I'm with you there. I think he's done creditably, maybe even better than creditably. I'm also in favor of continuity. It's very easy to want to sack the manager if you're not doing well (or, in our case, are doing well, but aren't playing attractively). But sacking managers is not a recipe for success. Quite the opposite. I might guess that AVB has exactly two seasons, this one and next one, to get us a CL spot. Who knows if that's right, but (considering how new a squad he has this year), that seems reasonable. That will also have been a decent interval of three years with him in charge. The best available managers will be interested in the job, if it does become available. Sack AVB now, or even at the end of this year, and I think a lot of the best managers will say, poisoned chalice. Of course, Harry would probably be available, at least until England or some other job he prefers opens up.
As I said elsewhere, saying we don't play pretty football is not reason enough to sack him - especially when you consider the fact is AVB isn't the most sack-worthy member of our coaching squad when Freund and Sherwood are at the club - because Wenger didn't get Arsenal playing their "brand" of football in the space of a year, plus he had a solid base to build off. When he arrived, they were rock solid at the back with Seaman in goal along with the long-established back four of Dixon, Keown, Adams and Winterburn, plus Vieira was already at the club before Wenger arrived. The football they played that first season wasn't flowing, they were racking up red cards at a rate of knots, and there were times it seemed Dennis Bergkamp had to find something else in his bag of tricks to get them wins. The football they play now took a couple of seasons to arrive on a regular basis, aided by the additions of Petit, Overmars, Ljungberg and Henry over that period. With the exception of the mass of red cards they were receiving, that sounds a lot like us at present. We've made the rock solid base - certainly you can't deny that Lloris, Kaboul, Vertonghen and Sandro are equivalent to Seaman, Adams, Keown and Vieira - and, in theory, that should be the base for some more attacking football. We've seen it a couple of times before in recent history, of course - Graham and Santini were both looking to build a steely side, the issue is neither of them looked beyond making the team a well-drilled defensive unit, as reflected by the signings they made. This is the distinction between them and AVB, at least on paper: AVB has brought players into the club show attacking intent, which is something that can't be said for Graham or Santini's signings.
