Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

[thfcsteff]

:lol: We've not been really brick for a few games (well apart from QPR) and suddenly we're a stepping stone. AVB is lucky to be at us, he knows that. If he does really well he'll get the typical Levy 3-4 year period before he gets bored and wants someone else to try and perform a miracle.

But another good display today. I'm glad the people who last season failed to understand that dropped points doesnt automatically mean its the managers fault now understand it (nothing to do with whos in charge or anything is it 8-[ ). But keeping in line with my unbiased view (one that doesnt mean i dont pick n choose where to be fair) we dropped points today but you dont blame the manager, if the teams plays well but we dont take our chances there is not a lot to criticise the manager about - I didnt do it last season when we went through at short spell of playing well but missing loads so I certainly wont with AVB (who personality wise is probably my favourite PL manager).

I hope certain people now understand my previous posts where I was adamant this team can play much better and we dont need Modric/Moutinho/Messi to do so.

I also dont think "when was the last time man utd were hanging on" type comments are overly relevant. For a start we have deserved a lot more against man utd going back to the Jol days, but if we dont win a game for the rest of the season then what good would it be making man utd hang on ? Its only relevant if we consistently over perform.

EDITED: :-#

:ross::ross::ross:

 

[Golfball]

Ive been proud of the players under AVB for the best part of the season and have noticed these past couple of months now that AVB has got his ideas instilled, that we have been dominating our opponents for large spells during games.

Unlike a few others on here, I've not had the patience to defend the AVB project as for me it's been crystal clear, that we're playing a far more intelligent game under, AVB, than what we have done under any of our previous managers in the past 20 years.

Our possession is improving when teams sit back and like all Spurs fans I just wish we had more of a lethal goal threat. Also our defending to the counter attack, something I felt under, Harry we never really got to grips with is looking very good now. All to often, I felt the excitement many talk about in previous seasons, was due to many of our games being ding dong affairs and not wholly due to our own play. This is different , we are limiting our opponents to few attempts like I've not seen before. We have Lloris to thank for this due to his dominance of his penalty area and obviously the defensive coaching methods of the AVB management team . To change the back line on so many occasions and yet still put in these defensive performances is a credit to their training methods. We were conceding late goals earlier on in the season but hopefully that's all behind us now. Meanwhile our own counter attacking threat is one of the best in the premeirship so this all means we have become a very difficult opponent play against.

All that's needed is what a few on here have already said and that is for, Joe Lewis to prove just how much of a Spurs fan he really is and make a small gift to the club out of his 3.5 billion pound fortune. With the building of the new stadium to begin next summer, it's time to back the club by signing a couple of decent forwards whilst we have this astute management team in place. So I say to Mr Lewis & Enic, seize the moment and AVB along with his staff will repay your faith in them , of that I'm in no doubt.

COYS!

The bits I have in bold is the sort of stuff that sounds nice but just not really true. There's no magical mystery strategy going on that AVB has been slowly implementing, if anything it seems clear he tried a few things earlier and they didnt work, so he has had to change it around a bit. I think its pretty much common knowledge that a meeting was held with the players to discuss the poor performances and late goals - after realising the players werent happy with certain things this was changed. As nice as your theory sounds, difficult to see a case for it when the "ideas" we have now are not the same "ideas" we had at the start. We are playing reasonable well now, but it is compared with how we started the season rather than last season.

As for more intelligent / this n that better etc, again it sounds nice but the players aren't playing better than they did under HR, we dominated so many games last season (win or lose) limiting our opponents. Last week at QPR their target was a draw and they did this by blocking us out as they know we struggle to break teams down. Today Man Utd got the lead in the first 30 mins and then tried to shut us out as they know we struggle to score, had we gone 1 nil up then you know Man Utd are ending the game with 20 shots on goal ! But i'd expect teams to have less chances against us this season as Modric/Parker had become Dembele/Sandro - a lot tougher to get through.

