A good article from Rory Smith in the Times:
Andre Villas-Boas damned before he has even started
Times Sport
November 05 2012 12:11PM
Rory Smith
Tottenham Hotspur are fifth in the Barclays Premier League. They have taken 17 points from their opening ten fixtures – hardly a startling return, but in such an open division, probably not far off what should have been expected – level with Everton in the fourth and final Champions League spot and two points ahead of Woolwich, their visceral rivals, a team cast either as potential title challengers of rare and precocious ability or an unmitigated shambles bound for relegation, depending on their latest result.
Tottenham’s latest result, a defeat at home to Wigan, was desperately disappointing. You can tell it was a shock because the outcome ensured the game was promoted to the coveted second slot on Match of the Day. John “Motty” Motson was probably exaggerating when he described it as “one of the most surprising results of the season,” given that it happened two years ago, too, but still, losing to Roberto Martinez’s side probably came as a bit of a blow to Andre Villas-Boas.
That’s the Andre Villas-Boas who has been booed off at home by his new club’s fans at least three times in his short tenure at White Hart Lane. The Andre Villas-Boas who the “jury is out on”, according to Gary Lineker, the Match of the Day anchor and cringe-inducing hump-advertiser. The Andre Villas-Boas who, remember, has taken his side to their first victory at Old Trafford in 28 years, to fifth in the Premier League, ahead of Woolwich, and in contention for a Champions League spot.
Lineker was not so quick to suggest that 12 of Martin O’Neill’s peers were still undecided about the Northern Irishman’s reign at Sunderland, which has seen him guide his side to 16th in the Premier League and, more impressively still, one win in 17 games.
Nor was he especially enthusiastic to harangue Tony Pulis, Stoke’s bespectacled moral arbiter, for a run which has seen the division’s greatest aesthetes win just one of their last 16. They sit just a place above Sunderland, on goal difference, four points clear of the relegation quagmire only by virtue of the fact that Reading, QPR and Southampton are all really quite bad at football.
Maybe that is because Villas-Boas is at a club where expectations are substantially higher than at either the Stadium of Light or the Britannia. He is also in a job he came to in relatively unusual circumstances, succeeding a manager who had guided Spurs to fourth in the Premier League last season and who still enjoyed the support of a majority of the fans. Fourth wasn’t good enough to save Harry Redknapp; there is no reason fifth should be deemed sufficient for his successor.
But that argument is flawed. Spurs, Sunderland and Stoke all want to achieve to different levels, but the basic aim is the same: to improve. To be better than they were last season, and the season before that. To be going somewhere. That is why Spurs got rid of Redknapp and brought in Villas-Boas. Because they wanted to have a target, a point. Redknapp had failed to make the leap: Spurs were, under the 64-year-old, contenders to qualify for the Champions League, but he seemed unable to turn them into title challengers. And so Daniel Levy, the chairman, decided it was better to twist than to stick.
Both Pulis and O’Neill are failing by the same yardstick, albeit at a reduced level. The former deserves credit for bringing Stoke up, and maintaining them among the elite, but it has been four years now. He would be unique in world football if an achievement from the previous decade bought him unlimited grace.
Stoke are in an intriguing quandary: under Pulis, they are likely to bully and to bulldoze their way to enough points to remain in the top flight in perpetuity. Is that enough? Or should they really be looking to move on to the next level, to become a side capable of flirting with Europe with reasonable frequency? Should Peter Coates not ask Pulis to provide proof he is not simply a good enough manager to keep a team in the Premier League, but of sufficient quality to try and provide a degree of entertainment, too?
The general consensus seems to be no: Stoke should be happy to be where they are, and what they are, forever. Pulis does not have to face a jury. Pulis is not even on trial. As with O’Neill, defeats are not attributed to managerial failings, but to errors from individual players or, if he can get away with it, referees.
Look at Sunderland: O’Neill’s dictum that his side’s problems are related to his creative players being, well, not very creative is swallowed whole. Is it not the manager’s responsibility to craft a side to get the best out of Stephane Sessegnon and Adam Johnson and James McClean? Is it not his job to allow them to flourish?
And yet that question is never asked. O’Neill, like Pulis, has been deemed “a good manager.” He is a known quantity. We know he can do it again, because he has done it before. Villas-Boas has never done it before – whatever happened abroad doesn’t count, because the Premier League is so unique and beautiful and special – and so it is assumed he will never do it.
That is why it feels as though the Portuguese has been damned before he has even started. It is why it feels as though every defeat is treated as a harbinger, as proof, and every victory an exception. It is why pressure falls on his shoulders so easily but barely touches some of his counterparts. It is why O’Neill and Pulis remain feted even as they fail. Because everyone’s roles in the immortal soap opera that is the Premier League are pre-determined. Because the narrative is set, and the facts must not be allowed to get in the way.
Andre Villas-Boas has taken a team to the cusp of the Champions League. Andre Villas-Boas is doing what he should be. But that is not success, because he is Andre Villas-Boas, and Andre Villas-Boas fails.
