Villas-Boas "Tottenham Board Destroyed Everything I Built"

[danielneeds]

What I would say is that joao moutinho would have been an excellent buy and Levy did seem to fuck that one up by doing his usual brinkmanship bullshit. Regardless of what else, he can be pissed off about that as his signing could have been very important for the club.

From what I remember it was third party ownership stuff that’s scuppered that deal.

 

[gaffers]

Some really OTT nonsense in here about AVB

Yup.

 

[gaffers]

He won the Russian Premier League.

Didn't realise there was an 'ignore' thing, Matzdorf - all fixed now.

 

[neogenisis]

 

[punkisback]

We lost Modric, King retired, VDV sold. Players like Adebayor and Ekotto threw the towel in, Sandro was injured, Parker was past it but had a heroic last season. We had Dempsey and Siggy as first choice players who wouldn't have got into the Redknapp teams. I think he did alright for having such a poor squad in comparison to what we have now and what we had previously, but he lost the dressing room and you have to go. Sherwood was a much worse manager, and whilst Redknapp was better, we had a much better team and he should have won something with them.

 

[pook]

I've always said that while playing good stuff whilst winning is obviously preferable, if you give me one of either, I won't bitch.

AVB's teams didn't play good stuff, by any stretch, but he tended to get results - for Spurs - so I've no inclination to trash him now. He suffers a bit by comparison by being sandwiched between Harry and Poch, each of whom had/has given us some wonderful footy as well as decent results. And of course he did himself no favours with random things like shipping VdV and a few isolated tonkings. But it's hardly as though he represents a massive step back in our progress under ENIC/Levy.

The Fall of 2008 under Ramos - when we lost and lost ugly - was the only time since 2004 that I've been genuinely unhappy with who was at the helm. And that includes Tim.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

Didn't realise there was an 'ignore' thing, Matzdorf - all fixed now.

You are a very strange person.

People: this was the response to me "agreeing" with his post about AVB winning the Russian league.

 

[riggi]

Makes you wonder why we appointed AVB in the first place..

 

[dontcallme]

Makes you wonder why we appointed AVB in the first place..

I think he got a lot of hype after one season at Porto.

He struggled at Chelsea and could rightly point to player power and board not giving him control.

He is a smart guy and seemed like an outside the box guy.

Just didn’t materialise into doing a good job.

 

[Metalhead]

From what I remember it was third party ownership stuff that’s scuppered that deal.

Yes. Apparently wages were the initial problem because it would have made him one of the top earners at the time but that was resolved and then the issue of third ownership cropped up at the last minute (presumably the 'at the last minute' meant that it didn't leave enough time to resolve it - why it wasn't highlighted earlier who knows) and it put the kibosh on it. Interestingly, in the same article, AVB complained that the window should be shutting when the window starts. He got his wish there but unfortunately too late for it to make any difference to him.

On a separate note, I heard that AVB had been one of the frontrunners for the Fulham job before Ranieri got it.

 

[jurgen]

Some really OTT nonsense in here about AVB

The PR machine has done a cracking job against some of our old managers. In the end the atmosphere was as bad as you'd expect with a manager undermined by the board, players and press. Given the press already hated him, he was a pretty easy lightning rod. That said, he seemed intelligent (in a non-football way) which is why it is mystifying if he was really naive enough to think we'd suddenly start operating like Chelsea.

Once he was hated by the fans and discarded we hired Tim Sherwood to replace him and it went to the next level of toxic and also turned into some kind of sick pantomime. Some people on here loved Sherwood though...

It wasn't until Poch arrived that this slowly got solved and that's only because he's an absolute saint and the most talented coach we've had in my lifetime.

 

[Azazello]

This could be made into an interesting zen Buddhist koan;

Tottenham destroyed everything I built, but I didn't build anything.

 

[cider spurs]

Aw c'mon Boreass...you had a laptop and a nice rain mac innit.