AVB started slowly, no doubt about that (unless you be really precious about it) but credit should go to him for not being stubborn and realising how to get the best out of these players - we started off too cautious and strict in the way we play and it didnt have great results, we seem to be playing a lot more like last season now when you look at positions players take up and their movement. Im glad he has realised you dont invite pressure onto Kyle Walker!

Now we are back playing at a reasonable standard and he understands what the players can/cant do, it is now onward we might see him build on this and coach new ideas / do something intelligent so that he raises us above where you'd expect this squad to be.

 

[Golfball]

EDITED: :-#

:ross::ross::ross:

And the point of your post ?

Have I, once again, touched a nerve by highlighting the behavior of "certain people" ?? If so, I dont apologise, thats exactly my intention. If people are going to take time to post on a discussion board, there is absolutely no point in doing so unless you are going to be honest and fair in your opinion, rather than letting what you want to be true effect the real truth. When people post with their bias twist added to their posts, its as good making a post saying an alien invaded WHL and did XYZ - it didnt happen, so no amount of posting it is going to think it is true. In fact Im fairly confident not even the people making the posts actually believe it, for them its about forum point scoring.
I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on our current performances compared to the first 15 games ? I know when I posted we werent playing well, you wouldnt accept it. Now having seen our last 7/8 games, have you not spotted a difference ? I'm guessing for you nothing has changed as you wouldnt accept a problem in the first place.

 

[ArcspacE]

It was a bit more than the first few games!!!

We were brick for a few months, now much improved since December. AVB seems the sort of be honest with himself, I'm sure he'll admit he didnt get it right straight away and has had to change a few things around to get us going.

Eh?

 

[BrainOfLevy]

The bits I have in bold is the sort of stuff that sounds nice but just not really true. There's no magical mystery strategy going on that AVB has been slowly implementing, if anything it seems clear he tried a few things earlier and they didnt work, so he has had to change it around a bit. I think its pretty much common knowledge that a meeting was held with the players to discuss the poor performances and late goals - after realising the players werent happy with certain things this was changed. As nice as your theory sounds, difficult to see a case for it when the "ideas" we have now are not the same "ideas" we had at the start. We are playing reasonable well now, but it is compared with how we started the season rather than last season.

As for more intelligent / this n that better etc, again it sounds nice but the players aren't playing better than they did under HR, we dominated so many games last season (win or lose) limiting our opponents. Last week at QPR their target was a draw and they did this by blocking us out as they know we struggle to break teams down. Today Man Utd got the lead in the first 30 mins and then tried to shut us out as they know we struggle to score, had we gone 1 nil up then you know Man Utd are ending the game with 20 shots on goal ! But i'd expect teams to have less chances against us this season as Modric/Parker had become Dembele/Sandro - a lot tougher to get through.

AVB started slowly, no doubt about that (unless you be really precious about it) but credit should go to him for not being stubborn and realising how to get the best out of these players - we started off too cautious and strict in the way we play and it didnt have great results, we seem to be playing a lot more like last season now when you look at positions players take up and their movement. Im glad he has realised you dont invite pressure onto Kyle Walker!

Now we are back playing at a reasonable standard and he understands what the players can/cant do, it is now onward we might see him build on this and coach new ideas / do something intelligent so that he raises us above where you'd expect this squad to be.

He clearly, for whatever reason, was slowly transitioning to a style of football that we see now, and didn't look to implement it straight away. I don't know why that was - could have been because he didn't want to undo Harry's work too quickly, which would mean dropping the likes of Friedel and even Livermore who held the shirts at the start of the season. So to smoothly transition, and buy the respect of the squad, he gives Friedel games, he gives Livermore games, he shows that he isn't too rigid in his thinking and that if you have done well at this club you have a chance of playing, it isn't going to be all about him and his ideas. The flip side of that means, if you're playing Friedel who likes to hug his line then it's best not to play a high line immediately with that kind of goalkeeper. Similarly we needed to get wins at the start of the season and so changes were implemented slowly. Liverpool look decent now but they struggled at the start and perhaps that was because the new style was implemented straight away.

