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Opinion of AVB in hindsight?

Sevens

Well-Known Member
Apr 23, 2014
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VDV wasn't pushed out - he was told he wouldn't be an automatic starter and would have to fight for his place in the team.

That's from VDV's own mouth.

Not quite as cut and dry as you're claiming. VDV was pretty much pushed out because AVB told him he was no longer first choice and wouldn't stand in his way if he wanted to leave. Now imagine if a new boss said that to you in your job. Basically saying he didn't rate you as an important team member and therefore was replacing you. You could stick around if you were happy to be demoted. I know what I'd do.....

Nor am I saying AVB was wrong. I didn't like AVB's style of football but regardless of my personal opinion, on the style, it was clear that VDV didn't fit in with what AVB was trying to do. Nor would he fit in to Poch's system either.

Personally I apportion a healthy amount of the blame to why Spurs have slipped back from the cusp of something special to the mediocre of today. Simply because he tried to revolutionise when he didn't need to. I personally think over the last two or three seasons we've gone further backwards than people realise. The league is so poor we can maintain similar league finishes and points totals to when we were a much better side. That is papering over the cracks but I think this season will be when the cracks finally are too big to be papered over.

But most of all AVB wasn't a good fit for Spurs as his brand of football is mind numbingly boring to watch. The high line and high press, possession heavy, the one up top isn't anything new. It was akin to Graham's Arsenal sides. That's certainly not why I became a Spurs fan.......
 

eViL

Oliver Skipp's Dad
May 15, 2004
5,840
7,960
Not quite as cut and dry as you're claiming. VDV was pretty much pushed out because AVB told him he was no longer first choice and wouldn't stand in his way if he wanted to leave. Now imagine if a new boss said that to you in your job. Basically saying he didn't rate you as an important team member and therefore was replacing you. You could stick around if you were happy to be demoted. I know what I'd do.....

Nor am I saying AVB was wrong. I didn't like AVB's style of football but regardless of my personal opinion, on the style, it was clear that VDV didn't fit in with what AVB was trying to do. Nor would he fit in to Poch's system either.

Personally I apportion a healthy amount of the blame to why Spurs have slipped back from the cusp of something special to the mediocre of today. Simply because he tried to revolutionise when he didn't need to. I personally think over the last two or three seasons we've gone further backwards than people realise. The league is so poor we can maintain similar league finishes and points totals to when we were a much better side. That is papering over the cracks but I think this season will be when the cracks finally are too big to be papered over.

But most of all AVB wasn't a good fit for Spurs as his brand of football is mind numbingly boring to watch. The high line and high press, possession heavy, the one up top isn't anything new. It was akin to Graham's Arsenal sides. That's certainly not why I became a Spurs fan.......

Not as cut and dry as I'm claiming? VDV SAID IT.

So who do you think should have been manager?
 

Sevens

Well-Known Member
Apr 23, 2014
4,583
6,947
Not as cut and dry as I'm claiming? VDV SAID IT.

So who do you think should have been manager?

At no point did VDV say he was told by AVB that he'd have to fight for his place in the team. Find me the direct quote where VDV says that was exactly what AVB said to him and I'll happily apologise for getting it wrong.

Personally I would have stuck with Redknapp because I believe in sticking with Managers until they no longer get results over a longer period of time. I don't think AVB was the right fit for us but I also didn't agree with his sacking either. He had got us 5th place with a record points tally (not that I really give a damn about the points tally, it's where you finish that's important) and for that alone he should have been given at least a full second season unless we were in real relegation danger. Which we were definitely not. I despised Sherwood (from the Hoddle years) but he also shouldn't have been fired.

I'm not impressed with Poch but unless we are in a relegation fight I believe he should get the entire of this season.
 

Sevens

Well-Known Member
Apr 23, 2014
4,583
6,947
We'd be much better off if AVB never left and got the support he needed...

Or if Redknapp got the support he needed. Or Poch. Or Ramos. Or Jol. Common theme methinks......

To be fair to Levy, AVB's targets were outrageous. Surely AVB knew before becoming Manager that Levy wasn't the type of Chairman to fund an £80m splurge unless we made £80m of player sales?
 

