Opinion of AVB in hindsight?

[WiganSpur]

Take it you didn't go watch many live games while he was in charge.
If you did I'm amazed.

I've admitted clearly that we were boring, but you can't deny the man got results in his first season.

I assume you're comparing him to the likes of Redknapp? The Redknapp who had without doubt one of the world's best CM's and Rafa Van der Vaart in his ranks, as well as an injury free Scott Parker that had reached his peak?

The heartbeat of the team had been completely obliterated and not adequately replaced. I admit the football could have been a lot more attractive, but replacing Modric with Dembele and VdV with Dempsey and Sigurdsson, surely you couldn't be expecting us to be as free flowing?

 

[Lilbaz]

I've admitted clearly that we were boring, but you can't deny the man got results in his first season.

I assume you're comparing him to the likes of Redknapp? The Redknapp who had without doubt one of the world's best CM's and Rafa Van der Vaart in his ranks, as well as an injury free Scott Parker that had reached his peak?

The heartbeat of the team had been completely obliterated and not adequately replaced. I admit the football could have been a lot more attractive, but replacing Modric with Dembele and VdV with Dempsey and Sigurdsson, surely you couldn't be expecting us to be as free flowing?

There's free flowing then there is 20 passes and then back to the goalkeeper. If it wasn't for bale popping up with wonder goals i would have gouged my eyes out.

 

[slartibartfast]

That'll be a no then lol.

 

[WiganSpur]

There's free flowing then there is 20 passes and then back to the goalkeeper. If it wasn't for bale popping up with wonder goals i would have gouged my eyes out.

As I said anyway, i'm not really defending the style of play but judged on results in his first season you just can't say he was a crap manager in my opinion.

 

[Lilbaz]

As I said anyway, i'm not really defending the style of play but judged on results in his first season you just can't say he was a crap manager in my opinion.

His first season he did well. The second he was found out. Teams realised that they could let us have the ball and hit us on the break with pace and we were fucked.

 

[WiganSpur]

His first season he did well. The second he was found out. Teams realised that they could let us have the ball and hit us on the break with pace and we were fucked.

I can't argue with that, things went downhill the following season. He wasn't the right man for us in the end but that doesn't mean he was terrible.

 

[slartibartfast]

As I said I think you had to see the whole thing from the stands to appreciate just how fast he took us backwards.
Agree looking purely at results and watching 2min highlights on Match of the day it probably didnt look that bad.
Motd always shows both teams highlights so most games look like the had equal chances.
Believe me, it was bloody awful.
Annoys me that I see teams with inferior players, Norwich, Leicester, Bournemouth, Swansea all playing far better faster exciting football than we are.
Only one person to answer for that.

 

[Lilbaz]

As I said I think you had to see the whole thing from the stands to appreciate just how fast he took us backwards.
Agree looking purely at results and watching 2min highlights on Match of the day it probably didnt look that bad.
Motd always shows both teams highlights so most games look like the had equal chances.
Believe me, it was bloody awful.
Annoys me that I see teams with inferior players, Norwich, Leicester, Bournemouth, Swansea all playing far better faster exciting football than we are.
Only one person to answer for that.

And the line was so high and thin. You could see all that space and realise just one throughball and we are fucked. To an extent it hasn't changed that much.

 

[hellava_tough]

As I said anyway, i'm not really defending the style of play but judged on results in his first season you just can't say he was a crap manager in my opinion.

It helped that he had Bale in the side, who at the time was probably one of the best 3 in-form players in the world.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

As I said I think you had to see the whole thing from the stands to appreciate just how fast he took us backwards.
Agree looking purely at results and watching 2min highlights on Match of the day it probably didnt look that bad.
Motd always shows both teams highlights so most games look like the had equal chances.
Believe me, it was bloody awful.
Annoys me that I see teams with inferior players, Norwich, Leicester, Bournemouth, Swansea all playing far better faster exciting football than we are.
Only one person to answer for that.

