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Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

Re: AVB Sacked page 224

BOL i've already asked you why we could play exactly to the managers instructions away from home, as well as picking up good results away but this was not possible at home...when the argument about new players needing time to adopt and play together was thrown about (you said you had no answer).

I wonder if you could also answer these questions for me.

1) Why sign a 28 year old poacher for 26million and not play to his strengths?

2) Why continuously play a player that is so off form and looks physically knackered on the pitch (Paulinho)? as well as that, why fiddle around continuously and play him as a deep lying midfielder sometimes, then as an attacking mid, then back as a DM, then attacking again.

3) Why not consider a v.good striker for any game this season and then suddenly give him an appearance vs Emirates Marketing Project away...and then proceed to drop him from the squad again.

4) Why not play an attacking midfielder that just had his first excellent game in the next game vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home...and then decide it's a good idea to play him away in a position that is alien to him?



I honestly feel AVB was making a statement with his team selection vs City and for that alone he should be sacked. When a person is doing things that are not for the good of the team and instead has ulterior motives (imo) then it's au revoir i'm afraid.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Kingdawson said:
Can you explain a few things. Firstly the part in bold...

1) How come at Porto that was exactly the opposite of what the striker was meant to do. Why did AVB suddenly change it in your opinion?

2) How did AVB not get the support?

3) Where have you got this whole idea that AVB was agitated? how he didn't want to be here anymore? how we didn't back him? you're passing all this off as if it was fact so i want to know where you've got it from.
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How did Falcao play at Porto? Was he a complete, bring others into the game kind of striker or was he there to score goals first and foremost and run off the ball, to finish moves rather than help to create them? I didn't watch Porto closely but I'd say AVB's Porto was very much what I've described with the striker rather than a Drogba at Chelsea/Danny Graham at Swansea whose job it is to bring others into play.

2/3: I think AVB didn't get the support on Ade, he didn't get the support when it came to the transfer strategy, and he was undermined by Sherwood from almost the beginning. I think the club said they were going to back him, they were going to give him the support to build the club and drive it forward, and almost from the very beginning they didn't do that. He wanted Moutinho and we stinged out over 500k. I understand people will say 'anyone could say we need this player for 20M and we'd do well' but if you're a manager that wants to play a system, you need the vital players that make it tick. It's like Jol losing Carrick and getting him replaced with Zokora. And anyway, AVB did adapt, he did what he could, but we didn't support him there. He wanted Ade gone, but Ade is still here. Sherwood briefed against him from the very beginning, and was in Levy's ear from the start.

I get it from a few sources and if you follow Duncan Castle's, he's pretty well informed on AVB's camp. It's very clear AVB was frustrated with the lack of support from the club on a number of key issues and didn't want to be here any more. He didn't fight for his job, he thought he wasn't supported by the club. The transfer strategy this summer...he wanted less signings rather than more...there was a lot of stuff and if you piece together the various sources that are well connected, he didn't want to be here any more. Ultimately I think he must have been pretty frustrated that he turned down PSG just to end up not being backed by Spurs. (That last bit isn't sourced but is surely a fair assumption)
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

So we have people referring to Tim as Nice But Dim, I think it's only fair that from now on we refer to Andre as Always Very Boring.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Falcao was a poacher at Porto and the team fed him chances galore at every opportunity so he could tuck them in. He was in and around the 6 yard box finishing off his teams good work...something AVB didn't even try with Soldado..not once.

AVB got the support regarding Ade in that we tried to flog him off. It's not Levy's fault teams are put off by his massive wages (well maybe it is slightly being that he agreed to pay him that but that's not the point). If AVB didn't rate him fine..Levy tried to sell him and there was no interest other then Besiktas but that didn't materialise.
 
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Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Kingdawson said:
BOL i've already asked you why we could play exactly to the managers instructions away from home, as well as picking up good results away but this was not possible at home...when the argument about new players needing time to adopt and play together was thrown about (you said you had no answer).

