• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

Re: AVB Sacked page 224

He said: 'The fans need to understand how we play football. Sometimes they’re pushing us forward when we don’t need to go forward. They need to stay with us.

'We’re not playing English football, just kicking forward, we’re trying to build something and trying to do something.

'We’re trying to build something. It’s not something we’ve seen a lot of here but that’s the way we’re trying to play.

'When we’re under pressure we need to be ourselves, especially in front of our fans. We need to play our game not the game other people want.'
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

I've also just had a look through our results in 12/13 to see which ones qualify as 'Turgid football but Bale scored a wonder goal to rescue us' - as the argument goes that the only reason AVB delivered record points was because of Bale. From the outset I am willing to give Southampton at home as an example of a turgid performance that was saved by Bale.

It takes me until Liverpool at home, on the 28th November, before I see a game that could arguably qualify. We started that game really well, Lennon scored, we were playing a quick tempo early on in the match and showing Liverpool how pretty football should be played. Bale scored a good free-kick and from then on we sat deep, largely because we were forced into playing Gallas and Dawson together because of injuries. Liverpool then came at us, got a lucky own goal but didn't break us down. Not the best performance, but it certainly wasn't 'turgid football' when we were on top, it was good stuff. But we were on the back foot for a lot of the game and that's why I'm mentioning this one.

We absolutely ruin Villa away with a Bale hatttrick, but it wasn't 'turgid football with a Bale wonder goal saving us', Villa were such a shambles that we would have won comfortably whoever we had playing.

We won away at West Brom on the third February with a Bale screamer - although in this game we had Defoe injured and Bale was forced to play as the main striker. West Brom had a man sent off, and we ended the game with 70% possession and 21 attempts to their 4, I think we clearly deserved it.

The next game on Feb 9th we beat Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home with 2 Bale goals. But this is a game I actually think we played a quicker tempo in. It was a bit of a back and forth game, not really turgid. This was also the game we needed Ade to be back from the ACN but he wasn't, meaning we had Holtby in behind Dempsey as a strikeforce. Getting the most out of Bale here was imperative to us winning.

We then beat West Ham, obviously with a Bale screamer in the last kick of the game. But it certainly wasn't turgid football leading up to that, it was a good team performance and we arguably got what we deserved.

West Ham was on the 25th February, and it's the 4th May until our really turgid performance that's saved by a Bale wonder goal against Southampton. In that time we beat Arsenal, Swansea, Emirates Marketing Project, with Bale scoring but with good team performances.

Sunderland on the last day is saved by a Bale goal but was actually a quick tempo performance and not turgid, we got what we deserved there.

I will say that certain performances that season - Norwich at home, Wigan at home, QPR at home, and possibly Fulham and Stoke at home (although they weren't as bad as the previous 3) can qualify as turgid and in those games Bale didn't save us.

Looking at all of that on balance, I think it's extremely unfair to class AVB's record points setting season as something only achieved because he had Bale. It's simply not true.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

I've also just had a look through our results in 12/13 to see which ones qualify as 'Turgid football but Bale scored a wonder goal to rescue us' - as the argument goes that the only reason AVB delivered record points was because of Bale. From the outset I am willing to give Southampton at home as an example of a turgid performance that was saved by Bale.

It takes me until Liverpool at home, on the 28th November, before I see a game that could arguably qualify. We started that game really well, Lennon scored, we were playing a quick tempo early on in the match and showing Liverpool how pretty football should be played. Bale scored a good free-kick and from then on we sat deep, largely because we were forced into playing Gallas and Dawson together because of injuries. Liverpool then came at us, got a lucky own goal but didn't break us down. Not the best performance, but it certainly wasn't 'turgid football' when we were on top, it was good stuff. But we were on the back foot for a lot of the game and that's why I'm mentioning this one.

We absolutely ruin Villa away with a Bale hatttrick, but it wasn't 'turgid football with a Bale wonder goal saving us', Villa were such a shambles that we would have won comfortably whoever we had playing.

We won away at West Brom on the third February with a Bale screamer - although in this game we had Defoe injured and Bale was forced to play as the main striker. West Brom had a man sent off, and we ended the game with 70% possession and 21 attempts to their 4, I think we clearly deserved it.

