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Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

who's putting blind faith in him ?

all i see is some people not willing to write him off because of the start we have had. he talks of building for the future and whatever else so let's wait and see how things develop.
 
Hate to say this but I think it is already 'broken'. Low on confidence, low on moral, top players still out injured and six points off a CL spot, damage is already done.:(

Realistically if you look at the teams that will still be there competing for 4th at the end of the season, then we're 2 points behind Arsenal, 2 ahead of Liverpool and 3 ahead of Saudi Sportswashing Machine.
 
who's putting blind faith in him ?

all i see is some people not willing to write him off because of the start we have had. he talks of building for the future and whatever else so let's wait and see how things develop.

This ,will AVB manage to bring regular success to our club? i have no idea but writing him off after 12 Lge games is madness.
 
HR got 3 years I believe but Abramovic's impatience has got Chelsea doubles and the ECL.

Yeah Harry got 3 years and actually they were the best 3 years a lot of us can even remember. Two 4th place finishes, champions league football, signing Van der Vaart, looking like genuine title challengers for half a season.

Yes, we fell away badly in the second half of his last two seasons, yes he made it clear he wasn't really one of us, yes he bought some dodgy players along the way, yes he blatantly courted the England job after the whole club had backed him over his court case.... But at the end of the day it IS still quite astonishing that he was sacked after what he achieved and after another 4th place finish, equalling our Premiership best.

Big, BIG call by Levy and basically in my view an Abramovich style fudge YOU ALL this is my club and I'll do as I please gesture. He's brought in AVB but I didn't really see the backing in the summer to make any real changes to the AVB way of playing. Is he going to bring in a DOF? Seems like a bit of a weird situation and I feel a bit sorry for AVB.
 
Correlation not causation.

I think they would have won more had they kept Mourinho around.

Agree with that. I was broadly defending the chopping and changing approach earlier in this thread but the whole point of that is that you do it until you arrive at someone exceptional. And mourinho firmly falls into that category!
 
They should have done. It looks exactly like stability for the sake of it, based on goodwill. Chopping and changing until you get someone exceptional is as good a tactic as any these days. Didn't work out too bad for Chelsea last season, even if RDM isn't actually all that exceptional (which I don't think he is and I wouldn't be surprised to see him gone before the end of the season). Sometimes it means some short term pain, for sure. It happened when we chopped and changed Jol

Just realised I posted this the day before Di Matteo got the boot! :lol:
 
I still don't understand why Freund was brought in. AVB should have been allowed to bring his own assistant. Apart from the occasional hand shakes and hugs, AVB and Freund doesn't seem to commnunicate during matches. I don't blame AVB for that because what help can Freund offer to AVB when he has limited experience in coaching ? Their working relationship doesn't seem to be as close as Jol-Hughton, Ramos-Poyet or Redknapp-Jordan used to.
 
who's putting blind faith in him ?

all i see is some people not willing to write him off because of the start we have had. he talks of building for the future and whatever else so let's wait and see how things develop.

He needs to get on with the job, all this talk of building for the future has little to do with him. He's there to pick the team and win football matches. If he continues to do that bit badly, he'll be out of a job.

Building for the future is Sherwood's job or the DOF if we ever appoint one.
But that side of things has been going well for several years, we have as many home grown players in the first team squad as any EL side.
The youngsters doing so well in U21s and NextGen haven't just appeared. The biggest step forward is the opening of the new training facilities, all part of an existing long term plan.

AVB has inherited a squad good enough to compete with the top 3, but he doesn't appear to have any idea how to get the best out of them.
 
Realistically if you look at the teams that will still be there competing for 4th at the end of the season, then we're 2 points behind Arsenal, 2 ahead of Liverpool and 3 ahead of Saudi Sportswashing Machine.

Why would Saudi Sportswashing Machine be up there based on one decent season? More likely to be Everton and maybe WBA as this year's surprise. We're 9 points behind them, ffs! :eek:
 
I still don't understand why Freund was brought in. AVB should have been allowed to bring his own assistant. Apart from the occasional hand shakes and hugs, AVB and Freund doesn't seem to commnunicate during matches. I don't blame AVB for that because what help can Freund offer to AVB when he has limited experience in coaching ? Their working relationship doesn't seem to be as close as Jol-Hughton, Ramos-Poyet or Redknapp-Jordan used to.

How do you know that Freund wasn't his appointment? How do you know that he didn't want someone with links to the club in his team and was impressed with the work that Freund had done in the German youth set up? Why does it matter how you perceive they communicate during games?
 
I still don't understand why Freund was brought in. AVB should have been allowed to bring his own assistant. Apart from the occasional hand shakes and hugs, AVB and Freund doesn't seem to commnunicate during matches. I don't blame AVB for that because what help can Freund offer to AVB when he has limited experience in coaching ? Their working relationship doesn't seem to be as close as Jol-Hughton, Ramos-Poyet or Redknapp-Jordan used to.

The simple truth is you do not have a clue as to how close Freund and AVB are and what their working relationship is.

Unless you have bionic hearing how the heck would you know anything what they say to each other during matches
 
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AVB has inherited a squad good enough to compete with the top 3, but he doesn't appear to have any idea how to get the best out of them.


that is just plain and utter nonsense imv - last season, yes, we had a first team that was good enough to compete at that level, which is what we done for 2/3's of the season - this season however we haven't had anything close to that level of quality to field throughout the first team so far and to put that sort of expectation on the manager this early on and then to judge him on not reaching the same heights is insanely harsh. how can you ask AVB to perform to that level when we are missing 6 (SIX) players from last season starting XI ? how can you compare :

__________Friedel
Walker Kaboul Gallas Ekotto
______Parker Modric
Lennon____ VdV_____Bale
________Adebayor

to
________Friedel
Walker Gallas Caulker Vertonghen
_____Sandro Huddelstone
Lennon__Dempsey_____Bale
_________Defoe
?

players in bold are the ones we are missing from last season who are yet to return for any real length of time this season. If you want to start judging AVB on last seasons results can you not at least wait until those players are back from injuries/suspensions so we can make a fair call on how he is performing? how do you reckon our previous manager would have fared if he was missing 6 (SIX) first team player for a run of games ?

____________Friedel
Walker Vertonghen Kaboul Ekotto
____________Parker
_________Sandro Dembele
Lennon_________________Bale
___________Adebayor

anything close to that as a starting XI for us this season, imo will see us pick up plenty of points and improve dramatically in terms of style (although it could well be Defoe up top with Ade and no Parker starting and Lloris in goal)
 
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The simple truth is you do not have a clue as to how close Freund and AVB are and what their working relationship is.

Unless you have bionic hearing how the heck would you know anything what they say to each other during matches

from what ive seen during games, AVB tends to consult his Portugeezer mate rather than Freund..........Freund just seems to be there. Must be sh!t hot in training i guess
 
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