AVB felt let down wanted to leave !! long read but worth it...

[SuperPav]

This is just AVB getting his side of the story out there to try to salvage what little credibility he can. I don't begrudge him putting his side of the story forward but I wouldn't read too much into it. The questions about tactics and player selection seem valid given the state of things.

Also, the sale of GB was inevitable once his head was turned and once they agreed to pay a record fee, Modric too. Most of the players he would have liked ended up signing for much bigger pay packets or clubs more to their liking but i think we did everything we could to bring is as strong a squad as possible over the summer. I don't remember any of us were complaining about the new players brought in as they all came with pretty high expectations except (except Chadli perhaps).

The Moutinho fiasco is a valid excuse though. If it's true that we lost out haggling over £500,000 then we absolutely shot ourselves in the foot. We needed him so badly not only to replace Modric but also to be AVBs lieutenant in the team, SpurgerKing made some good points on this recently. I'm all for Levy's tough negotiating tactics when it comes off but ultimately we have to secure the players we need and we have seen a fair few occasions where we've not been able to make key reinforcements due to our belligerence at the negotiating table and in the long run I'm not sure how great it is pissing off every chairman we deal with. Apart from maybe Lee Power. Of Swindon

Ultimately, though AVB knew he wasn't coming here with total control over transfer policy and most European clubs operate that way, even Chelsea his former employer do. His job was to get the best out of the players at his disposal, which he didn't in the eyes of the board and probably the majority of fans.

Ahhh it's always shit when a relationship turns sour...

I think your right that AVB didn't get the best out of the players at his disposal. He was definetely too stubborn with his philosophy of playing, and he might also have been with BAE and Ade.

I do, however, believe a lot of critics are missing a valid point.

We knew exactly what to expect from AVB. He had allready shown it at Chelsea. So did Levy. I presume that is why he said what he said, when AVB was signed: that this was meant to be a long-term project, that we would adapt to AVB's way of playing football and that the future team would be build around it.

AVB wasn't brought in "to get the best out of the squad", but to accomplish implementing his philosophy, and composing the squad according to this.

Now, with these things coming out about how the transfers were handled, I can't help to think that AVB was seriously let down by Levy and others in the club. If we never wanted to dedicate ourselves to the project, we should never have comitted to it to start with. Relatively natural if it left AVB in a state of frustration.

 

[Jamturk]

There is good reason why we as a club have repeatedly fallen short and its not all the managers we have seen sacked.

People should heed these words, Burt is close with AvB and this is clearly AvB's version of events.

 

[Sarsipius]

I think your right that AVB didn't get the best out of the players at his disposal. He was definetely too stubborn with his philosophy of playing, and he might also have been with BAE and Ade.

I do, however, believe a lot of critics are missing a valid point.

We knew exactly what to expect from AVB. He had allready shown it at Chelsea. So did Levy. I presume that is why he said what he said, when AVB was signed: that this was meant to be a long-term project, that we would adapt to AVB's way of playing football and that the future team would be build around it.

AVB wasn't brought in "to get the best out of the squad", but to accomplish implementing his philosophy, and composing the squad according to this.

Now, with these things coming out about how the transfers were handled, I can't help to think that AVB was seriously let down by Levy and others in the club. If we never wanted to dedicate ourselves to the project, we should never have comitted to it to start with. Relatively natural if it left AVB in a state of frustration.

All very true. Are you saying we should have given him more time then or that we failed him in the transfer market?

In defence of bringing him in I think the whole board was impressed by AVB in the interviews and were surprised how at insightful and knowledgeable he seemed. He has always spoken of a very clear football philosophy which was to be fair proven successful, once. It was easy to take the view that AVB had suffered from mission impossible at Stamford Bridge in trying instil too much change and that cabal of senior players basically forced him out. We didn't seem to have those problems though and on the balance of things he seemed like a good choice. Young, hungry and with a point to prove. Maybe we should have given him longer but could you see him coming back after yesterday? Even in the article it says he was ready to go by then.

So easy to point the finger of blame but hindsight is always 20/20.

 

[DFF]

I'm willing to listen everyone's version of events. There is no doubt that everything we hear is slanted by somebody's opinion, so the more info from a wider variety of sources, the better. Lets just say I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of truth in what AVB says. You don't really know who or what to trust, and nobody is exactly coming out of this affair smelling of roses. If you squinted enough the whole thing comes off like a John Le Carre novel.

 

[Mouse!]

Sounds like Levy was stubborn, Baldini was stubborn and AVB was stubborn. I think AVB wanted certain players, perhaps at unrealistic prices, and wasn't willing to compromise when we decided they weren't value for money. Equally, Levy didn't trust AVB's non-existent transfer market record enough to allow him control. Resentment seems to have built from this.

Maybe AVB and Levy were too similarly stubborn to work together. Any new manager must be made aware of our financial limitations, and understand compromise. Equally, Levy must understand that certain players may be worth more to their manager in terms of achieving a certain playing style, than the high fee needed to get them.

