Good morning.
A Buddhist goes into a cafe. The sandwich shop guy asks him what he wants. ‘Make me one with everything.’ He’s handed the sandwich and in return gives the sandwich shop guy a large note. There’s an uncomfortable pause. The Buddhist enquires after his change and the vendor tells him, ‘true change can only come from within.’
Another day another anti AVB tale in the press. This one from The Independent revolving around the Spurs boss’ failed application to manage Burnley prior to Roman Abramovich employing him at Second Hand Fridge.
From the lips of ex-Burnley chief executive Paul Fletcher:
“The most surprising name put forward was Andre Villas-Boas. Mickey Walsh, an old playing colleague of mine got in touch to describe Andre as a hot prospect.
“He sent a very detailed application. His CV and power-point presentation was amazing. Even by today’s standards there was some complicated stuff. Tommy Docherty used to say he never said anything to his players that his milkman wouldn’t understand. I don’t think any milkman would fathom the meaning of a lot of Andre’s presentation.
Would Burnley players have understood what he wanted if he told them to ‘solidificate’?”
I don’t know about you but I have fabulous social skills. There’s barely a sector of society I can’t communicate effectively with. Well, apart from policemen. The secret is to tailor what you say to the individual. I used the word ‘fabulous’ but in truth it’s something we all do everyday to greater and lesser extents. In fact it’s easy to spot those that can’t. They tend talk at people. They aren’t listening, they cannot empathise.
And the issue here is the presumption that Villas-Boas would talk to footballers as if they were CEO’s. The problem I would imagine with Villas-Boas’ presentation to Burnley Football Club was that he presumed that he would be interviewed by people capable of making the mental leap that Boas had the ability to speak to footballers differently than he spoke to CEO’s.
Footballers don’t tend to be very bright people. Some stick out as being brighter than the bunch. Gary Lineker is articulate and thoughtful. He works as a TV presenter. Trevor Brooking got an O level at school and went on to become Director of Football Development for the FA.
On the other side of the coin we have Wayne Rooney who allegedly gave a hooker £200 to get him a packet of cigarettes on a night out and Paul Gascoigne who attempted to deliver lager and fried chicken to the armed psycho killer Raul Moat.
I am not so familiar with foreign footballer exploits. They certainly dress better and have better looking birds, but I’d be amazed to discover they were any more educated than their British counterparts.
My point is, did Porto succeed under AVB, or despite him? Did he really stand in the dressing room discussing solidificating the enormity of the opposition’s dimensions? I suggest he did not.
The British press in the main, aren’t very nice. Almost completely untrustworthy is another phrase one could use. There are a million and one examples of how shoddily they have behaved in the world of football. So why would an intelligent person behave like a performing dog in press conferences?
Roy Hodgson wasn’t supposed to get the England job and so despite having been nothing but cordial with the media his entire career, when his appointment was announced the biggest selling tabloid in the country ran an extraordinary lead article mocking his mild speech inflection, including a list of words that ‘Woy’ wouldn’t be able to pronounce properly.
So what do we do? Well, there’s a good poem by a bloke called Kipling called ‘If’. But in more practical terms I think we need to take a more pragmatic stance and when AVB is attacked for no good reason adopt a dismissive stance to what is in the main made up stuff designed to prevent dead air on talkSPORT. I don’t advocate a siege mentality. That path lies to the arrogance of most Manchester United fans. I advocate reason.
Shouting as many have done in the last 24 hours, ‘AVB couldn’t land the job at Burnley, that’s how rubbish he is!!!’ isn’t reasoned. It’s trite and ought be treated as such.
After three games I don’t see disaster. I must also add I cannot foresee anything either – because I don’t have superpowers.
Our boss is an intelligent guy. I warm to intelligent people. Now, there are different kinds of smart of course and in time we will see just how football smart he is, at Spurs, with our squad of players.Ideally we’ll wait longer than a handful of games.
You wouldn’t eat a sandwich without asking what was in it, so why would you swallow a football article without asking the same question?
Hotspurs Half Hour – Show 4 Live From Lahore by hotspurshalfhour
You make the assumption that AVB’s presentation was indeed understandable at CEO level. Frankly I am struggling to understand anything he says on any level!
I tweeted back to Sam from the fucking Indy the following this morning …
@SamWallaceIndy In @theindyfootball: How the media jump at the chance of having another thinly veiled dig at AVB #coys #avbsfault
I honestly find the media agenda nothing short of a big load of massive hairy bollocks! Hate them!
Still got me fingers crossed for AVB – toes too.
Bentley to Russia – he’ll probably play in short sleeves in their winter. Bless.
Harry Hotspurs goes into ENIC offices and says “please Mr Levy & Lewis could I write a blog that pretends to be independent” but instead the blog spews out more one sided covert messages than the Apartheid Zionist Government of Isreal.
Why can’t you see none of our best players such as Bale have played well at all this season. The best player we had was VDV and he was sold because of Levy’s penny pinching greed for wanting a profit.
Most fans want to support a team that wins things and has achievements to be proud of, not just to fatten the pockets of the board which Arsenal are doing in the name of running a good business model.
We don’t pay our inflated prices on season tickets to go backwards and you Harry Hotspur are guilty of pandering to the wishes of your masters, now stop pretending you’re not on their payroll and please F off.
Thanks,
Fonzi
Telling HH to f off from his own blog ?!!?
Did you get lost and end up on here ?
If you feel that strongly may I politely suggest you take solace in another blog that shares your views
:wassat: :whistle:
Less Fonzi, more Potsie.
:cop: you’ve been had Harry. You’re the secret 7th signing that ITK’s all over Twitter rumoured about but no one could lure out!
More of a Richie Cunning Ham fan meself.
Thank you for your superb illustration of bigotry, oh so subtly injected into a comment about football.
About as many holes in this argument as there are in Blackburn, Lancashire & at last count there were 4,000
If,as you suggest,you do own a season ticket,then you should be more than aware that Spurs haven’t played well for the past 6 months.
Since Feb 11th we have played 21 games,winning only 6,of which 3 games were against relegated Bolton and Blackburn,while the other ‘scalps’ were Stevenage,Swansea and Fulham (all at home).
I think you will find AVB wasn’t the manager for most of this magnificent record.
And fwiw i’ve been calling VdV ‘gone’ for the past 8 months (he has been a shadow of the player he was in his first season at WHL) so how on earth you can suggest he was our best player is absolutely laughable.He can’t run ffs !
graudian blog over there “pal”, on the far left. come and tell us your views in the pubs and cafes down the High Rd on a match day, you’ll get some sympathetic ears. you keyboard warrior.
Harry: general I like your articles and your reasoning (I guess that’s why I always read them!). My views on AVB have nothing to do with the press. It was his time at cheatski and how he managed the team there that concerned me. Anyway, I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I know it’s only 3 games but his team selection (An aging Gallas when a defender with pace is needed for his high line game?) and substitutions (jenas?) are a worry! As for the non-performance against norwich, that was just awful. Lets hope things get better against Reading. COYS
Who else could he play other than Gallas? Dawson? I like Daws, but I bet Gallas could beat him over 60 yards.
Parker injured, Sandro was fresh back from the olympics – can’t think of another CM he had as an option when he brought on Jenas.
Give the guy a chance, he’s new, half the squad are new, and we have played ok in 2 out of the 3 games so far.
I’ll play Gallas every single day. The man’s class and intelligence still sets him apart. And yeah he’s faster then Dawson.