Villas-Boas "Tottenham Board Destroyed Everything I Built"

[danielneeds]

Hadn't realised that AVB had been appointed as the Marseille coach. Will be interesting to see what he does there.

Given his narcissism and Marseille’s volatility, odds are he doesn’t last a year.

 

[Gassin's finest]

Shouldn't have sacked Harry tbh, but there we are.

 

[slartibartfast]

Oh no, here we go again. Biggest points tally blah blah blah.
Not going over this shit again. Boring.
Bloke was a prick.

 

[spursfan77]

Oh no, here we go again. Biggest points tally blah blah blah.
Not going over this shit again. Boring.
Bloke was a prick.

I quite liked him. Football was bad though.

 

[Shadydan]

Oh no, here we go again. Biggest points tally blah blah blah.
Not going over this shit again. Boring.
Bloke was a prick.

Yep, here we go again - another unnecessary OTT post with an extreme opinion in order to get your point across, a prick? really?

 

[ralvy]

lol, AVB haters are so sensitive that they can't accept any semi positive things being spoken about him.

 

[slartibartfast]

I quite liked him. Football was bad though.

Eh????

Yep, here we go again - another unnecessary OTT post with an extreme opinion in order to get your point across, a prick? really?

Oh sorry sugar tits

 

[slartibartfast]

lol, AVB haters are so sensitive that they can't accept any semi positive things being spoken about him.

Same as Redknapp haters.

 

[Chris Finch]

Was over the moon when we appointed him.
Was over the moon when we got rid of him.

 

[Shadydan]

Eh????

Oh sorry sugar tits

If you're that bored you should consider booking a holiday somewhere.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

It's difficult to know who was the blame for the following season. It's hard to know if AVB, Baldini, Levy or other scouts were responsible for acquiring some of the players. Even so, there were a couple of decent ones in Chadli, Eriksen etc.

I don't think the problem was the individuals as such but more the number of players and the fact they were all from foreign leagues. With a world class player leaving and also having to deal with a squad not gelled then looking back you can see why things were difficult.

I don't think it's difficult at all. The blame attaches to AVB, because, for all his good qualities as tactical and technical coach, he did not select players with a view to form to form a squad and he did not have the ability to weld a squad into a mutually-supportive team that was greater than the sum of its parts.

That is Pochettino's peculiar gift, along with other managers who have much greater cvs. than he has assembled: Ferguson, Shankly, Mourinho earlier in his career. Even Redknapp, in his own ramshackle way, made his squad members feel like a team, as van der Vaart and many others have testified.

AVB didn't even seem to see the necessity. He just signed and selected players and gave out instructions. The result, as always, was a squad full of feuds, cliques, passive-aggressive behaviour and under-performance.

It wasn't about the players. It was about the team.

 

[WiganSpur]

I don't think it's difficult at all. The blame attaches to AVB, because, for all his good qualities as tactical and technical coach, he did not select players with a view to form to form a squad and he did not have the ability to weld a squad into a mutually-supportive team that was greater than the sum of its parts.

That is Pochettino's peculiar gift, along with other managers who have much greater cvs. than he has assembled: Ferguson, Shankly, Mourinho earlier in his career. Even Redknapp, in his own ramshackle way, made his squad members feel like a team, as van der Vaart and many others have testified.

AVB didn't even seem to see the necessity. He just signed and selected players and gave out instructions. The result, as always, was a squad full of feuds, cliques, passive-aggressive behaviour and under-performance.

It wasn't about the players. It was about the team.

On that first point I think if you look at our first season under Villas-Boas you can argue the opposite. This was clearly a hugely unbalanced squad, very patchy depth wise, smatterings of quality across the pitch with one uber footballer. In spite of this AVB cultivated a strong work ethic and team football. There are various quotes from players in the press from the time speaking about the tight knit atmosphere.

This is Defoe from March 2013:

"I've been here for many years now and in my opinion, in terms of team spirit, this is the best it has been," stated Defoe. "The buzz around the training ground is fantastic. Everyone is putting their work in and even the players who are injured are working really hard to get back.

"That winning mentality we have got now helps us to keep going when things are not going our way. That is a good thing to have.

"I have to say I think this is the best squad since I've been here. I was having a joke with Scott Parker yesterday and I was saying that sometimes when you have a knock and you can't train, you just have to try and stay on it.

"If you are injured, someone else will come in and do well because this is such a good team to play in now. To stay in this team, you have to play well and take your chance and everyone is buzzing at the minute."

I think this puts to bed the idea that AVB was a poor man manager or motivator. Sure, he was no Redknapp, but I think he was warmer than some gave him credit for.

Pochettino is probably inside the world's top 5 coaches, most definitely top 10 so I think any comparison of him and Villas-Boas is slightly unfair. It is both true that AVB is not and will never be the coach Poch is but then again he was very talented in his own way and overall did a decent job for us. The argument made by some posters that he was one of our worst ever managers etc. is just plain ridiculous, especially when he is seen by some to be inferior to Sherwood.

