Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

[Modric THFC]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

More to the point what does it matter ...

I think a lot of people have faith in AVB for longer than they do because he looks the part.
Its like he's walked off the cover of the FM games. His social class fits into this.

Ultimately it doesn't matter but yes it does have an influence on people's perceptions of him.

 

[scaramanga]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

AVB's grandfather was a viscount. His family is as old money as they come.
There's nothing else to suggest he's an intellectual. He hasn't been to any third level education. What the difference between him and Hodgson if not for social class?

AVB and his parents had to work for a living - so you can take out the upper. Going back generations doesn't make anyone anything - otherwise I wouldn't be working for a living and certainly wouldn't be on a football forum.

There isn't a huge amount of difference in how I rate them intellectually. It's my opinion that AVB is more intelligent than Hodgson, but that doesn't really matter. Both seem to value thinking and working out problems based on facts rather than relying on instinct.

I think AVB is better at it, although Hodgson is suffering from the pressure of the delightful British press so it's hard to judge how he really works.

 

[Modric THFC]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

it might already to be too late for him sadly

He did look hapless at the final whistle. If he can turn it around, then he will stay, but I suspect that yesterday was a bridge too far for AVB. If we keep him we are paying big bucks for a young manager to learn his trade, and I doubt that either we as fans or Levy as a Chairman, have that patience. My head says that he is gone and that the next games will be painful - but who knows?

If he keeps his job it is because he is making the team play as a successful unit, scoring and winning, simple as that. But if he fails: who on earth is there to replace him. Freund? You can bet the Chairman and Director of Football will be having that conversation today.

Baldini's man will be Enrique. He loves him.

 

[NWND]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Our manager could be as intellectual or blood and thunder as they come. I don't care as long as they're good. Bad managers over think football and impose rigid structures on a game that is best played with freedom. The best way of breaking down organised defences is by doing something they don't expect. But when do we ever do this?

Wenger is a good intellectual manager

Alex Ferguson is a good blood and thunder manager

Both allow their teams the freedom to express themselves and use systems that fit the personnel they have available

AVB does neither of these things.

The players look nervous, tired, resigned to defeat and like they're disinterested.

No team loses games like yesterday with the quality we have and a full compliment of players without serious problems and I've seem many signs of players losing faith with AVB, not tracking runners, pulling out of 50/50s, looking slow and lethargic like they can't be bothered, shrugging their shoulders and looking at each other

Some like to point to stats as a way of defending AVB but we are a good portion of the season in, we have.a MINUS goal difference! We've scored 6 goals from open play all season! We're a couple of dodgy penalties away from being right down the bottom! We're in free-fall.

I wanted AVB out but even I was shocked by how poor we were yesterday. That was one of the most disjointed, disinterested shambles I have seen in many, many years! I mean wake up people we just lost 6-0!!!!!!!!

 

[ALtottenham_hotspur]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

The commentary I watched had Clive as co commentator. He kept on talking about attacking football and the spurs DNA. He was no fan of AVB.

Understandable really, AVB did sack Allen

 

[NWND]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Understandable really, AVB did sack Allen

Doesn't make it untrue though.

 

[a spur from swansea]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Can't believe that on january 2012 we were studs length away being top of the premiership in beating city 3-2 and year half + later,after spending £100 million we lose 6 nil to the same side........

We've been through this not once not twice but three times already with gross,santini and ramos over the years and we've got to go through it again with AVB,i like him but i thought he said he learnt about things at his time at chelsea,they got turned over by the goons at home 5-3 by playing the same system of a high line and pressing down on the opposition and it simply doesn't work if you got players who can't take to the system.

December is a massive month with the amount games being played plus the capital cup game against the spammers,im worried thats its a new month next week and we haven't got a settled side plus we still not know our best XI yet,i said this to myself we won't finish second third or fourth back in september,do we want the europa cup again,by going through our league position,i think we struggle to get that now.

What amazes me that people were glad that harry went........i don't really care whose in charge and their likeability factor,all i care is finishing high enough in the league and challenging for things,harry wasn't given the pleasure of having £100 miliion to spunk up the wall but he took us up the league from day one ,we've gone backwards since the summer of 2012.Bale got us out of so many dead ends last year that it covered our weaknesses.Did we need to buy such a large number of players,why let huddlestone or caulker go if we were going to get £100 million for bale,we could have let caulker go on loan again as a solution for not playing regular for us.

It be nice if levy and the board came out and justifiy why they made these changes in managers every time,do they get a strange satisfaction on when they see us doing well and then say feck it lets sack the manager and lets start all over again. So come january lets sack AVB and appoint another manager who will put out all the fires again,ridiculous.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

When have we ever sacked a manager that was doing well? Every change that has been made under Levy has seen us improve. Improvement year on year won't happen without the occasional hiccup, especially as we don't have a sugar daddy to help us skip all the intermediate stages.

 

[Hootnow]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Nobody cares what social class AVB is in. It's ridiculous for people to try to find justifications other than our **** performances so far this season.

We re not playing well. We re not scoring goals. We re actually getting worse. And yet the reason people are a little bit upset is because of AVB's class or 'intellect'.

 

[Mulletperm]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Nobody cares what social class AVB is in. It's ridiculous for people to try to find justifications other than our **** performances so far this season.

We re not playing well. We re not scoring goals. We re actually getting worse. And yet the reason people are a little bit upset is because of AVB's class or 'intellect'.

Ludicrous isn't it?

 

[Kingdawson]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

When have we ever sacked a manager that was doing well? Every change that has been made under Levy has seen us improve. Improvement year on year won't happen without the occasional hiccup, especially as we don't have a sugar daddy to help us skip all the intermediate stages.

Ramos taking over from Jol?

