Villas-Boas "Tottenham Board Destroyed Everything I Built"

AVB had his ups and downs with us but ultimately the style of play wasn’t successful enough or attractive enough for Levy to have long term confidence in him. He started off ok and the at the time record points for us was good but Bale rescued us in most matches and as time went on not only did we not compete with the top4/5 we started getting absolutely pummled which again shows what an incredible job Poch has done to turn the mentality and tactics of the team round to go from losing 4/5-0 to the top 4/5 to now being competitive every time we play them and always with a chance of a win, completely contrasting times.

I have no problem if we don’t back a manager we can clearly see isn’t the man to less us to longer term success, I just hope behind closed doors we aren’t making similar mistakes with Poch and id like to think we won’t be as I think Levy must realise what a great manager we currently have and try to back him as much as he possibly can.

* shudder * Hideous constipated football after the excitement of Redknapp's tenure. I have no sympathy for Villas Boas who always seemed excessively prickly and defensive in interviews, and it comes as no surprise to see his bitterness come to the surface with finger pointing and excuses as to why it didn't work out for him here. The team clearly were not inspired to play well under him after Harry's easygoing management style. I remember taking my then girlfriend to her first footy game: a 0:1 loss to Wigan at WHL - an excruciating, turgid 90 minutes of non football. She was polite and pretended to be interested, but who can blame her watching that sideways shite. We argued all the way home and split up a few weeks later. On the plus side my new girlfriend absolutely loves watching the mighty Spurs and is filth to boot! Cheers Poch!

we is us.

Ultimatly we were very flat under AVB and in neither season looked like we were going anywhere.

Ghost Hardware said:

What I would say is that joao moutinho would have been an excellent buy and Levy did seem to fuck that one up by doing his usual brinkmanship bullshit. Regardless of what else, he can be pissed off about that as his signing could have been very important for the club.

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I'm not convinced Moutinho would of made a big difference. Since leaving Porto Moutinho has been a mainstay of hit and miss Monaco sides. He was signed when they were splashing the cash about but not picked up by anyone when they were trying to sell anything worth any value between 2014-2016. When Monoco actually started to do well he was only a bit part player. At his prime he was a decent player, but not worth anything close to the amount quoted on him at the time.

punkisback said:

We lost Modric, King retired, VDV sold. Players like Adebayor and Ekotto threw the towel in, Sandro was injured, Parker was past it but had a heroic last season. We had Dempsey and Siggy as first choice players who wouldn't have got into the Redknapp teams. I think he did alright for having such a poor squad in comparison to what we have now and what we had previously, but he lost the dressing room and you have to go. Sherwood was a much worse manager, and whilst Redknapp was better, we had a much better team and he should have won something with them.

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Yes, we lost Modric, King retired, though after a pretty poor season really. VdV was sold by AVB who never pretended he wanted to keep him. On Adebayor, he didn't perform well for AVB, but he seemed to do alright for Redknapp and Sherwood. Maybe a better man manager could of got more out of him. Sandro missed a lot of games but made just as many appearances that season as he did the season before. Modric was a significant loss, the rest were just the normal ups and downs that happen season to season or were AVB's own making.

The thing is, we did improve elements of the team, its not like he just had rubbish. Vertonghen, Dembele and Lloris came in, three wonderful players. The only attacking option we sold who really played much was VdV, we managed to replace an ageing Kranjcar and Pienaar with Sigg and Dempsey. We were stronger in that department. We had massive Modric shaped whole in midfield, but apart from that, on paper, we were better in every other way. Didn't work out that way, and you are always going to miss Modric, but this wasn't a new unsettled team, it shouldn't of been so flat to watch.

gaffers said:

They ain't won it since he left

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Well that can just as easily show that AVB left the team in a worse state than he got it! It's a pretty meaningless point. For what its worth, AVB wasn't very well liked by St Pietersberg fans. Many wanted to get rid not long after winning the league. For very similar reasons to his problems in Tottenham actually. Namely boring football, lotsof moaning and isolating popular players.

You know international footy is shite when the top thread is just mainly insulting a former manager from a half decade ago

Roll on Chelsea

davidmatzdorf said:

Typically, the headline is misleading. It implies that the board has destroyed everything he created since he left and Pochettino arrived - the daft implication being that we were better before he left than we are now. It makes a nice inflammatory story.

