And he seemed have little intention of finishing. If you go into a meeting with your superiors and act the ****, tell them a straight 'no' to their suggestions... one has to suspect that you aren't that concerned about keeping your job. Graham did much the same. Knew Campbell was off, knew there was going to be 'limited funds' (the cheek, he'd wasted a fortune already!) and that the remainder of his contract was just going to be a fruitless struggle which would just hurt his rep even more.... so he came out of a confidential meeting where he was told their was limited funds available and told the world about it. He didn't seem at all concerned to be sacked and get paid up for his last year and a half. AVB was going down a similar road to me. He realised the players thought he was a ****, the feeling for him was probably mutual, he didn't like the way the club went about its transfer business... he didn't like this, he didn't like that. You'd think he was Sir Alex Ferguson. It says a lot that Ramos, Hoddle and Jol, the 3 of the 4 managers Levy had sacked before AVB, had struggled on for months before they were sacked. This doesn't suggest a man impatient with bad results. They only went when they were in the bottom 3. AVB had merely had patchy results and performances and was in 7th place. Yet Levy had seen enough.
Sadly this is a different era where managers aren't that concerned about the sack anyway. Years ago it was your livelihood at sake. This meant a more flexible and pragmatic attitude. Not for someone like AVB. He's has been in management just 4 years and is probably already made for life. In the space of 4 years he's been poached by Porto and Chelsea and sacked by Chelsea and Tottenham. Anyone want to work out the figures on that? All the fees for signing on, the wages themselves, the pay offs? No wonder he could go into a meeting and act the **** and know he'll be fine either way. This shows up the nonsense of giving managers 'time'. Mr. Long term project Villas-Boas walked out of his first 2 jobs in the space of 2 years for bigger clubs and more money. So if they do well, they leave for bigger and better. If they don't do well, they start to act the **** and encourage a sacking. You're never going to have a manager for years and years with this state of affairs. I say, we treated Villas-Boas as fair as he treated Academia or FC Porto. For him to bleat after long term projects is just pathetic sour grapes.
