Ten games gone into the AVB era and we currently sit 5th in the table. I've stayed quiet on the AVB front to give him some time to bed in and see where he's taking our team. Granted, we're only still ten games into the season but you can now start to see how things are shaping up with his formations, tactics, preferred players and style of play. I wonder what fellow Spurs fans feel about how things are going? Here's my take on Spurs since AVB came in: Results & Performances Very mixed. We started off the season quite slow and whilst on one hand it was great to finally beat United at Old Trafford (with a dash of luck and guile) we still can't seem to shake out lacklustre performances against the so-called lesser teams. What concerns me more is that White Hart Lane is no longer a tough place for teams to come and isn't bringing the best out of our players. In some games, we looked like the away team. I avoided posting yesterday to prevent any knee jerk reactions to the Wigan defeat but that was one of the worst performances I've seen from a Spurs team in many years. Wigan hardly had a save to make and we lacked any cutting edge. That same old story again! We do seem to lack options when our backs are against the wall. We have our fair share of injuries and in some positions, look very thin indeed. But as this part is about results, I'd say we've had some good performances, some lucky escapes and some very poor games. Nothing has got me too excited yet but it is early days so I can't expect perfection after ten league games, a few UEFA games and cup matches. We can only improve one hopes. Formation AVB seem to be very stuck in his ways to quite a defensive looking midfield set up. When it works, it's great that the wingers can get at the full backs, or release our full backs to create overlaps and open the spaces. However, sometimes we look static. There's no movement and we literally play in front of defences which at this level, any team can handle all day long. I think it's rare we'll ever see us play 4-4-2 on too many occasions from here on. With the changes, the players need time to adjust and develop. However, why Bale and Lennon keep swapping flanks is beyond me. It rarely works and just makes us more narrow and compresses the spaces when they cut it. Still, I will give AVB time to develop this, especially seeing we have plenty of players injured. Squad Still missing three quality players for me in all areas of the park. We had our fair share of departures this summer. Some enforced, others a bit of a surprise. Jan Vertonghen looks like our best player at times this season. Powerful, commanding, assured with great feet and awareness. A future captain in my view and has played great at full-back. The question is, when Benoit Assou-Ekotto returns, does he play? If so, does Vertonghen go back to centre back? In my view its a no brainer. How Gallas is still wearing a Spurs shirt is beyond me. How he has the captains armband is just ludicrous! I could write an entire article on why this guy should have been shipped out this summer. He is becoming a liability and whats more concerning is that he is starting to lay the blame on others for mistakes that are clearly his. The guy winds me up! If Kaboul and Ekotto get fit, surely he has to step aside but being Captain, that seems highly unlikely. I can see this being a cause for argument among fans later in the season when the squad is near to fully fit again. AVB won't be popular, that I am sure! Another player that has caught the eye is Dembele. Supposedly our Modric replacement, he has great feet, never afraid the drive forward and is really missed right now. He can only improve. We need him fit again fast! I still can't see where Dempsey fits into the grander scheme of things. He just isn't a Spurs style player. He lacks invention and finesse, doesn't seem to be gelling with Defoe or Adebayor (when he plays) and doesn't look like he will even hit double figures with goals this season. Screams of a last minute panic buy as we failed to bring in a marquee striker. Sigurdsson looks okay but he's no Van Der Vaart who I feel we really miss this season. He's still young though so may improve if given the time to develop his game. Loris just hasn't had enough game time to make any fair assessments. If he doesn't start playing soon, this one could flair up. I wonder if Friedel will be shipped out in January. Manager I'm still unsure and unconvinced by this guy. He appears to be fairly popular with the players and seems more relaxed than his Chelsea days. At times, I can see where he is trying to take our team. But then we have a performance like yesterday and a substitution decision that simply baffles you which makes you question his judgement. Granted⦠he hasn't had the luxury of a fully fit squad to choose from. No Scotty Parker, Benoit, Kaboul or a fit and slim Thudd. We also lack that elusive quality striker that we can never seem to get. Also his treatment of Dawson has been pretty shocking and totally unjustified. Overall It is early days but frankly, the way we play under AVB doesn't excite me. This season, my expectations are far lower than the past 2-3 years under Harry. We are currently 5th on 17 points but look more likely to be caught by the chasing pack and dragged back, than catching the pace setters. If we don't sort out our home form, we could have a very, very