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Knee jerk thread,

indianspur said:
thing is im sure if you gave Ian Holloway big money signings he could be a manager of a top 4 challenging team too.

many people said AVB was a lucky boy to get the Chelsea gig after one successful year at porto, but he was even luckier to get the Spurs job after the disastrous time at Chelsea
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What has luck got to do with it? He made his own luck. He presented his case to Levy, he told him how he would try and go about it and what he would try and do.


Sounds more like hard work than luck.
 
Spursalot said:
What has luck got to do with it? He made his own luck. He presented his case to Levy, he told him how he would try and go about it and what he would try and do.


Sounds more like hard work than luck.
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Shame we don't know what AVB's pitch was and what Levy offered/promised in the way of resources.
 
Spursalot said:
What has luck got to do with it? He made his own luck. He presented his case to Levy, he told him how he would try and go about it and what he would try and do.


Sounds more like hard work than luck.
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Hard work to attend an interview(s)? And it doesn't take much to impress Levy! And lucky in the sense that it is not often you get two jobs like Chelsea and Spurs become available in quick succession, especially after being perceived to fail in the first one.
 
Can we ban AVB from home match days?

And just wheel him out for the big away games?

I'm sorry, but AVB is fudging incompetent at White Hart Lane
 
ringo said:
My take on AVB so far is that he is primarily a cautious manager, who approaches the game with the philosophy of take care of defence first, keep the ball, then score goals second. Now that is fine if you have some of the best forwards in the world, and a brilliant playmaker, as he did at Porto -and to an extent at Chelsea. But we don't have those players, and AVB is going to have to become a little less risk averse if he wants to succeed.

We may be 4th, and I still think we might nick a win or a draw away from home the way he plays. But I don't see us making 4th without some big money signings -unlikely in January -or a bit of rethink of his football philosophy.
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You can only play with the cards you are dealt with. But if you are throwing away a pair in the hope of a straight ..or is that the other way around?..anyway I know what I mean.
 
I think Moyes was the choice that we should have made. We were lucky against Manchester United and as for the rest of the games we have mostly been poor. We are not going to finish top 6. We will likely finish midtable at this rate.
 
we are out of the league cup, havent won in europe, and have had one outstanding result in the league at OT

These are the teams we have beaten this season...Reading, QPR, Man Utd, Aston Villa, Southampton and Carlise :-k
 
Unless this is a big "work in progress" then I think any of us could do equally as well as AVB, a big statement but given the performances so far is it it pushing it that much? Other than a fortunate win at Old Trafford which earned AVB some favour, we have only beaten those teams who are struggling this season and we have actually dropped points against some of those struggling sides. I think AVB will be gone in the summer if we see any more of this.
 
southstand1882 said:
Can we ban AVB from home match days?

And just wheel him out for the big away games?

I'm sorry, but AVB is fudging incompetent at White Hart Lane
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But we are 5th in the league with a number of important players out of the team. I think he should be given a chance to bring in some players that he wants
 
El Guepardo said:
Unless this is a big "work in progress" then I think any of us could do equally as well as AVB, a big statement but given the performances so far is it it pushing it that much? Other than a fortunate win at Old Trafford which earned AVB some favour, we have only beaten those teams who are struggling this season and we have actually dropped points against some of those struggling sides. I think AVB will be gone in the summer if we see any more of this.
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I remember Wigan coming here and beating us under Harry a couple of years ago, how many of you wanted him out after that defeat. Even QPR took 4 point out of 4 last season and they just managed to stay up. Amazing how some of you think forget so soon. ave you forgotten how brick we were for the final third of last season when AVB was not manager.

I swear some of you have selective amnesia
 
El Guepardo said:
I think Moyes was the choice that we should have made. We were lucky against Manchester United and as for the rest of the games we have mostly been poor. We are not going to finish top 6. We will likely finish midtable at this rate.
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Yet Everton are only above us because they have scored 2 more, and conceded 1 more goal than us. I suggest you wait until we have key players back or we bring in some new ones
 
Belsizespur said:
Just this thread? Let me know the other threads without the brick. Would be refreshing.
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We have to give AVB a chance, people are whinging even though Everton are above us in 4th just on goal difference FFS. You would think we were QPR based on some of the brick I have read on here :eek:
 
Tbh, I believe a lot of different parties are at "fault" here - Levy, AVB, bad luck with injuries, Miss VdV's illness and Modric's understandable hankering for better things, our scouting team, Porto, reality (in terms of the fact our rivals can outspend us by hundreds of millions), and our own boo-happy fans. There's no single reason - everything adds up into a feedback cycle that magnifies and reinforces our issues.

In truth, I think the fundamental problem still goes back to our mutilated squad, and that goes back to money (= our small stadium, or Joe Lewis not being a sugardaddy). Iirc it was Soccernomics that showed an incredible correlation between wages and finishing position in the league, and we have the sixth highest wages at best, while trying to squeeze into a tier of rivals who have *substantially* more money than us. Even on paper, I don't think we have any better than a midtable squad this year because we are so lacking in crucial qualities - not just creativity and vision and intelligence, but the basic ability to keep the ball under pressure, and to press ourselves (which I am definitely looking at AVB for).

Now, could we have backed up AVB better in the summer window? I think so, if we had not spent on both Dempsey and Sig (one is enough, thanks) and instead put that money into the one player AVB was desperate for - but then again, who knows what shenanigans Porto was up to at the last minute? So it's hard for me to blame Levy entirely. He is working within severe limitations - realistically we can't afford long-term salaries on the level of Bale and Ade, esp without CL, and still splash record transfer fees, but we have to pay that anyways or lose them to reality and risk a fan riot. Football as a sport is like a runaway hamster wheel - you have to pay more and more just to stay in the same position, so every year it gets harder and harder to compete.

At the same time, we ought to have enough talent and money to be outplaying, or at least controlling the game, against the likes of Norwich and Wigan. Here is where AVB needs to earn his dough. I don't need to see some brilliant swagger from a team that really doesn't have much, certainly not consistently, but I think even the most talentless donkeys (which we are not) can show much higher workrate and some actual pressing and composure on the ball ... at least as much as Wigan or Swansea. AVB has compounded the problem by not starting Ade and Lloris, while the loss of our five highest passers from last season - BAE, Parker, and Ade to injury/selection, and Modric and VdV to other teams - has deprived us of players who are actually interested in the ball and who might touch it more than ten times a game.

To that end, I'm also pointing to Everton as an example that you can still find talent even without much money if you have the right scouts, and to Swansea as an example that you don't necessarily need the most talented players to still control midfield. So ... our scouts. What the fudge are they doing? Yeah, ok, the money thing sucks, but we're not totally helpless here. If we're going to compete we need maximum concentration and commitment from everyone in our squad, a better go at things from AVB and Levy, and more creative scouts and a better youth system (which tbf, we are working on).

And finally, the fans. Seriously, I know we're frustrating to watch but we're not helping things here if we're booing our own club. When the going gets tough we ought to be more supportive, not less. Because our team needs us right now. And yet - I can understand the frustration of someone who pays a ridiculous amount of his or her hard-earned money to watch these turgid displays every week. It's not ideal, but to me it's understandable, and it goes back to the reality of football as a rigged game, a hamster wheel spinning itself off the brink to oblivion, demanding more and more blood to feed itself. Maybe when the bubble bursts, our connection to football will come back. For now, I think we have to ride out the ugly transition period.
 
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