- Jun 7, 2004
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This is just the same old misconception, just articulated better.
The problem wasn't some mythical brain washing. AVB didn't brain wash anyone not to take any risks, or how do you explain the quantum difference in Bale's game before and after AVB. The problem was we sold every single player of reasonable footballing IQ during AVB's tenure. King retired, Modric left, VDV left and then even Bale was sold. The one player who might have helped was Adebayor, and his prozac wasnt working. He was left with a choice of playing a completely different, more haphazard way or keep applying what he believed with players he found himself with.
It wasn't that this collective thinking got slower in the final third, it was that AVB's method was to push the opposition into that third, this meant stupid players squashed into heavy traffic. A possible mistake in itself, but not the one you alleged.
His smaller mistake was within that framework, he didn't always make the best personnel decisions to suit that perseverance and was also very unlucky with injuries to key players. Kaboul's long term problems meant Dawson being used in a high defence, left back problems meant Vertonghen being used as a LB, Sandro out long term, Dembele continually injured, Eriksen got injured just as he was beginning to click, and AVB didn't handle Lamela well or some of the younger players who could have helped.
He made mistakes, as do all managers, but for all that his PPG was still healthy, as healthy just about as Sherwood's with Adebayor, so for all his mistakes, it's hard to make a clear case for him changing a methodology he believed would compensate for deficiencies in other (IQ e.g.) departments. Because it probably did. It just didn't appeal to those that would prefer to watch the Keystone cops over an episode of Morse.
You always start from the premise that it is about the individuals. It
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