Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

[JPG_357]

Re full backs, I thought Naughton did well v Fulham, I hope he plays against either Pana or Everton.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Didn't we try and defend leads vs Norwich and WBA too?

Against Norwich we were just brick, and WBA was a performance where the whole team didn't look like they knew what they were doing. It was so open at times and it wasn't like we were sitting back because they had so much space at times. I think those games were examples of the team not quite being comfortable with AVB yet.

But for people to say it doesn't work...I just think it clearly does. It makes it more nervous for a fan to see us cede possession but I'm absolutely convinced that if we played a high line with Gallas and Dawson against Suarez and Sterling we would have gotten killed. But in any case, I don't think that once AVB has more of the kind of squad that he wants that we will be doing much defending deep, he is simply being pragmatic and winning games in any way he can while he waits to get the players he wants, and the likes of Kaboul and Benny back in the team.

 

[ArcspacE]

Against Norwich we were just brick, and WBA was a performance where the whole team didn't look like they knew what they were doing. It was so open at times and it wasn't like we were sitting back because they had so much space at times. I think those games were examples of the team not quite being comfortable with AVB yet.

But for people to say it doesn't work...I just think it clearly does. It makes it more nervous for a fan to see us cede possession but I'm absolutely convinced that if we played a high line with Gallas and Dawson against Suarez and Sterling we would have gotten killed. But in any case, I don't think that once AVB has more of the kind of squad that he wants that we will be doing much defending deep, he is simply being pragmatic and winning games in any way he can while he waits to get the players he wants, and the likes of Kaboul and Benny back in the team.

Absolutely - 2nd game into his career people were pulling the knives out

 

[BrainOfLevy]

i know its a bit late in the day to reply to this but the full backs thing is down to personell. for instance vertonghen doesnt even remotely look like a wing back..or act like one. clearly he shouldnt impede bales option. kyle walker annoyingly has been doing his wing back thing for years .....even chimbonda acted like a winger. this isnt avb's thing

with regards to wingers coming infield. again look to last season when harry was getting stick for just that. again nothing new there. i will say that lennons positioning is better under avb's regime than last season IMO

ball retention is down to personell plus we did that last year and the year before. dawson's long ball was to crouch...and to wingers, you see less cause we dont have crouch. when dawson first came back this season he made quite a few long balls to the wide men actually. so that hasnt left.

am surprised that you think our ball retention is better now than before? its odd cause all we did last 2 or 3 seasons is control the ball

and this pressing thing......i dont see it. or maybe we are just crap at it. we do it in bursts for sure, but it isnt a thing that i am consistently noticing

I'd agree with Steff in that the wingers coming inside seems to be with more of a purpose now where as before it was simply the feeling that the player had. So it's not a change of what they do, more when they do it. Lennon has been really good this season, in terms of fitting into the team and doing a real team job.

Ball retention hasn't been consistently better and neither has pressing. But that will come. As it is right now we are changing strategy from game to game so sometimes we are defending deeper and sometimes we are pressing high. I think eventually we will press high though more consistently.

I'd actually say one of the most consistently noticeable things, is that the wingers help the full backs a bit more. It was really obvious in this last week we've seen Lennon and Bale track back and not wait up the pitch. Maybe earlier in the season they were staying high but this week I've certainly noticed it.

In any case, I think the main difference is we are simply executing plans more often this season. They may be different each time, but there is always a clearer, structured plan rather than giving the players a lot of freedom.

 

[JerusalemMan]

I often wonder what would've happened if Francis had signed Zidane, and I can only ever conclude that France wouldn't have won the World Cup and Zidane might've ended up at Middlesborough!!!!!!!

Bergkamp is the one that I have the most 'what if?' thoughts about.
I so enjoyed watching him play, and we know what a potent force he was in English football and that he'd have happily come to us if we'd pursued him with any degree of urgency.
Also, as a historical quirk, I do wonder if Diego's career would have been less patchy if we'd successfully signed The Sock.