For AVB's reign, the failure to land Moutinho was huge. It's abundantly clear that even to this day he is a superb technical footballer with a professional attitude to boot. I think he would have been a real constant in the centre of the park. The only real Modric replacement.

The real problems started in the second summer, and our main problem was that our reliance on Bale meant that the squad required huge restructuring when he left. As I said, the squad was incredibly unbalanced and so to rely on Bale made absolute sense.
The problem this created is that the void when he left was even greater, and it would require a radical change in tactical approach.

The need for signings was definite, so I don't think bringing in less players to preserve spirit was necessarily the solution. Had Moutinho arrived the season prior, I think we'd have been in a much better position to push on without disrupting things too much.

I think it was the identification of the players where we went wrong. We should have recognised the need for time, and perhaps forecasted the problems that ensued with a lack of cohesion. We should have prioritised the domestic market, and only brought in one or two players from overseas. I think that would have helped the transition run a bit more smoothly. At least these players would have been used to the rigours of the Premier League.

The question is who was responsible for identifying and bringing the players to the club. The scattergun strategy was flawed and I believe some signings were not quite thought out from a tactical perspective (particularly Soldado). I'm sure you can attribute some blame to AVB for this, but the question must then arise as to if he had any say on these players. We don't really know.

Ultimately this lack of cohesion cost us and there was only so much the manager could do in the first few months after the window closed. As a result the confidence dipped and you get into a dangerous cycle.

 

[For the love of Spurs]

lol, AVB haters are so sensitive that they can't accept any semi positive things being spoken about him.

He may have done one or two good things but his football sucked the life out of most fans who actually consider football to be a form of entertainment.

He was the manager I was most glad we got rid of, souls destroying, I am really not sure how anyone could have wanted him to remain.

 

[Jonboy]

Shouldn't have sacked Harry tbh, but there we are.

Harry flirted with England and took his eye of the ball with us.
He thought he was untouchable and got what he deserved in my opinion.
He showed a lack of respect to spurs

 

[mattyspurs]

I don’t manage to get down to many games, but one in particular that I managed was Fulham at The Lane, maybe March 2013. Fuck me, it was horrible and it was at that moment that my support for AVB went.

 

[ralvy]

He may have done one or two good things but his football sucked the life out of most fans who actually consider football to be a form of entertainment.

He was the manager I was most glad we got rid of, souls destroying, I am really not sure how anyone could have wanted him to remain.

Yeah, but the football we played under him wasn't always like that. The few games we were lucky enough to have both Sandro and Dembele fit we would often display a really high quality and atractive football, almost tiki-taka like from what I remember.

That's why I was able to accept the boring football we would play on other occasions, it was because I had seen how good it could get if we were able to get the right personal in. It's such a shame that never got to happen again under him.

I wish AVB the best and hope he's able to have a good few seasons at Marseille!

 

[yankspurs]

AVB was railroaded every step of the way by tactics tim.

 

[Krule]

Harry flirted with England and took his eye of the ball with us.
He thought he was untouchable and got what he deserved in my opinion.
He showed a lack of respect to spurs

How about if we change the name "Harry" to Eriksen and "England" to Real Madrid....would you then say that Christian has also shown a lack of respect by saying “I feel that I am at a stage of my career where I would like to try something new,” ?? I certainly think that the past few games for us he has 'taken his eye off the ball'.

People on here say that it is only natural for a footballer to want to play for Real Madrid or Barcelona at some point in their career....surely then the same applies to a Manager and the chance of being in charge of your country would be enough to distract any club manager, including Harry.

Whatever you think of Harry Redknapp all I know is that he gave me some of the most brilliant moments of my Spurs football supporting life...beating Milan in the San Siro and coming back from 2-0 down to beat Arsenal at the Emirates...beating Inter Milan 3-1 at the Lane......those were emotions I have only felt again under Poch as we battled through to the final of the Champions League this season.

So I shall "respectfully" disagree with you that the man showed a lack of respect for this club. I will always remember him differently.

 

[mpickard2087]

Tactically/Coaching wise there were a lot of holes, reflected in what we saw out on the pitch, but that can be learnt from and addressed with experience..... I've always thought it's a temperament issue with AVB. He seems to have a plan, and expectations and demands, in his head way beforehand as to how he expects things to happen. When anything then hits a snag and deviates off course he seems to be quite fragile and easily rattled, and things start to fall apart and get negative. By all accounts he'd manage to fall out with most people and constantly throw his toys out of the pram.

As a football manager you've got to have a bit of resilience about you to deal with the various bumps in the road that come from the many aspects of football and the job. You roll with the punches and adapt and find alternative solutions and another way forward. You suck it up sometimes and pick the right moments to blow your top for maximum effect, and pick the fights sparingly and for good reason. Everything I've seen of AVB though suggests to me a rather fragile temperament, that's quite at odds with the requirements of his chosen occupation.

 

[DJS]

Would have been interesting to see how things would have turned out for him if we’d managed to get Moutinho.