Villas-Boas "Tottenham Board Destroyed Everything I Built"

[Tit&Ham]

AVB was probably as good as we could get at the time. Not the most entertaining football, but he got us some great points tally. Having Bale, King, etc isn't his fault is it? It's like saying Guardiola is not a good manager because he had Messi, Xavi, Iniesta etc....

AVB had a plan and a style. If you don't like it - Don't hire him.

I liked him, espescially because he was a likeable guy who acted respectfully. I believe Spurs is a nice club (off pitch), with high moral and ethics to the contrary of Mourinho and many others. Didn't like the entertainment at the end, but think he should be treated with respect for what he achieved here.

It was a time when we had quite good players, but a chaotic board and management. It's been like that since before and after AVB - and is probably only doing better now with Poch...

 

[bomberH]

Pleat? We were up for the trebble. Didn't get anything in the end but a great side.

I did consider Pleat but he was only there for a year albeit he had a couple of other spells. It’s all subjective how we choose but if I’m choosing a manager who was there for a year and didn’t win anything, then I should probably choose Ramos, who was there for a year but won a cup, over Pleat. But if you ask fans who they preferred in terms of style and even most results etc then most would say Pleat.

Would’ve been very interesting to see how Pleat would’ve done if he’d stayed longer but he obviously preferred the noony.

 

[VegasII]

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

 

['O Zio]

AVB was probably as good as we could get at the time. Not the most entertaining football, but he got us some great points tally. Having Bale, King, etc isn't his fault is it? It's like saying Guardiola is not a good manager because he had Messi, Xavi, Iniesta etc....

AVB had a plan and a style. If you don't like it - Don't hire him.

I liked him, espescially because he was a likeable guy who acted respectfully. I believe Spurs is a nice club (off pitch), with high moral and ethics to the contrary of Mourinho and many others. Didn't like the entertainment at the end, but think he should be treated with respect for what he achieved here.

It was a time when we had quite good players, but a chaotic board and management. It's been like that since before and after AVB - and is probably only doing better now with Poch...

I think you've missed the point entirely to be honest. Nobody is criticising him for having good players, that doesn't make any sense. The criticism is that, despite what he's now claiming, he didn't do a very good job and any minor successes we did have were largely down to said players getting us over the line despite the team playing poorly due to his mismanagement. If we're completely lacklustre and ineffective for the entire game, but then one of our players performs a moment of magic to snatch the result, that's not because AVB did a good job, it's those players papering over the cracks.

Also it's rather ironic that you say he was "a likeable guy who acted respectfully" when the entire thread is based on some pretty unlikable behaviour and disrespectful comnents he's made in the media

 

[TheVoiceofReason]

No doubt that his heart was in the right place, and obviously had a style that he believed in, that may even have worked properly if he wasn’t so insecure.

 

[kaz Hirai]

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

 

[worcestersauce]

I get the impression that he just didn't have the manager/leader skills you need at this level, as an example by all accounts Pochottino is very friendly with the players, very approachable and very understanding and willing to give a player a good deal of leeway to help him improve, howver if that player takes advantage of that Poch will rip the player's arm off and beat him over the head with the bloody stump, I'm not sure AVB had that.

 

[newbie]

I get the impression that he just didn't have the manager/leader skills you need at this level, as an example by all accounts Pochottino is very friendly with the players, very approachable and very understanding and willing to give a player a good deal of leeway to help him improve, howver if that player takes advantage of that Poch will rip the player's arm off and beat him over the head with the bloody stump, I'm not sure AVB had that.

My mate worked at the regent he loved Joe Jordan, Harry and Kevin bond, even though he was an arsenal fan, when Avb arrived he kept saying to me his a strange little man, really didn’t like him.

 

[newbie]

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

Agreed
He was a one trick pony, Rednap was good at working with the player he had getting the best out of them. AVB believed you had keep moving the ball side ways to open up space to pass forward.

