The Times

The Tottenham Hotspur chairman, Daniel Levy, has hit back at criticism of their lack of spending and told fans he will never risk the financial stability of the club.

Levy defended Tottenham’s recruitment strategy after the club published their latest financial results on Monday, which also showed that Levy received £3.728million last season, meaning he remains the highest-paid executive in the Premier League.

Tottenham have spent almost £600million net on transfers in the past ten years, which is about £160million less than Arsenal and £300million less than Chelsea, while they have fallen even further behind the top teams when it comes to spending on wages.

Tottenham’s results for 2023-24 show their wage bill dropped from £251million to £222million last season — considerably less than their

Tottenham Hotspur were staring at extra time with a buoyant AZ Alkmaar when James Maddison let the ball roll across his body, sneaked between two red shirts and began the sequence that would send Spurs into the quarter-finals.

This was Maddison at his instinctive and inventive best, and how Ange Postecoglou needed him, just as Spurs appeared to be letting this tense and frenetic Europa League tie slip from their grasp. Instead Wilson Odobert tapped in his second goal to secure a 3-1 win for Spurs on the night (3-2 on aggregate) to ease the pressure on Postecoglou and book a meeting with Eintracht Frankfurt in the last eight.

Postecoglou had bristled on Wednesday at the framing of this game as win-or-bust for the season

The clearest illustration of the speed of Djed Spence’s revival is perhaps that he is even in contention to be called up for England this week, a year after he could not even find an English club.

Spence had just returned to Tottenham Hotspur on January 4 last year, after a disastrous loan at Leeds United that was supposed to last the season but got cut short after just four months. He was hampered by injury at Elland Road and kept out of the team by future Spurs signing Archie Gray, but it was his attitude that was deemed problematic: Spence did not show up to some club events, including the Christmas visit to a local children’s hospital; he complained about being played out of

Ange Postecoglou said his team “didn’t have the right mindset to tackle an away fixture in Europe” and were “nowhere near the level we need to be at” after a desperately disappointing performance against AZ left them needing to come from behind to salvage their Europa League campaign. “We didn’t get to grips with any part of the game,” Postecoglou said. “We didn’t really tackle the challenges we had out there in a real positive way.”

The Tottenham captain Son Heung-min, one of many disappointing performers, described the result as a “big, big wake-up call”. Spurs had come to Alkmaar knowing that the Europa League will define the success or failure of their season, and with a sense of having some wind in their sails

It says something about the frenzied nature of Tottenham Hotspur’s season that they effectively used this Premier League match against Manchester City to prepare for a Europa League tie against AZ Alkmaar.

As Spurs chased an equaliser early in the second half, three players stood on the touchline wearing yellow bibs, watching on with their hands on their hips. They were Son Heung-min, Tottenham’s star player and captain, Djed Spence, their best player for the past two months, and Dejan Kulusevski, their standout player of the season.

In the 59th minute, all three finally got the call from Ange Postecoglou and just the sight of them pulling jumpers over heads drew a ripple of applause from the home crowd. They were introduced one by one

Keeping up with the times was a recurring theme from the moment Ange Postecoglou teased the journalists still using their bashed-up old Dictaphones for his press conference at Hotspur Way. “I love you old-school guys with your Dictaphones,” he said, grinning. “Just imagining you all at home with your typewriters.”

Newer does not always mean better, though, as Postecoglou and Pep Guardiola will know only too well after this season. If the plan was to steer Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City through gradual transitions and towards shiny new eras then injuries, squad shortages and poor form have forced both into factory resets before Wednesday’s meeting in north London of sides that started the week fourth and 12th.

Ange Postecoglou had promised his Tottenham Hotspur side would improve with his best players back and his argument was supported by a third straight league win for the first time since December 2023.

He had options on the bench to better manage and change a breathless encounter after the break, although the final scoreline flattered them. They might have fallen behind inside 25 seconds and were thankful to an offside decision that prevented Ipswich Town equalising, with the score at 2-1, which would have brought back memories of throwing away a 2-0 lead against Brighton & Hove Albion in October.

Ipswich never took their early opportunities, cursed mistakes and were too easily opened up. More painful than this defeat for third-from-bottom Ipswich, though, will be

Manchester United’s part-owners, Ineos, are seeking an early termination of their multi-million-pound sponsorship deal with Tottenham Hotspur as Sir Jim Ratcliffe continues the drastic reduction of his investment in sport.

In 2022 Ineos struck a five-year deal with the north London club to promote their 4×4 Grenadier car, displaying their logo on the seats in both dugouts and on the digital advertising hoardings during matches. It could be seen during United’s Premier League encounter at the Tottenham Stadium last weekend.

Even in the toughest moments, Ange Postecoglou has tried his best to laugh. In one game he feigned a hamstring injury after stretching for a ball on the touchline and in press conferences he has regularly invited journalists to make up the numbers in sessions. “You blokes could have joined in our training,” he said on Friday, “and I mean that seriously.”

Yet after defeat at Villa Park rounded off another miserable week in a miserable season for Tottenham Hotspur, the head coach shook his head and covered his face with his hands. Does this still look like a Postecoglou team? “I really don’t know how else to explain it,” he replied. “If you can’t see this team is trying to play with no rest,

Ange Postecoglou hopes to have Destiny Udogie, James Maddison and Guglielmo Vicario back for the game against Manchester United on Sunday as he looks to prove he can revive his Tottenham Hotspur team once their injury crisis subsides.

The three players, all key members of Postecoglou’s squad, are set to return to training this week, putting them in contention to play against United at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Brennan Johnson and Wilson Odobert are also due to rejoin training in the coming days, with Timo Werner and Dominic Solanke not far behind. After the defeat by Aston Villa on Sunday, Postecoglou said Spurs would be “an outstanding team” again when he has injured players back.

The Tottenham chairman, Daniel Levy, and the club’s technical director,