AVB in London, PART-II

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Andre Villas-Boas is back in London. Having been fired by Roman Abramovic in March, his appointment at Tottenham Hotspur is being viewed by many as an opportunity for the Portuguese to salvage his tarnished reputation.

AVB came to England last year having taken Porto to Europa League success and an undefeated league season.

Following Carlo Ancelloti as manager of Chelsea, his mandate was simple — win the Premier League, win the FA Cup, win the League Cup and for the love of God, win the Champions League.

Anything less and Abramovic would have certainly taken AVB’s position under review come the end of the season.

The Portuguese, rather than maintaining the equilibrium, chose to renovate the ageing Chelsea side. Public clashes with the Chelsea oldguard resulted in AVB losing his marbles.

The worst punishment perhaps for him would have been watching Frank Lampard lifting the Champions League trophy after having benched the latter during his employment. The mayhem at Stamford Bridge was caused by AVB but the fault was not just of his own making.

As a young manager, he felt the need to impose his ideas at Chelsea, and rightly so. However, the personal he had to deal with, made his efforts futile. Abramovic was simply unprepared to deal with a transitional period.

At Spurs, AVB has an opportunity to impose his ideas again. With all due respect to Harry Redknapp’s tactical nous, Tottenham have played simple football for the past three seasons.

Pass the ball to wingers, cross the ball in, score goals, defend when you don’t have the ball. As such, there have been no tactics ingrained into the players’ heads and therefore AVB may find them more open to his ideas. AVB also has the benefit of having inherited a relatively young squad.

The first goal for AVB will be to keep Luka Modric at Spurs, however, the signing of Gylfi Sigurdsson may help soothe the potential loss of the Croatian.

If AVB manages to get Spurs into the Champions League, he will have finally made his mark in the Capital.