Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

[JerusalemMan]

At home though, things a different story, as a lot of teams are playing far deeper. When you finish in the top 5 most seasons, that means that there are usually 15 teams in the league worse than you who will consider a point away from home against you to be a good result, so the same pressing game won't be as effective.

A simple but perceptive point

 

[thfcsteff]

Playing away from home, the opposition usually commits players further forward, giving us more time and space on the ball in the opposition half. In Adebayor, Defoe, Bale, Lennon, Dembele and Sandro, we have six fast and dynamic players who can cause a lot of damage in that space. One thing that we are also doing effectively is pressing the opposition off the ball for 90 minutes, giving us more and more of these opportunities in space to launch attacks. Harry had us pressing the opposition a lot last season, but as we have replaced Van Der Vaart, Modric and Parker from last season's starting line-up with Dembele, Sandro and Dempsey/Defoe, we have faster players with more stamina in the side, allowing us to play like this for larger portions of the game. Our away form has been very good all season. I think our highest ever number of points away from home in the Premier League is only something like 27/28 and we're already on 18. At home though, things a different story, as a lot of teams are playing far deeper. When you finish in the top 5 most seasons, that means that there are usually 15 teams in the league worse than you who will consider a point away from home against you to be a good result, so the same pressing game won't be as effective.

The team not clicking, players adapting to a new style etc has never been one of my criticisms of AVB as that sort of thing was always going to take time. What has continually irritated me throughout the season is poor tactical decisions in terms of team selection and substitutions.

Hmmmm...I won't directly question the first bit, but it feels like your tune has changed slightly on that front? As for the second, you've never offered more than a couple of examples and players available/context don't exist! BTW Harry had Parker pressing, but we never pressed as efficiently and as a team like we have been underAVB...

 

[thfcsteff]

A simple but perceptive point

To be fair, King Dawson made this point for ages...

 

[africanspurs]

Hmmmm...I won't directly question the first bit, but it feels like your tune has changed slightly on that front? As for the second, you've never offered more than a couple of examples and players available/context don't exist! BTW Harry had Parker pressing, but we never pressed as efficiently and as a team like we have been underAVB...

Agreed. pretty sure that i saw on a few occasions where those variables were not factored in purposely

 

[SUIYHA]

Hmmmm...I won't directly question the first bit, but it feels like your tune has changed slightly on that front? As for the second, you've never offered more than a couple of examples and players available/context don't exist! BTW Harry had Parker pressing, but we never pressed as efficiently and as a team like we have been underAVB...

Nope, I have never criticised a new style he was trying to implement. My complaints have always been about team selection and substitutions as I feel that the combination of players you have on the pitch is 90% of winning a football match.

And since I need to wait for it to stop raining before I can go out, I will show you my thoughts after every game we fudged up this season to show it's not just the odd example here and there. And yes, I know there is a slightly contradictory point to what I just said in the first post about the players adjusting to the new formation!

Have to say I was very disappointed in AVB today. Defoe should NEVER play as a lone striker against a team who will be defending deep which West Brom were. Surely anybody can see that? For this type of formation to work, the 4-5-1 must become 4-3-3 when we're on the attack, but Lennon doesn't appear to have been coached to play as a wing forward as there were a fair few times when Bale had the ball out wide and got dangerous balls into the box that Lennon should have been attacking but wasn't.

AVB's substitutions were poor. Livermore and Sandro are both competent technical players but Van Der Vaart was our only creative central midfielder on the pitch and as soon as we took him off we stopped dominating the game the way we had been doing before. I'd understand if he was coming off for Sigurdsson but to switch to 4-4-2 with two defensive based midfielders was bizarre, and no surprise to see that we opened up as soon as that happened. When Sigurdsson did come on, he came on in place of Sandro who had been having a good game and we were even more exposed. Then finally, AVB went back to the original formation to see out the game - should be fair enough, except with Jenas on the pitch. Jenas has played for Spurs for seven years now, it's clear to everybody that he is not good enough for this team, even from the bench. AVB should have moved Vertonghen to midfield and brought on Caulker if he wanted to close out the game.

