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Opinion of AVB in hindsight?

Hoops

Well-Known Member
Mar 15, 2015
3,650
6,363
AVB has won the league with Saint Petersburg. Wondered what our opinion of him is, now the dust has settled.

I thought he was a good manager that was unlucky not to get the players he wanted and then suffer the consequences when it all went tits up.
 

mpickard2087

Patient Zero
Jun 13, 2008
21,886
32,513
Poor tactician.
Non-existent skills when it came to coaching + player development.
Completely uninterested in the youth academy.
Needed big money signings, at odds with our strategy and place in the foodchain.

I also get the impression that he is someone who gets rattled quite easily if things aren't going his way or they don't pan out how he believes they should.

Plus points were that I thought defensively we were ok and for all it was maligned, the high line and offside trap, with Super Hugo sweeping up anything that came within 30 yards of goal, worked pretty well most of the time.

Oh and he was a good frontman/spokesperson.

At the end of the day he has limitations and they will get found out in a competitive league. It was a poor appointment though because many of the things I listed above were at odds with the club and how it is run and what we are trying to do. For that, Levy has to take the blame.
 
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Jimmyjimmyo

Well-Known Member
Feb 5, 2014
179
363
Flop who couldn't understand that we were not Chelsea so targets needed to be realistic then when he had money after Bale he spunked it and created one of the dullest Spurs sides I can remember
 

Col_M

Pointing out the Obvious
Feb 28, 2012
22,638
45,677
aren't they like the combined Real, Atletico,Barcelona of the Russian league? Surely the question is not If he won the league but how early he won it.
 

Lilbaz

Just call me Baz
Apr 1, 2005
41,363
74,893
His high line got figured out. All teams had to do was soak up pressure and hit us on the counter. With Bale we got away with it as he could score. Without him we at times looked clueless and sometimes even suicidal. He never managed to adjust the tactics so had to go.

Also very boring.
 

THFCSPURS19

The Speaker of the Transfer Rumours Forum
Jan 6, 2013
37,886
130,485
The fact that we've still played better this season than under AVB tells you everything about his time as manager here.
 

jurgen

Busy ****
Jul 5, 2008
6,711
17,170
A bit of a naive mug for thinking things would change at Spurs when he signed. Will clearly have a very strong managerial career, but its too early to say whether that will 'just' be as a 'shepherd' for bigger clubs in any given league. Surely his next move will define his career as he's had difficulties in a hyper-competitive league thus far. He could retire early as he said before, but to make it so far at such a young age I think he could have the desire to be around for a bit yet. I bear him no ill will and he's the type of guy I'd like more of in the game in exchange for some of the propa football man bantasauruses..

By the time he retires, across his career he will probably have won 10x the trophies we managed in the same period :(
 

Spurger King

can't smile without glue
Jul 22, 2008
43,881
95,147
He stamped a style on the team more efficiently than Pochettino has done so far. Wasn't pretty, and wasn't really effective very often. Remember when we couldn't score at all?

I did like him though, even if he did seem to fall out with a lot of players and staff. In hindsight a more optimistic view might be that he was in the middle of trying to adjust the team to a new style, which is why we were struggling a little in some areas. Still think he should have been given the rest of the season.

Worth keeping in mind that he officially left through mutual consent, so it's possible that he decided to abandon the project as it wasn't working out.
 

THFCSPURS19

The Speaker of the Transfer Rumours Forum
Jan 6, 2013
37,886
130,485
Not sure about that. His first season he got us 5th with 72 points.
Yes, he did.

I think you're clever enough to know that points doesn't say anything about the style of football.

I said "we've still played better this season"- and, in my opinion, football-wise, we have, and I know it still isn't great but that was my point.
 

Shea

Well-Known Member
Apr 5, 2013
7,711
10,930
His winning the title in Russia doesn't change my opinion of him already

He somehow got an amazing gig again after flopping and being sacked

Zenit in Russia are disproportionately stronger and have spent so much more money than everyone else in the league now that they're pretty much a shoe in to succeed. It's like Neil Lennon winning the Scottish title with Celtic

Plus it was nothing he hadn't done before - he won the League with Porto when he had the strongest team in the league (he also won the Europa league yet flopped in the CL and Europa league this time with Zenit so if anything this is less impressive)

I think he's potentially a decent manager - but I think he got the Chelsea job off the back of Jose's hype and everyone thinking he was the new Jose because of the similarities at Porto and that they'd worked together

That he failed so miserably at Chelsea and yet still Levy decided to hire him was ridiculous - but no fault of AVB, it was a poor decision by Levy and his advisers (and I suppose AVB is able to sell himself well)

He seems like a manager who can only play one way and is only suited to managing the big fish club in a small pond who will allow him to buy star players. Good luck to him in Zenit and the rest of his career, but one thing I don't think is if he'd stayed at Spurs we'd be better off now (in fact I think we'd be worse off) so again good luck to him at Zenit and the rest of his career but no this does not make me wish we'd kept him or think differently in anyway about him with the hindsight of him winning the Russian league
 

yankspurs

Enic Out
Aug 22, 2013
41,883
71,188
Good manager. Deserves a hell of alot more respect then Spurs fans give him. Got us our highest points total despite having a significantly worse team than 'Arry. Didnt like the style, but he at least had them playing a style effectively unlike Poch or Sherwood. And he at least recognized our defense needed fixing and he fixed it, again unlike Poch or Sherwood.

Got no backing from Daniel, which is no surprise and he should have realized that he wouldnt get the guys he wanted.
 

Gaz_Gammon

Well-Known Member
Apr 16, 2005
16,047
18,013
Won the league with Saint fucking who?



How the migty have fallen..from the PL to some backwater Vodka slurping league played in a half empty stadium.

Super, smashing, great....




Fuck him.
 

THFCSPURS19

The Speaker of the Transfer Rumours Forum
Jan 6, 2013
37,886
130,485
Good manager. Deserves a hell of alot more respect then Spurs fans give him. Got us our highest points total despite having a significantly worse team than 'Arry. Didnt like the style, but he at least had them playing a style effectively unlike Poch or Sherwood. And he at least recognized our defense needed fixing and he fixed it
He maybe fixed it in the first season, but in the second season, different story.

What was this 'style' by the way? The only changes I recognised is that we had a high line, which did work sometimes, and we seemed to create no chances.
 
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