 

[Harry_Perkins]

It's a very interesting comparison.
I remember it well too.
I think the MAIN difference is that Francis took over a side in a genuinely false position (he literally got given 6 points back right after Ossie got the tin tack) plus Ossie's squad was electric with exciting talent.
Things went downhill when he lost the likes of Popsecu, Klinsmann and Barmby. The replacements were, well...

Be interested to know how you view Armstrong in retrospect? I thought he was overrated at the time, but somewhere in my memory I recall that him and Teddy were actually pretty prolific. I remember feeling he was horrifically one-footed.

Armstrong was good for that era but the standard of the division went through the roof between circa 1995-1999, when the likes of Bergkamp, Ravenelli, Zola, Anelka etc started arriving. That suddenly made him look quite ordinary. And the injuries hit him hard too. But that first season he was sensational. Did so much work in the channels. Hardly scored for the first couple of months because of that but he created loads for Sheringham. Yep, terribly one footed but still a good player for that era. I'd say the upturn in the standards also hit people like Francis, who'd done a good job at QPR and Bristol Rovers before that but just couldn't really adapt quick enough. Sugar didn't help. This even hit the likes of Dalglish (who failed miserably at Saudi Sportswashing Machine), Kendall and George Graham who were top managers in the preceding years but I think they struggled to adapt. All seemed to make some very dubious signings. Either big money British players who weren't worth it or dubious foreign imports which you have to seriously doubt they knew a great deal about.

I always say, it is very hard to compare now to that era. So much has changed and very quickly.

 

[thfcsteff]

Armstrong was good for that era but the standard of the division went through the roof between circa 1995-1999, when the likes of Bergkamp, Ravenelli, Zola, Anelka etc started arriving. That suddenly made him look quite ordinary. And the injuries hit him hard too. But that first season he was sensational. Did so much work in the channels. Hardly scored for the first couple of months because of that but he created loads for Sheringham. Yep, terribly one footed but still a good player for that era. I'd say the upturn in the standards also hit people like Francis, who'd done a good job at QPR and Bristol Rovers before that but just couldn't really adapt quick enough. Sugar didn't help. This even hit the likes of Dalglish (who failed miserably at Saudi Sportswashing Machine), Kendall and George Graham who were top managers in the preceding years but I think they struggled to adapt. All seemed to make some very dubious signings. Either big money British players who weren't worth it or dubious foreign imports which you have to seriously doubt they knew a great deal about.

I always say, it is very hard to compare now to that era. So much has changed and very quickly.

Excellent summation and you've helped me realize it was as I remember it...funny, I remember the game against the goons at home where tedward and armo scored, we won 2-1 and bergkamp was in his first season there (under rioch)...how things, indeed, changed quickly!

 

[Spurs7891]

Under the radar: While chaos reigns at Chelsea and Arsenal, Levy's AVB gamble is quietly paying off at Spurs
5 Dec 2012 11:12

Tottenham have lost to both Arsenal and Chelsea this season, yet the White Hart Lane side is the one not in crisis

Amid the verbal carnage that surrounds London's Big Two, the impact of Andre Villas-Boas at Tottenham has been somewhat under-stated.

On the face of it, it was a risky appointment. Sacked at Chelsea, there were rumblings that Villas-Boas would be greeted like a Stamford Bridge reject when he turned up at White Hart Lane.

In fact, he has been largely accepted and his efforts have been acknowledged. To be fair, the events at Arsenal and Chelsea have helped his period of acclimatisation.

While Arsenal have hit a bad patch of Premier League form that provoked a demonstration by a disaffected section of support and Chelsea continue to implode, Villas-Boas has quietly led Tottenham into contention for a Champions League spot. If there was to be a show of discontent, it would have come after defeats to Chelsea and Arsenal.

Chelsea, you may recall, won 4-2 at White Hart Lane. Arsenal - aided and abetted by Emmanuel Adebayor's flash of indiscipline - won 5-2 at The Emirates.

Yet the problems are not at Tottenham - the ill-feeling is at the clubs who beat them. Rafa Benitez could win the Grand National as well as the Champions League and the Premier League and he will clearly never be accepted by Chelsea fans.