CrazyHeart

Well-Known Member
Oct 26, 2013
3,702
4,288
Or if Redknapp got the support he needed. Or Poch. Or Ramos. Or Jol. Common theme methinks......

To be fair to Levy, AVB's targets were outrageous. Surely AVB knew before becoming Manager that Levy wasn't the type of Chairman to fund an £80m splurge unless we made £80m of player sales?

Redknapp lost interest and pimped himself out for the England job, so nah... Ramos and Jol - who knows, perhaps... entirely speculative. AVB, however had a proven record of the highest points total for Spurs EVER, while doing even better the following year before his 'sacking'. With the support of management, he won the Russian league in his first full season in charge at Zenit, while breaking national records in his previous season.

Btw - The vast majority of the Bale signings were not AVB's targets.
 

Hoowl

Dr wHo(owl)
Staff
Aug 18, 2005
6,526
266
AVB suffered from being stubborn to a fault.

He would play a high defensive line despite having defenders who weren't comfortable with it. When his high defensive line wasn't working in a game he would persist with it until the end resulting in the team being routed a number of times. When we had lots of possession but no cutting edge we didn't change the system and had to rely on moments of individual brilliance to punctuate the monotonous possession in non threatening areas to score.

He didn't seem to show any flexibility at all. He had a vision and was wedded to it despite the resources at his disposal.

The AVB approach feels like something from a textbook that can work wonderfully if you have all the right elements but is hard to implement every time in the real world.
 

degoose

Well-Known Member
Jul 3, 2004
2,832
3,012
At no point did VDV say he was told by AVB that he'd have to fight for his place in the team. Find me the direct quote where VDV says that was exactly what AVB said to him and I'll happily apologise for getting it wrong.

Personally I would have stuck with Redknapp because I believe in sticking with Managers until they no longer get results over a longer period of time. I don't think AVB was the right fit for us but I also didn't agree with his sacking either. He had got us 5th place with a record points tally (not that I really give a damn about the points tally, it's where you finish that's important) and for that alone he should have been given at least a full second season unless we were in real relegation danger. Which we were definitely not. I despised Sherwood (from the Hoddle years) but he also shouldn't have been fired.

I'm not impressed with Poch but unless we are in a relegation fight I believe he should get the entire of this season.

Quote from his interview http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnatio...w-rafael-van-der-vaart-hamburg-real-betis-avb


"It was private things, but also when what's his name [Andre Villas-Boas] came he said to me 'you're not my number one' and I had played two years, like, unbelievable, so for me it was really strange that he said that to me. So then I said, well, it's better to leave and that is what happened.

Also redknapp went because he was constantly blaming levy and others for his downfalls such as the huge gap of points he lost to arsenal when we were in 3rd, he would also constantly knacker the first 11 out as he didnt like to make many changes and so pissed off a lot of players. He was also offered an extended contract before the whole england job came up, redknapp then didn't get it and came back and demanded more money. These are well known things. As for AVB his style of football was some of the dullest stuff i have seen in my life and it seems Levy must have thought the same and radically needed to change it as the crowd were getting grumpy about what they were seeing.
 

tttcowan

Well-Known Member
Aug 12, 2005
2,792
3,295
Didn't rate him then. Don't rate him now. Fact is we aren't a club with the resources to support a manager like AVB. Harry on the other hand, Daniel/Joe should of tried harder to make that relationship work.
 

Sevens

Well-Known Member
Apr 23, 2014
4,583
6,947
Redknapp lost interest and pimped himself out for the England job, so nah... Ramos and Jol - who knows, perhaps... entirely speculative. AVB, however had a proven record of the highest points total for Spurs EVER, while doing even better the following year before his 'sacking'. With the support of management, he won the Russian league in his first full season in charge at Zenit, while breaking national records in his previous season.

Btw - The vast majority of the Bale signings were not AVB's targets.