The next game on Feb 9th we beat Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home with 2 Bale goals. But this is a game I actually think we played a quicker tempo in. It was a bit of a back and forth game, not really turgid. This was also the game we needed Ade to be back from the ACN but he wasn't, meaning we had Holtby in behind Dempsey as a strikeforce. Getting the most out of Bale here was imperative to us winning.

We then beat West Ham, obviously with a Bale screamer in the last kick of the game. But it certainly wasn't turgid football leading up to that, it was a good team performance and we arguably got what we deserved.

West Ham was on the 25th February, and it's the 4th May until our really turgid performance that's saved by a Bale wonder goal against Southampton. In that time we beat Arsenal, Swansea, Emirates Marketing Project, with Bale scoring but with good team performances.

Sunderland on the last day is saved by a Bale goal but was actually a quick tempo performance and not turgid, we got what we deserved there.

I will say that certain performances that season - Norwich at home, Wigan at home, QPR at home, and possibly Fulham and Stoke at home (although they weren't as bad as the previous 3) can qualify as turgid and in those games Bale didn't save us.

Looking at all of that on balance, I think it's extremely unfair to class AVB's record points setting season as something only achieved because he had Bale. It's simply not true.

You can attempt to re- write history in your attempt to " prove" your point, but I for one don't accept your version of events. Rather than offer a point by point rebuttal, which I could do, but too boring for everyone, especially me to relive all those turgid performances again, I would ask you to just ponder these facts.

1. Sunderland. Last game of season. Our whole season rested on this game. A win was imperative and hope for Arsenal to falter at Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Fourth place and Champions League football was the prize. AVB had had all season, plus pre- season and two transfer windows. How did this most important game pan out? We looked guileless, lethargic, slow and tactically inept, a performance which we could well have lost against a team with nothing to play for. It was TURGID and only saved by a late late screamer by Bale. Don't even begin to try and tell me this was all planned by AVB in advance!

2. In Bale we had a world class striker in our ranks at the top of his game. He saved us from embarrassment on numerous occasions. I can't recall where we would be without his goals, but somewhere in mid table mediocrity.

3. AVB failed miserably to develop any other player to take any of the strain off Bale. It WASNT as if we played to set him up with sitters, almost all his goals he set up, created and executed by himself.

4. AVB did not need to introduce any of the new signings. He chose them, he wanted them, he at the very least acquiesced in their purchase. If he didn't feel they were ready, why did he buy them? All I hear from you and Jordinhos is excuse after excuse for them. There are plenty of examples of foreign players who have made an immediate impact in England. Not one of these seven settled in with us in any way under AVB. Why not just accept that perhaps he was at least partly culpable for this situation.

5. He completely mis-managed the Ade situation. Apart from Chelsea away, He couldn't get a single decent performance from a player we all know is vastly talented.

My final point, (before I check out of this thread for good so I no longer have to deal with my frustrations about the dour football he brought to Spurs) is that AVB only stayed at all his previous clubs for only a single season. If all their success was solely down to him, why couldn't he bring success to us in a single season as he had supposedly done for them?

Why did he even need more time?

Something to ponder for all you AVB acolytes.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

You can attempt to re- write history in your attempt to " prove" your point, but I for one don't accept your version of events. Rather than offer a point by point rebuttal, which I could do, but too boring for everyone, especially me to relive all those turgid performances again, I would ask you to just ponder these facts.

1. Sunderland. Last game of season. Our whole season rested on this game. A win was imperative and hope for Arsenal to falter at Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Fourth place and Champions League football was the prize. AVB had had all season, plus pre- season and two transfer windows. How did this most important game pan out? We looked guileless, lethargic, slow and tactically inept, a performance which we could well have lost against a team with nothing to play for. It was TURGID and only saved by a late late screamer by Bale. Don't even begin to try and tell me this was all planned by AVB in advance!

2. In Bale we had a world class striker in our ranks at the top of his game. He saved us from embarrassment on numerous occasions. I can't recall where we would be without his goals, but somewhere in mid table mediocrity.

3. AVB failed miserably to develop any other player to take any of the strain off Bale. It WASNT as if we played to set him up with sitters, almost all his goals he set up, created and executed by himself.