As a coach he took us vastly forwards from the hap hazard lottery shit we'd been used to under Redknapp, can you imagine how great the football would have been if we'd kept Redknapp and ended up without Modric, VDV, Adebayor (effectively), & Bale ?

If you are struggling to imagine it, think Portsmouth under Redknapp and the turgid pile of wank they played, they would barely get out of their own half for 65% of games - and that team had some better players in it than AVB ended up with in his final half season.

We just completely outplayed Leicester. Just because they managed to a couple of breakaways doesn't mean they are playing more exciting football. Form a tactical and coached perspective It's much easier to get a side to just sit deep and break.

 

[For the love of Spurs]

AVB the most boring manager in my lifetime at Spurs, so boring games almost became hard to watch. We are Spurs, being an entertaining team is suppose to be in our DNA, I didn't feel like I was watching Spurs under him, it was like some bad alien attempt at imitating us.

I know being a Spurs fan means we might not see glory but at least let's be a fun team, I could have just about took it for a few years if we won the title but we got lower than Redknapp who had made us a joy to watch. If the football makes your eyes bleed then it kind of defeats the point of going.

I am normally critical at Levy when he sacks a manager but I was so relieved when AVB was shown the door, even Sherwood made me happy with his total lack of tactics. AVB was an utter disaster.

 

[Sevens]

I don't know how people can say he was crap?

Flawed? Yes. Stubborn? Yes. The wrong man in the end? Probably. But crap? No.

He inherited a poor squad that was lacking in both quality and depth. DL was up to his old tricks not backing him fully in the transfer market. I know some were unrealistic but to not get Moutinho was very disappointing. VDV, Modric and King were gone and only King was replaced adequately by Verts.

We had:

-Kyle Naughton and Vertonghen at left back
-If Lennon or Bale were out we had Sigurdsson and Dempsey as back up options and that was it. We had square pegs in round holes, Dempsey CAM, Sigurdsson LM, Holtby RM etc.
-Sandro got injured halfway through the season weakening the midfield even further.

We were in four competitions to test the squad even further, despite doing poorly in the domestic cups we did OK in the Europa, losing to a good Basel side only on penalties in the Qtr final.

As the same time with our paper thin squad we still managed to take the race for the top 4 to the last day, and ended up missing out by a single point.

Yes, we had Bale but people fail to understand that AVB developed him as a footballer, and was intelligent enough to make him central to our attacks. If he's your best player by a country mile then any manager with sense would say 'give it to Bale'.

He achieved a record points tally with good to average players, after we sold two world class players. The football was pretty boring, but we were well drilled and controlled the majority of games.

Now, 13/14 was a poor start for AVB and the wheels eventually came off, partly due to him being his own worst enemy and other factors such as poor recruitment. However, based on the 12/13 season, and the circumstances we were left in at the time, I completely disagree that he was a terrible manager.

He seemed a bit cold, stubborn, and didn't really give kids much opportunity, but he did far from a crap job in his first season with us.

No he didn't. He inherited a team that had finished 4th. He lost Modric but we replaced him with Dembele who, whilst not in Modric's class, could play similar to Modric in terms of receiving the ball under pressure and retaining possession and also carrying the ball to retain possession.

 

[UncleBuck]

Personally I didn't like the bloke or his tactics, however, I can't think of any manager that would have been able to come in and emulate the brand of football we were playing in our pomp under redknapp unfortunately.
Bit of a poison challis if you ask me and still is to this day...

 

[Sevens]

As a coach he took us vastly forwards from the hap hazard lottery shit we'd been used to under Redknapp, can you imagine how great the football would have been if we'd kept Redknapp and ended up without Modric, VDV, Adebayor (effectively), & Bale ?

If you are struggling to imagine it, think Portsmouth under Redknapp and the turgid pile of wank they played, they would barely get out of their own half for 65% of games - and that team had some better players in it than AVB ended up with in his final half season.

