Im not saying Id be disappointed with him at all, just that I would think he needs to show what he can do before being entirely convinced. There is the slight concern that he could come in, get off to a bad start (IE, system not working at all) and not adapt to rectify the situation. Thats because of what I saw at Chelsea.
Look at his brief there, and think - how would you have tackled it?
Personally, I would have used the existing established players in a system similar to what they were used to - but leaning toward my preference to begin. Im a new manager, I need results. This would also have afforded my new buys time to acclimatise and get involved. As the season progressed, as my players had more and more time under my training regime I would see if I can move toward my favoured style. Hopefully softening the transition. If its clear its not working because, for example, my defence turns like tug boats, I have January to identify solutions to these issues before committing to them.
A gradual process allows existing players the chance to adapt, new players the chance to fit in and me the chance to accrue points and power along the way. By next summer I have hopefully come around to using my system, I have the choice of keeping players who have adapted and shifting those who havent. I have established the blue print of the team and can build upon it from here...
Or I can go in and on day one demand absolute change, then not shift my demands at all even in the face of the system not working and then player revolt...
I can honestly say I would have probably gone about it the exact same way. That's for a number of different reasons.
Firstly, it didn't take over a season to see who could play the system at Academica and Porto. It seems like they just decided to get on and do it. Maybe at Porto he had more opportunity to sign the players he needed, I'm not too sure. However at Academica he took over mid-season when they were bottom of the table, immediately implemented new ideas and got them safely to mid-table as well as to a cup semi-final. And there especially I can't imagine all his defenders were particularly pacey, it's just that they bought into the ideas.
Secondly, I don't believe you can go halfway when trying to implement a system. I couldn't imagine Brendan Rodgers going into Stoke, or Pulis to Swansea, and saying 'try and keep the ball if you can, but lump it when you can too' because it just doesn't work. I feel that when we lost Carrick and replaced him with Zokora, we had a similar thing with Commoli's vision mixing with Jol, and it wasn't good. Commoli obviously thought Zokora was a good defensive midfielder and would be a satisfactory replacement, and I think Jol obviously would have liked someone more Carrick-esque. So it was an uncomfortable mesh of styles, and it just didn't work. I think Jol did change it later in the season, however subtly, because we did start getting results. But then the next pre-season, again with no Carrick replacement, I would bet he tried to implement his preferred style again and we struggled again. I don't think you can go half-way with a system, and Zokora clearly wasn't capable of making the Carrick role his own. I have a feeling you might say that Jol changed it, which proves your point, but I feel there's a difference between changing because someone's not capable, and what was going on at Chelsea. Zokora simply couldn't switch play, he couldn't pass incisively under pressure, he couldn't do anything like Carrick did - and Jol's system relied on having at least one player like that in the side. But we are talking about capability, and are we really saying that Academica players were capable of taking some of these ideas on board and Chelsea's are not? If the high-line is the problem, we already have the knowledge that Dawson can play a high-line and perform well with it, so why couldn't Terry? If the fact that AVB wanted to keep more possession as opposed to going direct to Drogba is the problem, then that's pathetic. That's Chelsea players refusing to do what is asked, because they are clearly capable, and just didn't want to hear it.
Thirdly, AVB had tried to change and adapt. He mentioned on different occasions that he has had to alter his preference for a 'rotating' (I think that was the word, can't remember the exact quote) holding midfielder because the speed of transition in this league was too quick for it to work. That's a belief that he quite happily discarded because he could see it wouldn't work here. If he was willing to do that, I'm quite sure he would change other beliefs too if he knew they wouldn't work, but I'd have to then conclude that he didn't change certain things because he knew it wasn't because it wasn't suitable for the league or for the team, but because the players had refused to take it on board. In that interview with the Portuguese student who became his scout, you can tell he has a good in-depth knowledge of the different styles of football in each country, so I would trust that knows what works and what doesn't from that.
Fourthly, Chelsea players are ****s who are way to sure of themselves and have too much power. Ashley Cole apparently said to a manager that had won a treble in his first season and was highly regarded as one of the brightest young coaches in world football before coming to Chelsea that 'we will never win anything with your tactics'. What an absolute fool. Players like Terry are quick to decide upon having a team meeting and 'rallying the troops' when he thinks something isn't working, he's tried it with England because he obviously does it at Chelsea. After a couple of bad results he obviously decided it was time to ask for changes, but they had never really given AVB a chance. There was also reports of them taking the tinkle out of AVB when turning up for training late. No way should be try and placate those utter cretins. They weren't letting him do his job. It became a power struggle that he was never going to win rather than being a case of bad management IMO.
He had to move out all too powerful veterans, implement a new style of football (we don't know how quickly Roman asked for this) and all the while continue to achieve success without skipping a beat. Impossible task IMO. He did the best he could but the players let him down. I know you don't neccesarily need to be convinced of his merits but it's fun to stick up for him.
