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
I think that a lot of the uncertainty and anxiety being demonstrated come from the mixed message that is AVB: great success at Porto, miserable failure at Chelsea.
It would be interesting and either reassuring or disconcerting to know how things shook out at Porto–did ne put the team together? were there any crises he had to overcome? were they sorry he left? did the players relate to him?
It would be interesting to know.
This has already been done back when the rumours started of his appointment. The fact is that his achievements at Porto account for absolutely zilcho. Every single boss there wins the league and the domestic cup. Every one of them. Many of these same bosses go on to be terrible failures in other leagues.
He did, of course, win the Europa cup, a competition in which we have routinely fielded the under 12’s. But then, so did our man Ramos.
So whatever anyone tells you about what a great coach AVB is, just know that what he did in his short spell at Porto has no bearing on it, and anyone attempting to say otherwise is either ignorant of the facts or merely clutching at straws.
But is AVB the next Adriaanse or the next Mourinho? Only time will tell!!
It depends whether you honestly believe that herding the Chelsea cats into 5th place was really a miserable failure…
I quoted this story on yesterday’s blog not because I am joining some kind of hysterical anti-AVB mob, only to illustrate that others have shared this concern that he talks over people’s heads. We were discussing it fairly rationally (OK – some of us were) – but this is hardly in the same class as booing. If anything, analysing the difficulty in what AVB is trying to do may give people an appreciation for the task at hand and possibly make them less prone to booing.
Despite myself being a complete imbecile – I even liked Harry at least while we were doing shit like winning away at Man City with the world-class Peter Crouch to go to the Champions League and cause me to nearly have a heart attack from joy – I would love to see a thinking coach succeed at Tottenham. We are an ideal club for it and when it works it’s beautiful and would fit our club tradition of playing nice football.
But it is off to a rocky start. Some people are booing and some people want to circle the wagons, or perhaps some less Mancunian-sounding term for it to placate our own Mr. H. Hotspur. So if we look at the Burnley story and talk about it what it means, especially as it is relevant to the discussion that we had just been talking about a minute ago, well, for some people this may be a bit too nuanced a view to truly be a Party Member over here on This Side. Must I choose sides, HH? You are shouting at me to choose, but for a guy who wants the thinking-man coach, you seem oblivious that the only reasonable place for a thinking man to be right now is where is am – seated rather uncomfortably on the fence. If for no other reason than it’s been three games and we haven’t even seen a bunch of the players. We certainly haven’t seen ANYTHING that would lead me to believe that this is going to work. So how any of you can be totally one-sided about this is beyond me.
Two more points HH: AVB surely was able to communicate with the players at Porto. Keep in mind: they were (mostly) Portuguese. Without saying too much I will reveal that I am coaching a team sport in France right now (no big deal of one and it’s not football, but bear with me). I can speak French. But trust me: it isn’t the same. Groups of young people that I could practically have under hypnosis in English do not respond the same to the same words in French. Language and culture are a barrier and I think it’s part of what hit him so hard at Chelsea.
Other point: How can the British press be so unreliable today, when just a week ago, when they had a very different account of the Moutinho deal than the Portuguese press, you were not only willing to believe the British press’s version with zero doubts, but actually excoriated anyone who questioned it as a conspiracy theorist?
Wow! you can practically hypnotise people? … in English? are you sure it wasn’t just their eyes glazing over?
Well, now that you mention it…
:winke:
HH how long has Robbie corbit been writting you jokes?
I find the story quite amusing it say’s more about burnley than Avb really & Avb speaks better English than me besides if I don’t understand something I ask a question. The press to me are just a little boys club from private schools who decide on the same agender no matter who they work for,always copying each others homework whilst sitting on the fence. Their slowly turning the screw on Avb & I’m looking forward to them turning on him properly as it’s always best to know your enemy & I don’t really care what they say we’re not run by John terry,a dodgy russian,most of the scaffolders in south london,jonny come lately trophy boys or the press were run by Daniel levy who to quote someone else is “an utter bastard you’ve gotta love him” so bring it on I say, I’m also looking forward to redknapp & his very rich dog stirring while still being paid by the club
COYS
The producer said to me…
The Two Robbies…
I cannot even find a dictionary meaning for ‘solidificate’. Perhaps he meant ‘constipate’?
I fear we may all understand his meaning by season end if he lasts that long.
It’s actually a portugese word- for a hard stool!
I’d much rather sit on a soft one
:sick: …..nurse!
If you had to look in a dictionary (to know the word doesn’t exist), does that mean your English is equal to AVB’s? ;)
Now I know why he sold VDV to Hamburg… it was the wife!- she didn’t like the competition!
http://www.google.ie/search?q=diana+villas+boas&hl=en&client=opera&hs=jfL&rls=en&channel=suggest&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=kAdKUOSaNMjBhAfv9ICoCQ&ved=0CCUQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=602
Actually its not the wife- but we can dream…