Redknapp - That happened AFTER the transfer window IIRC. And even disregarding the January window IMO we didn't make the most of the previous three either. Why we waited so long to sign Parker, and to a less extent Adebayor, at the beginning of the season is a mystery to me. Parker may have cost us a couple of million more but then we may have got a point against Utd and then we'd have finished 3rd and earned £20m more. That unfortunately is an all too familiar story.

Records point total was a nice thing to get but ultimately it is league positions that are important. The required amount of points to finish in a league position per season is entirely dependant on the quality of opposition as much as the ability of the team. The league position dictates how good you are relative to all the competition. E.g. Finishing 3rd with 60pts is a far greater achievement than finishing 6th with 80pts.

I don't really care what AVB (or any Manager) did or does outside of being a Spurs Manager. Especially when he is managing a monster club in a league where there are only one or two other teams that provide viable competition. I don't think many Spurs fans would ever clamour for us to poach a Manager from Celtic no matter how many consecutive SPL titles they won....

As for AVB's targets? That appears to be no different to any other Spurs Manager since the transfer windows begun.
 

Sevens

Well-Known Member
Apr 23, 2014
4,583
6,947
Quote from his interview http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnatio...w-rafael-van-der-vaart-hamburg-real-betis-avb


"It was private things, but also when what's his name [Andre Villas-Boas] came he said to me 'you're not my number one' and I had played two years, like, unbelievable, so for me it was really strange that he said that to me. So then I said, well, it's better to leave and that is what happened.

Also redknapp went because he was constantly blaming levy and others for his downfalls such as the huge gap of points he lost to arsenal when we were in 3rd, he would also constantly knacker the first 11 out as he didnt like to make many changes and so pissed off a lot of players. He was also offered an extended contract before the whole england job came up, redknapp then didn't get it and came back and demanded more money. These are well known things. As for AVB his style of football was some of the dullest stuff i have seen in my life and it seems Levy must have thought the same and radically needed to change it as the crowd were getting grumpy about what they were seeing.

I still can't see in that quote where VDV specifically said that AVB told him he had to fight for his place?

As for Redknapp, it's been done to death. Various people have theories as to why it went wrong. We rotated more that season than people remember. Our first team players played less games than they did under AVB or Poch for example. But people remember what they want to remember to support their views. For me? There were several reasons why it went "wrong".

1) It didn't actually go that wrong. A team should be judged over the course of a season. A run of 10, 15 or even 20 games is irrelevant. Simply because the fixture list can provide you with a run of hard or easy games dependant on opposition and whether you're home or away. We had a fantastic run of results that put us in a great position but when you look at the fixture list in hindsight comparative to where those teams ended up in the league? The second half of our season was much tougher than the first. We were almost certainly in a false position around the New Year.

2) We didn't strengthen in January. A false position or not, then was the time to speculate to accumulate. Our first team was strong but our squad wasn't. Rather than speculate we got in a couple of frees but crucially we didn't get like for like cover for Lennon or Bale (see below).

3) The Summer transfer window was poor in terms of timing. We had bad injuries combined with the Modric saga. The teams we put out against the Manchester sides were an unbalanced mess. We got tonked in both. Had we signed Parker before those games there is a good chance we'd have taken a point at home. That one point would have made the difference.

4) We weren't the 3rd best team in the league. We weren't even the 4th. Arsenal were better than us. Their first team was better and their squad was much better. Their Manager is better than anything we've had in the Premier League era. History has now proven this. That Arsenal team had been top four for the preceding seasons and has remained in the top four since, despite the loss of their best player in RvP. Their players have proven themselves to be top four calibre. We had three or four players effectively carrying our entire team. Combine that with RvP having his first full season of fitness in years and finishing above them was always a tough ask. Chelsea were the strongest team in the league but had made a right hash of their league season (ironically because AVB was such a disaster). It was Chelsea's underperforming that gave us the shot at top four anyway.

5) Lennon's injury. This for me is the real key to what went wrong. We had a lovely balance about us but when Lennon got injured we ended up moving personnel around to compensate (VDV and Bale to the right anyone?) and switched from a 4-4-2 to a 4-2-3-1. After the switch we tended to dominate possession but create less chances. Sound familiar? Lennon came back from injury for the final four games of the season. We switched back to a 4-4-2 and secured 10pts from the last possible 12pts. In fact the points haul from the last 8 games proved that player tiredness was most definitely NOT a factor in why our form dropped off.

