Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

[BrainOfLevy]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

I get that he needs time, but there shouldn't be more lenience towards him if results are bad and there isn't evidence of our play improving despite pro AVB posters insistence that we are playing well after terrible results. It's well and good saying things will come good, but I judge this on performances and results, not my personal belief in the manager.

I do believe some people overstate the job he was given and the state of the club when he took over. Fair enough we needed to get shot of certain players, but we still had a core squad that was top 6 material at worst. It's almost like they believe we were a struggling mid table side when he took over. Granted we lost some key players, but we had just finished 4th, not 14th.

I think there is evidence - to be honest it goes exactly how I thought it would. We raise our intensity for big games and away games, while playing at a slower tempo against lesser teams. We will always therefore look the way we do roughly - it's just we should get a bit better at the slower tempo part as players learn they still need to be concentrated. We got results last year and we were doing ok this time around until a bad few weeks knocked some confidence. But to say that someone needs more time naturally lends itself to giving that person leniency in the face of bad results. How do you give them time without being lenient?

This approach delivered us record points last year. People can say 'Bale' but at the same time we didn't have a mid-table squad, he also didn't inherit Bale, the 86 million pound player. He inherited a player that had talent and gave him a platform to exploit that week by week. Last year for me is evidence enough that the approach he advocates will work (yes we had a good squad, and a world class Bale for half a season, but we also lost Modric, Van der Vaart and King and replaced them with Sigurdsson, Dempsey and a new to the league Verts. To then get record points is a pretty fantastic achievement. He's earned the right this year, in such a tight league, to have the time to see how he can do with all of these new players.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

"We is us"

I liked that.

Me too!

Not with AVB at the helm its not. The guy talked to PSG in the summer. We all know how Levy felt about Jol talking to Saudi Sportswashing Machine that time. And that's why I dont think Levy is gonna very patient.

Not just a long term plan in terms of a manager that can be in place for a long time. There's also the technical director setup hopefully ensuring some continuity even if/when a manager or a technical director leaves. There's also the return of a transfer strategy that focuses on younger player with potential to grow over established PL players close to their peak that hopefully will bring some success stories similar to those of Carrick, Bale, Modric, Berba etc.

 

[NaijaSpurs]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

So we had Bale to carry us on his back yet we STILL are better off points wise then last year?

Fortunately we had a striker in a rich vein of form before he started firing blanks. This season on the other hand.....

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

](*,)

It might not have been best for AVB personally to do it but I'm glad he told this piece of **** off.

Ashton really is scum of the earth.

If any of us could have done the job he'd done at Porto, why doesn't Ashton go ahead and do so? He'd earn a hell of a lot more money than he does writing ******** for the mail.

And AVB can (rightly) be accused of and criticised for a lot of different things. Always blaming it on someone else is not one of them.

What is particularly annoying is how they are trying to shape the agenda and paint themselves as no more than fair minded journalists doing the people's work with spade-loads of integrity by featuring all of these and the Twitter criticisms on their site. Still, that is what they are good at I guess. They don't get football but they do get media.

Fortunately though, I think in this age of social media and the instant access to a variety of different information sources, it takes more than that to shape the agenda, and I think AVB has done a good job of swinging it in his favour. With social media people are making their own minds up and are quick to call out the ******** that journos spout - often directly to them now.

 

[NaijaSpurs]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

One thing I hated about Harry is that when we lost it was never "us"

 

[Mumorn]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Fortunately we had a striker in a rich vein of form before he started firing blanks. This season on the other hand.....

What are you talking about?

We ARE doing better this year then we were last year. And AVB is supposedly under pressure, we can't seem to score from open play, lost 6-0 away from home, 3-0 at home to West Ham, no "world class" player to carry us..

yet still, we're doing better than last year.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Fortunately we had a striker in a rich vein of form before he started firing blanks. This season on the other hand.....

....none of our attacking players have hit a rich vein of form yet and we're still in a solid position in terms of points.

So just wait until someone does spark us into life

 

[NaijaSpurs]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

In AVB's defence it is just 13 games after our highest ever points tally in this league, so to write him off at this juncture is foolhardy in my opinon

 

[NaijaSpurs]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

....none of our attacking players have hit a rich vein of form yet and we're still in a solid position in terms of points.