Two miles down the road from Tottenham, manager Arsene Wenger finds himself - for the first time really in his 16 years at the club - the victim of personal abuse after the 2-0 home defeat against Swansea.

And Tottenham? They have won their last three in the league against West Ham, Liverpool and Fulham and on Thursday night will reach the knock-out stages of the Europa League if they avoid defeat against Panathinaikos. For chairman Daniel Levy, the gamble has paid off.

Tottenham have signed one of the most accomplished goalkeepers in Europe in Hugo Lloris. Moussa Dembele has been a major asset in midfield and Clint Dempsey is now beginning to flourish. Jan Vertonghen is proving to be a versatile defender, at home in the middle or at left back.

And most crucially, Villas-Boas is getting the best from Jermain Defoe, one of the most lethal strikers in the country.

So while bedlam reigns at Arsenal and Chelsea, peace has broken out at Tottenham because of a managerial appointment that has worked.

Compliments to Villas-Boas. Credit to Daniel Levy.

------------------------------------------

Nice to hear compliments about the team and AVB. Funny thing is, since beating us big, Arsenal are now winless in 3 league matches, while Chelsea winless in 7 league matches. We jinxed them for a change ?

 

[DubaiSpur]

Under the radar: While chaos reigns at Chelsea and Arsenal, Levy's AVB gamble is quietly paying off at Spurs
5 Dec 2012 11:12

Tottenham have lost to both Arsenal and Chelsea this season, yet the White Hart Lane side is the one not in crisis

Amid the verbal carnage that surrounds London's Big Two, the impact of Andre Villas-Boas at Tottenham has been somewhat under-stated.

On the face of it, it was a risky appointment. Sacked at Chelsea, there were rumblings that Villas-Boas would be greeted like a Stamford Bridge reject when he turned up at White Hart Lane.

In fact, he has been largely accepted and his efforts have been acknowledged. To be fair, the events at Arsenal and Chelsea have helped his period of acclimatisation.

While Arsenal have hit a bad patch of Premier League form that provoked a demonstration by a disaffected section of support and Chelsea continue to implode, Villas-Boas has quietly led Tottenham into contention for a Champions League spot. If there was to be a show of discontent, it would have come after defeats to Chelsea and Arsenal.

Chelsea, you may recall, won 4-2 at White Hart Lane. Arsenal - aided and abetted by Emmanuel Adebayor's flash of indiscipline - won 5-2 at The Emirates.

Yet the problems are not at Tottenham - the ill-feeling is at the clubs who beat them. Rafa Benitez could win the Grand National as well as the Champions League and the Premier League and he will clearly never be accepted by Chelsea fans.

Two miles down the road from Tottenham, manager Arsene Wenger finds himself - for the first time really in his 16 years at the club - the victim of personal abuse after the 2-0 home defeat against Swansea.

And Tottenham? They have won their last three in the league against West Ham, Liverpool and Fulham and on Thursday night will reach the knock-out stages of the Europa League if they avoid defeat against Panathinaikos. For chairman Daniel Levy, the gamble has paid off.

Tottenham have signed one of the most accomplished goalkeepers in Europe in Hugo Lloris. Moussa Dembele has been a major asset in midfield and Clint Dempsey is now beginning to flourish. Jan Vertonghen is proving to be a versatile defender, at home in the middle or at left back.

And most crucially, Villas-Boas is getting the best from Jermain Defoe, one of the most lethal strikers in the country.

So while bedlam reigns at Arsenal and Chelsea, peace has broken out at Tottenham because of a managerial appointment that has worked.

Compliments to Villas-Boas. Credit to Daniel Levy.

------------------------------------------

Nice to hear compliments about the team and AVB. It must be stated that since beating us big, Arsenal are now winless in 3 league matches, while Chelsea winless in 7 league matches. We jinxed them for a change ?

'Big Two' my reclining arse. Ten years ago, the 'big two' was us and Arsenal. Today, Chelsea have, what, two more Roman-funded trophies than us? And suddenly them and a trophyless Arsenal are the only big draws. Sigh.

