Levy urges Defoe to sign new deal

[Dellas]

Tottenham chief executive Daniel Levy has warned England striker Jermain Defoe to end speculation about his future by signing a new contract.


The 25-year-old's current deal expires in the summer.
"Actions speak louder than words. He has to make a decision in the next few weeks as to whether he's committed to staying," Levy told BBC Radio 5 Live.
"That's what he says to me and to the fans, so I very much hope he'll sign a new contract."



Defoe is involved in a four-way battle with Robbie Keane, Dimitar Berbatov and Darren Bent for a place in the starting line-up.


Doubts have also been raised about Berbatov's future at White Hart Lane, with Manchester United thought to be interested.
But Levy said he did not expect any high-profile departures from the club, and that leaving the club would not necessarily solve anyone's problems.
"If you have top-class strikers and they want to be in a top club, every top club has at least four strikers, so their situation wouldn't be any different if they were at Manchester United or any other big clubs, so they just have to fight for their place," he said.

"We don't intend to sell any player who we don't want to sell in January, and I'd be very very surprised if any of our senior players weren't here next summer.
"I can only go on what they're telling me and from what they say publicly, as with Jermain, they've made it very clear they want to stay here."



Speaking for the first time since the sacking of head coach Martin Jol and his replacement by Juande Ramos, Levy admitted that the handling of Jol's departure could have been handled better.

"People in football know it's a results-driven business and we'd had such a poor start to the season, he knew in the end that if we didn't get the results we'd have to make a change, that's the way it is," he said.

Jol's relationship with sporting director Damian Comolli is thought to have contributed to his downfall, but Levy insisted that having someone in that position was worthwhile.
"The way it operates, you have an individual whose primary responsibility in coaching the first team players and another whose day to day responsibility is making sure that scouting, academy and medical departments are working together," he said.

"Those two need to come together when it comes to decision on buying and selling, it's just division of labour - we think long term the club will benefit.

"If you have manager who's solely responsible for everything right the way down to the academy and it doesn't work out, you bring somebody else in and invariably there will be wholesale changes throughout the whole club."




Levy expressed confidence that things will settle down and improve under Ramos, and that players would be given a chance by the new coach.

"The next month or so he'll have a clearer picture of the players he has," he said.
"I think he thinks we've got a very good squad. Like any manager there's always one or two areas he'd like to change or improve upon so that's something we'll discuss with him "We think it won't be a busy transfer window for us, it's always difficult to do serious business in January - I think Juande is quite keen to keep the squad together to gel it and get more out of it."

source: BBC SPORT | Football | My Club | Tottenham Hotspur | Levy urges Defoe to sign new deal

I know loads of you guys will say he is a crap striker...but imo he isn't that bad and if I was him I would leave the club as he isn't going anywhere with them...they have 4 strikers and they don't seem to rotate that often...and if Defoe isn't playing games that is making his chances of going to another big club even slimmer.

I just cannot see him getting ahead of Keane and Berbatov atm so I think he needs to leave so that his career can be saved.

what do you guys think?

[unitedfan]

I think he should look elsewhere. As a 4th chopice striker at Spurs, I think he's got to be hurting his future, for club and country. One of the funny things about the England-Croatia game was that when England wanted to change the game, they sent on Tottenham's 4th choice striker, and when in desperate need of a goal, the 3rd choice of Spurs came on. A mid-table side would love him, I'm sure, but I don't see much for him at Spurs.

Unless United sign Berbatov