johan Lange being let go from his job for poor performance. It has baffled me how the club has even let things go this badly for this long without making a move, though previous reports of executive upheaval (“building the plane while it’s in midair”) maybe suggests that not having a Sporting Director was considered a worse outcome than having a bad Sporting Director. Regardless, it’s comforting to know that there’s at least some recognition that the past two years under Lange have been… well, sub-optimal, especially from a squad construction perspective.
If I’m going to be fair, and why not at least make the attempt, Lange has done a decent job at recruiting young talent, bringing in the likes of Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray. So in that sense keeping him on and demoting him to whoever the new Sporting Director is, would be a moderately acceptable outcome, if his remit is structured and limited. But we have evidence now on what Lange’s leadership in recruitment has resulted, and it’s not great. I don’t know what the end result will be and I don’t have a ton of confidence on anyone at the club making the right decision right now until proven otherwise, but there is some small comfort in knowing that there’s at least recognition that after two consecutive 17th placed finishes and a relegation battle that went to the final match, things aren’t exactly going well and a change might be warranted.