• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

AVB

I actually think he'd be better taking on a side with no history. As soon as he took over at one of the above their would be expectation, he needs to take a fairly innocuous mid table team that have won very little in their history and turn them into CL contenders/trophy winners. That would gain him much more respect that what he's doing currently.

Whose respect does he need to earn?

Fans in general? Journalists? Fans online?

What seems pretty clear is that he manages to impress clubs and their owners. Zenit have a lot of money and he walked into a job there only months after being sacked by us. A couple of trophies there in a couple of seasons and I'm sure fairly big clubs in fairly big leagues will come sniffing around. A couple of seasons performing to expectations with some mid table dross somewhere won't get him that I think. Look at Moyes, took him 10 years to get a big job after everyone thought he did a good job at Everton, and they're not mid table. Even then he only got a job because of his connections with Ferguson I think.

Not many teams with no history in the top four or five leagues break into CL contenders/trophy winners, there is just too much money in football now and those without are frozen out.

Spot on. It's a hella-difficult proposition. If AVB cares about his career and himself why would he look for that over easy exposure, money and a chance to get himself back in the limelight in a positive fashion?
 
Whose respect does he need to earn?

Fans in general? Journalists? Fans online?

What seems pretty clear is that he manages to impress clubs and their owners. Zenit have a lot of money and he walked into a job there only months after being sacked by us. A couple of trophies there in a couple of seasons and I'm sure fairly big clubs in fairly big leagues will come sniffing around. A couple of seasons performing to expectations with some mid table dross somewhere won't get him that I think. Look at Moyes, took him 10 years to get a big job after everyone thought he did a good job at Everton, and they're not mid table. Even then he only got a job because of his connections with Ferguson I think.



Spot on. It's a hella-difficult proposition. If AVB cares about his career and himself why would he look for that over easy exposure, money and a chance to get himself back in the limelight in a positive fashion?

Now that's what I call hedging your bets. The Russian and Ukranian Leagues are not known for rehabilitating managerial careers in fact quite the opposite. I am going out on a limb here by saying he seems to have several rich contacts like the chairman of PSG. Perhaps this is a contact giving him a chance. After all it wouldn't be a great gamble considering the money Zenit have, their recent success under Spaletti, and AVB's own success with Porto. But unless he does well in the Champions league this move will do more for his ego, by being top dog in a league again, than his career.

BTW you ask whose respect he needs- well he seems to be a guy who craves respect and being taken seriously, he remonstrates with Bobby Robson as a teenager, he turns up to Pep Guardiola's coaching sessions and He remonstrates with journalists who wrote negative pieces about him.
 
Last edited:
Now that's what I call hedging your bets. The Russian and Ukranian Leagues are not known for rehabilitating managerial careers in fact quite the opposite. I am going out on a limb here by saying he seems to have several rich contacts like the chairman of PSG. Perhaps this is a contact giving him a chance. After all it wouldn't be a great gamble considering the money Zenit have, their recent success under Spaletti, and AVB's own success with Porto. But unless he does well in the Champions league this move will do more for his ego, by being top dog in a league again, than his career.

BTW you ask whose respect he needs- well he seems to be a guy who craves respect and being taken seriously, he remonstrates with Bobby Robson as a teenager, he turns up to Pep Guardiola's coaching sessions and He remonstrates with journalists who wrote negative pieces about him.

I was just trying to exclude the very top clubs, he's probably not going to walk into a job like the Chelsea job directly from Zenit. But I think he's as or more likely to up his image there as with some mid table Bundesliga club.

Well he obviously has the respect of the people that hire him, that's my point. He's a football manager at a very high level, he obviously has a lot more respect in the world of football than a journalist and he's obviously being taken seriously.
 
Whose respect does he need to earn?

Fans in general? Journalists? Fans online?

What seems pretty clear is that he manages to impress clubs and their owners. Zenit have a lot of money and he walked into a job there only months after being sacked by us. A couple of trophies there in a couple of seasons and I'm sure fairly big clubs in fairly big leagues will come sniffing around. A couple of seasons performing to expectations with some mid table dross somewhere won't get him that I think. Look at Moyes, took him 10 years to get a big job after everyone thought he did a good job at Everton, and they're not mid table. Even then he only got a job because of his connections with Ferguson I think

It looks better on his CV IMO. I didn't say he should take some mid table dross and perform to expectation, he needs to take some mid table dross and turn them into a regular CL side. Moyes didn't do that.

Your right, he doesn't really need to earn anyone's respect and I'm sure he doesn't care. But if he does win plenty of trophies, watch the media say that anyone could win with Zenit in Russia (as some did with Porto). If he took over a mid-table team and turned them into CL regulars that would be a much more difficult angle to take.
 
I was just trying to exclude the very top clubs, he's probably not going to walk into a job like the Chelsea job directly from Zenit. But I think he's as or more likely to up his image there as with some mid table Bundesliga club.

Well he obviously has the respect of the people that hire him, that's my point. He's a football manager at a very high level, he obviously has a lot more respect in the world of football than a journalist and he's obviously being taken seriously.

If he managed to take a mid-table Bundesliga club and turn them into CL regulars or title contenders would you not agree that this says more about his ability to manage than winning the Russian league with Zenit?
 
If he managed to take a mid-table Bundesliga club and turn them into CL regulars or title contenders would you not agree that this says more about his ability to manage than winning the Russian league with Zenit?

Given the correlation between spend and results in football, how many managers in the world do you think could take a mid-table Bundesliga side and make them CL regulars without massive investment?
 