Now, it's pretty clear we have progressed to a certain style of football that sees us pressing high and dominating possession. There's many interviews around with AVB talking about his preferred playing style if you want to read them, and it certainly wasn't what we were playing at the start. It is what we are playing now. Since Lloris got introduced, we took a big step towards it, and then when we had the break between the Everton and Swansea games, which was the first opportunity to do some real training mid week since we didn't have Europe or Cup games as we had done for a while, AVB said we would reach another level. And we did. Since then we've been bang on it in terms of the style he wants, and now we are just a couple of key players from being a really scary side for opposition teams.

 

[indianspur]

AVB is doing a marvellous job, far exceeding what i expected from him

 

[africanspurs]

AVB is doing a marvellous job, far exceeding what i expected from him

i wouldnt say FAR exceeding , but at this point in the season...23 games in he is definately impressing me with his results , even though his playing style isnt as romantic or exciting as Harry's....this is a results oriented profession and he is more than delivering

however these last 15 games of the season is where it really counts, how he performs now with these set of players will determine if he exceeds expectations , meets them, or falls short

my expectation has always been top 6 in his first season, hasnt changed in al honesty. he is well on course to meeting that......

 

[indianspur]

i wouldnt say FAR exceeding , but at this point in the season...23 games in he is definately impressing me with his results , even though his playing style isnt as romantic or exciting as Harry's....this is a results oriented profession and he is more than delivering

however these last 15 games of the season is where it really counts, how he performs now with these set of players will determine if he exceeds expectations , meets them, or falls short

my expectation has always been top 6 in his first season, hasnt changed in al honesty. he is well on course to meeting that......

after losing Modric, VDV and King, being without Ekotto, Parker and Kaboul all season, after all the criticism because of his work at Chelsea, the media pressure etc, i thought there was no way we would be challenging for 3rd place at this stage. We look defensively solid, again something i didnt expect, we are creating decent chances and scoring goals, the squad are settled and happy, so up to now the coaching staff have done a terrific job. Of course the last 15 games will determine how successful this season is to be, but like i said up to now i really didnt expect us to be in such a strong position.

 

[parklane1]

It was a bit more than the first few games!!!

We were brick for a few months, now much improved since December. AVB seems the sort of be honest with himself, I'm sure he'll admit he didnt get it right straight away and has had to change a few things around to get us going.

You really do talk a lot of nonsense.

 

[Wriggly]

Golfball :ross:

 

[FatBloke]

Fact is, Fergie got his lot to park the bus at 1-0 yesterday. I have never seen anything like it from a ManU side, at least in domestic competition. And he knows a thing or two about football.

Our midfield is playing fluidly in the opposition half -- it actually looks as though good movement has been coached into them, and that they know where each other will be, expecting certain runs to be made. If we had a top-class striker (one a little taller than 5'4" would be nice), I'm pretty sure we'd all be on here talking about a famous victory!

 

[africanspurs]

after losing Modric, VDV and King, being without Ekotto, Parker and Kaboul all season, after all the criticism because of his work at Chelsea, the media pressure etc, i thought there was no way we would be challenging for 3rd place at this stage. We look defensively solid, again something i didnt expect, we are creating decent chances and scoring goals, the squad are settled and happy, so up to now the coaching staff have done a terrific job. Of course the last 15 games will determine how successful this season is to be, but like i said up to now i really didnt expect us to be in such a strong position.