dodgy period. Already, the so-called expert pundits are remarking how Chelsea's wheels started to come off this time last season. It's like they want the same to happen to us no doubt. Yesterday, the players lacked energy and I feel this is a product of using too many of the same players in the Europa Cup and League Cup games. He needs to start rotating more to get the best out of the team or we could end up burned out at Xmas! AVB needs time to get things going. I feel we need to do more business in the January transfer window to have a squad capable of challenging for a CL place. So as things stand, I'm not unhappy with AVB but he's still to convince me that he's the long term answer to our ultimate ambitions. So as much as I hate to admit it, I'm still firmly sat on the fence. He's our gaffer now so we have to back him this season and see what transpires. I think we will end up finishing 6th this season
Relatively briefly, I share a lot of your concerns and reservations. What the hell Gallas is still doing there, I have no idea. I would have thought that his display of ineptitude against Chelsea would have been enough to convince even the most ardent admirer that he's in need of, at least, a long rest. I'm not sure that AVB is a Benny fan. I think we may well see Kaboul & Caulker in the middle, and Vertonghen at LB, longer term. In the meantime Dawson should be given a chance. We blatantly lack any creative force in the middle of the park. Dembele is an excellent player. He's no Modric replacement, but by far the best we currently have. Without him we look clueless as to how to come up with anything inventive. Huddlestone is way too slow to be of much influence. The jury is still very much out on AVB. My concerns are that he is far too inflexible. He tries to fit players into his system - even when his system clearly isn't working. Instead of changing anything else.
Largely agree with your assessment we are missing VDV and of course Modric. Dembele was looking good to fill some of this void but we need another player of similar ilk to augment and cover. ATM without Dembele there is little creative spark. The last couple of games have seen some very lack lustre displays. Something needs changing Huddlestone is not IMO up to it and it will depend how long we are without Dembele as to how big a problem this becomes. I will not judge AVB yet but he hasn't given us much to get excited about so far with the exception of the Man U which i did not see.
I wouldn't say the performance was the worst I've seen for a long time, I remember seeing us lose to Stoke 1-0 at home(twice?), against Wigan before and against Wolves where we were utter crap under 'Arry and there's probably a few others I don't remember right now. It was very far from acceptable though and everyone involved has a lot to answer for.
As I've said elsewhere I don't think AVB has had a bad start. 17 points per ten games was our long-term average under Harry and given the issues with injuries and getting players used to a new system we are doing better than I expected in terms of points, although worse in terms of performances (OT was the exception). I think the home crowd are not helping as they are getting on the backs of the players and AVB too much. I thought we had supporters with a good knowledge of the game but I'm now not so sure, with the crowd reactions and some of the comments on here. A couple of things: the AVB 'system' is a combination of many things but I think most of the things people complain about are inherent in it. So Bale and Lennon swap wings a lot because the main plan is to keep the ball - bombing down the outside and crossing usually wastes the ball. This is why Defoe has done so well, yesterday excepted, he doesn't need to win balls in the air or hold the ball up much - he usually has a player close by to pass to. People keep going on about playing square pegs in round holes but this is the first time I've seen Defoe in a system that plays to his strengths. And the two defensive midfielders are essential too, because they always create a triangle so we can keep the ball under pressure when nothing is on. They don't have to be non-creative players and I think Dembele will play there in future. However I expect the plan was to have Sandro, Moutinho and Dembele in midfield with Bale, Ade and Lennon up front. Livermore, Parker, Sigurdsson, Defoe, Falque, Townsend and Kane in reserve. The lack of Mouthinho together with Ade not being fit has made a huge difference, massively exacerbated by Dembele being out too. Thudd was retained in case of midfield issues and Dempsey signed as a stop-gap but neither of these two have played well and Sig hasn't either. If someone had said last year that we'd be playing mostly this team: Friedel, Walker, Caulker, Gallas, Vertonghen, Huddlestone, Sigurdsson, Dempsey, Lennon, Bale, Defoe and we'd be equal fourth after ten matches having won at OT, people would have laughed! I'm quite keen to see this: Lloris, Walker, Kaboul, Vertonghen, BAE, Sandro, Dembele, Sigurdsson, Bale, Lennon, Ade. If we can strenghthen some of that in the window or at least sign better back-ups we will be fine.
What worries me is that, reading the pre-match comments, Martinez seemed fairly confident that he knew how to get a result at WHL. He had every reason to sound confident, he totally outwitted AVB yesterday. Not a great portent!.