4. AVB did not need to introduce any of the new signings. He chose them, he wanted them, he at the very least acquiesced in their purchase. If he didn't feel they were ready, why did he buy them? All I hear from you and Jordinhos is excuse after excuse for them. There are plenty of examples of foreign players who have made an immediate impact in England. Not one of these seven settled in with us in any way under AVB. Why not just accept that perhaps he was at least partly culpable for this situation.

5. He completely mis-managed the Ade situation. Apart from Chelsea away, He couldn't get a single decent performance from a player we all know is vastly talented.

My final point, (before I check out of this thread for good so I no longer have to deal with my frustrations about the dour football he brought to Spurs) is that AVB only stayed at all his previous clubs for only a single season. If all their success was solely down to him, why couldn't he bring success to us in a single season as he had supposedly done for them?

Why did he even need more time?

Something to ponder for all you AVB acolytes.

I seriously don't know what you are talking about with the Sunderland game - we played it at a quick tempo very obviously. We were denied a penalty within the first few minutes which was as clear as day and where Bale was clean through. Yes we were saved by Bale at the end, but we had 63% possession, 24 shots, 20 of which were on target. There was simply no way we didn't deserve to win that game comfortably. I am not re-writing history there.

I've been through all of our games in that season and the games where Bale has won us the points after a poor performance actually aren't that many. Certainly not enough to say the only reason for record points was down to him as the argument against AVB often goes. It's another myth that's been used as a stick to beat him with and has taken on a life of its own.

If you think the system wasn't set up to maximise Bale then I think you're just plain wrong again. Any other manager, it would be called an excellent use of resources, giving the player we have with the potential to step up, the coaching he needs to reach that next level and forming a system that maximises his likelihood of getting on the ball in dangerous areas in what was otherwise a pretty average forward line all things considered. But because its AVB, it's his fault only Bale reached ridiculous levels.

AVB according to people that have gotten most things right about him, wanted less signings that we took on, but higher quality ones. That many new signings at once will take a while to settle. Saudi Sportswashing Machine showed it, Sunderland are showing it this season - not one of their signings was PL proven. They are all talented though and would have likely come good. AVB was part of a committee though and wasn't the sole or final decision maker. We'll be reaping the benefits of Paulinho, Lamela, Eriksen and Soldado next season, I'm near enough certain about it.

He didn't really want Ade, but made use of him once he was here. But this was a guy that got needless suspensions, went away to the ACN and took longer than expected to return, and even then AVB played him ahead of Defoe and gave him chances. AVB's system didn't maximise Ade but it did maximise Bale - it's the short blanket theory and given the choice, I think he made the right one in exploiting Bale's talents.

As for your final point...WHAT!? He didn't win the the league with us in one season because of the squad we had in comparison to rivals, as well as our finances. Even top 4 is a tough ask for us each season. He got record points. He was already effective.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

You can attempt to re- write history in your attempt to " prove" your point, but I for one don't accept your version of events. Rather than offer a point by point rebuttal, which I could do, but too boring for everyone, especially me to relive all those turgid performances again, I would ask you to just ponder these facts.

1. Sunderland. Last game of season. Our whole season rested on this game. A win was imperative and hope for Arsenal to falter at Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Fourth place and Champions League football was the prize. AVB had had all season, plus pre- season and two transfer windows. How did this most important game pan out? We looked guileless, lethargic, slow and tactically inept, a performance which we could well have lost against a team with nothing to play for. It was TURGID and only saved by a late late screamer by Bale. Don't even begin to try and tell me this was all planned by AVB in advance!

2. In Bale we had a world class striker in our ranks at the top of his game. He saved us from embarrassment on numerous occasions. I can't recall where we would be without his goals, but somewhere in mid table mediocrity.

3. AVB failed miserably to develop any other player to take any of the strain off Bale. It WASNT as if we played to set him up with sitters, almost all his goals he set up, created and executed by himself.

4. AVB did not need to introduce any of the new signings. He chose them, he wanted them, he at the very least acquiesced in their purchase. If he didn't feel they were ready, why did he buy them? All I hear from you and Jordinhos is excuse after excuse for them. There are plenty of examples of foreign players who have made an immediate impact in England. Not one of these seven settled in with us in any way under AVB. Why not just accept that perhaps he was at least partly culpable for this situation.