I wonder if you could also answer these questions for me.

1) Why sign a 28 year old poacher for 26million and not play to his strengths?

2) Why continuously play a player that is so off form and looks physically knackered on the pitch (Paulinho)? as well as that, why fiddle around continuously and play him as a deep lying midfielder sometimes, then as an attacking mid, then back as a DM, then attacking again.

3) Why not consider a v.good striker for any game this season and then suddenly give him an appearance vs Emirates Marketing Project away...and then proceed to drop him from the squad again.

4) Why not play an attacking midfielder that just had his first excellent game in the next game vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home...and then decide it's a good idea to play him away in a position that is alien to him?



I honestly feel AVB was making a statement with his team selection vs City and for that alone he should be sacked. When a person is doing things that are not for the good of the team and instead has ulterior motives (imo) then it's au revoir i'm afraid.
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I'm sure I did answer your top point before...I may not have had conclusive answers because I'm not close to AVB's camp but I gave it a good go...

Maybe it's something to do with getting more space away from home naturally, and as such it's easier to play a system you are trying to learn and tie together with lots of new players when you have more space afforded to you, as opposed to when you're at home and the onus is on all these new players to completely control the game when space is denied. It may also be the fact that away from home we would frustrate the crowd every single time, the amount of times we would rile the fans up because we'd get justified calls from refs and quieten them down because of our control of the ball was fantastic. So what played well for us away from home played against us at home because we weren't quite there yet. But my belief is that we would have gotten there at home too from January onwards...we will have seen players settle.

Soldado...I think eventually he would have come good too. I don't think the solution is 'play natural wingers and Soldado scores', I think it was a case of the entire team needing to settle and click, and it would have come off for Soldado. I didn't want to draw any firm conclusions during the first 6 months of the season with all these new players.

Paulinho...I don't know. But people have seen him play for Brazil after supposedly looking knackered for us and he looked energized, so maybe he wasn't knackered. Maybe he played him so much because he was the only one that could play in the double pivot that was capable of timing his runs effectively to get into good goalscoring positions. As for why he moved him around...I don't think that's a problem particularly. The idea of our squad under AVB was that certain players could be versatile and play in different positions. It worked well against Man United.

Ade...because he didn't want him here. I think he was probably told by Levy he needed to play him, something fishy was going on at that Emirates Marketing Project game and I don't think the full story has come out on that yet. But he didn't want Ade here.

Lamela...I don't know. I have no idea. I'm sure Lamela could have played but we went for Townsend who has been playing well...and I think we can still see with Lamela he's not used to the lack of time on the ball just quite yet. It hasn't quite clicked for him just yet but it will.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Kingdawson said:
Falcao was a poacher at Porto and the team fed him chances galore at every opportunity so he could tuck them in. He was in and around the 6 yard box finishing off his teams good work...something AVB didn't even try with Soldado..not once.

AVB got the support regarding Ade in that we tried to flog him off. It's not Levy's fault teams are put off by his massive wages (well maybe it is slightly being that he agreed to pay him that but that's not the point). If AVB didn't rate him fine..Levy tried to sell him and there was no interest other then Besiktas but that didn't materialise.
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That's exactly what we've been trying with Soldado...it just hadn't worked consistently if at all. But it is what we were trying. We certainly were not using Soldado as a deep lying forward or target man to bring others into play. He was mostly playing on the shoulder making runs off the ball. We just hadn't clicked yet.

Ade...AVB just did not want him here and didn't want him in the first place. He made the most of it when he was signed but I would say this season he was hoping to be able to have the squad his way. He simply didn't want him here and was probably very frustrated that board members were telling the Head Coach to include him more when he'd probably made his position very clear.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

BrainOfLevy said:
How did Falcao play at Porto? Was he a complete, bring others into the game kind of striker or was he there to score goals first and foremost and run off the ball, to finish moves rather than help to create them? I didn't watch Porto closely but I'd say AVB's Porto was very much what I've described with the striker rather than a Drogba at Chelsea/Danny Graham at Swansea whose job it is to bring others into play.