Andre Villas-Boas damned before he has even started
Times Sport
November 05 2012 12:11PM
Rory Smith
Tottenham Hotspur are fifth in the Barclays Premier League. They have taken 17 points from their opening ten fixtures – hardly a startling return, but in such an open division, probably not far off what should have been expected – level with Everton in the fourth and final Champions League spot and two points ahead of Woolwich, their visceral rivals, a team cast either as potential title challengers of rare and precocious ability or an unmitigated shambles bound for relegation, depending on their latest result.
Tottenham’s latest result, a defeat at home to Wigan, was desperately disappointing. You can tell it was a shock because the outcome ensured the game was promoted to the coveted second slot on Match of the Day. John “Motty” Motson was probably exaggerating when he described it as “one of the most surprising results of the season,” given that it happened two years ago, too, but still, losing to Roberto Martinez’s side probably came as a bit of a blow to Andre Villas-Boas.
That’s the Andre Villas-Boas who has been booed off at home by his new club’s fans at least three times in his short tenure at White Hart Lane. The Andre Villas-Boas who the “jury is out on”, according to Gary Lineker, the Match of the Day anchor and cringe-inducing hump-advertiser. The Andre Villas-Boas who, remember, has taken his side to their first victory at Old Trafford in 28 years, to fifth in the Premier League, ahead of Woolwich, and in contention for a Champions League spot.
Lineker was not so quick to suggest that 12 of Martin O’Neill’s peers were still undecided about the Northern Irishman’s reign at Sunderland, which has seen him guide his side to 16th in the Premier League and, more impressively still, one win in 17 games.
Nor was he especially enthusiastic to harangue Tony Pulis, Stoke’s bespectacled moral arbiter, for a run which has seen the division’s greatest aesthetes win just one of their last 16. They sit just a place above Sunderland, on goal difference, four points clear of the relegation quagmire only by virtue of the fact that Reading, QPR and Southampton are all really quite bad at football.
Maybe that is because Villas-Boas is at a club where expectations are substantially higher than at either the Stadium of Light or the Britannia. He is also in a job he came to in relatively unusual circumstances, succeeding a manager who had guided Spurs to fourth in the Premier League last season and who still enjoyed the support of a majority of the fans. Fourth wasn’t good enough to save Harry Redknapp; there is no reason fifth should be deemed sufficient for his successor.
But that argument is flawed. Spurs, Sunderland and Stoke all want to achieve to different levels, but the basic aim is the same: to improve. To be better than they were last season, and the season before that. To be going somewhere. That is why Spurs got rid of Redknapp and brought in Villas-Boas. Because they wanted to have a target, a point. Redknapp had failed to make the leap: Spurs were, under the 64-year-old, contenders to qualify for the Champions League, but he seemed unable to turn them into title challengers. And so Daniel Levy, the chairman, decided it was better to twist than to stick.
Both Pulis and O’Neill are failing by the same yardstick, albeit at a reduced level. The former deserves credit for bringing Stoke up, and maintaining them among the elite, but it has been four years now. He would be unique in world football if an achievement from the previous decade bought him unlimited grace.
Stoke are in an intriguing quandary: under Pulis, they are likely to bully and to bulldoze their way to enough points to remain in the top flight in perpetuity. Is that enough? Or should they really be looking to move on to the next level, to become a side capable of flirting with Europe with reasonable frequency? Should Peter Coates not ask Pulis to provide proof he is not simply a good enough manager to keep a team in the Premier League, but of sufficient quality to try and provide a degree of entertainment, too?
The general consensus seems to be no: Stoke should be happy to be where they are, and what they are, forever. Pulis does not have to face a jury. Pulis is not even on trial. As with O’Neill, defeats are not attributed to managerial failings, but to errors from individual players or, if he can get away with it, referees.
Look at Sunderland: O’Neill’s dictum that his side’s problems are related to his creative players being, well, not very creative is swallowed whole. Is it not the manager’s responsibility to craft a side to get the best out of Stephane Sessegnon and Adam Johnson and James McClean? Is it not his job to allow them to flourish?
And yet that question is never asked. O’Neill, like Pulis, has been deemed “a good manager.” He is a known quantity. We know he can do it again, because he has done it before. Villas-Boas has never done it before – whatever happened abroad doesn’t count, because the Premier League is so unique and beautiful and special – and so it is assumed he will never do it.
That is why it feels as though the Portuguese has been damned before he has even started. It is why it feels as though every defeat is treated as a harbinger, as proof, and every victory an exception. It is why pressure falls on his shoulders so easily but barely touches some of his counterparts. It is why O’Neill and Pulis remain feted even as they fail. Because everyone’s roles in the immortal soap opera that is the Premier League are pre-determined. Because the narrative is set, and the facts must not be allowed to get in the way.
Andre Villas-Boas has taken a team to the cusp of the Champions League. Andre Villas-Boas is doing what he should be. But that is not success, because he is Andre Villas-Boas, and Andre Villas-Boas fails.