It doesn't matter what he inherited, or what he's had to deal with. Playing a midget striker on his own up front with two holding midfielders at home to Norwich and leaving Adebayor and Dembele on the bench is fudging macaronic. Doing it once against West Brom was stupid enough but to not learn from his mistake is inexcusable.

I'm not denying that he's got a difficult job on his hands. But he should not get the benefit of anybody considering mitigating circumstances when judging him if he's getting the basics so horrifically wrong.

It's not like Ade has been out drinking and smoking every day for the last few months, he's been training as long as the rest of the squad has, albeit with City's reserves, and had had over a week with our team preparing. We looked far better as soon as he came on and he didn't look unfit to me. Dembele was also in form and ready to go but found himself on the bench, again, we looked far better once he came on. Yesterday I took my seat at WHL, heard the starting XI and put my head in my hands, then said to my mate next to me that I could guarantee we wouldn't score in the first half. I didn't think we'd be as bad as we were, but it was no surprise to see a big fat 0 next to our name on the scoreboard when half time came. The thing that concerned me was that AVB in his post match interview didn't say anything like "we still need Ade/Dembele to settle into the side/get fit", he just bemoaned a lack of sharpness from the players as if it was just a bad day at the office.

If we'd played Adebayor and Dembele from the start yesterday, I've little doubt we'd have won the game and we wouldn't be having this discussion. But for reasons I don't understand, we didn't. It's nothing to do with the system, it's to do with who's playing in it.

I could have forgiven AVB for losing the game if he'd got the tactics right but they were better on the day. The fact is, we lost our two best players at short notice so it's obvious that we wouldn't play as well as we have done in the past. However, the decision to play Dempsey on the left wing was utter madness. There's nothing about him that suggests he should play on the left wing, the guy is an attacking midfielder playing behind a main striker, he doesn't have the pace or dribbling ability to play on the wing. And yet, we actually had a fast, dribbling who could have come in on the left wing, that has done well in every appearance he's made so far this season.....and he didn't even get on the pitch as a substitute. The Livermore for Huddlestone sub was one that MIGHT have been worthwhile if we were winning but were under the cosh, we weren't. So it made no sense. Huddlestone's delivery had been dangerous and could have been even more so if Ade had been on the pitch. The Ade for Dempsey sub came far too late in the game.

Once again....another game we failed to win, another game in which AVB makes a stupid substitution to throw it away. We had been completely dominating the game, but he made the ridiculous decision to take off Carroll and bring on a defender. Basically, the decision to throw away all the momentum and invite pressure onto ourselves...lo and behold, Norwich convert that pressure into goals. "Give him more time...." blah blah blah. How many times do we need to throw games away before AVB realises what a big mistake it is to let the opposition back into the game late on when they're on the back foot? This is the fourth time we have thrown things away from a winning position from this same mistake already this season. AVB is supposed to be some tactical genius, a footballing geek, so how come in all of his studies, all of his planning, all of his looking back and reflecting has he not noticed a common theme running through games in which we're fudging up? And how many times does it have to happen before some of you lot stop blindly backing him, saying give him time etc, when he's clearly not improved upon from some of his tactical horror shows in his previous role and is making the same mistakes over and over again.

I have no problem with the way we set up in the first half today. The fact is, we're not going to beat teams like City away from home by overwhelming them for 90 minutes. The best way to get a result would be to contain them, frustrate their players and fans and nick a goal if the opportunity came.