2/3: I think AVB didn't get the support on Ade, he didn't get the support when it came to the transfer strategy, and he was undermined by Sherwood from almost the beginning. I think the club said they were going to back him, they were going to give him the support to build the club and drive it forward, and almost from the very beginning they didn't do that. He wanted Moutinho and we stinged out over 500k. I understand people will say 'anyone could say we need this player for 20M and we'd do well' but if you're a manager that wants to play a system, you need the vital players that make it tick. It's like Jol losing Carrick and getting him replaced with Zokora. And anyway, AVB did adapt, he did what he could, but we didn't support him there. He wanted Ade gone, but Ade is still here. Sherwood briefed against him from the very beginning, and was in Levy's ear from the start.

I get it from a few sources and if you follow Duncan Castle's, he's pretty well informed on AVB's camp. It's very clear AVB was frustrated with the lack of support from the club on a number of key issues and didn't want to be here any more. He didn't fight for his job, he thought he wasn't supported by the club. The transfer strategy this summer...he wanted less signings rather than more...there was a lot of stuff and if you piece together the various sources that are well connected, he didn't want to be here any more. Ultimately I think he must have been pretty frustrated that he turned down PSG just to end up not being backed by Spurs. (That last bit isn't sourced but is surely a fair assumption)
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I see now what you're doing. You're literally trying to exonerate any sort of blame that is attached to AVB and shift it to other people (be it Levy, Sherwood etc etc) and you're using newspaper gossip and rumours to back your claims up.

You never made a big deal about the Moutinho deal at the time and now you're turning it into a big issue. You made no mention of Sherwoods relationship with Levy and now you're talking about "him being in his ear" regarding AVB. You claimed a title was a real possibility after the new signings and guaranteed our home performances this season would improve and now you're talking about all the new signings being against what AVB wanted.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

BrainOfLevy said:
That's exactly what we've been trying with Soldado...it just hadn't worked consistently if at all. But it is what we were trying. We certainly were not using Soldado as a deep lying forward or target man to bring others into play. He was mostly playing on the shoulder making runs off the ball. We just hadn't clicked yet.

Ade...AVB just did not want him here and didn't want him in the first place. He made the most of it when he was signed but I would say this season he was hoping to be able to have the squad his way. He simply didn't want him here and was probably very frustrated that board members were telling the Head Coach to include him more when he'd probably made his position very clear.
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Sorry but i don't agree in the slightest.
 
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Re: AVB Sacked page 224

I haven't read the gist of this Soldado debate but he needs players around him, under AVB he'd occasionally have Paulinho and maybe even Sigurdsson when he played, that was about it. Under Sherwood we had Ade, Lamela, Sigurdsson, Eriksen and even the two full backs in support of him.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Kingdawson said:
I see now what you're doing. You're literally trying to exonerate any sort of blame that is attached to AVB and shift it to other people (be it Levy, Sherwood etc etc) and you're using newspaper gossip and rumours to back your claims up.

You never made a big deal about the Moutinho deal at the time and now you're turning it into a big issue. You made no mention of Sherwoods relationship with Levy and now you're talking about "him being in his ear" regarding AVB. You claimed a title was a real possibility after the new signings and guaranteed our home performances this season would improve and now you're talking about all the new signings being against what AVB wanted.
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Hey man I freely admit I've got stuff wrong...my prediction that we could challenge for the title (with Bale) and the fact that our new signings would take a couple of weeks to settle was hilariously way off base.

I'm pretty sure I did make a big deal out of Moutinho at the time, just like I made a big deal of Carrick not being replaced effectively at the time and that being the key thing that undid Jol. As for home performances, I stand by the fact that Hull aside (and Liverpool and West Ham obviously) what we produced at home this year was better than ANYTHING we produced at home last year, and I think as the players settled in and became further comfortable with controlling the game at home we would have seen more of it.

