AVB Postmortem poll: what occurance was the beginining of the end?

[AdamB]

Getting thumped by Man C was the turning point for me - before that, his position was save-able. I felt though that the manner of the City defeat made it just a matter of time before he was fired

 

[onlyme]

I think the beginning of the end came on 14 March 2013.

http://www.worldfootball.net/report/europa-league-2012-2013-achtelfinale-inter-tottenham-hotspur/

On that day AVB decided that the quick way to kill the tie off was to go 4-4-2 with Ade and Defoe. He was completely wrong.
He panicked and abandoned 4-4-2 and still we conceded the 3rd to make the game go to ET.
We lost the next game with a tired performance against Fulham. If we won that game we had Champion's League football.
IMO on that day he abandoned the idea of 2 strikers.

 

[braineclipse]

Goodness grief, I wrote that conversation largely as a joke. Is the idea that Levy has signed players for value rather than to suit the system preferred by the Head Coach (which is all I was really trying to say) really such a stretch? I think we've seen enough examples of it in the last decade to know it's exactly what he does.

As for whether he should have convinced Baldini ('if he was so smart'), well it's probably one of the reasons he didn't want to be here anymore, the fact that on transfer strategy he wasn't listened to as much as he would like. We could blame AVB for lacking smarts, or we could blame Levy for stubbornness (as people have been very happy to blame AVB for that particular trait in the past).

I'm no more biased towards AVB than people are biased against him and pro Levy. The likelihood is he will have wanted certain players, the likelihood is Levy will have signed other players that represented good value instead. That idea isn't a stretch. We don't know that he didn't put forward other players, but maybe on the committee, it was decided that Dembele represented the perfect combination of value, good age, and settled in this league and more likely to make an impact, so the group decision was to go with that. Moutinho clearly wasn't so vital to AVB getting results, because he got them anyway, but he probably would have done better had be been given the player he wanted.

And the subject of this thread is where it started to go wrong for him, I think you can see warning signs when we decide not to give him Moutinho and it's an entirely fair point to make. Really getting tired of this 'oooh you're only saying it because you're biased' nonsense. I've already gave a perfectly logical reason as to why we may have gone down different routes for players (both last season and this). Argue the points rather than the fact I'm on a certain side. Because yes, in a thread about where it went wrong for AVB, I am completely of the opinion we didn't create the environment for him to succeed (along with the fact that culturally, as a club, too many people will always be against his style of football) and the fault of that lies with Levy ultimately IMo

Only largely as a joke then, so it also somewhat mirrors your actual opinion? Obviously you wrote it somewhat as a parody, but it also seemed to be what your opinion actually was, and you continue to defend that side of the argument. You continue to be very convinced about being right it seems, despite having to say "maybe on the committee" etc, I don't understand why AVB deserves your benefit of the doubt and Levy doesn't.

Levy has supported his managers. Not always, but largely they've been getting players they've wanted. Look at the signings under Redknapp compared to under AVB/Baldini? See any striking differences? Doesn't point towards Levy being stubborn to me.

Edit: And I did put in quite a few arguments related to the actual conversation. If you feel you have to defend yourself by comparing your bias to other people you think is biased I'm not sure what you're saying to be honest. I only encouraged you to look at your own post and arguments and consider if you might be overly biased. If that's so bad then sorry, won't happen again.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Only largely as a joke then, so it also somewhat mirrors your actual opinion? Obviously you wrote it somewhat as a parody, but it also seemed to be what your opinion actually was, and you continue to defend that side of the argument. You continue to be very convinced about being right it seems, despite having to say "maybe on the committee" etc, I don't understand why AVB deserves your benefit of the doubt and Levy doesn't.

Levy has supported his managers. Not always, but largely they've been getting players they've wanted. Look at the signings under Redknapp compared to under AVB/Baldini? See any striking differences? Doesn't point towards Levy being stubborn to me.

Levy's had my benefit for 12, 13 years. I've backed every single decision he has made and always found a reason why he was making the right decisions even if the club was having a hard time of it. But there's only so many times I can back him without question before another managerial appointment fails.