But that's not what he actually said. He said the board destroyed everything he had tried to create during the summer between his first and second seasons, by rejecting his proposals for transfers. It's clear enough from the quotation, which of course has been buried at the end of the article:

Journo-bullshit. Waste of time.

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I didn't read it that way at all, from the headline or the story. I assumed it referred to the sale of Bale and 7 signings and the fall out the next season. Which it was.

JCRD said:

He was proper shit and a proper Charlatan

I still remember that Liverpool game - we were absolutely humiliated.

I do feel slightly sorry for him as we did get rid of Bale etc having said that it was the football that was utter tripe, made me want to chop my balls off and munch on them.

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The 6-0 to City, 0-3 to West Ham and various other horrific performances were bad before the 0-5 to Liverpool.

bomberH said:

Since the 80’s for me it’s

Burkinshaw
Poch
Venables
Redknapp
Jol

Poch will overtake Burky at some point hopefully. Venables and Redknapp could easily have been the other way around but his FA Cup win gives him the edge, though Redknapp gave us CL. Ramos won us a cup but we were utter shit afterwards.

AVB is quite far down the list, but he’s above the likes of Santini & Gross... and Ossie, bless him.

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Venables got us 3rd in the league, which for the last 20 years would have been a champions league place. I also believe at the time, we (England) were banned from Europe thanks to the bin dippers?

Gross kept us up and brought Klinsmann back. Better than AVB
Ossie - club legend - goals galore. Better than AVB.
Santini wasn't there long enough, very strange. Started the upturn though with the initial dream team of Santini, Jol and Arnesson. Also looks like Tackleberry. Better than AVB.

spursfan77 said:

He wanted us to spend a fortune on players.

Wasn’t helped by having to pull the knives out of his back placed there by Sherwood at every turn.

Levy then backed adebayor over him over that training ground cap incident and then it was all over.

I liked him but he’s virtually been forgotten now.

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No one knows the truth about any alleged back stabbing or the extent. It's all internet heresay. Before anyone says "ITK"
Salt. Salt. Salt.

As for Adebeyor - he was our best striker. Even if he was a total dick head, at that time, he was our best striker. Soldado was shit and was costing us points by being first pick with Adebyeor out of the squad altogether. AVB's job was, first and foremost, to win games for THFC and he was costing us that every match.

Ghost Hardware said:

What I would say is that joao moutinho would have been an excellent buy and Levy did seem to fuck that one up by doing his usual brinkmanship bullshit. Regardless of what else, he can be pissed off about that as his signing could have been very important for the club.

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He let the boss down if there was ever a way to get that done. As later alluded to though, 3rd party ownership is a handicap for all british clubs and needs to be addressed ASAP.
Also, Poch got no one at all this summer and has done remarkably well.

Kiedis said:

Thought what he did in the 12/13 season has been underestimated. Yes, Bale was good, but he also set the team up to let him do his thing better than Redknapp did.

We beat City, Liverpool, Arsenal and United, and did develop a back bone rarely seen before.

The 13/14 season was total ass though.

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It was a decent season but Bale was ready to hit that peak. Just telling him to do what he wants isn't great management and he would have done that had Redknapp still been there.

richard_gleeson said:

Thought he did a great job in first season. May be some truth in the off season mess, as we've seen even with Poch... Not always the managers fault...

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Poch has always managed to make the best of the situation, we haven't gone backwards despite Levy's best efforts.

Stavrogin said:

I don't think many loved Sherwood, if any... But I think there was a reaction to the almost irrational love/appreciation for Villas Boas. I do understand it though, AVB represented a fresh way of a doing things, Mourinho mk. II, and most importantly was the complete antithesis of Redknapp, whose relative success was galling to many.

People are far more averse to Sherwood, despite being here a short time, doing quite well and leaving the club/first team in a better state than when he found it. He wasn't great but the sad fact is, he was a necessary antidote and a good choice in the interim.

Because this is the problem with Villas Boas, he left no legacy. Aside from Bale, the only player who (somewhat) thrived under him was Townsend. When Sherwood came there was nothing. When Sherwood left we had Bentaleb as a first team midfielder, Kane as a contributing squad member and Eriksen was being used well for the first time.

This is massively important and it should be acknowledged more often. Because this faith in youth players would either influence Pochettino or influence Levy into appointing him - and the use of youngsters really saw Pochettino through in the early days and set the tone for the rest of his tenure.