5. He completely mis-managed the Ade situation. Apart from Chelsea away, He couldn't get a single decent performance from a player we all know is vastly talented.

My final point, (before I check out of this thread for good so I no longer have to deal with my frustrations about the dour football he brought to Spurs) is that AVB only stayed at all his previous clubs for only a single season. If all their success was solely down to him, why couldn't he bring success to us in a single season as he had supposedly done for them?

Why did he even need more time?

Something to ponder for all you AVB acolytes.

Funny that, your opinions are facts, while those that don't agree with them are just making excuses.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Good GHod, more of this from the Pirate!

You can attempt to re- write history in your attempt to " prove" your point, but I for one don't accept your version of events. Rather than offer a point by point rebuttal, which I could do, but too boring for everyone, especially me to relive all those turgid performances again, I would ask you to just ponder these facts.

1. Sunderland. Last game of season. Our whole season rested on this game. A win was imperative and hope for Arsenal to falter at Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Fourth place and Champions League football was the prize. AVB had had all season, plus pre- season and two transfer windows. How did this most important game pan out? We looked guileless, lethargic, slow and tactically inept, a performance which we could well have lost against a team with nothing to play for. It was TURGID and only saved by a late late screamer by Bale. Don't even begin to try and tell me this was all planned by AVB in advance!

No more turgid than the last 10 or so games in the 2011/12 season (particularly the Villa away game when 3rd was IN OUR HANDS), or the 2010/11 season. You could even talk about our chance to finish 3rd in the 2009/10 season – when we lost to Burnley who were ALREADY RELEGATED. Are you going to REALLY say AVB’s performance in that game when we were playing against a team that were happy to mostly play 10 behind the ball all game was worse than this?

2. In Bale we had a world class striker in our ranks at the top of his game. He saved us from embarrassment on numerous occasions. I can't recall where we would be without his goals, but somewhere in mid table mediocrity.

I see what you did there and called him a ‘striker’ – almost as though he started the season as a striker. It’s almost like AVB took over Spurs and Bale was in exactly the same sort of form at that time as at the end of the season. Tut-tut and cheap shot. Put it this way: was Bale a ‘world-class striker at the top of his game’ at the beginning of the season? Or was he a ‘very good midfielder/winger’? I’m sure the stats would back you up on this point. Not.

3. AVB failed miserably to develop any other player to take any of the strain off Bale. It WASNT as if we played to set him up with sitters, almost all his goals he set up, created and executed by himself.

Oh really? So who were these players that should have been developed to take this strain? Are you talking about Ade, Defoe, Lennon?? Bale came on strength to strength in the second half of the season. The vast majority of his goals came in the second half. Btw, after the first half of the season we were around 4th, so guess what: taking the season as a whole there’s at least half where we weren’t reliant on Bale but still kept ourselves high up the table. No doubt that had nothing to do with AVB in your eyes, perhaps it was those players ‘he failed to develop’.

4. AVB did not need to introduce any of the new signings. He chose them, he wanted them, he at the very least acquiesced in their purchase. If he didn't feel they were ready, why did he buy them? All I hear from you and Jordinhos is excuse after excuse for them. There are plenty of examples of foreign players who have made an immediate impact in England. Not one of these seven settled in with us in any way under AVB. Why not just accept that perhaps he was at least partly culpable for this situation.

So now you are saying that any buy – wherever they come from – automatically has to be assumed to hit the ground running? Sure that would be nice, but as there are several examples of foreign players who have, there are also several who needed a few months. In fact there are several players in any given season that are English, or are bought from other PL clubs, who also take time to settle. Look at Liverpool’s Henderson for example, he’s taken a few seasons and I’m sure they saw him as a long-term successor to Gerrard. Then I can talk of Henry and Pires at Arsenal who were both dog-****e in their first six months. Imagine if they were being judged at that time by the likes of you.
Of course, Paulinho hasn’t settled (after all he’s only made lots of dangerous runs and missed some sitters), Soldado hasn’t mostly been starved of service, Chadli hardly gets a game does he, Chiriches has never had a good game and Eriksen, well have you seen him play?? Who’s this Capoue fella eh? If you weren’t so blinded by your hate of AVB you’d have the capability to just say Lamela is the only signing that hasn’t settled. You seem to have thought that poor form/not reaching the heights seen before they signed = haven’t settled in any way! I wonder if you said this bout Lloris last season at this point as well.