 

[THFC6061]

'Big Two' my reclining arse. Ten years ago, the 'big two' was us and Arsenal. Today, Chelsea have, what, two more Roman-funded trophies than us? And suddenly them and a trophyless Arsenal are the only big draws. Sigh.

Historically, Arsenal have finished the League season as London's top club 47 times to Tottenham's 19 with Chelsea back in third place on 17.

QPR (6 times), West Ham (4), Charlton (2) and Watford (1) are the only other teams to finish as London's top League club....

London Clubs in the Top Flight of English Football from Season 1904-05 to 2011-12

 

[rosenthal]

Also, as a historical quirk, I do wonder if Diego's career would have been less patchy if we'd successfully signed The Sock.

Hoddle would probably still be manager if we had landed his targets Diego, Rivaldo and Eto'o.
That would have been a sick team to follow

 

[ArcspacE]

Caption comp?

 

[Northern Monkey]

The game is about results, performances don't get you points.

We could have won every ganme this season, we have played well for 45 mins in every game. The Fulham game was the most complete perfromance of the season so far, they are an excellent team at home and we contained them and then scored out of nothing, then scored two superb counter attacking goals, classic away performance!! Look at us against Man Utd last season so a similar result, well actually we were far more dominant against Utd than Fulham were against us, but the point is....top teams don't play champgane football all the time but they get the job done!

Then once things gel together and click they hammer someone and everyone crows about how great they are! Forgetting the fortunate/dogged performances earlier in the year.

Everton away is definitely up there as the toughest away games, but we have a great record against them as well.

We need to stay compact and play on the counter, would be easier with Bale for sure!

For me, 15 games into the season and with 26 points, (66 over the season if we continue the current average points) we can safely say AVB isn't a clown and he deserves to be given the time to fully implement his methods.

People will keep moving the goal posts though, 'if he wins THIS game then he'll have proven his worth' blah blah blah.

COYS!

 

[Northern Monkey]

You were making some valid points until that comment about Lennon. He has really done very little offensively this season (i know he works hard and puts in a shift defensively). IMO he looked a far better player in previous seasons.

6 goals and assists so far this season....

 

[Northern Monkey]

The players seem to like AVB which is normal when a team is doing well.

And we are doing very well. We will in be for the CL positions until the end of the season, thats for sure. The good thing is we have already been away to places like United, City, Arsenal, Saudi Sportswashing Machine where we historically dont get points. And thats not the kind of fixtures you want at the end of the season chasing for 4th. It will be very close but this year Arsenal havent got Van persie. Giroud will be a fantastic player for them, but never as key as Van Persie was.

When you consider that We havent used adebayor as we would have liked, that Dembele as been out for a while aswell, and that players like parker, assou ekotto and kaboul coming back will give us a boost.

The other good thing is that we now have a proper goalkeeper. Someone who will be in goals for years, and trust me he will be fantastic for us.

We still need a couple of signings in January, maybe a left back to get vertonghen back to his usual position. Also think we need a center back. Gallas is slower every game and dawson can do a job but not a long term solution if we want to aim for big things.

A right winger would also do, to wake Lennon up, because he does defend well but does fudge all going forward.

The players liked AVB when we had 1 win in 5.

 

[Northern Monkey]

The players seem to like AVB which is normal when a team is doing well.

And we are doing very well. We will in be for the CL positions until the end of the season, thats for sure. The good thing is we have already been away to places like United, City, Arsenal, Saudi Sportswashing Machine where we historically dont get points. And thats not the kind of fixtures you want at the end of the season chasing for 4th. It will be very close but this year Arsenal havent got Van persie. Giroud will be a fantastic player for them, but never as key as Van Persie was.

When you consider that We havent used adebayor as we would have liked, that Dembele as been out for a while aswell, and that players like parker, assou ekotto and kaboul coming back will give us a boost.

The other good thing is that we now have a proper goalkeeper. Someone who will be in goals for years, and trust me he will be fantastic for us.

We still need a couple of signings in January, maybe a left back to get vertonghen back to his usual position. Also think we need a center back. Gallas is slower every game and dawson can do a job but not a long term solution if we want to aim for big things.