The most disappointing thing about AVB was his lack of youth integration, something we all expected to happen. Instead we saw a Harry style crusade for expensive players he'd worked with before. Any new manager must utilise our academy to it's full potential.

 

[thewolfman]

Excellent article by Jason Burt. It gives you a rare insight into the inner workings at spurs, and tbh it's not a pleasant one. I can now understand why AVB left (note that I said left not sacked), he knew his time was up a while back. Matter of fact he knew he was on a tight rope since the start of the season. The very fact that he wasn't offered a contract by Levy after the PSG approach speaks volumes, especially after AVB showed his loyalty by choosing to stay. The key point in all of this is this quote:



What this says is that not everyone at spurs was on board with AVBs philosophy and direction. Most of us seem to think that the 'agenda' AVB talked about was external to the club and directed at the media, but what seems to be missed here is the internal 'agenda'. When you have everyone on the same page at home, it imbues confidence and makes it easier to do your job. But when the very people you work with have no confidence in your ability or efforts, and are clearly undermining you then it all becomes pointless. People like Sherwood, Ferdinand etc. are going to kill this club from the inside. They don't have the vision, experience or the talent to be anywhere close to the man they helped undermine.

I always wondered why we never had our own Wenger or Ferguson. I think I now know why. AVB is a manager ahead of his time and people at the club are far too short sighted to see it.

I think it's very simplistic to say that this is the reason we haven't had a long serving manager that has built a legacy. Look at the last 4 managers, all have been fired for a reason (whether that is a good or bad reason is up for debate but there were reasons never the less) I supported them all but I think at the time Levy was probably justified to some extent in his actions.

I feel sorry for AVB, I like him and I think he is a good manager with some serious shortcomings that have been exposed in the Premier League. To say that Porto had a better support structure is funny because I wonder how good he would have rated his support if he had lost matches 5-0 at home in Portugal.

 

[tototoner]

Excellent article, thanks for posting

As Burkinshaw said " There used to be a football club over there"

What do we have now, I really have no idea

 

[onthetwo]

That's AVB's take. At the core of it, he wanted to keep Bale and add. The owners chose to sell and hope. I can't see how, after Harry and AVB joined Ramos, Jol, Santini, Hoddle and Graham on the scrap heap, anyone can think that we should take ENIC's side. Let's sack Lewis. Until we do, there will be a massive open space next to our current ground that could be used for the community, because there's fuck all chance we will use it.

Mate, Lewis owns the club. I'll start the whip around to raise the cash if you want?

 

[Dharmabum]

It's hard for an outsider to know exactly what was going on at the club. Even though this article seem to make a sense I won't put all that blame on Levy though.
However, many a persons have mentioned that Spurs is a very "political" club and this not an easy work place.
Spurs have a rather weid system where Sherwood is above the DoF (Baldini) as well as the head coach; and people I know (on line) have told me that Tim do meddle in their business at times. That Tim did convince Ley to give him a chance as Spurs' manager speaks volumes IMO...

 

[specspurs]

Interesting that the article suggests that Soldado was definitely wanted by AVB,if so why didn't he set up the team to give Soldado the service that he needs?

 

[Rout-Ledge]

The failure to sign Moutinho was an absolute disgrace on the part of Levy.

Bringing in a new coach with the intention of pushing on from the very good job Harry was doing and pushing us to the 'next level' was admirable and ballsy, and the sale of Modric was ultimately unavoidable, but to not sign the one man AVB wanted, and who was available and willing to join for a smaller fee than we obtained for Modric, was a masterclass in undermining your new manager before his first transfer window was even shut.

 

[Gilzeanking]

This is just AVB getting his side of the story out there to try to salvage what little credibility he can. I don't begrudge him putting his side of the story forward but I wouldn't read too much into it.



The Moutinho fiasco is a valid excuse though. If it's true that we lost out haggling over £500,000 then we absolutely shot ourselves in the foot. We needed him so badly not only to replace Modric but also to be AVBs lieutenant in the team, SpurgerKing made some good points on this recently. I'm all for Levy's tough negotiating tactics when it comes off but ultimately we have to secure the players we need and we have seen a fair few occasions where we've not been able to make key reinforcements due to our belligerence at the negotiating table and in the long run I'm not sure how great it is pissing off every chairman we deal with. Apart from maybe Lee Power. Of Swindon

...

Thing is the Moutinho transfer would have been a real spend...someone would have to put his hand in his pocket unlike this summer when it was all paid for by Bale/sales .
Levy may well have haggled over half a mill....but given what a tightwad he is it may have been a deliberate last minute sabotage of a deal , we'll never know of course .

 

[Rout-Ledge]

Interesting that the article suggests that Soldado was definitely wanted by AVB,if so why didn't he sent up the team to give Soldado the service that he needs?