5. He completely mis-managed the Ade situation. Apart from Chelsea away, He couldn't get a single decent performance from a player we all know is vastly talented.

I wonder if you were one of those who were saying at the time that Ade shouldn’t be on the pitch last season? In fact, I’m sure you were one of those saying ‘he’s a waste of space’, ‘he’s got a crap attitude’ etc etc. So now you’re saying that Ade not performing shows how bad a coach AVB is? Would you say the same of Wenger, Mancini, Mourinho and Harry post-February 2012? No, I thought not. Of course any stick to beat AVB with is lovely for you. No doubt if/when he shows poor performances from now, it will by TS’s fault? Nah, doubt it, It will be back to being Ade's fault no doubt.

My final point, (before I check out of this thread for good so I no longer have to deal with my frustrations about the dour football he brought to Spurs) is that AVB only stayed at all his previous clubs for only a single season. If all their success was solely down to him, why couldn't he bring success to us in a single season as he had supposedly done for them?

Why did he even need more time?

This is where you show some serious ignorance in why AVB or any manager is hired; Nobody would say AVB’s success at Porto was TOTALLY down to him. Porto are an established club in Portugal and usually fight it out with one or two other big guns to win the available trophies each year. What AVB did there was take them to a higher level in terms of fitness, tempo and the ability to remain unbeaten in all the available competitions. They won them all BTW, something not done every day (even you will have to agree on that point). Doing this in AVB’s first season at the club is what made people sit up and notice him. Not just winning ALL the trophies, but the attacking football and the fact Porto went the whole league season unbeaten. Again, not something done evry season and it hasn’t been done at Porto since. So this was a great achievement, and one built on good planning, strategy, good team ethic and attention to fitness and stamina over a WHOLE season.

Chelski and Roman noticed and wanted ‘in’. AVB initially wanted to stay another year at Porto gaining more experience, but after a while Chelski and Roman can prove rather persuasive. Sadly for AVB, I bet he wished he’d stayed in Porto now.

He got sacked at Chelski due to a toxic dressing-room, which he approached like a bull in a china shop. Or did he? After all he was told by Roman to renew the side. It was well-known that the likes of Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Cole et al, effectively ran that club. It was perhaps naïve of AVB to take some of the approaches he did, but the manager is the manager and if that’s his way so be it. If SAF did that, would anybody have questioned him? The results were below what Chelski expected, but they are not a club that has ever thought (or needed to think) of the long-term so from their point of view he had to go.

However, his stock was still high as he was known as a manager who plans long-term over a season and perhaps beyond. A manager interested in taking part directly in coaching and who is interested in using tactics and strategy in taking on opposition. Somebody who could be expected to give a club as good a shot as possible in overcoming financial disadvantages when compared to more powerful rivals. A club like Spurs in fact.
We had just ****ed-up the best chance we had in recent history to gain some ground on our close rivals who had enjoyed CL money and a bigger gate for years. The Redknapp model had come to the end of its cycle because now we were going to lose a key member of that cycle (Modric) and wanted to stay close to rivals who could now accelarate away from us using CL money and CL participation to attract players AWAY from us. Players like Hazard, Oscar and more recently Willian. The fact that AVB kept us competitive (i.e 1 point off 4th) in this scenario is testament to both him and the players. BTW, Do you think Redknapp would have kept us as competitive without Modric and Hudd (when he was fit) in the previous 2/3 seasons? Maybe you should think about that when you talk about AVB being reliant on Bale.

