Yeah, not sure it was wise but it's what I like about him as I'd have done the same. He'd just finished a game so hardly had the issure on the top of his head but I got the same feeling reading those articles. The way they, and a couple of other journalists to be fair, claimed he was trying to blame everyone but himself using AVB saying the players should be "ashamed" as an example. What really made me laugh/cringe though was when Samuel led with this in his column: Andre Villas-Boas used to watch the game by crouching down on his haunches near the touchline. And then he stopped doing it. Isn’t that strange? People were making fun of him, but even so. If he thought it was the way to get the greatest insight, why would he change? Unless it was an affectation. A quirk, a gimmick to make him look brighter than he is. After all, there have been some fairly successful coaches through the last century or so, and not one of them chose to observe the action from the perspective of a dachshund. So maybe they were the smart ones. As we all know for taking the mick out Wenger for it in the past, clearly a successful coach has done it and I'm sure others have in the past too. Leaving that aside what a ridiculous thing to criticise, so what if he choses to go onto his haunches at times when watching the game? It's about the most minor criticism you can have of a managers judgement and was wrapped in baseless accusations, like that it was some attempt by Andre to look more intelligent than he is - where on Earth does that come from? I said earlier in the week that it looked like a vindictive attack from Ashton and Samuel and I'm sure they'll just use this response to twist things into another few articles for attack on him such is the way they're behaving.
What crossed my mind was that at least they stopped short of calling his Dad a commie that hated Britain unlike their other journalists.
It's interesting to me that the attacking players playing well so far would be definitely Lennon, and arguably Gylfi, Townsend and maybe Holtby, none of whom are new. Could be the new attacking players are all crap, could be AVB has handled them poorly, but I would tend to think the likeliest explanation is they need a year to settle. AVB may have hoped to squeeze points out of a young, athletic, but incoherent team with the high press, slow buildup style, and just now switched to a more flexible and attractive style under pressure. I give him high marks for this game. It was the first one we've played this year where I was more entertained by the football than worried about the result. Finally,IMO, the pen was one of the subtler dives you'll see. I don't blame the ref, as I thought it was a pen at first, but the Guardian and Telegraph were both a bit bizarre on the subject. "It could have been argued that Welbeck deliberately left his leg exposed, but, equally, the contact and subsequent penalty could not be denied." (Telegraph, somehow implying that whether Welbeck deliberately left his leg exposed was a trivial issue, while ready to grant the point. But if he did deliberately leave his leg exposed, he created the contact. It should not have been a pen in that case, and should have resulted in a yellow for simulation shown to Welbeck. The Guardian: "Welbeck, anticipating contact, left his leg in position." They're right, and therefore the pen was wrongly awarded. But they imply that Spurs poor decisions make a wrongly awarded pen a good call. It doesn't work that way.
That nice chairman who wanted his club's fans dead.....wouldn't be a Muslim......would he? Perhaps he should be at the Emirates......
Instead of concentrating on what the media are saying, maybe it is better to concentrate on what AVB himself has said in the media. This is the guy who has spent the past few weeks blaming the medical staff, the fans, the players. What do you expect Samuel to report ?? That AVB has accepted responsibility for his failings ?? When clearly he refuses to do so ??
Foolish to have a go at the media, they will only come back and bite you. He should be bright enough to rise above it. Prickly, ill humoured and contentious will win you no support amongst them. Results is the only thing that will get them off your back.
At this level, a manager has to be more thick skinned than AVB is appearing to be. His outburst was unnecessary and somewhat two faced of him. Martin Samuel said it is never AVB's fault, always someone else's. Samuel is right.
To be honest, I think I must've missed when he blamed the medical staff, I remember him sticking up for them and bringing up their excellent reaction to the Muamba incident but never turning on them. He didn't blame the fans, he criticised them for the atmosphere in one game. And when did he blame the players? From what I see AVB isn't someone that singles out anyone for criticism, there's no double standards. Saying that "we should be ashamed" is no different to Mourinho saying he made "11 mistakes" in his team selection, infact Mourinho's pushing it more onto the players as the blame he's attempting to attach to himself is a blatantly spurious one, leaving only the criticism of the players left. Where was Mourinho's criticism. The only thing close to criticism is when he points out where a player made a blatant mistake but that's always backed up with full support for the player, like any good manager does. AVB doesn't admit his failings? Nor do many managers yet they still don't get the kind of blatant attacks AVB received in the last week. I don't recall Redknapp holding his hands up and publicly acknowledging he messed up. I don't think he needed to either. Edit: So far this season Mourinho has criticised Chelsea fans, gone toe to toe with the media on occasions, criticised his players and probably individuals too yet there's no columns attacking his personality or competence and there's not a chance they'd dare to do one in the future either.