It's the second half that I found unacceptable. For starters, it took AVB until the 78th minute to make his first substitution, and this was enforced. He demonstrated a complete lack of decisiveness in taking so long, by which point, our tactic of sitting back and trying to soak up all the pressure had failed because we were always going to crack eventually if we'd tried it for 90 minutes. But here's where things got fudging bonkers. Walker goes off, you have another right-back on the bench, and instead he brought on Dawson? To play Gallas at RB? I'm sorry but that's just plain fudging stupid - as bad as any of the crap tactical decisions we saw from Pleat or Ramos. Then he took off Adebayor, who's movement, pace and physical presence was causing City problems - again, ridiculous decision considering how many long balls we were hoofing up the pitch. Finally, Lennon came off. I didn't know Lennon was injured at the time, but nevertheless, why bring on a defender in place of him? Why didn't we have any more wingers on the bench? Where were Falque and Townsend? At the very least, he could have brought on Sigurdsson and played either him or Dempsey out wide. A simple lesson for you Andre which you still haven't learned - if you substitute all your best attacking players in the hope of holding on to what you've got, and then the opposition score, YOU HAVE NO ATTACKING PLAYERS TO GET A GOAL BACK! Not fudging rocket science. As soon as City scored the second I knew that was it, we wouldn't even create another chance for the rest of the match.

I have been one of AVB's biggest critics, but there were encouraging signs from him yesterday. Having said that, a few major blunders once again need to be talked about. Let's start with the positives. He took a gamble in setting up with a 4-4-2 away to Arsenal. It's the reason our season ended as badly as it did last year. We all knew they'd have an extra man on us in the centre and we could leave ourselves exposed. But AVB also realised that Arsenal's confidence was low at the moment and if we could pin them back they'd start to crumble. And it really worked. We took the initiative to them, got ourselves in front, and for the first 20 minutes we were comfortably the better side. We were playing effective attacking football, the type we have been desperate to see the team play all season. The other major positive was the tactical switch at half time. I knew we had to change something, my first thoughts were to take off Naughton, as he was getting raped by Walcott, and bring on Dempsey, moving Bale to left-back. That would leave us a bit less exposed and allow Dempsey to cut inside and Bale to overlap when we went forward. What I didn't think of was to take off both full-backs and pack out the midfield. It worked very well and I thought we played quite well in the second half with 10 men. If Bale had passed to Defoe to tap into an open goal and make it 4-3 instead of whipping it across the goal himself, who knows what we could have got from the game? I was pleased to finally see an intelligent use of substitutions and tactical switch, something I've been slagging him off for not being able to do on a weekly basis.

However...he must accept some of the blame for his tactical decisions too. For starters, playing Lloris in goal. It's something I've wanted to see for a while, and I thought Lloris was generally quite good yesterday, one outstanding save from a header in particular. But I thought the whole point of not playing him yet was to slowly integrate him into the side? If that's true, why throw him in at the deep end, in the derby? He must have been under huge amounts of pressure, not exactly a slow integration is it? It's a bizarre strategy and I really don't think the way AVB is handing this situation is good. I thought he should have saved Giroud's goal personally.

But my bigger gripe with AVB today was the slow response to the red card. As I mentioned earlier, he made a very intelligent tactical switch in the second half. But why the fudge did he wait until then? The reason why the 4-4-2 was going to work against Arsenal was because Adebayor drops deep and acts as an extra body in midfield when we need him there, and it also prevents them from pushing too far forward as we have two strikers they need to worry about if we counter. As soon as Ade goes off, those things aren't true any more, so we should have changed the formation. I have seen a 10 man 4-4-1 work well in the past, we all remember Berbatov's outstanding performances in the Emirates Marketing Project away cup win and the 4-1 win at home to Bolton, but the reason he could play that role is because his hold up play was truly world class. Defoe isn't that kind of player, and this was a recipe for disaster. It it had been Defoe that got sent off, I would have said keep the formation for a little longer and see how it goes, because at least Ade could hold the ball up a bit. But we kept it, for almost half an hour and 3 goals longer than we should have done. The Arsenal players and crowd were buoyed by the fact that one of our players, and not just any player, but Adebayor, had been sent off, and we knew an onslaught was coming. The thing to do there would have been to get physical, aggressive and in their faces, as we were still winning and if we could fight back with a great big fudge you until the crowd had started to get frustrated again, we'd have had a decent chance. Instead...we gifted them 3 goals. If AVB hadn't realised what was coming when the red card happened, the first 5 minutes of constant Arsenal pressure before the equaliser should have been enough to get the message to him. Then the first goal came, then the second, then the third. The whole way through I was screaming for a change, but by the time it came, the match was over. The best managers don't wait until half-time to change things around, they spot when something is wrong and change it straight away. AVB's indecisiveness has cost us for the second week in a row.