6) Adebayor lost his shooting boots. There were a few games that ended up draws where Adebayor missed sitters.

7) Weak squad. The squad simply wasn't strong enough as demonstrated by Lennon's injury. But also that disasterous game against Norwich where Redknapp decided to rest players and it cost us. The back up players simply weren't good enough.

8) Redknapp and England wasn't a cause. It wouldn't have effected the players and Redknapp's court case would have been far more undermining and yet during the run up to that we played very well. The only possibility that England could have played a part is whether Redknapp intentionally switched to the dreaded 4-2-3-1 to demonstrate to the England bosses that he could be tactical and flexible. If that was the case then England certainly was a factor. Only Redknapp will know.
 

thelak

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
2,166
6,950
Redknapp lost interest and pimped himself out for the England job, so nah... Ramos and Jol - who knows, perhaps... entirely speculative. AVB, however had a proven record of the highest points total for Spurs EVER, while doing even better the following year before his 'sacking'. With the support of management, he won the Russian league in his first full season in charge at Zenit, while breaking national records in his previous season.

Btw - The vast majority of the Bale signings were not AVB's targets.

AVB gets the credit or Bale gets the credit?

AVB to my mind is a dreadul manager - motivationally, tactically, in terms of being a leader and in terms of how he thinks the game should be played - rigid, lacking flair and played to a dull possession based philosophy.

Having said that with the players Levy gave him and then expecting him to come 4th was also unrealistic.

The only reason we came 5th that season was because of Bale. And in fact the form he was in we could have done better. or at least come 5th playing more fun football - that for me is the main issue I have with AVB. He took the fun out of watching Spurs and to be honest apart from the middle bit of last season its not really come back in terms of how we play.
 

philip

Well-Known Member
Jan 4, 2009
1,347
2,490
Completely agree that redknapp needed to go. His style of football was free and easy to watch but there was no future planning. Players were bought as squad players then discarded while the first teamers were overplayed to the point of exhaustion.

AVB had his faults admittedly, but he did have a long term plan which would have worked. He first builds a strong defensive team as the foundation. Then adds flair up front in a 5/1/4 split (5 defensive (4 defenders, 1 dm), 1 btb, 4 attacking).

Unfortunately the press were out for him from day 1 cos he followed their darling redknapp. Pleat constantly briefing against him, stabbing him in the back also didn't help.
Finally, the fans, used to more exciting football and failing to have patience, put pressure on him and the board and he buckled under that pressure, trying to be more attacking. This switch with an unready team was a fatal mistake and we fell apart.

It was the perfect storm.
 

Shadydan

Well-Known Member
Jul 7, 2012
38,247
104,143
I still can't see in that quote where VDV specifically said that AVB told him he had to fight for his place?

As for Redknapp, it's been done to death. Various people have theories as to why it went wrong. We rotated more that season than people remember. Our first team players played less games than they did under AVB or Poch for example. But people remember what they want to remember to support their views. For me? There were several reasons why it went "wrong".

1) It didn't actually go that wrong. A team should be judged over the course of a season. A run of 10, 15 or even 20 games is irrelevant. Simply because the fixture list can provide you with a run of hard or easy games dependant on opposition and whether you're home or away. We had a fantastic run of results that put us in a great position but when you look at the fixture list in hindsight comparative to where those teams ended up in the league? The second half of our season was much tougher than the first. We were almost certainly in a false position around the New Year.

2) We didn't strengthen in January. A false position or not, then was the time to speculate to accumulate. Our first team was strong but our squad wasn't. Rather than speculate we got in a couple of frees but crucially we didn't get like for like cover for Lennon or Bale (see below).

3) The Summer transfer window was poor in terms of timing. We had bad injuries combined with the Modric saga. The teams we put out against the Manchester sides were an unbalanced mess. We got tonked in both. Had we signed Parker before those games there is a good chance we'd have taken a point at home. That one point would have made the difference.