Missing out on 4th by 1 point showed that AVB deserved to get more time. Big defeats aside at the stage he was sacked, I’m sure statistically we had more points than at the same stage last season. Things could have gone either way at that point, but at a club like ours (who have known more mediocrity that champagne football, where finishing mid-table and having our season over by January/February was the norm) he deserved more time. I’m not sure what would have constituted success for you (other than more sparkling displays) but you’d be hard pushed to get a manager to our club that would have done better than AVB in the circumstances that AVB took over (please don’t tell me that after Harry’s flops two seasons in a row that he would have been able to overcome Chelski and Arsenal again and without Modric, plus with little to no squad rotation capability).


Something to ponder for all you AVB acolytes.

It’s a shame that the worst of AVB’s performances have clouded all of what AVB’s time here. I really can’t remember a time when I felt that with most games against the big 4 we would hold our own or be found hard to beat. I’m certain stats will show we took more points in our games with them than in previous seasons in 2012/13. You may not have liked AVB in the end but please don’t go overboard with your biased recollections to sully the whole time AVB was here and totally make a mockery of why a coach like him could be hired.
In fact I’d challenge anybody (not you, as the post I’m replying to shows you really can’t think fairly when it comes to AVB or even where Spurs sit as a club for that matter) to name 3 managers, after we sacked Harry, that we should have hired instead of AVB, who would CLEARLY have done better and who would have been likely to come as well.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

I've seen Gutter Boy say it before, and it's absolutely true, but a huge amount of effort is put into analysing the opposition and deciding the best moments to attack in the match. By saying 'it IS confusing' you're basically saying that the only thing to do is go straight for goals, straight away, all of the time. But top level football isn't played like that. There are different strategies at play for different moments of matches.

We gave him 18 months, a year of which he delivered us record points. And during that year, our record against our competitors was pretty good - wins over United, City, Arsenal, Liverpool, and an away draw with Chelsea at a vital point in the season. We weren't as good this year - again most likely being down to 7 new foreigners. Just like Saudi Sportswashing Machine weren't very good in the first months of their influx of foreigners - I still don't understand why Saudi Sportswashing Machine isn't a perfectly reasonable comparison to draw.

i dont know why you keep insisting with this excuse.....how many times have all 7 foreigners played in the team at the same time???out of all our new signings only Paulinho has been anything like ever present, followed by Soldado and Eriksen. The others have either been injured or left on the bench for much of the time
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

i dont know why you keep insisting with this excuse.....how many times have all 7 foreigners played in the team at the same time???out of all our new signings only Paulinho has been anything like ever present, followed by Soldado and Eriksen. The others have either been injured or left on the bench for much of the time

The new signings that perform so well away from home but ****e at the Lane. 1 week we play like a team with the new signings impressing...then at the Lane we play like **** and it's because we have so many new signings...then good away again.....then signings again need time to adjust after a bad showing at the Lane.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

The new signings that perform so well away from home but ****e at the Lane. 1 week we play like a team with the new signings impressing...then at the Lane we play like **** and it's because we have so many new signings...then good away again.....then signings again need time to adjust after a bad showing at the Lane.

And as I keep saying, maybe our system that works quicker away from home is because we get a bit more space and because our ability to control the ball frustrates their home crowd so much that they are unable to create the atmosphere that provides a home advantage. Maybe at home, when the onus if often totally on us to make the game, it would just take a little more time to entirely get to grips with pulling every single string, especially considering there is less space to operate within.

And actually, bar Hull and the West Ham and Liverpool hammerings, if you look at our home games this season they really haven't been the turgid monstrosities that the propaganda on here has suggested they were.

Anyway there's a number of other points I want to make:

Why is it an excuse when they rarely all played at the same time? Because mostly, it was attacking players that were new. Eriksen, Soldado, Chadli, Lamela, even Paulinho needs to attack through our spine. Our defence was actually working well before the **** hit the fan, it was the attack that wasn't coming together.

If we see Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Sunderland and even Swansea this year, they've all pretty much gone the foreign route with their signings and they all took a while to settle. I'm not saying a foreign player can never hit the ground running, but to try and integrate 7 of them at the same time, that's certainly going to be difficult. Why are these clubs not good examples of foreign players showing performance can suffer in the early stages at their clubs?