Back onto AVB, Saturday was a big opportunity for him to show some real ingenuity and tactical nous. The starting line-up was one that most people expected. But if he'd been REALLY smart, he would have expected Stoke to play with 10 men behind the ball for much of the game, not give us much space and make it difficult to create chances. In that situation, he'd have looked at his squad and thought he needed to make sure he had somebody capable of either playing a good pass to players who HAVE managed to find some space, or at least be able to shoot from distance seeing as getting time and space in the box won't be easy. As Huddlestone and Carroll were injured I think (I am VERY concerned if they were available and he went for Livermore on the bench instead), the obvious person in this mould was surely Sigurdsson. If he'd been really tactically smart, he would have rewarded Gylfi's good recent performances with a position in the starting line-up, on the basis that he'd not only been playing well but was also the right player for the occasion. There were a number of options as to who he could start ahead of, perhaps Defoe who has played a huge amount of football this season and with Stoke defending well with so many players back he'd probably struggle to get into the positions that have seen him get so high in the goalscoring charts. Or perhaps Adebayor who hasn't really hit form yet this season. But I probably would have started him in place of Lennon, as he could not only switch places from the wing and in the middle with Dembele as the game progressed to keep our play unpredictable, but also Lennon's own form has been a bit rusty and it could give him the kick up the backside he needs, also his pace is a great thing to be able to bring on against tired legs in the second half.

But he didn't take that opportunity. Oh well. I guess a lot of managers would stick to the established first XI that has been getting results recently. But we were brick in the first half. So something had to change. AVB's response was to switch Bale and Lennon over, you know, that thing that annoyed the fudge out of so many people last season when Harry did it. It worked reasonably well, but...we were still struggling to create chances. 10 minutes into the second half I was getting frustrated, why wasn't he bringing on Sigurdsson? 20 minutes in, still no Gylfi. 30 minutes in, STILL no Gylfi. We had to wait until the 78th minute to see Sigurdsson appear. And instantly, we looked better. We forced more saves from Begovic in the 12 minutes he was on the pitch than in the 78 he was on the bench. So why the fudge did he wait so long? Did he hope we'd just magically find a way past this very strong defence who up to that point hadn't given us a sniff at goal yet? Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, well AVB was insane for 78 minutes.

But it didn't stop there. Then, with the scores level at 0-0 but the momentum all with us, he took off Dembele to bring on Parker. I have theories as to why he did this, unfortunately none of them to do with beating Stoke. I think AVB is very cautious, after what happened at Chelsea, of tinkling off any of the big personalities in the squad. So one theory is that he'd told Parker beforehand that he'd get a run out, concerned about upsetting a big personality in the squad, brought him on instead of Townsend for the final few minutes. Or maybe Dembele was injured, in which case Parker wasn't the best replacement. If he'd really wanted to bring on Parker, he should have taken off Sandro IMO, even though he'd been playing well. Or maybe even bring off Walker and get an extra man in midfield. But...no.

Now this is only part of what he got wrong on Saturday. We are entering the busy Christmas period. After Stoke, we have two tricky away games this week, as well as another game on New Year's Day. We need to be resting and rotating players. So to go with our regular starting XI for this game and wait until the 78th minute before making the first sub, the 85th minute for the second and to not even make the third, shows a lack of understanding about managing the form and fitness of the squad, as well as serious continued issues of indecisiveness and hesitation.