A right winger would also do, to wake Lennon up, because he does defend well but does fudge all going forward.

3 goals and 3 assists so far this season.....

 

[onlyme]

We could have won every game this season

I haven't seen every game but reports suggest we were in with a chance in them all. We have certainly not been bashed up like we were a couple of times last season.

The Norwich game really annoyed me. We were absolutely bossing it and had not moved out of 1st gear and then AVB brought on Verts who was in the wrong place at the wrong time to gift an equaliser and we wound up losing that game and the next 3 (admittedly tough) EPL games.

AVB is picking the right starting XIs but he must continue to get the subs right as he has recently.

 

[parklane1]

The players liked AVB when we had 1 win in 5.

But according to the media and a certain ( so called ITK who spends his time on teletext) AVB is a fraud and the dressing room is in revolt.

 

[thfcsteff]

Under the radar: While chaos reigns at Chelsea and Arsenal, Levy's AVB gamble is quietly paying off at Spurs
5 Dec 2012 11:12

Tottenham have lost to both Arsenal and Chelsea this season, yet the White Hart Lane side is the one not in crisis

Amid the verbal carnage that surrounds London's Big Two, the impact of Andre Villas-Boas at Tottenham has been somewhat under-stated.

On the face of it, it was a risky appointment. Sacked at Chelsea, there were rumblings that Villas-Boas would be greeted like a Stamford Bridge reject when he turned up at White Hart Lane.

In fact, he has been largely accepted and his efforts have been acknowledged. To be fair, the events at Arsenal and Chelsea have helped his period of acclimatisation.

While Arsenal have hit a bad patch of Premier League form that provoked a demonstration by a disaffected section of support and Chelsea continue to implode, Villas-Boas has quietly led Tottenham into contention for a Champions League spot. If there was to be a show of discontent, it would have come after defeats to Chelsea and Arsenal.

Chelsea, you may recall, won 4-2 at White Hart Lane. Arsenal - aided and abetted by Emmanuel Adebayor's flash of indiscipline - won 5-2 at The Emirates.

Yet the problems are not at Tottenham - the ill-feeling is at the clubs who beat them. Rafa Benitez could win the Grand National as well as the Champions League and the Premier League and he will clearly never be accepted by Chelsea fans.

Two miles down the road from Tottenham, manager Arsene Wenger finds himself - for the first time really in his 16 years at the club - the victim of personal abuse after the 2-0 home defeat against Swansea.

And Tottenham? They have won their last three in the league against West Ham, Liverpool and Fulham and on Thursday night will reach the knock-out stages of the Europa League if they avoid defeat against Panathinaikos. For chairman Daniel Levy, the gamble has paid off.

Tottenham have signed one of the most accomplished goalkeepers in Europe in Hugo Lloris. Moussa Dembele has been a major asset in midfield and Clint Dempsey is now beginning to flourish. Jan Vertonghen is proving to be a versatile defender, at home in the middle or at left back.

And most crucially, Villas-Boas is getting the best from Jermain Defoe, one of the most lethal strikers in the country.

So while bedlam reigns at Arsenal and Chelsea, peace has broken out at Tottenham because of a managerial appointment that has worked.

Compliments to Villas-Boas. Credit to Daniel Levy.

------------------------------------------

Nice to hear compliments about the team and AVB. Funny thing is, since beating us big, Arsenal are now winless in 3 league matches, while Chelsea winless in 7 league matches. We jinxed them for a change ?

Some of us always knew!!!!!!!!
=D>

 

[onlyme]

I haven't seen every game but reports suggest we were in with a chance in them all. We have certainly not been bashed up like we were a couple of times last season.

The Norwich game really annoyed me. We were absolutely bossing it and had not moved out of 1st gear and then AVB brought on Verts who was in the wrong place at the wrong time to gift an equaliser and we wound up losing that game and the next 3 (admittedly tough) EPL games.

AVB is picking the right starting XIs but he must continue to get the subs right as he has recently.

Got it right again tonight. Nice to have the likes of Dembele on the bench, though and I am a believer in Jake. Onwards and upwards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!