Be happy, let it go

 

[Stavrogin]

The PR machine has done a cracking job against some of our old managers. In the end the atmosphere was as bad as you'd expect with a manager undermined by the board, players and press. Given the press already hated him, he was a pretty easy lightning rod. That said, he seemed intelligent (in a non-football way) which is why it is mystifying if he was really naive enough to think we'd suddenly start operating like Chelsea.

Once he was hated by the fans and discarded we hired Tim Sherwood to replace him and it went to the next level of toxic and also turned into some kind of sick pantomime. Some people on here loved Sherwood though...

It wasn't until Poch arrived that this slowly got solved and that's only because he's an absolute saint and the most talented coach we've had in my lifetime.

I don't think many loved Sherwood, if any... But I think there was a reaction to the almost irrational love/appreciation for Villas Boas. I do understand it though, AVB represented a fresh way of a doing things, Mourinho mk. II, and most importantly was the complete antithesis of Redknapp, whose relative success was galling to many.

People are far more averse to Sherwood, despite being here a short time, doing quite well and leaving the club/first team in a better state than when he found it. He wasn't great but the sad fact is, he was a necessary antidote and a good choice in the interim.

Because this is the problem with Villas Boas, he left no legacy. Aside from Bale, the only player who (somewhat) thrived under him was Townsend. When Sherwood came there was nothing. When Sherwood left we had Bentaleb as a first team midfielder, Kane as a contributing squad member and Eriksen was being used well for the first time.

This is massively important and it should be acknowledged more often. Because this faith in youth players would either influence Pochettino or influence Levy into appointing him - and the use of youngsters really saw Pochettino through in the early days and set the tone for the rest of his tenure.

It may not have been Villas Boas' fault but he really didn't have a good or productive time with us. It seemed promising at first and we thought he would build from the conservative approach that kinda worked. But his failure to leave anything tangible is damning.

 

[NickHSpurs]

Surprised he turned down the Fulham job if that's true, he's hardly pulled up trees since leaving us.

 

[punkisback]

The PR machine has done a cracking job against some of our old managers. In the end the atmosphere was as bad as you'd expect with a manager undermined by the board, players and press. Given the press already hated him, he was a pretty easy lightning rod. That said, he seemed intelligent (in a non-football way) which is why it is mystifying if he was really naive enough to think we'd suddenly start operating like Chelsea.

Once he was hated by the fans and discarded we hired Tim Sherwood to replace him and it went to the next level of toxic and also turned into some kind of sick pantomime. Some people on here loved Sherwood though...

It wasn't until Poch arrived that this slowly got solved and that's only because he's an absolute saint and the most talented coach we've had in my lifetime.

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.

 

[shelfboy68]

You are a very strange person.

People: this was the response to me "agreeing" with his post about AVB winning the Russian league.

If that is the case then maybe you should consider it fortune that you have been placed on ignore.

 

[BehindEnemyLines]

Whilst I have no ill will towards AVB, I think the use of "destroyed everything I built" implies that his tenure at spurs was a glorious success, when it plainly was not. It had its moments, but there was very little glory or success, and its probably this that has rubbed people the wrong way.
X

 

[Lilbaz]

Since the 80’s for me it’s

Burkinshaw
Poch
Venables
Redknapp
Jol

Poch will overtake Burky at some point hopefully. Venables and Redknapp could easily have been the other way around but his FA Cup win gives him the edge, though Redknapp gave us CL. Ramos won us a cup but we were utter shit afterwards.

AVB is quite far down the list, but he’s above the likes of Santini & Gross... and Ossie, bless him.

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

 

['O Zio]

WALOB if it hadn't been for Bale getting us out of jail AVB would've been gone even sooner. How he can talk about "everything he built" is beyond me. We weren't ever good under him we just had someone in the form of his life covering up the cracks. We'd pass the ball around aimlessly for 80 mins until everyone including the other team had fallen asleep, then Bale would say "Fuck it, I'll do it myself then" and smash one in from 35 yds to win it 1-0. That was the story of AVB's Tottenham.