Looks as though I didn't post after the defeats against Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Everton or Wigan. The first two we played well in and the results weren't his fault, the Wigan game I seem to remember him taking off Defoe when we were a goal down which went down very badly. If you can be bothered to read through all that again, you'll see common themes of indecisiveness, making overly defensive substitutions when defending a narrow lead to kill our momentum and invite pressure on, a lack of thinking about the way the opposition will be playing and how we should adjust accordingly, and of course several "WTF???" moments throughout the season. To his credit, we are no longer seeing so many of the very negative, shut up shop, defensive substitutions that allow the opposition to take control of the game. If he can also cut out the "WTF???" moments, react to things more quickly and analyse different ways to set up to beat the opposition (eg - finding a way to start one of the more creative players like Sigurdsson, Huddlestone or Carroll against relegation strugglers who come to WHL to park the bus) he might just win me over and we might just have a good season.

 

[JerusalemMan]

To be fair, King Dawson made this point for ages...

To be fair, I've not been around for ages!

 

[Pirate55]

Nope, I have never criticised a new style he was trying to implement. My complaints have always been about team selection and substitutions as I feel that the combination of players you have on the pitch is 90% of winning a football match.

And since I need to wait for it to stop raining before I can go out, I will show you my thoughts after every game we fudged up this season to show it's not just the odd example here and there. And yes, I know there is a slightly contradictory point to what I just said in the first post about the players adjusting to the new formation!















Looks as though I didn't post after the defeats against Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Everton or Wigan. The first two we played well in and the results weren't his fault, the Wigan game I seem to remember him taking off Defoe when we were a goal down which went down very badly. If you can be bothered to read through all that again, you'll see common themes of indecisiveness, making overly defensive substitutions when defending a narrow lead to kill our momentum and invite pressure on, a lack of thinking about the way the opposition will be playing and how we should adjust accordingly, and of course several "WTF???" moments throughout the season. To his credit, we are no longer seeing so many of the very negative, shut up shop, defensive substitutions that allow the opposition to take control of the game. If he can also cut out the "WTF???" moments, react to things more quickly and analyse different ways to set up to beat the opposition (eg - finding a way to start one of the more creative players like Sigurdsson, Huddlestone or Carroll against relegation strugglers who come to WHL to park the bus) he might just win me over and we might just have a good season.

I agree with SUIHYA completely. He and I have been absolutely consistent throughout. Even you Steff have said that AVB has been too defensive at home in his early games as he was more concerned not to lose in his early days. Hopefully we will see a more attacking team at home - and the days of two defensive mids against teams that park the bus are gone forever. Same with the defensive subs and (often futile) attempts to hang on to slim leads. If he can get Lennon to move more off the ball at home and get Ade to recapture last seasons early form, we will have a good season.

 

[Hully]

Hmmmm...I won't directly question the first bit, but it feels like your tune has changed slightly on that front? As for the second, you've never offered more than a couple of examples and players available/context don't exist! BTW Harry had Parker pressing, but we never pressed as efficiently and as a team like we have been underAVB...

The way we pressed under Harry was all about setting our pacey players free, we let teams come forward then pressed, meaning we could break from deeper allowing the pace of our forward line to show. Later in the season teams learned not to get drawn forward and we found it much harder to break through.
Under AVB we try to press all the time and it works against us at times for the same reason, it denies us space as much as the opposition.

 

[Jordinho]

The way we pressed under Harry was all about setting our pacey players free, we let teams come forward then pressed, meaning we could break from deeper allowing the pace of our forward line to show. Later in the season teams learned not to get drawn forward and we found it much harder to break through.
Under AVB we try to press all the time and it works against us at times for the same reason, it denies us space as much as the opposition.

That's something I've been thinking about too. How to pressure your opponents without pushing them into their own penalty area?

 

[BrainOfLevy]

That's something I've been thinking about too. How to pressure your opponents without pushing them into their own penalty area?

I think that's exactly what we tried to do against Norwich at home in the 1-1 game, but for whatever reason it didn't work.

 

[thfcsteff]

If you can be bothered to read through all that again, you'll see common themes of indecisiveness, making overly defensive substitutions when defending a narrow lead to kill our momentum and invite pressure on, a lack of thinking about the way the opposition will be playing and how we should adjust accordingly, and of course several "WTF???" moments throughout the season. To his credit, we are no longer seeing so many of the very negative, shut up shop, defensive substitutions that allow the opposition to take control of the game. If he can also cut out the "WTF???" moments, react to things more quickly and analyse different ways to set up to beat the opposition (eg - finding a way to start one of the more creative players like Sigurdsson, Huddlestone or Carroll against relegation strugglers who come to WHL to park the bus) he might just win me over and we might just have a good season.

