£115,000pw meant it would never happen. Shame as I think he's a good player and if he does well Liverpool could do well but unlike them we can't pay those sorts of numbers
AVB's main line of talk has been building on the legacy that Harry left. The problem I have at the moment is that he's doing a good job of rebuilding Harry's mistakes rather than the successes. Mistakes that even Harry, with all of his flaws, had been showing signs of growing out of during our successful seasons. We are now suffering a visit from the ghost of Tottenham past. Completely unnecessarily. AVB, with Levy's input, has literally remade the losing formula. Yep, I know it's temporary whilst we 'rebuild', but it doesn't make it acceptable. Especially when he's the tactical expert of the two. Common sense tells us we don't have enough strikers, or a strong enough midfield to compare with Harry's best. I'm not in the 'bring back Harry' brigade, but he did manage to make us look like the winning team, even when we got a draw. That last minute goal habit was weeded out a long time ago.
This whole "rebuild" "transition" is Completely unnecessarily but this is where we find ourselves and it concerns me that someone who is said to be tactically astute is already making odd decisions. Some of the best managers like Sir Alex, Wenger etc aren't partically great tacticians but they are great at getting their ideas across, implementing these ideas and creating a winning belief. What I see in AVB, is someone that is intelligent, knows the game but doesn't know how to get his beliefs across and get the ideas from his head across to the players and get results. It may well have worked with porto, but this is a different country, he is dealing with a different mentality and the guy can't even talk properly in interviews, he just mumbles his way through, its so different to the previous and i've yet to see any positives. Maybe he will win us all over soon with his great tactics, heres hoping.
With no apparent buy-out clause it seems silly as well. No point building your team around a player you can't keep
No it wouldn't, find room for Sig and VdV, why did we need Livermore and Sandro? It was only Shane Long up front in the first half!
The one thing i think he will be good at is European football. I've actually backed you lot at 14s for the europa leaguie as I think he'll take it seriously and he has a very good track record (he won the CL group with Chelsea last year)
So play a diamond or something? Neither VDV or Sigurdsson have been played alongside a central midfielder before.
The start of the discussion about the possibilities is what I mean YV, we could start whole new threads on that. The fact is there are possibilities and variations to suit personnel, not some rigid system full of odd jobs out of there comfort zone, any weak links get exposed at this level. I must come from some bizarre school of thought where you play to your strengths. Still look on the bright side, the Goons, 4 strikers, 2 games, no goals, even though they're not a one man team!
Fair enough, I'm probably being a bit defensive but hey, we might as well have one person with blind faith in AVB on this board
Well said PS. How people think Brad is better than the Arsenal keeper is completely beyond me. He should have been replaced weeks ago, once again Levy has dithered and now we're in a mess - again.
Jeepers... I remember getting an absolute slating last year for saying Freedel wasn't good enough, now all of a sudden....
Well you didn't get it from me that's for sure OOD. I was happy enough with Brad last season, but for me 41 is too old in all probability, and Brad's obvious deficincies (to some of us) will just get worse. We've needed a new keeper all summer, and it's a big minus to ENIC for not sorting it.
Some big clubs in there though this year. Inter, Liverpool, Atl Madrid etc. Will be very interesting this year
They were running down the wing and putting in crosses, whatelse did 'Arry have them doing? The trouble was we didn't get enough players in the box which has been a problem for a longtime.
Why would a tactically astute manager play two pacey wingers and not set up the team to get players in the box.
As I said earlier, I felt VDV should've been closer to Defoe but Sandro and Livermore are always going to struggle to catch Lennon and Bale up. We might have benefitted if Sandro took a gamble once in awhile but since he ended up knackered well before the end it might not have been such a great idea.
It's hard to tell whether it was AVB as VDV started the game pushing up but then the gap between him and Defoe grew. However I do think we'd have been better with Sandro/Livermore doing the gambling and running up the pitch instead of Vertonghen, yes.
So are we going to see VDV & Sig start a game together? seems a shame that they can't fit into the same team as Sig needs games and the energy he will bring from midfield would be a positive, as would his dead ball ability.
