Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own
An interesting quote from Dembele on why he lost his place under AVB this season:
Unfortunately for Dembele, he seems to have recently lost his place at White Hart Lane, withAndre Villas-Boas telling Dembele he prefers the more defensive Paulinho, and Sandro in the midfield.
“I can not be satisfied with it, of course, I just want to play as many games,” said Dembele. “The coach explained that he makes a tactical choice, he wants more defensive players in midfield.”
So Dembele confirms that AVB has moved us to an even more defensive stance than last season. Do some still believe that we're going through a "stage"? AVZb "prefers" more defensive players in midfield.
I think this is a real shame as Sandro/Dembele looked a real balanced/effective unit at times last season and was the catalyst behind our good run of form beginning with the win at Old Trafford.
I posted this a couple of weeks ago or more but will say it again, in bullet points.
1) AVB, as a 36 year old learning his trade under huge pressure, is absolutely making sure we are tight defensively first. And that is smart. Because look at the whinging as it is now…imagine what that would be like if we were leaking goals like a sieve!!!!!
2) It is obvious that whilst he has 7 new players to integrate, as well as the necessity of finding some 35+ goals he does not have this season (Bale and Dempsey) his stance has been to make us very difficult to beat whilst he works out the best way to attack.
3) He has absolutely come under more pressure in the last few weeks, and very unfairly IMO, thus yes, being the type of guy he appears to be, I'd say he's feeling pressure and thus getting even tighter.
4) I believe if he is TRUSTED he will DELIVER on ALL fronts in the coming months.
5) I am DELIGHTED that Dembele isn't happy he is not one of the first names on the sheet. Fantastic. Competition.
6) Paulinho gets into the box a lot more than people seem to realize. He is a more direct footballer than Dembele, and for me, that is the MAJOR difference between them (although I tab him as much as Dembele with the Newcash goal, that bottled-tackle in the middle was simply awful and cannot happen again).
7) I wholly trust AVB to find the creative keys/ways to get goals in the back of the net. In fairness, we should've beaten Saudi Sportswashing Machine by 3 or 4, and in games such as Norwich, we carved them open time and time again only for poor decisions/poor finishing.
The biggest problem we face is the restlessness of small factions of our supporters IMO...