It's pretty clear AVB as a fit for this club wasn't right. The fans, broadly, don't respond to his style of football and clearly Levy wanted him to be a coach that would work with the players he was given rather than to have too many of his own ideas in terms of players he needs. Only he also wants a system of play that allows us to compete for the top 4 and the title, all with a 0 net spend. Looking over the events that could have lead to AVB's departure, we can point to events pretty early on that can suggest the writing was on the wall, even if he managed to prolong it a bit. I think if AVB and Baldini were given a budget of 120M (had we sold the same players this summer) the players we brought in would be very different had Levy not been in the equation, and I don't think AVB would have filled us up with ageing veterans either.

That is my gripe. That Levy hires these 'system' managers and doesn't sign the right type of players to make these coaches' systems tick, and these coaches have their careers shunted down a few notches as a result. We always sign players, sure. He can always claim he's 'backed' his managers. But looking back over the years, it's always been about value rather than need. Did Martin Jol seriously need Darren Bent at 16.5 million? It's another good thing about the Levy/Harry relationship, in that we needed a Parker and we got a Parker because Harry pushed him for it. There was no DOF backing up Levy and giving the deciding vote to the value signing.

Anyway, we may be successful with Sherwood, or any future manager, and eventually get to where we want to be under Levy. But my gripe is that we could have gotten there a lot sooner without the mistakes that had been made in properly backing the managers. If Ramos hadn't happened, I'd be more inclined to back Levy over AVB, but it's happened again. He's picked the wrong man again. He sacked a man that was actually a good fit and he chose AVB. The buck stops with Levy for me, I don't blame AVB for being AVB. He will move on and hopefully be a success somewhere and so will we, and it seems Sherwood is a good fit in uniting players, crowd, board etc.

But the funny thing is, Levy has wanted continuity, and has again appointed a manager that is different to his predecessor. If he wants continuity, he could achieve it in a Swansea sort of way without a DOF, which would probably suit us considering how much Levy likes to be involved. Swansea hire a manager with a similar style and system, and don't suffer bad transition each time. We are tearing from one extreme to the next, eventually eeking out progression but if better decisions were made we could have been there a lot sooner. The DOF should work with the Head Coach to bring in the players we need. I don't think we have a two tier system with players, we have a third tier, and Levy has too much influence on it. I think if Baldini and AVB were given a budget this summer, they wouldn't have over spent and they would have brought in good, suitable players. But I think Levy's influence meant we brought more young players in, which would in his mind translate to more sell on value in the future. Eventually we will reap the benefits of that hopefully, but it adds another year or two onto the time it takes to see real progression.

Basically this whole episode made me realise Levy really is a money man. I've defended him against it before, but he's always gone for value rather than the player the manager would really want. And the buck stops with him, because if he knows who he is, and knows what he wants in a coach, he should have never hired AVB in the first place. A pointless gamble setting us back a year or two.

 

[monkeybarry]

None of the above. He was doomed to failure for attempting to bring thinking to a country where people are still inherently suspicious of intellectuals.

same reason, but different perspective; being too smart for his own good and "thinking results and good football" rather than "creating it"

 

[onlyme]

I think being suspicious of intellectuals is very sensible.

They are no less stupid than the rest of us.



I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

Bertrand Russell

 

[Jurgen the German]

Just been looking through the transfers from the past 5 seasons. Have to say it's hard to feel too sorry for AVB despite losing some key players. People go on about his net spend, in Redknapp's last season, we spent £8m with a net spend of -£27m. The previous campaign we spent just £18m despite making the top 4, you would have thought Levy would have given Redknapp more money to give us a better chance of repeating that feat given Emirates Marketing Project's rise. Redknapp only had 1 season where you could describe as lavish spending, and that was the season in which we were down the bottom when he came in so it was a necessity. Every Tottenham manager is going to have to sell players until the stadium is built at the very least so it wasn't just AVB's problem.

http://www.transferleague.co.uk/premiership-transfers/tottenham-hotspur-transfers.html

 

[BrainOfLevy]

I would also say, fellow Brain, let's look at all the manager that are big on systems in the PL at the moment -

Martinez, Rodgers, Potchettino, in particular.