Because AVB is an incompetent manager in many respects unfortunately.

here is a young coach who is firmly committed to attacking, exciting football – and wants to entertain

If that is what AVB truly believes, and presumably it is, given that this story is clearly being sourced from his side, then that goes to show just how much of a clue he doesn't have.

 

[Freundy]

Interesting that the article suggests that Soldado was definitely wanted by AVB,if so why didn't he sent up the team to give Soldado the service that he needs?

He signed Soldado and Paulinho when he thought Bale was going to be staying - that's what Burt has said previously. So all the early summer plans went to shit.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

He signed Soldado and Paulinho when he thought Bale was going to be staying - that's what Burt has said previously. So all the early summer plans went to shit.

I just about believe Paulinho was signed before we knew Bale was off, as it's the kind of signing we've made in the past in terms of his age and the fee, but not for a moment do I think that's true of Soldado. It was a signing that simply went against the grain of every single signing Levy has ever made. Almost £10m more than we've spent on a transfer before and on a player who couldn't possibly gain or even retain his value.

You'd have to be naive in the extreme to believe Bale was staying after Soldado was signed. Unfortunately I think AVB is naive in the extreme and I also wouldn't be at all surprised if he was lied to by top brass.

 

[Legend10]

He signed Soldado and Paulinho when he thought Bale was going to be staying - that's what Burt has said previously. So all the early summer plans went to shit.

I don't think that's true, by the time we signed Soldado it was already into August and Bale was clearly leaving.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

I don't think that's true, by the time we signed Soldado it was already into August and Bale was clearly leaving.

There were people who thought Bale was staying even then; even when members of the board had made comments about selling one player to improve the squad, after Bale had been silent for weeks, after we'd spent more money on transfers than we ever had before, and believed that all the money was coming from a great big lovely loan from Joe Lewis for an unspecified reason.

Morons. Genuine, bona fide morons.

 

[Kendall]

No quotes and fudged storylines based on players we were linked with and didn't pull off. One wonders that if we'd not signed Eriksen he'd be on that list too? Instead he's being mentioned as one AVB didn't want... pure horseshit. Then we get on to the 5 fingers stuff with BAE and Ade, which as with many Spurs fans, the writer has jumped to silly conclusions and come up with the wrong answer. But it fits with his agenda.

 

[CheeseGromit]

Th essence of the story will have some validity. It happens at every football club. Football is about opinions.

In the end AVB was employed to do a job, one he was struggling to get right. Moutinho was not the reason we lost 3 - 0 to Spam 6 - 0 to Citeh and 5 - 0 to Bindippers. For things to happen once is unfortunate twice is unlucky, three times is a problem. If AVB could not find another Lieutenant on the field then either his approach was wrong or he was not convincing enough

How long is a project ? In football not very long that is for sure. However getting to an ultimate goal is also achieved in steps and with agreed shorter term objectives. Blind loyalty is hard to accomplish; that is also a work in progress. It strikes me from what I have read and this is an interpretation AVB expected people to follow because he said so. That has to be carried off and people buy into the outcomes espcially in football that is all about opinions

It may have been a long term project but that still did not stop him having a) a settled side with teams for the PL , Europa Cup, the domestic cups and all play the same way. He might not have got everybody he wanted but he was either inflexible in his approach or not capable.

I dont get the Modric/Bale and Suarez arguments by everybody. Bale/Modric heads were turned, they wanted to go to RM and RM wanted them kinda understandable. Did Bindippers really have to work at Saurez; how much did RM/ Barceleona/ Bayern bid for him. How relentless was their pursuit. £40,000,001 was a joke and showed that the bidding club had no real intention An unsettling tactic. Did they increase their bid significatly.

Other clubs have shown integration can work with a big influx of players so there has to be something missing. It is a team of international players. I have seen many references to Brendan Rogers first season. I am not so sure that they had so many roller-coaster results and there were at least goals in his side

Finally not many question the treatment of Townsend after his England success but how many PL starts has he had. It is just accepted Lennon came back and took over.

There is an essence of AVB behaving like a spoilt schoolboy from the article; I cant have my way so I going to refuse to adjust. For me AVB did not learn enough from his stint in Sarf London and it is going to be very hard to recover.

This does not mean that Levy et al do not have some responsibility in all, they do and quite a bit. He to will have to make some compromises.

Is it time for Sherwood to put up or shut up ?

 

[Kiedis]

Spurs will obviously leak stories that make AVB out to be the antichrist, ITKs probably being a part of it. AVB will do the same.

I wont say that sacking AVB was wrong, and he'll continue his career elsewhere.

What worries me is the apparant lack of maturity at the club. Could you imagine clubs like Man United, Arsenal or Liverpool leaking the "the manager is under pressure" stories to the press to add pressure? No, because they're grown ups. They run their club in safe knowledge that the club has to appear as a unit. The lack of professionalism is baffling, and god knows what serious manager wont have restrictions about coming to work for a club that's run like Chelsea, but without the spending.