Tottenham Hotspur’s 2-0 win at Brentford over the weekend may have allayed some creeping fears of a relegation battle for the club, but Spurs’ campaign thus far will not have been what was envisaged at the start.

When Spurs moved into their near 63,000-seater world-class new home back in 2019 it heralded a major change for the club but it was the finances that would get the biggest boost, with competitive success remaining inconsistent.

Talk of ENIC and Spurs chairman Daniel Levy being willing to listen to offers for the club has swirled around for a couple of years, with reports of a £3.1billion bid for the club from American investment firm MSP Sports Capital having come to nothing, while in recent months talk of a potential sale or minority stake purchase from the Middle East, with Amanda Staveley leading on it, has also been a hot topic.

READ MORE: Tottenham given new Brentford penalty referee verdict as VAR misses 'clear' Pedro Porro moment

READ MORE: Harry Kane breaks silence on Mathys Tel Tottenham transfer and delivers verdict fans will love

Levy, a man who notoriously drives a hard bargain, reaffirmed the commitment to the long-term plan of the club by the owners back in 2023, saying that the club wasn’t for sale. But things can change quickly in football, and when the challenge to be competitive becomes ever more expensive, and against the backdrop of a lack of Champions League football, maybe that stance has softened.

The Tottenham chairman was the focus of fans’ ire recently during a home defeat to struggling Leicester City. It wasn’t head coach Ange Postecoglou who was in the firing line as would usually be the case for poor performances, but instead Levy, with the anger stemming from the perceived profits before prizes mentality that the club had embarked upon.

One Spurs-supporting friend described the feeling to me as the club now being a stadium with a football club attached to it, and that the competitive desire to win trophies had been replaced by overzealous financial prudence and a greater desire to see commercial revenues and matchday income increased, and with that came a reluctance to spend appropriately in the transfer market.

Whether that is a fair view of the current situation at Spurs is an entirely personal one, but in a window where the club really needed to bring in reinforcements given the state of the squad and the growing injury list, loan deals for 19-year-old striker Mathys Tel, Lens defender Kevin Danso, and a permanent move for goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky from Slavia Prague were all that materialised.

There was some talk of a £70million move for Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi on the final day of the transfer window, but a move so close to deadline, and with Spurs likely knowing full well that Palace wouldn't want to part ways, not to mention that Spurs' need for a central defender had been known some weeks earlier, could be seen by some as a bit of a smokescreen.

With returning players from injury, allied with the extra players brought in, Spurs will be safe from a relegation battle, but in terms of being far away from Champions League football, the distance hasn’t been greater for some time.

While Spurs have been growing off the pitch their rivals have been spending, and Arsenal’s gamble to invest in some big players in recent seasons has seen the club return to the Champions League, something that will book them more than £90million by the time the knockout phase starts when all things, such as matchday income, are accounted for. The return to European football’s top table has seen them jump to seventh in the recently-published Deloitte Football Money League, leapfrogging Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool in the process, with the one season out of Champions League football for the current Premier League leaders being impactful for the 2023/24 financial year. Spurs are expected to post revenues of £529million for that accounting period.

In the four financial years between 2015 and 2019, Spurs made a pre-tax profit of £314million, the next highest being Liverpool at £187million. Now, much of that profit could be attributed to the sales of Kyle Walker to Manchester City and Gareth Bale to Real Madrid, but the needles were all moving in the right direction heading into the club’s new stadium in 2019.

However, a look at estimates for the 2023/24 accounts from football finance expert Swiss Ramble shows that Spurs’s amortisation charges, which is the cost on the balance sheet of player incomings, where the guaranteed sum of a deal is spread over the length of the contract, is set to jump from £108.6million in 2022/23 to £141.7million for 2023/24. A pre-tax loss of almost £42million is predicted on the back of losses of £94.7million and £61.3million.