I didn't want AVB in the first place but I think the criticism is well overdone. He simply hasn't had the players available. There has been plenty of slagging off of the midfield but who else could he have played on those occasions? Just take a look at the difference between our results with and without Dembele. Of course you can't guarantee the availability of any one particular player, but on the other hand other managers may sometimes get praised when they've been able to pick the team they wanted. Look at Wenger last season having RVP available for the whole season - who thought that could ever happen! And who thinks they would have pipped us to 3rd if RVP had only been available for the normal quota of matches? It therefore follows that if Dembele and Sandro had been our midfield yesterday I'm pretty certain we'd have won, been in 4th place and people would have a better impression of AVB's management... when the only difference would have been better luck with injuries. True we were poor yesterday, but its a very fine line between poor and good!
I do think we have to question AVB's continued playing of Gallas. Midfield is difficult but in hindsight retaining VDV at least for a season until suitable replacements were found would have been a much better option. We didn't need the money!
I agree we have not players available, but the point I have been making all weekend is that in the games against WBA, Norwich (twice) and yesterday, where we have had poor results and have performed below expectations, we have still fielded a far superior side to the opposition.
Yesterday's team didn't look far superior to the opposition! On top of everything else it seems that the Sig and Dempsey are either not fitting into the team and/or are out of form, plus the Thud doesn't seem very mobile - I don't remember it being that obvious when he used to be in the team.
Great thread Flaspur, an interesting read Results and performances: With 50 mins vs Utd, Reading and Villa aside, I think no one can deny our style of play has been much better than what you'd class as utter sh*t. Even when we've won we've not been convincing. I've not been happy with all the results, I feel the victory over Utd away has somewhat relieved a lot of pressure from AVB but it won't last much longer. Games against Norwich, WBA and Wigan we should be beating. Then there was a spell where the football improved, Reading away was by far our best performance. Saturday we then went back to sh*t, not only was the performance bad but AVB mucked up with the substitutions which resulted in a minority singing "You don't know what you're doing!". Lets not forget our Europa form has been dire despite starting many first teamers and we're already out of the Capital One Cup which is a competition I thought we could win this year. So I'm definitely disappointed up to now. Formation: Again not been too happy. We started off with two DMs for our first 3 games. We've kept a similar shape to how we were under Harry yet the style of play is nothing like his. It's boring and the manager has continued to select underperforming players in Walker, Gallas and Friedel. I appreciate we're without key players but we still have enough strength in depth to be able to see teams like WBA, NCFC and WAFC off at home and should be no excuse for the performances we witnessed in each. 90% of our squad are internationals/ ex-internationals/ u-21 internationals. For the time being I'd like to see a team of: Lloris, Naughton, Caulker, Dawson, Vertonghen, Lennon, Sandro, Hudd, Bale, Ade, Defoe in a 4-4-2. When all our players is fit and on form, I think our strongest team will/ should be: Lloris, Walker, Kaboul, Vertonghen, Ekotto, Lennon, Sandro, Dembele, Bale, Ade, Defoe again in a 4-4-2. Harsh on Parker but I have said that this season I felt Sandro would eventually become the number 1 DM and he's been, alongside Vertonghen our best player. Squad: Start of the season I was happy with what we had bar the departure of Rafa which I feel was a ridiculous decision by the manager/ chairman. Unfortunately neither Sig or Dempsey have impressed which has made the loss of Rafa even bigger. Losing Modric was obviously a massive blow but it was expected and we unfortunately saw a fantastic player and legend retire but again, it was expected. A shame we couldn't get Moutinho or Willian but Dembele eased the pain. So as I said I was happy at what we had at the end of the window. Now, it's clear to see we're missing creativity when Mousa's out. We must spend in January. I'd like a player like Mertens or Erikson to come in (or of course Willian or Moutinho if affordable) to take the weight off of Mousa, perhaps a new striker to afford us to change things up when needed and relieve pressure from JD. I think everywhere else is fine providing Walker can get his ars* into gear! Manager: Ermmm... Well. Where do I start? Never wanted him, I was very pro-Harry anyway so was devastated at his sacking. AVB was certainly not the man I was expecting to replace our best manager in decades. I'd have wanted Moyes and if not him, a choice from Blanc, Klopp, Martinez, Rijkaard or even Rodgers. AVB showed with his brief spell at Chelsea that managing in the EPL was not suited to him. He tried changing everything way too quickly and managed to p*ss off the clubs most important and favourite players. His style of football with them was awful and his arrogance was a joke, he lacked (and still does) man management skills which is a major must for a manager over here I feel. When