As usual on here, any criticism of AVB is diverted to rumblings about something else. Why did my post necessitate a debate about Mourinho ? I was talking about AVB's scandalous shift of responsibility to our medical staff over the Lloris farce, about his immature attack on our fans and his naive and unnecessary press interview today which made him look more under pressure than before.
It's comparisons. I think it's entirely justified to compare the treatment of his comments to the treatment of other manager's similar comments. You might think I'm deflecting, it's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Personally, I think you're holding up AVB to a higher standard than other managers are held up to. You mentioned the necessity to be thick skinned but (and I'm going to use another manager as an example again) wasn't it Redknapp who reacted to being called a "wheeler dealer" by telling the interview to "**** off". Managers are people, they need to let off steam from time to time and don't necessarily want to lay out all their faults on the table in public. If journalists like Samuel want to take AVB's post match comments very seriously that's fine, perhaps they should also run an article on how Moyes made a fool of himself by pretending Young didn't dive against Sociedad a few weeks back, having already made his zero tolerance on diving clear.
Getting back to the game, on the plus side we actually scored 2 goals!! And at home too! O.k. Granted neither had anything to do with our so called "strike force" the difference to me was, that Man Utd came to play. They didn't just sit back and wait to hit us on the break. What troubles me is, we still seem to have no, currently fit, midfield player who looks capable of unlocking a packed defence, and probably no reliable taker of half chances, if we did have one!..
I think we best agree to disagree on this one, because frankly, I think AVB has made a tit of himself again, and I doubt you will agree with me so let's call a halt now.
The main issue I have with Avb and his press conferences is that he generally appears as a man who is about to slit his wrists or has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Meaning even if he has a point it's difficult to be in agreement as his dour and bitter type personality isn't engaging. This shouldn't be an issue as it's how the team performs that is important but when the team is also dour and lacking any drive or creativity then there is a link between the teams personality and the managers.
Fair enough, at least we can agree on that Just watching MOTD2 for the Sandro goal. The commentator said he's scored 3 goals for us but doubted whether the other 2 were as good as that, which is true but his other 2 have been very good too, even if Schwarzer was a bit guilty for the one at Fulham.
Why, oh, why, oh, why are our strikers so ****? I remember when we couldn't find a left-sided midfielder for love nor money, but now we can't find a striker, even with money! Yes, we have Defoe and Soldado, but they are "strikers" in name only. You might as well put Defoe or Soldado in goal, for all the good they do. About as useful as a chocolate teapot, the pair of them.
I totally reserved judgement on Soldado until recently however, many folks on here from very early on were purring about how great his movement and awareness was; stating that its clear he's top class etc etc… Frankly from what I've seen, I am not sure how he got a valuation of £30m+, let alone a reputation as a top striker in Europe. He has no finesse, no guile, no first touch, no pace and on todays evidence, no finishing of any quality. So what did we buy him for exactly? To hover around in spaces to look good? I'd take back Pav over this joker who's looking like our next Rebrov!
All true, but we changed the thing that was killing us, the slow buildup. We attacked the goal and tried to shoot before the defense had a chance to settle fairly often. Even without a real #10 or an in-form striker, we'll score some goals doing that, given we do have some fast, dangerous dribblers and decent passers, and a dangerous long- range shooter or two, if the shot occurs before defenders pack the box.
That's the point, our tempo was much brighter plus Lennon making a difference and Paulinho working up front with Soladado, a sea change. Stick with it AVB!
Whilst on the subject can I just mention Walker who I thought was tremendous yesterday, man of the match in my view. He was full of determination putting some tremendous balls into the box as well as the free kick. He with Lennon made things happen and fired up the whole team. No one can blame him for the unfortunate touch that gifted Rooney a goal and that aside he had a great game.
Well said Spurf. I thought Walker was a good shout for m-o-m too. But of course nobody is going to see past Rooney if he has a good game, which admittedly he did, although he was a bit fortunate that the ball came to him with Walker's unlucky deflection. Also considering how we matched ManU for most of that game, and could easily have won it, I don't see too many people revising their negative opinions. I guess only bad things count!