i think the key focus for me would havwe been the media pressure and his failure at chelsea.......that more than the personell issues were what i thought would be a hinderance. cause quite frankly we have a strong squad..not as talented as last season...but just as deep

parker out...sandro in. IMO sandro was always the better player even though parker played in that dominant team
kaboul out ....dawson / gallas or caulker. i value gallas and dawsons all round reading of the game higher than Kabouls, who provides the best combo of athleticism and strength

then you think of the performancees of the new players ...verts assimilated quickly, dembele as well.......etc so the personell transition looked okay ....we knew what dembele vcould do..for me verts was more the x variable

definately for me was whether the media and the pressure after hary left would make him come undone. and po his credit ...it didnt. the man has done well and he is in his mid thirties..........his outlook at this moment in time is looking good

 

[Jammy]

Fact is, Fergie got his lot to park the bus at 1-0 yesterday. I have never seen anything like it from a ManU side, at least in domestic competition. And he knows a thing or two about football.

Our midfield is playing fluidly in the opposition half -- it actually looks as though good movement has been coached into them, and that they know where each other will be, expecting certain runs to be made. If we had a top-class striker (one a little taller than 5'4" would be nice), I'm pretty sure we'd all be on here talking about a famous victory!

The difference between the absolute top teams and teams like us is chance conversion. Van Persie had one chance yesterday and stuck it in, whereas we created plenty but didn't take advantage; not the first time we have been all over a team and not had the final killer touch. And despite all our posession and chances we could easily have been talking about going 2-0 down if than pen had been given.

 

[DHSF]

The difference between the absolute top teams and teams like us is chance conversion. Van Persie had one chance yesterday and stuck it in, whereas we created plenty but didn't take advantage; not the first time we have been all over a team and not had the final killer touch. And despite all our posession and chances we could easily have been talking about going 2-0 down if than pen had been given.

It is chance conversion and thats why it is imperitave that we really dont beat around the bush and splash a bit of cash. Its fudgein frustrating because its the indecisiveness that will cost us points and ultimately may cost us CL which in turn will cost us money and losing certain players.

No one is saying doing a Leeds but I also dont want us NOT to fulfil our potential whcih is there but just need a few tweaks.

 

[Rorschach]

The difference between the absolute top teams and teams like us is chance conversion. Van Persie had one chance yesterday and stuck it in, whereas we created plenty but didn't take advantage; not the first time we have been all over a team and not had the final killer touch. And despite all our posession and chances we could easily have been talking about going 2-0 down if than pen had been given.

This is spot on, but the players that give you that edge, RVP, Aguero , etc. are not easy to come by. In saying that, we do need another option up front as both Ade and now Defoe are firing blanks. We should have 3 strikers on our books anyway and from some of AVB's latest sound bites he thinks that too.

I can't believe I am saying this but what about a bid for Suarez? twisted

 

[ArcspacE]

I can't believe I am saying this but what about a bid for Suarez? twisted

Not a chance, mate - he's bound for Real Madrid or FC Barcelona, imv - highest level possible

 

[Spursalot]

Not a chance, mate - he's bound for Real Madrid or FC Barcelona, imv - highest level possible

Probably Real Madrid. He'd fit in better there.

 

[Jordinho]

This is spot on, but the players that give you that edge, RVP, Aguero , etc. are not easy to come by. In saying that, we do need another option up front as both Ade and now Defoe are firing blanks. We should have 3 strikers on our books anyway and from some of AVB's latest sound bites he thinks that too.

I can't believe I am saying this but what about a bid for Suarez? twisted

The one player in the league who's as bad as Defoe when it comes to shots per goal? Not to mention he'd cost at least £40 million.

Defoe: 10 goals in 94 shots
Suarez: 16 goals in 129 shots

 

[Rorschach]

Not a chance, mate - he's bound for Real Madrid or FC Barcelona, imv - highest level possible

Yeah your right....he is an odious little goblin anyway. Lazio would suit him better.

 

[Rorschach]

The one player in the league who's as bad as Defoe when it comes to shots per goal? Not to mention he'd cost at least £40 million.

Defoe: 10 goals in 94 shots
Suarez: 16 goals in 129 shots

Surprised at that actually. I thought he was doing well this year but obviously not.