So just wait until someone does spark us into life

Dude I am waiting, like I said although I criticise certain decisions I am still behind AVB

 

[Jordinho]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

I get that he needs time, but there shouldn't be more lenience towards him if results are bad and there isn't evidence of our play improving despite pro AVB posters insistence that we are playing well after terrible results. It's well and good saying things will come good, but I judge this on performances and results, not my personal belief in the manager.

I do believe some people overstate the job he was given and the state of the club when he took over. Fair enough we needed to get shot of certain players, but we still had a core squad that was top 6 material at worst. It's almost like they believe we were a struggling mid table side when he took over. Granted we lost some key players, but we had just finished 4th, not 14th.

This is the same as we had with Redknapp, where opinions get assigned to groups of posters without them actually saying it. Just because some disagree that we've been ****, doesn't automatically mean they think we've been great to watch. You talk about people being anti-Redknapp, but it goes both ways. Why can't I comment on negative aspects about him without being told 'but he got us 4th!'? Just because I don't go around praising him all the time, it doesn't mean I don't think he did well for most of his time with us. I wanted us to give him an extension almost until the end, despite the collapse in the previous season, but in the end he only had himself to blame. At the height of it all, anyone that said anything non-positive got lumped into a anti-Redknapp group. It ain't always black or white.

One of the main reasons I thought it was right to sack Redknapp was the long term perspective, where you sign players with more than the current season in mind. It's not just that we can't compete with the top clubs for the best players, but we would struggle to afford the second best if we were to have the player turnover that Redknapp's sides usually have. We have had massive turnover two summers now, but that had to happen anyway. It's where we go from here. Identifying the missing pieces and plan for the future. The whole culture of the club has been changed since AVB came in. Getting rid of those that are happy to just live the footballer lifestyle and instill a better attitude. Most of the foundations are in place now, it's only bits and pieces that needs sorting. It might just take minor changes to unleash a lot of potential.

 

[thfcsteff]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Not with AVB at the helm its not. The guy talked to PSG in the summer. We all know how Levy felt about Jol talking to Saudi Sportswashing Machine that time. And that's why I dont think Levy is gonna very patient.

A fair point. Cannot argue that. I was a massive critic of Jol for that, so fair-dos...

 

[Jordinho]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

Not with AVB at the helm its not. The guy talked to PSG in the summer. We all know how Levy felt about Jol talking to Saudi Sportswashing Machine that time. And that's why I dont think Levy is gonna very patient.

PSG approached him and he turned them down.

 

[spurs' magna carter]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

PSG approached him and he turned them down.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11675/8942399/

"With Nasser we have mutual respect. The fact PSG contacted me was known but I wanted to stay a second season at Tottenham, building on the job I did last season and spending two seasons in the same club for the first time in my career."

The Portuguese coach says the fact Spurs took on board his opinions on matters such as the appointment of Franco Baldini as sporting director played a big part in him staying.

"The club listened to me on several decisions, notably hiring sport director Franco Baldini. I wanted to go on with the project here," he continued.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

This is the same as we had with Redknapp, where opinions get assigned to groups of posters without them actually saying it. Just because some disagree that we've been ****, doesn't automatically mean they think we've been great to watch. You talk about people being anti-Redknapp, but it goes both ways. Why can't I comment on negative aspects about him without being told 'but he got us 4th!'? Just because I don't go around praising him all the time, it doesn't mean I don't think he did well for most of his time with us. I wanted us to give him an extension almost until the end, despite the collapse in the previous season, but in the end he only had himself to blame. At the height of it all, anyone that said anything non-positive got lumped into a anti-Redknapp group. It ain't always black or white.

One of the main reasons I thought it was right to sack Redknapp was the long term perspective, where you sign players with more than the current season in mind. It's not just that we can't compete with the top clubs for the best players, but we would struggle to afford the second best if we were to have the player turnover that Redknapp's sides usually have. We have had massive turnover two summers now, but that had to happen anyway. It's where we go from here. Identifying the missing pieces and plan for the future. The whole culture of the club has been changed since AVB came in. Getting rid of those that are happy to just live the footballer lifestyle and instill a better attitude. Most of the foundations are in place now, it's only bits and pieces that needs sorting. It might just take minor changes to unleash a lot of potential.