All have gotten the players they need in order to make it work. All of them have big ideas about how football should be played, but their clubs also allow them to get the players they need to actually implement it.

There are some managers that aren't as entrenched to a particular way of playing and these guys can probably work with what they are given, but for those that promise a system that allows for a certain level of overachievement, they need the players that can actually make it work. We haven't ever given a manager with a system the players to really make it work - not really since Arnesen with Jol, and that was because we allowed Arnesen to get his man, and he had already signed the key player - Carrick - to making Jol's system work. Since then it's been a bit of a mess. Since that time, I kind of believe something that Jamie Redknapp said (I don't agree with much) where he said Levy wants to be a manager. I think he has way too much influence on our transfers, and I envy the likes of Liverpool and Everton in that they have hired men because of their vision, and have given them the backing to make it happen.

 

[glorygloryeze]

Interesting discussions as always.

I do want to take issue with that article on goal.com that claimed AVB said one thing in his interview and then said another.

Firstly, does it really sound right that within the space of a few weeks that AVB would say something totally different in his interview regarding a desire to sign the likes of Hulk, Anderson and Moutinho??
Does it really sound plausible that the club, Levy et al wouldn't know that said players AVB would like if possible over one or two youngsters in the U21s etc??
Even if that was the case, we were about to get a windfall from Modric so it may not neccesarily have been as big a net spend as it first would appear.

Ok, if people then take it that this was actually what happened during the first transfer window, i.e. the club felt AVB was a fraud as he was now saying/doing different to what he said during his interview, then why would they give him effectively all the Bale money to spend this summer?? Surely if you think someone was a 'fraud' you don't give him more money than any other recent Spurs manager to spend. Even Harry, when he had qualified for the CL didn't get anywhere near such backing.
Can somebody explain this point for me please?

I have to say it was a very interesting read (btw, I'm referring to this as mentioned on page 1 by ModricTHFC: http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896...ts-that-cost-villas-boas-his-job-as-Tottenham) but this point along with suggestion that he didn't play/promote youth team products (er, hello?? Does the author not remember how many games were Caulker, Carroll, Livermore involved in last season?? And Townsend this?? Plus he played Fryers, Colthurst and Fredericks??) makes me suspect it's just the club using the journo to re-write the narrative to appease those asking questions about why they sacked AVB, plus appease those who wanted him gone anyway.

 

[milo]

Losing Bale. Add Bales goals and we would have been comfortably in the top four at the beginning of the month.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Interesting discussions as always.

I do want to take issue with that article on goal.com that claimed AVB said one thing in his interview and then said another.

Firstly, does it really sound right that within the space of a few weeks that AVB would say something totally different in his interview regarding a desire to sign the likes of Hulk, Anderson and Moutinho??
Does it really sound plausible that the club, Levy et al wouldn't know that said players AVB would like if possible over one or two youngsters in the U21s etc??
Even if that was the case, we were about to get a windfall from Modric so it may not neccesarily have been as big a net spend as it first would appear.

Ok, if people then take it that this was actually what happened during the first transfer window, i.e. the club felt AVB was a fraud as he was now saying/doing different to what he said during his interview, then why would they give him effectively all the Bale money to spend this summer?? Surely if you think someone was a 'fraud' you don't give him more money than any other recent Spurs manager to spend. Even Harry, when he had qualified for the CL didn't get anywhere near such backing.
Can somebody explain this point for me please?

I have to say it was a very interesting read (btw, I'm referring to this as mentioned on page 1 by ModricTHFC: http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896...ts-that-cost-villas-boas-his-job-as-Tottenham) but this point along with suggestion that he didn't play/promote youth team products (er, hello?? Does the author not remember how many games were Caulker, Carroll, Livermore involved in last season?? And Townsend this?? Plus he played Fryers, Colthurst and Fredericks??) makes me suspect it's just the club using the journo to re-write the narrative to appease those asking questions about why they sacked AVB, plus appease those who wanted him gone anyway.