 

[scaramanga]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Nobody cares what social class AVB is in. It's ridiculous for people to try to find justifications other than our **** performances so far this season.

We re not playing well. We re not scoring goals. We re actually getting worse. And yet the reason people are a little bit upset is because of AVB's class or 'intellect'.

So what reason did many of those same people have for disliking him before our performances ever happened? Or when they were quite good? Or when he reversed last season's poor results?

 

[Pirate55]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

My greatest fear is that the rolling ball of negativity has destabilized AVB over the last month, and that now the players are destabilized and as such might not all be behind the manager.

We will see what kind of character they have against Man Utd.

I don't doubt that AVB will give everything he has trying to right the wrongs, I hope the players are right there with him...

I agree that the players are the key. Once AVB has lost the dressing room, there is no way back for him. Does he have the motivational abilities to lift the players? We will see over the next two PL games.

In his book, Harry said one of the most important thing for any manager is to really know his players. Does AVB really know each one as an individual - their hopes, aspirations, fears, worries, home life etc etc or does he treat them all as automatons, as mere cogs in the wheel? I simply don't know, but I guess we will find out soon whether AVB has their respect or not.

 

[Pirate55]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Villas-Boas said: "My responsibility is to lift the players, there is always another game coming. We have to give a response in the Europa League."

No. You just don't get it. You'll do it again, you'll put far too much resource into a meaningless game on Thursday and we'll suffer the consequences against Utd. I couldn't give a flying **** what the score is on Thursday, we're already through!
Play the U21s on Thursday, while you work with the first team on how they beat Man U.

110% agree. To take any first teamers to the arctic circle in a meaningless dead rubber fixture on Thursday before playing the champions in the PL on Sunday is just sheer madness. If AVB does this, I will vote for him to go immediately.

 

[Cochise]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

To be completely honest here, most Spurs fans I knew were reserved in their opinion of AVB when he joined because of the Chelsea debacle and the way the media wanted him out before he even set foot in the club. Then we had the first 2-3 months of last season where I had friends coming back from games stating that "AVB needs to sort it out, because we don't look like a team at the moment". After the win at Old Trafford everyone got behind him BUT I personally couldn't get past the fact that despite winning we never looked like a cohesive unit. Opposition fans joked about the one man team thing last year with Bale and despite denying it, a little voice inside my head knew they were right until it got so painfully obvious that only Jan and Bale were looking to do something class. Right now I support the guy and I can see that his signings (Paulinho for one) are not effective. Ex players like Clive Allen are right, he is forcing players into positions to make his system work. Gylfi will always be best in the middle and is wasted on the left, he works hard which is good enough but we will never get the best out of him playing there. Lamela has shown in his cameos thus far that he works well cutting in on his left foot and suits being in the centre or right side.

That said on Sunday there were signs that he was trying to change it around. Lamela and Lennon were used on their normal sides as it were, when in previous games he has used them inverted, with Lennon looking out of sorts on the left. He is obviously looking for solutions on that left side, but Lamela isn't the one but still he tried something new. Holtby and Paulinho switched it up often and this movement created spaces for us to advance forward. In previous games Eriksen has stayed high and Paulinho has worked back and forth but their positioning has been rigid. Finally our backline sat back deeper when in possession, even though Hoddle and Souness discussed how they weren't setup to be playing against two strikers it does show a change in style.

I think he needs to just stick Townsend out on the left for the time being as it seems only he and Chadli can offer something out there resembling natural width. We all know Andros can shoot with both feet and I reckon he would still beat most full backs down that side too. It seems a logical step to me at least whilst we try to find a solution.

 

[indospurs]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

AvB managed to get the highest EPL points haul ever for us last season, with a certain left footed player I grant you.

Yesterday was an abomination, that first goal was such bad footy and bad luck and 99 out of 100 times wouldn't have gone in. The second was perfection too. Our back line was ripped to shreds time and again, at will, by Emirates Marketing Project.

So now AvB has to fix it; and more importantly get us winning again. And get us scoring goals, and finding a system that allows the players to express themselves. Sorted ! No problem ...

 

[Jordinho]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Ramos taking over from Jol?

Won us a trophy.

We were regressing under Jol and had been for some time, so a change was long overdue. In the short time Ramos was here we signed a lot of players that Redknapp got the benefit from. We could be in a similar situation now, where someone else is better suited to get the most out of this squad.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Seen some quotes from JV and Dawson today, and thankfully the mood is more 'talking it over and coming back vs United' than it is shady transfer requests and negative agent briefings.

That is good, I would have thought if we saw some negative coverage from the press today in terms of players in our squad, then the process of AVB losing them will have begun. But I'm a bit more positive about it now and I think AVB still has them on side.

Improvements obviously need to be made, and as long as the players are on side I think they will be.

 

[Craig_J]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

110% agree. To take any first teamers to the arctic circle in a meaningless dead rubber fixture on Thursday before playing the champions in the PL on Sunday is just sheer madness. If AVB does this, I will vote for him to go immediately.

If I was AVB I'd think the best thing to do is plan your team for the United game now and train with them all week in preperation for the United game. The rest of the players can get trained by Freund this week and I'd send Freund over to whoever we're playing in the Europa League to manage the team whilst AVB can stay and prepare the team for the United game more on the Thursday.

 

[Bullet]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

If I was AVB I'd think the best thing to do is plan your team for the United game now and train with them all week in preperation for the United game. The rest of the players can get trained by Freund this week and I'd send Freund over to whoever we're playing in the Europa League to manage the team whilst AVB can stay and prepare the team for the United game more on the Thursday.

Precisely. Also if we only send kids over to Norway, it doesn't matter so much if we can't score as we can say it was a fully 'reserves and kids' side with Daniel Ombigwa-Makubu Wassanaya up front.