It may not have been Villas Boas' fault but he really didn't have a good or productive time with us. It seemed promising at first and we thought he would build from the conservative approach that kinda worked. But his failure to leave anything tangible is damning.

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Don't care what any one else says, Sherwood was better than AVB with the same players.

VegasII said:

The bearded fool should have gone when we lost 3-0 at home to West Ham.

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THIS - he was easily out thought by Sam fucking Allardyce.

kaz Hirai said:

He was trying to create what pep has done, he said as much in an a detailed interview about Barcelona's possession style of continuously moving the ball about the pitch to disrupt the opponents shape.

Just didn't work at all, too many new players at once, a few bad eggs, no decent ball playing central midfielders, and he himself wasn't good with the coaching of individual players as jenas alluded to.
He was The opposite of Redknapp in many ways

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Pep and that Barcelona team didn't just pass for passing sake though. There was so much more to it than just keeping the ball and making safe passes. The press - which we didn't do. The counter press - which we didn't do. The movement of players in groups on and off the ball - which we didn't do. He wasn't a football manager. He just told players to stand in a 5-2-3-1 formation and keep passing. It was dismal.

guy said:

People talk about players stealing a living, AVB is the epitome of that as a manager.

It was the only time I have come close to not watching spurs games, purely because it was so soul destroying

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After that West Ham match I desperately tried to sell my Man United ticket, I just couldn't stand the thought of going while he was there. I didn't manage to sell it and it ended up being an ok 2-2. More in spite of him than because of him. Sandro worldy!

gaffers said:

They ain't won it since he left

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Poch seemed to have the same view on many of those players as AVB but luckily had the personality and mandate to get them out after we had plumbed the depths of Sherwoods gilet throwing free for all which turned most matches into the football equivalent of watching two tramps fighting

jurgen said:

Poch seemed to have the same view on many of those players as AVB but luckily had the personality and mandate to get them out after we had plumbed the depths of Sherwoods gilet throwing free for all which turned most matches into the football equivalent of watching two tramps fighting

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I don't doubt those players were better off out of the club, but not until we replaced them and not at the expense of results.
You use what you got. Poch used them all early on. I recall a 4 or 5 nil home win Vs QPR where Adebeyor was easily MOTM.

TottenhamMattSpur said:

It was a decent season but Bale was ready to hit that peak. Just telling him to do what he wants isn't great management and he would have done that had Redknapp still been there.

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I felt he set the team up with a better balance to let him thrive. Redknapp seemed to tell everyone to do what they wanted, and that led to quite a few games in that difficult spring of 11/12 where we had Bale, Modric, Parker and VdV standing on top of eachother in the centre of the pitch.

AVB eventually used Dempsey or Gylfi on the left and had them track back to let Bale stay further upfield.

The only good thing that happened in the boas era was that he got the sack thank god

when I try to count all the managers at Spurs in my lifetime that were manifestly worse than AVB, I run out of fingers in a hurry.

I get the lack of love, but the venom mystifies me.

I for myself first went to spurs in 1951 and have been an ardent fan ever since that first game and I have seen the good the bad and the ugly .This man Boas was the only one among our bad managers that made me feel like giving up my season ticket the reason being the football that was being played except for a few exeptions was the worst imaginable people around me were playing games on their phones in the middle of the match and if we had have won the league with this man I still would have hated the way we played.Either Blanchflower or Nicholson said something about playing the game in an exiting way that entertains the fans and not boring people to death the exact words escape me but for myself that is the spurs mantra try to win and entertain .
The venom comes from his assertion that he was building something when intact he was destroying the spurs way and take us to some kind of Pulis or Alydyce or MCcarthy way of playing .The man was and still is a joke .

TottenhamMattSpur said:

I didn't read it that way at all, from the headline or the story. I assumed it referred to the sale of Bale and 7 signings and the fall out the next season. Which it was.



The 6-0 to City, 0-3 to West Ham and various other horrific performances were bad before the 0-5 to Liverpool.



Venables got us 3rd in the league, which for the last 20 years would have been a champions league place. I also believe at the time, we (England) were banned from Europe thanks to the bin dippers?

Gross kept us up and brought Klinsmann back. Better than AVB
Ossie - club legend - goals galore. Better than AVB.
Santini wasn't there long enough, very strange. Started the upturn though with the initial dream team of Santini, Jol and Arnesson. Also looks like Tackleberry. Better than AVB.