 

[Styopa]

The Sherwood thing was ridiculous, he had stuck his knives into AVB and if anything he was the charlatan as he had no qualifications or experience! Some people are also a tad xenophobic and anti-intellectual, preferring the straight talking Englishman Sherwood to the foreign cerebral AVB. His record wasn't as bad as some people seem to remember and without a person who is now the best CM in Europe.

Oh, come on. For all their ‘straight talking’ Englishness, Redknapp and Sherwood were both ridiculed by our own fans during their periods at the club. Xenophobia has nothing to do with it. Pochettino despite all his foreigness is by far our most popular manager of modern history, Martin Jol is definitely more popular than Sherwood and probably more popular a character than Redknapp too. The problem with AVB, and your post demonstrates this, is he was so much better in theory than he was in reality.

 

[Tit&Ham]

I think you've missed the point entirely to be honest. Nobody is criticising him for having good players, that doesn't make any sense. The criticism is that, despite what he's now claiming, he didn't do a very good job and any minor successes we did have were largely down to said players getting us over the line despite the team playing poorly due to his mismanagement. If we're completely lacklustre and ineffective for the entire game, but then one of our players performs a moment of magic to snatch the result, that's not because AVB did a good job, it's those players papering over the cracks.

Also it's rather ironic that you say he was "a likeable guy who acted respectfully" when the entire thread is based on some pretty unlikable behaviour and disrespectful comnents he's made in the media

1. He was acting very respectfully when he was a Spurs manager. What he does now doesn’t actually matter - and It could be that he hasn’t been treated fairly and respectfully by Spurs when getting fired...

2. You just highlight part og the game: players stepped up with magic to win us games... well, if we had been 0-4 down every game and bale stepped up and scored a screamer - that wouldn’t change the result would it? Therefore he must have done something right when all it took was 1 goal to win most matches...?

3. I agree - he had «minor success». But to me who has been a supporter since early 90’s - minor success is some of the best I have experienced...

In retrospect I am glad he was fired, I agree that it wasn’t as entertaining as under Harry, but I still feel he did a decent job considering the expectations and budget Spurs had at the time.

 

[guy]

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

 

[Bulletspur]

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

I do recall a lot of supporters with this view, and they were all crying to have their Tottenham back.

 

[Coyboy]

Even if you interpret his words kindly, it’s a pointless thing to say. We don’t know who the players are that he wanted or whether they were attainable.

Out of the players we did get, two have gone on to have excellent Spurs careers and Chadli was a good signing too.

 

[gaffers]

After Zenit being rich and regularly in the Top 2 for a while before he arrived....not really such a great achievement IMO.

They ain't won it since he left

 

[Spurs_Bear]

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

That was the darkest of dark days.

 

[Paolo10]

They ain't won it since he left

All of their managers since have had win ratios of 50%+...in fact only Roberto Mancini had a worse win ratio than AVB.

Incredibly overrated manager/head coach IMO.

 

[Navin R Johnson]

AVB was probably as good as we could get at the time. Not the most entertaining football, but he got us some great points tally. Having Bale, King, etc isn't his fault is it? It's like saying Guardiola is not a good manager because he had Messi, Xavi, Iniesta etc....

AVB had a plan and a style. If you don't like it - Don't hire him.

I liked him, espescially because he was a likeable guy who acted respectfully. I believe Spurs is a nice club (off pitch), with high moral and ethics to the contrary of Mourinho and many others. Didn't like the entertainment at the end, but think he should be treated with respect for what he achieved here.

It was a time when we had quite good players, but a chaotic board and management. It's been like that since before and after AVB - and is probably only doing better now with Poch...

I admire your ability to see the best in other people.

 

[SpurinChicago]

AVB almost destroyed my love of watching Spurs. Seriously considered stopping until he left. Anti-football. Absolute con man. Everything he says is a load of shit.

 

[dtxspurs]

AVB almost destroyed my love of watching Spurs. Seriously considered stopping until he left. Anti-football. Absolute con man. Everything he says is a load of shit.

That was when I first started watching every game...