I agree, it's very much the club trying to spin the events their way with that story.

I think, to look at both sides in the best light possible, there was miscommunication in the relationship. In that, if you are told in the interview: We want you to get top 4, we want to sign young players with sell on value and we want to make use of our academy, and Modric is going, AVB is then likely to go in to the first transfer meeting with the 'we must get top 4' bit ringing in his ears. Because setting those objectives, doesn't say what can and can't be done. So AVB considers Moutinho, Anderson not only young enough, but of the required quality to play his system and secure the top 4.

At this meeting the board will be saying 'Hang on a minute, we want younger players that are cheaper..' and then the fun begins. That's how I imagine it went down. Mis-communication before clarifying exactly what is expected from each party. And in that case, buck stops with Levy to me. Both because it's his job to hire the right person, and secondly because he takes in far too much influence compared to Rodgers, Martinez, Potchettino, Laudrup etc.

 

[onlyme]

Losing Bale. Add Bales goals and we would have been comfortably in the top four at the beginning of the month.

That is what AVB is gonna put in his book.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

For me it's how things that work together---- losing Danny Rose to a long term injury with no cover having Benny out on loan meaning our best centre back and the player voted the best in the league last season playing out of position in a role that doesn't suit the system and formation that AVB set up for

Rose may not be perfect but he really suits the system AVB was playing and we kept clean sheets and won games. The team had the best defence in Europe and looked like they knew what they were doing. Once he was injured we had to start putting square pegs in round holes and we ended up weakening two positions rather than one!!!!

It's tenuous I know but I believe with DannyRose and Walker playing full backs AVBS system would have worked a lot lot better and we would be sitting about 6 points better off and talking about a title shot.... But that's just my view

 

[Yermiyahu]

For me it's how things that work together---- losing Danny Rose to a long term injury with no cover having Benny out on loan meaning our best centre back and the player voted the best in the league last season playing out of position in a role that doesn't suit the system and formation that AVB set up for

Rose may not be perfect but he really suits the system AVB was playing and we kept clean sheets and won games. The team had the best defence in Europe and looked like they knew what they were doing. Once he was injured we had to start putting square pegs in round holes and we ended up weakening two positions rather than one!!!!
It's tenuous I know but I believe with DannyRose and Walker playing full backs AVBS system would have worked a lot lot better and we would be sitting about 6 points better off and talking about a title shot.... But that's just my view

Very good point, and one i agree with, for me AVB's biggest mistakes were letting BAE go out on loan and ostracizing Ade.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Voted not getting Moutinho. I think AVB would have gotten the team to play the way he wanted if he'd gotten exactly the players HE wanted. But then again a good manager gets results using the players that is available to him...

 

[metalgear]

if its not getting moutinho then Baldini has a role to play

 

[Stenno]

if its not getting moutinho then Baldini has a role to play

Pretty certain that's why Baldini offered his resignation also.. He definitely deserves to shoulder some of the responsibility..

Hopefully he works well with whoever manages us from here on out, because he can clearly get a deal done, just needs to make sure they're the right deals.

 

[thfcsteff]

This.

While I voted for the Moutinho option in the poll as I believe it was the biggest blow of the options listed, I have often had this thought. If it was so vital to AVB, where were the alternative targets after that deal failed? He just didn't seem interested in passing midfielders apart from Moutinho......? And that was a big problem - the lack of creativity - that wasn't properly addressed.

I think inadvertently you've stumbled upon the very problem which caused the end of the relationship. I think AVB had very VERY fixed ways about who he wanted and how he wanted them to play, and I think he believed that in the key positions, there were few he could rely on. Moutinho was a massive, massive one for him. In fact, I believe if that had collapsed last January and not August, he might well have walked there and then. He was furious about it. And I think it speaks to his inexperience that he wouldn't look for alternates, he wanted what he wanted.

 

[THFC]

Ocd