I was never in favour of AVB, but I don't think he's doing that badly. I really rated Harry as one of the best in the game, so felt who ever replaced him would look poor in comparison. I just felt Harry was the perfect fit for Spurs and our limitations were to do with finances and our biggest asset was the manager.
I actually thought AVB would possibly be gone by now, but he's done better than I expected and performed as well as many managers I would have deemed more suitable. But in contrast to my reasonable satisfaction with AVB, I don't understand why those who were so pro his appointment can't be more honest and admit they are shocked at how poor he's been compared to what they were expecting.
I refuse to believe that any of the pro AVB crowd would have in anyway anticipated such negative football, that is so poor to watch. I can't believe they had any clue he would struggle to such a large extent tactically. In terms of possession, it's again hard to believe that anyone would have thought we'd play in a way that was so unconcerned with keeping the ball. At the end of the day, the results have been alright, but the quality of football and the tactical approach has been average at best. Teams with far inferior players to us are playing much better stuff and we've played far better in previous seasons with worse teams. So forgetting the players not available, the AVB impact, or lack of it, must be a real eye opener for many of our fans.
I think the main issue is that AVB was judged on what our fans didn't witness. We have no clue of his real impact at Porto and very few would have even seen a handful of their games when he was in charge. Yet instead of judging him on what they have seen when he was at Chelsea and now on a weekly basis here, they still judge him on what they haven't witnessed, which seems a bit odd.
That's actually a very fair post.
I was a massive AVB fan, still am, and I will back him for 2 seasons regardless. If there's no improvement in that time then of course he should go. This year he's had to deal with the transition of losing key players and next season will be the first one we can judge him with a squad that more resembles what he wants.
But I am surprised. As you say, many other teams are playing much better than us. In terms of possession we look really bad, except for the first half against United. I didn't think he was a negative manager, and everything he says claims he isn't. But it's hard to deny what we have been seeing.
I look at Fulham, who really do have cause to complain considering they really have lost 2 massive players. And replaced them with Berbatov (fair enough) and...Kieran Richardson? Or the Swedish guy? I don't really know. But the point is they have lost 2 very key players, and replaced them with players who at the very least are rather different in style. And yet, they have been able to adapt their system of play and still get results. Fulham have been much more impressive than us so far.
I really don't know what's going on. The players seem to really be getting on with AVB. Sometimes, like at Norwich, I can see us trying to play the possession based game I thought we would be using but most of the time in the league there's no real style and whatever we have tried to carry out, we seem to be incapable of doing it properly. Even at Liverpool even though they haven't gotten our results and do still have a good squad (albeit light upfront) you can at least see them trying to play a new style and can put their poorer results down to the fact that it's going to take time for the players to get used to it as well as to build the squad that can carry it out.
So it's very strange. AVB does seem to have learnt, in that he isn't trying to impose an unsuited style too early. He seems to want us to play a bit deeper to give Bale and Lennon space to break into...but there's no actual style there to speak of. I don't really know what we are trying to do on most of the games. If he is just trying to continue with how we played last season, then why are the performances so much worse? He acknowledges playing Ade will lead to better ball retention, so why has he half got us trying to play more possession football, passing it around defence, while at the same time playing Defoe upfront and not playing a game that lets us get the balls into the forwards? It's an akward mish-mash of styles so far and I suspect it's come from trying not to change too much too quickly, combined with trying to put some of his own ideas in. But that means we aren't one thing or the other, and I think tactically it's best to have at least a clear idea of what you want to be, rather than just be stuck in the middle.