I did read it all. And TBH, I think if you re-read what you wrote above, you will find you answer yourself. I see you as being hyper hyper critical of a new manager in a new job with new players and stripped of last season's chief dynamos either by sale or injury. Even reading your points, and especially the above paragraph, I see a manager learning his side and his squad, getting some players back and finding rhythm pretty quickly. As for the early-season cautiousness, again you fail to apply any context whatsoever to the pressure he was under. It was madness. One paper gave him three matches before the tin-tack, ludicrous and crap but he didn't need it. And then there are the über critics, such as your good self mate...methinks you should take a step back and see we are having a good season right now and it promises to get better.

 

[thfcsteff]

The way we pressed under Harry was all about setting our pacey players free, we let teams come forward then pressed, meaning we could break from deeper allowing the pace of our forward line to show. Later in the season teams learned not to get drawn forward and we found it much harder to break through.
Under AVB we try to press all the time and it works against us at times for the same reason, it denies us space as much as the opposition.

Sorry to say, with Harry it was absolutely reliant on individual players carrying the side. Modders, Bale, VdV and Lennon. I've been saying it all season, AVB has worked on getting Bale and Lennon to work the channels far more effectively, to switch with greater purpose and for Bale to come inside again with purpose and a plan as opposed to just wandering in there and taking space from others. Now we have various systems which allow him to drop into the middle while others switch around to accomodate/leave him with some space. Again, and it is the best example of a clueless game from last season, QPR away was a match we should've won by 4 or 5 but we were absolutely clueless as to how to get the best of our star men.
With Harry it was all about letting Bale break. Seriously, other than AC Milan away in the CL last season (which was excellent) I cannot think of many matches where Harry tactically worked Bale/the team. Norwich away? I'd concede that but only after arguing Bale took those spaces himself. I can, however, name a number of matches where Harry could not tactically adapt and it cost us big time, from Madrid away in the QF to Chelski in the semi to Villa away, the list was far longer than people want to admit.

Who knows, maybe AVB will not get success either, but currently, given what I've seen, I think he is on course to be a very, very major manager at our football club.

 

[billyiddo]

i wonder, if given the opportunity, would anyone choose to trade AVB for Redknapp :-k

 

[Roy1983]

i wonder, if given the opportunity, would anyone choose to trade AVB for Redknapp :-k

Right now no.

 

[parklane1]

i wonder, if given the opportunity, would anyone choose to trade AVB for Redknapp :-k

No chance.

 

[Mumorn]

No way. I don't think anyone would.

Things are looking bright for us. Not saying they didn't when Harry was here, but how many years does Harry have? and how many years for AVB have? It's a no brainer for me and I was one of Redknapps biggest fans.

 

[africanspurs]

i wonder, if given the opportunity, would anyone choose to trade AVB for Redknapp :-k

with proper financial backing i would

 

[africanspurs]

No way. I don't think anyone would.

Things are looking bright for us. Not saying they didn't when Harry was here, but how many years does Harry have? and how many years for AVB have? It's a no brainer for me and I was one of Redknapps biggest fans.

actually longevity is a good point. that would work in favour of AVB. but 3 and half years of consistent success and record breaking is not easily dissipated. for all intents and purposes AVB is reaping the benefits of managers past.

if given money i would go with harry

 

[glorygloryeze]

actually longevity is a good point. that would work in favour of AVB. but 3 and half years of consistent success and record breaking is not easily dissipated. for all intents and purposes AVB is reaping the benefits of managers past.

if given money i would go with harry

Really?? What evidence do you have that given 'proper backing' Harry would have spent large ammount of money wisely?

 

[Raziel]

Wow, not sure whatsup with AS these days (need a vacation mate?)

Think you would have to define money for me AS, City/Cheat$ki type spending or just 40-80M?