Is this not the perfectly understandable situation:
AVB comes to Spurs, his man-management skills having been derided by the press following his time at Chelsea. He, quite rightly and understandably, wants to make sure he keeps the squad's respect. Having signed Lloris he could have simply said, 'thanks Brad, now onto the bench as Hugo's here now' but he decided instead that, despite the fact it is obvious Lloris is a long-term signing and will within a short period become the Club's number one, given Friedel is (a) established and (b) popular with the fans, the players and the media and (c) actually playing very well at the moment, the drawbacks of upsetting Lloris (if it is upsetting him) for a few weeks is far less detrimental to AVB and therefore the Club than the potential drawbacks of dropping the in-form Freidel.
AVB knows that its just a matter of time. So too does Lloris (which is why I suspect that contrary to press speculation to the contrary, he won't give a rats ass). So too does Friedel.
What we all know is that if immediately upon signing Lloris, AVB had dropped Friedel and played Lloris and if Lloris had played anything other than brilliantly, AVB would have been ripped apart by the media and (lets be honest) the large number of fans at our club who are just waiting for AVB to fail.
I think AVB has played it perfectly. Lloris is settling in, training with the players every day, getting used to the systems etc and getting a bit of playing time in the UEFA. AVB will no doubt wait for another week or two by which time he knows that Brad will have something other than a great game and, what a shock, Lloris is then in place.
As for his non-involvement in carlisle, again I think that was smart of AVB. He clearly knows (a) the League cup is 4th on our list of priorities and (b) carlisle was a potential banana skin and (c) he wasn't going to drag friedel up there.
I think the message from Lloris's omission from the squad is 'I don't expect you or Brad to have to go up there on a cold Wednesday night, leave that to Gomes and Cudicini and you two concentrate on the bigger games'.
Finally, lets not be swayed into the skewed picture the press paint which suggests that Lloris has been ignored for weeks and weeks. He's only been available for two games - Reading (which followed an international break meaning he'd basically never trained to any great extent with his new team mates) and QPR.
As far as I am concerned, and I am no great AVB/Lloris/Friedel lover, AVB is playing it exactly right and Lloris will be installed between the sticks as first choice within the next month or so.
That is all. COYS.