Of course you can comment on negative aspects on him as it's your right to do, but I never see mods telling people to "stay on topic" or ask people to refrain from mentioning him that was all. You may argue what good does bringing him up constantly do to the forum? Well what good does ****ging him off in an attempt to bait others do then?

 

[Jurgen the German]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

I think there is evidence - to be honest it goes exactly how I thought it would. We raise our intensity for big games and away games, while playing at a slower tempo against lesser teams. We will always therefore look the way we do roughly - it's just we should get a bit better at the slower tempo part as players learn they still need to be concentrated. We got results last year and we were doing ok this time around until a bad few weeks knocked some confidence. But to say that someone needs more time naturally lends itself to giving that person leniency in the face of bad results. How do you give them time without being lenient?

This approach delivered us record points last year. People can say 'Bale' but at the same time we didn't have a mid-table squad, he also didn't inherit Bale, the 86 million pound player. He inherited a player that had talent and gave him a platform to exploit that week by week. Last year for me is evidence enough that the approach he advocates will work (yes we had a good squad, and a world class Bale for half a season, but we also lost Modric, Van der Vaart and King and replaced them with Sigurdsson, Dempsey and a new to the league Verts. To then get record points is a pretty fantastic achievement. He's earned the right this year, in such a tight league, to have the time to see how he can do with all of these new players.

No but certain people are more lenient than they were with the last manager I don't see how that can be argued.

He chose to sell VDV but that's another debate.

Of course he's earned the right, but I don't see why a lot of the staunch AVB posters take it personally when people have been critical of the manager this season.

I would say that's my last word on the subject but whenever I say that, someone quotes a post of mine and there's no choice for me to respond even though I believe I've made myself clear :lol:

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

No but certain people are more lenient than they were with the last manager I don't see how that can be argued.

He chose to sell VDV but that's another debate.

Of course he's earned the right, but I don't see why a lot of the staunch AVB posters take it personally when people have been critical of the manager this season.

I would say that's my last word on the subject but whenever I say that, someone quotes a post of mine and there's no choice for me to respond even though I believe I've made myself clear :lol:

People are more lenient - but again it just comes down to the fact that he wants to build something long term with us, and the realisation that if we were going to compete with clubs richer than us and take another step up we needed to do more than what we had been doing.

It comes back to a point Scara was making the other day, to say results haven't been good enough and show no signs of improving at this stage is using way too small a sample size.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

"We is us"

I liked that.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

People are more lenient - but again it just comes down to the fact that he wants to build something long term with us, and the realisation that if we were going to compete with clubs richer than us and take another step up we needed to do more than what we had been doing.

It comes back to a point Scara was making the other day, to say results haven't been good enough and show no signs of improving at this stage is using way too small a sample size.

Again, that's been the case for 10 years, it's not something that AVB and AVB alone has had to deal with. He's been given a sizeable warchest (excuse the cliche) over the past 18 months also, doesn't guarantee success but it increases your chances wouldn't you agree?

Of course it's early days but by the same token can you not see why some people are sceptical based on the performances? It's hard FOR ME to come to the conclusion that we're going to turn it on out of nowhere in the 2nd half of the season, but I don't rule it out either.

One final point, I am bothered or impressed by words, I'm more concerned with actions. Arry did chat a lot of ********, but I feel AVB does to. So I am not too bothered by words in the media, but I am equally unconcinved by great talkers. I'm an action speaks louder than words type of guy, I work with plenty of people who go on about how great they are, but in reality they do not achieve what they proclaim they will achieve, and my boss likes personality rather than output which irritates me.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***

PSG approached him and he turned them down.

That was my understanding too, and also seems to be what was reported in the article smc posted.

Modric THFC, if you're saying it was something other than this do you have a source or something?

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Re: ***The Official AVB Discussion Thread***