4) We weren't the 3rd best team in the league. We weren't even the 4th. Arsenal were better than us. Their first team was better and their squad was much better. Their Manager is better than anything we've had in the Premier League era. History has now proven this. That Arsenal team had been top four for the preceding seasons and has remained in the top four since, despite the loss of their best player in RvP. Their players have proven themselves to be top four calibre. We had three or four players effectively carrying our entire team. Combine that with RvP having his first full season of fitness in years and finishing above them was always a tough ask. Chelsea were the strongest team in the league but had made a right hash of their league season (ironically because AVB was such a disaster). It was Chelsea's underperforming that gave us the shot at top four anyway.

5) Lennon's injury. This for me is the real key to what went wrong. We had a lovely balance about us but when Lennon got injured we ended up moving personnel around to compensate (VDV and Bale to the right anyone?) and switched from a 4-4-2 to a 4-2-3-1. After the switch we tended to dominate possession but create less chances. Sound familiar? Lennon came back from injury for the final four games of the season. We switched back to a 4-4-2 and secured 10pts from the last possible 12pts. In fact the points haul from the last 8 games proved that player tiredness was most definitely NOT a factor in why our form dropped off.

6) Adebayor lost his shooting boots. There were a few games that ended up draws where Adebayor missed sitters.

7) Weak squad. The squad simply wasn't strong enough as demonstrated by Lennon's injury. But also that disasterous game against Norwich where Redknapp decided to rest players and it cost us. The back up players simply weren't good enough.

8) Redknapp and England wasn't a cause. It wouldn't have effected the players and Redknapp's court case would have been far more undermining and yet during the run up to that we played very well. The only possibility that England could have played a part is whether Redknapp intentionally switched to the dreaded 4-2-3-1 to demonstrate to the England bosses that he could be tactical and flexible. If that was the case then England certainly was a factor. Only Redknapp will know.

We had a good squad in that season, where do you see any weaknesses?

1GKHeurelho Gomes
3MFGareth Bale
4DFYounès Kaboul
6MFTom Huddlestone
7MFAaron Lennon
8MFScott Parker
10FWEmmanuel Adebayor
11MFRafael van der Vaart
13DFWilliam Gallas
14MFLuka Modrić
15FWLouis Saha
17FWGiovani dos Santos
18FWJermain Defoe
20DFMichael Dawson
21MFNiko Kranjčar
23GKCarlo Cudicini
24GKBrad Friedel
25MFDanny Rose
26DFLedley King
28DFKyle Walker
29MFJake Livermore
30MFSandro
32DFBenoît Assou-Ekotto
33DFRyan Nelsen
36 DFBongani Khumalo
38MFDavid Bentley

This was of course after the transfer window but before we had Nelsen and Saha we had Pavlychenko and Pienaar. I've always said that if the squad was rotated properly then we would have finished stronger that season.
 

CrazyHeart

Well-Known Member
Oct 26, 2013
3,702
4,288
Completely agree that redknapp needed to go. His style of football was free and easy to watch but there was no future planning. Players were bought as squad players then discarded while the first teamers were overplayed to the point of exhaustion.

AVB had his faults admittedly, but he did have a long term plan which would have worked. He first builds a strong defensive team as the foundation. Then adds flair up front in a 5/1/4 split (5 defensive (4 defenders, 1 dm), 1 btb, 4 attacking).

Unfortunately the press were out for him from day 1 cos he followed their darling redknapp. Pleat constantly briefing against him, stabbing him in the back also didn't help.
Finally, the fans, used to more exciting football and failing to have patience, put pressure on him and the board and he buckled under that pressure, trying to be more attacking. This switch with an unready team was a fatal mistake and we fell apart.

It was the perfect storm.

Perfectly put. I would also add that we also not forget the Sherwood / Adebayor factor that undermined him from within.
 

double0

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2006
14,423
12,258
Pochettinho >AVB. He is more flexible with his philosophy and introduction of youth player, also imo Poch football is better to watch.
 
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