A significant factor in the impact on profitability has been the stadium expenditure, and the anticipation for the longer term is that the club can be profitable again regularly. But that kind of model, where a business makes a profit, is a rare thing in football, and one of the reasons why some question whether the idea of sports teams as an asset class is correct. So much capital is required, and there are so many variables that can’t be controlled that make it almost impossible to sustain success year after year.

But Spurs have continued to manage their positions. The club’s wages to revenue ratio is the lowest of all 20 Premier League clubs at 42%. For some, that may be viewed as a good thing, for others, when compared to rivals, it smacks of a lack of competitive ambition, with the wage bill usually the metric that correlates best with competitive success, not transfer spend.

If the projected figures for 2023/24 are correct, then the club will have a squad cost ratio, which is to replace PSR from the start of next season, of around 69%, which is under the 70% threshold for UEFA competition qualifying clubs, and 16% under what would be allowed for others, meaning that there would be some room for manoeuvre.

The summer will reveal much about the plans of Levy and ENIC. If they go big and back whoever is in charge then they would be seen to be making a commitment to trying to return to being competitive. If it is a summer of limited action and small deals, could that be a signal that this is a football club being primed for a sale?

After all, it is the eighth most valuable football team in the world, it has a world-class stadium in London, it has a major global fan base and presence and it has a balance sheet that is healthy and that has been managed well compared to how many major football clubs operate. It seems set up for success, but missing the leadership at the top to bring in the required strategy and ambition to make it over that mountain.

There would be no major capital outlay for a new stadium, something that is usually the first thought of new owners, particularly from North America, when acquiring clubs. Everton’s new stadium build was a driving force behind their new owners, the Friedkin Group, being willing to return to the table for talks despite reservations earlier in the process. Having an asset that can deliver huge revenue away from just the football, which Spurs have through the NFL contract, concerts, the F1 Karting Experience and other means, is a huge pull for those wanting to buy football clubs.

Why would Levy and ENIC want to engage in heavy spending and add burden to the balance sheet if they were willing to sell. Think of it from the Mike Ashley playbook. Ashley was a deeply unpopular figure at Newcastle United, but the tight ship that was kept with the accounts, and the PSR headroom that they provided the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund when they initially arrived, made it an attractive proposition.

Staveley, of course, ran point on that deal for the PIF and guided the Magpies from behind the scenes for the best part of three years. The 51-year-old financier would see the same kind of benefits in Spurs, but also the possibility for so much more given the stadium and strong balance sheet.

While the Premier League bubble from the outside looking in looks destined to never burst, the uncomfortable truth is that it will at some stage. When broadcast deals start to stagnate and decline, and we’re already seeing signs of that domestically with the value per game having diminished, then there are big problems. Add to that the fact that there is only so far clubs can go with monetising the bricks and mortar of their home stadia, as well as an increased desire to see a return on investment and KPIs met when it comes to commercial partners paying big money for sponsorship, and there are some choppy waters ahead, the kind that clubs who have managed to look after themselves in a more sustainable fashion will be able to ride out.

But US money knows this is coming, and over the next 18 months expect to see the deal flow slow down when it comes to American ownership buying into the Premier League. Valuations are still rising, but they may be ready to hit a peak before broadcast deals impact and result in decline.

Forbes values Spurs at around $3.2billion (£2.6billion), but valuations of closer to £4billion would probably be correct right now given the sale value of other sporting assets that don’t own their own stadium like Spurs do. There is scarcity value in top Premier League sides coming up for sale, but the potential iceberg in the coming years of a decline in media rights fuelling a decline in the value of teams, it would be a bold play for whoever took on the club, although its prospects are far better than most when it comes to the potential to really kick on.

While ENIC and the Lewis Trust may be more willing to relinquish, it’s hard to imagine Levy will want to hand over full control, especially with there being a little road left to travel when it comes to team values, albeit likely not too much.

It will be the Spurs chairman’s approach in the summer market that will offer the strongest indication of whether this is a club that is ready to have a ‘for sale’ sign placed outside it, or one where the current owners decide to try and make the most of the strong financial position in which they find themselves and try to replicate what North London rivals Arsenal have done.