We just completely outplayed Leicester. Just because they managed to a couple of breakaways doesn't mean they are playing more exciting football. Form a tactical and coached perspective It's much easier to get a side to just sit deep and break.

Not sure if you're a WUM or not. But that's probably the craziest sh*t I've read since signing up on this forum. Two 4th's and a 5th and that was all down to lottery sh*t? You should go and join the idiots on Glory Glory. They'd love you and make you a mod!

 

[tttcowan]

As a coach he took us vastly forwards from the hap hazard lottery shit we'd been used to under Redknapp, can you imagine how great the football would have been if we'd kept Redknapp and ended up without Modric, VDV, Adebayor (effectively), & Bale ?

If you are struggling to imagine it, think Portsmouth under Redknapp and the turgid pile of wank they played, they would barely get out of their own half for 65% of games - and that team had some better players in it than AVB ended up with in his final half season.

We just completely outplayed Leicester. Just because they managed to a couple of breakaways doesn't mean they are playing more exciting football. Form a tactical and coached perspective It's much easier to get a side to just sit deep and break.

No mate. Just no. It was predictable rigid torrid turgid shite lacking any imagination originality or just plain old common sense... It was really bad. Redknapp and Sherwood both at least identified our strengths and tried to play to them and adapt to cover our weaknesses through common sense if nothing else. One size fits all tactics regardless of personnel is what avb churned out and it was unsurprisingly dire.

 

[Sevens]

Personally I didn't like the bloke or his tactics, however, I can't think of any manager that would have been able to come in and emulate the brand of football we were playing in our pomp under redknapp unfortunately.
Bit of a poison challis if you ask me and still is to this day...

4-4-2 like Redknapp. Lloris, Walker, Dawson, Vertonghen, Ekotto, Lennon, Dembele, Sandro, Bale, VDV, Adebayor.

AVB came in and tore apart a system that had served us well the previous two seasons and tried to implement one where we didn't have the suitable personnel to play it.

 

[Lilbaz]

As a coach he took us vastly forwards from the hap hazard lottery shit we'd been used to under Redknapp, can you imagine how great the football would have been if we'd kept Redknapp and ended up without Modric, VDV, Adebayor (effectively), & Bale ?

If you are struggling to imagine it, think Portsmouth under Redknapp and the turgid pile of wank they played, they would barely get out of their own half for 65% of games - and that team had some better players in it than AVB ended up with in his final half season.

We just completely outplayed Leicester. Just because they managed to a couple of breakaways doesn't mean they are playing more exciting football. Form a tactical and coached perspective It's much easier to get a side to just sit deep and break.

So passing it sideways and backwards in order to retain possession is tactical genius is it?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

So passing it sideways and backwards in order to retain possession is tactical genius is it?

It's closer to it than just being able to pick players like Modric, VDV, Bale and hope they make up for any kind of tactical or coached plan.

 

[Sevens]

His first season he did well. The second he was found out. Teams realised that they could let us have the ball and hit us on the break with pace and we were fucked.

Simple ball over the top into the corner into the acres of space our full backs had left whilst pushing up. And the annoying thing is that it still happens to us now. And because we don't play with an anchor man it's even worse.

Scotty Parker may not have been an international class holding midfielder but he was the final piece of Redknapp's puzzle for that midfield. Disciplined, kept it simple, retained possession under pressure by turning with the ball etc. AVB? Had him trying to play as a box to box midfielder!!

 

[Sevens]

It's closer to it than just being able to pick players like Modric, VDV, Bale and hope they make up for any kind of tactical or coached plan.

Isn't that what Bale did though? Spurs play rubbish for most of the game, Bale pops up with a wonder goal from 25 yards? That's a master plan?

Under Redknapp we played several different systems dependant on personnel available to us. Under AVB we played one system, regardless of the personnel available to us.