No one knows the truth about any alleged back stabbing or the extent. It's all internet heresay. Before anyone says "ITK"
Salt. Salt. Salt.

As for Adebeyor - he was our best striker. Even if he was a total dick head, at that time, he was our best striker. Soldado was shit and was costing us points by being first pick with Adebyeor out of the squad altogether. AVB's job was, first and foremost, to win games for THFC and he was costing us that every match.



He let the boss down if there was ever a way to get that done. As later alluded to though, 3rd party ownership is a handicap for all british clubs and needs to be addressed ASAP.
Also, Poch got no one at all this summer and has done remarkably well.



It was a decent season but Bale was ready to hit that peak. Just telling him to do what he wants isn't great management and he would have done that had Redknapp still been there.




Poch has always managed to make the best of the situation, we haven't gone backwards despite Levy's best efforts.




Don't care what any one else says, Sherwood was better than AVB with the same players.



THIS - he was easily out thought by Sam fucking Allardyce.



Pep and that Barcelona team didn't just pass for passing sake though. There was so much more to it than just keeping the ball and making safe passes. The press - which we didn't do. The counter press - which we didn't do. The movement of players in groups on and off the ball - which we didn't do. He wasn't a football manager. He just told players to stand in a 5-2-3-1 formation and keep passing. It was dismal.



After that West Ham match I desperately tried to sell my Man United ticket, I just couldn't stand the thought of going while he was there. I didn't manage to sell it and it ended up being an ok 2-2. More in spite of him than because of him. Sandro worldy!

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I have never seen anyone quote a whole thread before fucking well done mate.

punkisback said:

We lost Modric, King retired, VDV sold. Players like Adebayor and Ekotto threw the towel in, Sandro was injured, Parker was past it but had a heroic last season. We had Dempsey and Siggy as first choice players who wouldn't have got into the Redknapp teams. I think he did alright for having such a poor squad in comparison to what we have now and what we had previously, but he lost the dressing room and you have to go. Sherwood was a much worse manager, and whilst Redknapp was better, we had a much better team and he should have won something with them.

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Spot on

shelfboy68 said:

I have never seen anyone quote a whole thread before fucking well done mate.

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I thought starting_price was back

Blimey, some of you in here are throwing hate back at him like he just insulted your mother!

He talked about the board FFS and why are you leaping to their defence? No one on the board gives two shits about you unless you can make them richer, especially Levy, so go get a wet fish and start slapping yourself in the face...

Yes the football did get very boring under AVB and yes I did want him out but I appreciate him speaking honestly about his time at the club. Frankly, very little real information is ever filtered down to the fans so I'm all for it.

He's hardly wrong either is he? We know he badly wanted Moutinho and even at 32 now at Wolves he's showing absolute class and what a bloody good signing he would have been for us. Remember this was when Modric had just gone to Madrid leaving a gaping hole to fill.
It was an affordable signing too but Levy did his usual "tight-ass last-minute of deadline day fuckery" and the deal collapsed. Totally unforgivable.

shelfboy68 said:

I have never seen anyone quote a whole thread before fucking well done mate.

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There was 4 pages since I last visited

markdadude said:

Blimey, some of you in here are throwing hate back at him like he just insulted your mother!

He talked about the board FFS and why are you leaping to their defence? No one on the board gives two shits about you unless you can make them richer, especially Levy, so go get a wet fish and start slapping yourself in the face...

Yes the football did get very boring under AVB and yes I did want him out but I appreciate him speaking honestly about his time at the club. Frankly, very little real information is ever filtered down to the fans so I'm all for it.

He's hardly wrong either is he? We know he badly wanted Moutinho and even at 32 now at Wolves he's showing absolute class and what a bloody good signing he would have been for us. Remember this was when Modric had just gone to Madrid leaving a gaping hole to fill.
It was an affordable signing too but Levy did his usual "tight-ass last-minute of deadline day fuckery" and the deal collapsed. Totally unforgivable.

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You missed the memo mate, only Spurs fans are allowed to criticise Levy and no one else, this thread has been a delightful read of irony it must be said

To blame Levy for the collapse of the Mouthino deal shows a complete ignorance of the facts as the third party ownership made the deal impossible to do .Now if you want to blame Levy for global warming thats a different matter.

I guess the claim would carry more weight if things had got worse since he left.