And do people actually have any good reason to claim that 7 new foreign signings should work straight away? Can they point to any example where it has been tried and where the team reached their objectives without any hiccups? Do people actually have any good reason to argue the likes of Wenger, who says it is a bad idea to sign so many at once, or Sandro, that says it takes him and most other foreign players 6 months to adapt? Rather than deny its importance, come up with a reason why it isn't applicable. Show me where another club has pulled off at least 7 new foreigners coming into the squad at the same time (extra points if it's after losing the teams best player) and I will be a lot more inclined to believe it isn't an issue.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

And as I keep saying, maybe our system that works quicker away from home is because we get a bit more space and because our ability to control the ball frustrates their home crowd so much that they are unable to create the atmosphere that provides a home advantage. Maybe at home, when the onus if often totally on us to make the game, it would just take a little more time to entirely get to grips with pulling every single string, especially considering there is less space to operate within.

And actually, bar Hull and the West Ham and Liverpool hammerings, if you look at our home games this season they really haven't been the turgid monstrosities that the propaganda on here has suggested they were.


Anyway there's a number of other points I want to make:

Why is it an excuse when they rarely all played at the same time? Because mostly, it was attacking players that were new. Eriksen, Soldado, Chadli, Lamela, even Paulinho needs to attack through our spine. Our defence was actually working well before the **** hit the fan, it was the attack that wasn't coming together.

If we see Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Sunderland and even Swansea this year, they've all pretty much gone the foreign route with their signings and they all took a while to settle. I'm not saying a foreign player can never hit the ground running, but to try and integrate 7 of them at the same time, that's certainly going to be difficult. Why are these clubs not good examples of foreign players showing performance can suffer in the early stages at their clubs?

And do people actually have any good reason to claim that 7 new foreign signings should work straight away? Can they point to any example where it has been tried and where the team reached their objectives without any hiccups? Do people actually have any good reason to argue the likes of Wenger, who says it is a bad idea to sign so many at once, or Sandro, that says it takes him and most other foreign players 6 months to adapt? Rather than deny its importance, come up with a reason why it isn't applicable. Show me where another club has pulled off at least 7 new foreigners coming into the squad at the same time (extra points if it's after losing the teams best player) and I will be a lot more inclined to believe it isn't an issue.

Ah ok so it's a tactical thing and nothing to do with new signings? according to that it's tactical and it's because the fans are not behind the team.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Ah ok so it's a tactical thing and nothing to do with new signings? according to that it's tactical and it's because the fans are not behind the team.

Why can it not be a bit of both? It may take a bit more time for foreigners new to this league to work with the extremely small amount of space they are given to work in at WHL compared to away from home. The onus at home is on us to make the game and I think it would just take a bit more time.

But it wasn't just foreigners. It was that, combined with the impact of losing our best player. For the 2 or 3 years that Arsenal routinely lost their best players, they started worse than we did in the seasons following those summers. Not just turgid football, but absolutely ridiculous, heavy, awful defeats. And that wasn't with 7 new foreigners, that was losing their best player and signing one or two replacements to compensate.

As I said, if anyone can point me to an example of a team dealing with similar issues to us - losing their best player and replacing him with the sheer amount of foreign signings that we did - and not suffering some sort of dip or inconsistency in the early stages, then I will be a lot less willing to bang this particular drum. And if anyone can provide the arguments to Sandro and Wenger's assertions that foreign players normally take 6 months to feel truly at home and that lots of new signings at once is a bad idea, then I will be very happy to read them and take them on board.
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Wasn't sure where to put this but I felt a bit sick at the sycophancy of the journalists in that mourinho press conference today . So many pundits are ex Liverpool. X, y. How about Redknapp José? Hahaha.

What is wrong with these people?
 
Re: AVB Sacked page 224

Wasn't sure where to put this but I felt a bit sick at the sycophancy of the journalists in that mourinho press conference today . So many pundits are ex Liverpool. X, y. How about Redknapp José? Hahaha.

What is wrong with these people?

Jose's pallyness with the press has allowed him to escape a lot of criticism on style of play this year. I know a few that are going that say their games against lesser teams are boring. I think he and AVB and reading from the same hymn sheet in that they lower their intensity in lesser games and raise it for bigger ones - Chelsea have put in a fair share of turgid performances this year and their strikers have had a similar scoring problem - but there is not a hint of criticism on Jose for style of play.
 
Back