he was appointed our manager I was dumbfounded, I actually knew of his apppintment or expected appointment long before the media did (posted a thread about it at the time too). Many tried using his time at Porto to justify why he is such a great manager and a "step up" from Harry, all I'd say to them is any team with Hulk and Falcao amongst others who were regarded as the best in the league would likely win trophies. Paul Jewell and Avram Grant could have managed that Porto team and come away with silverware with them sort of players. His time here has been too similar to Chelsea for my liking. Casting aside players, sh*t tactics, formations and substitutions and he still has a sense of arrogance at times, albeit not as much. I know he hasn't had near to a fully fit squad yet but I don't think he'd know how to utilise it anyway. I hate sounding negative but I just can't warm to the guy. I think Levy has made a huge blunder bringing him in and replacing Harry. With all that being said though, I'll still back him and the team, I wont stop going to the Lane and threaten to quit supporting Spurs like I hear some pr*cks say (not on here) and I really, really, really hope he proves me wrong. Overall: My expectations at the start of the season was a minimum of 4th. I still expect that. The appointment of AVB was made to take us forward and so two 4th places in three full seasons in charge for Harry has set a minimum target AVB and Levy need to reach. This shouldn't be a "transition" period, we've been through way too many in the last few years to now go through another one, so I'm sorry, AVB needs to get top 4 otherwise his appointment has been a complete and utter failure. If we don't get top 4 then I don't really know what can be said...
If this is so (and judging by yesterdays result I have no reason for doubt), AVB has used the same tactics too often already and he would now need to bring someting different to games of this ilk. We need to set about the lesser premiership sides in an entirely different manner. I've been suggesting 4: 4: 2 at 'The Lane', when up against the Wigons and the Norwiches. utilizing two out and out strickers (Ade and Defoe) to finish the game off early and then take Ade off to rest. Spurs give away possession to easily and then had no imagination. We also lacted desire and give Wigan too much respect during 65mins of the 95mins played.
Fair comment SOS. Why replace a manager who got top four with one who will take us backwards? Well, this is Levy we're talking about. Jol for Ramos anyone? Let's hope lightning doesn't strike twice!
We've gone backward with AVB, I can't stand him as a manager. The sooner he's out of the club the better AFAIC.
Exactly, I mentioned how it seemed like deja vu RE Ramos in another thread. We created a problem that didn't need to be created. Redknapp was doing a great job here, yes we f*cked up a 12 point gap and of course a lot of the blame lies with Redknapp for that but we still finished in the top 4 twice in the three full seasons he had with us (just a shame that we had the worse luck with Chelsea winning the CL!) and in the half season, he managed to drag us from 20th to 8th. Many said he was rightfully sacked due to his "lack of loyalty" with the England fiasco. With all due respects, there's one position in football you can't begrudge a manager of taking and that's his country's top job. The moment the speculation ended, he wanted a new deal and stick with us... Is that really such a crime for a manager that done wonders for the club? The best job in the country was no longer available and so all he wanted to do commit to us and try and carry on his work in the hope of improvement. I think this is also a reason why AVB is under so much pressure. Harry took over with nothing lose, it was either relegation or survival and he smashed expectations by nearly getting us into the Europa League. AVB has taken over from a squad that was built/ developed by Harry and came off the back of a 4th place finish, beating the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton and a rejuvinated Newcastle to it while also making our team to be regarded as the most entertaining in the country. The pressure was massive to succeed Harry and so far, he's fallen flat.
Quite simply I can only put it like this. AVB has come in with a bunch of players that aren't his picks, but has seen these players at the top their game and how they were utilised to do so. He should also have seen the dismal attempts by Harry with some of these players at a similar system. Every single person in football knows how we play best, so when all else has failed in the game go for it 442, and if it goes wrong and we concede by opening up, so what, we're already losing. To me he should see the backup players we're seeing aren't suited, so should adjust till we get some more first teamers back. When will he see that what he's doing, is making it very easy for opposition managers to suss our weakpoints and nullify our threats which are limited atm. Every side is doing the same thing to us it seems. The next set of fixtures will tell us a few things, if the players aren't up for these games there must be something wrong behind the scenes.
I think there's already something wrong. AVB is too dogmatic and stubborn to do things any other way than that he has preconceived.
AVB's CV shows, that he can manage at top level. He just needs to adjust to the EPL IMO. So far, I believe AVB is being over cautious at times this season. Spurs don't do caution at all well.