As I said on a previous page somewhere though, I'm not apportioning blame to anyone. The relationship fell apart, Levy may have thought he wanted AVB and AVB may have thought he would work well with Levy (he called him a person of 'great football understanding' when he first joined) but once they got to know each other it's clear they weren't right for each other. Sherwood is perfect for Levy from the sounds of it. AVB will do well somewhere else. It's no-one's fault that they were both themselves, in fact it's best that they were so everything was out in the open. But they both wanted different things, to go about things in a different way and as such the relationship was not going to work.

My personal preference was for us to back AVB because he could have been our X-factor IMO, but at the end of the day I can understand if Levy was to do that...he wouldn't be Levy and we'd lose all of what makes Levy good. So Levy needs someone that he can work with and it sounds like Sherwood, with his desire for attacking football and confidence in the youth players will please Levy. As for AVB, he can move on and hopefully a club will back him as he wants. I don't blame AVB, I don't blame Levy for being who they are. It's just my personal preference was for AVB to be backed.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

BrainOfLevy said:
That's exactly what we've been trying with Soldado...it just hadn't worked consistently if at all. But it is what we were trying. We certainly were not using Soldado as a deep lying forward or target man to bring others into play. He was mostly playing on the shoulder making runs off the ball. We just hadn't clicked yet.

Ade...AVB just did not want him here and didn't want him in the first place. He made the most of it when he was signed but I would say this season he was hoping to be able to have the squad his way. He simply didn't want him here and was probably very frustrated that board members were telling the Head Coach to include him more when he'd probably made his position very clear.
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Just another point...when I say AVB wasn't backed, I'm not trying to shift blame. I'm just saying if the club was so inclined, and they did back AVB in every way he wanted to be backed...AVB would have likely been successful. But Levy obviously has an idea of how he thinks our club should be run and he knows what is possible within those constraints, and so I don't blame Levy for not backing him...I'm just saying if he did...AVB would have likely been successful.

Ultimately I want the club to be successful, not AVB. So if we do well with Sherwood, then great. It's just my personal preference was for the club to do well with AVB, because I thought he had the potential to really drive us forward beyond where have been before. He could have been our unique x-factor IMO. It didn't happen and I accept that, I just don't attach 'blame' because ultimately it's just people being who they are, and to be successful in anything you have to be who you are, in an environment you are comfortable with. AVB and Levy as themselves weren't comfortable with each other, and ultimately it's better for our club to get someone who can be comfortable working here.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

BrainOfLevy said:
How would you say AVB was using Soldado?
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Not as a poacher that's for sure. Imo he was expected to do everything, drop deep and collect, lead the line, finish chances, close down etc etc. There was no specific plan imo to his game but playing Soldado as a complete striker? hmmmm it's not going to work.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Kingdawson said:
Not as a poacher that's for sure. Imo he was expected to do everything, drop deep and collect, lead the line, finish chances, close down etc etc. There was no specific plan imo to his game but playing Soldado as a complete striker? hmmmm it's not going to work.
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We'll have to agree to disagree on that score then, I don't think he was a complete striker and I don't think he was expected to drop deep and collect as a primary task. I think he was often running off the ball which is where the idea that he gets no service comes from.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Kingdawson said:
When a person is doing things that are not for the good of the team and instead has ulterior motives (imo) then it's au revoir i'm afraid.
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Like picking a team/style that intentionally distances oneself from one's predecessor, rather than the best one to win the match?
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

BrainOfLevy said:
We'll have to agree to disagree on that score then, I don't think he was a complete striker and I don't think he was expected to drop deep and collect as a primary task. I think he was often running off the ball which is where the idea that he gets no service comes from.
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are we talking of soldado? cause if we are i agree fully
 
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