Given the correlation between spend and results in football, how many managers in the world do you think could take a mid-table Bundesliga side and make them CL regulars without massive investment?

My original post didn't actually say Bundesliga, I think BE was just surmising. The crux of my point is that it would do more to prove his ability as a manager (to fans, media, everyone) to take a club with little expectation (because they will give him time) and make them successful, than manage a club who are already expected to do well, and continue to do well.
 
Hamburg are a mighty club lying 16th in the Bundesliga. Why not go there and grind them up to 2 top 10 finishes in a row?

Get a buzz going at the place, get the fans positive about their club again, and see if there might be some money to push on for a European place in your 3rd year. Restore his own confidence, show that his ideas work, get a proper football club rocking again. You don't need to be winning things to catch the eye, and that kind of achievement I think would have so much more kudos and professional satisfaction than pretending you're competing with CL Galactico clubs just because you can't fail to qualify for the CL and because some oil oligarch has bought you a team of £40m Brazillians.

It would then be a case of: "Look what AVB has been quietly achieving at Hamburg for 3 years." And all before he's 40.
 
Italy seems tailor made for him I think. The style of play he espouses just seems to fit with the football landscape over there. Resurrect a fallen giant like Inter in a year or two might be something doable for him.
 
Hamburg are a mighty club lying 16th in the Bundesliga. Why not go there and grind them up to 2 top 10 finishes in a row?

Get a buzz going at the place, get the fans positive about their club again, and see if there might be some money to push on for a European place in your 3rd year. Restore his own confidence, show that his ideas work, get a proper football club rocking again. You don't need to be winning things to catch the eye, and that kind of achievement I think would have so much more kudos and professional satisfaction than pretending you're competing with CL Galactico clubs just because you can't fail to qualify for the CL and because some oil oligarch has bought you a team of £40m Brazillians.

It would then be a case of: "Look what AVB has been quietly achieving at Hamburg for 3 years." And all before he's 40.

Pretty much exactly what I was trying to say, only put much much more clearly than I ever could/would.

=D>
 
It looks better on his CV IMO. I didn't say he should take some mid table dross and perform to expectation, he needs to take some mid table dross and turn them into a regular CL side. Moyes didn't do that.

Your right, he doesn't really need to earn anyone's respect and I'm sure he doesn't care. But if he does win plenty of trophies, watch the media say that anyone could win with Zenit in Russia (as some did with Porto). If he took over a mid-table team and turned them into CL regulars that would be a much more difficult angle to take.

You're right. Moyes didn't do that. And actually in England I don't think anyone's done that without mass spending since the CL/money revolution in football. Shows how hard that task is. Of course it would look great on a CV to do that, being as it's as hard as that to achieve. But there's also a very significant risk of failure with a job like that. In fact the vast majority of manages will fail at that for whatever reason. Is that a risk worth taking early in your career when you have other options?

If he managed to take a mid-table Bundesliga club and turn them into CL regulars or title contenders would you not agree that this says more about his ability to manage than winning the Russian league with Zenit?

Yes. Because it's harder, see above.

Given the correlation between spend and results in football, how many managers in the world do you think could take a mid-table Bundesliga side and make them CL regulars without massive investment?

Very few. And even the super talented ones would probably need a bit of luck.

My original post didn't actually say Bundesliga, I think BE was just surmising. The crux of my point is that it would do more to prove his ability as a manager (to fans, media, everyone) to take a club with little expectation (because they will give him time) and make them successful, than manage a club who are already expected to do well, and continue to do well.

I was just mentioning one league that had been mentioned as an example.
 
is it just me or is the criticism being aimed at him for not doing what he was trying to do here, for which we was criticised for not doing what he's gone to Zenit to do?
 
Hamburg are a mighty club lying 16th in the Bundesliga. Why not go there and grind them up to 2 top 10 finishes in a row?

Get a buzz going at the place, get the fans positive about their club again, and see if there might be some money to push on for a European place in your 3rd year. Restore his own confidence, show that his ideas work, get a proper football club rocking again. You don't need to be winning things to catch the eye, and that kind of achievement I think would have so much more kudos and professional satisfaction than pretending you're competing with CL Galactico clubs just because you can't fail to qualify for the CL and because some oil oligarch has bought you a team of £40m Brazillians.

It would then be a case of: "Look what AVB has been quietly achieving at Hamburg for 3 years." And all before he's 40.

And still if he does get them into the EL say people will just say "oh, there's AVB getting a club to perform to it's financial potential again". This is if he doesn't go the way of many other managers like Jol and gets himself sacked in the process. In which case he's "oh look, AVB failed again".

His success at Porto is what got him the job at Chelsea, the Spurs job and ultimately the Zenit job. Why would he change that approach, it's obviously working.

Chairmen and boards doing the hiring unsurprisingly like trophies. Just like you like the trophies that FdB has brought Ajax a lot more than you like the mid table position Pochettino has brought Southampton. And that he also brought to a relegation threatened Espanyol before running into what most mid table managers do sooner or later - a bad patch that gets them fired.
 
:ross: Why on earth is AVB going to bother taking over a bottom half German team? He is way too good for that. It's hilarious that he should lower himself.
 
I think that the questions we should consider are:

What is the best that he can achieve at Zenit?

What level of job do we think him succeeding at Zenit could lead?
 
but it doesn't restore his reputation does it?

we know his tactics work when his managing the best team in a tin pot league. The jury is out as to whether or not he can do it in a 'big league' after failing twice.


If he is successful with Zenit then he will be in contention for bigger jobs than what would most likely have been available to him upon leaving us, is what i meant
 
Back