This is a really interesting post, and has got me thinking. I think I agree to an extent.
Not with the first bit, because I was a huge advocate of appointing AVB, but with some of the rest. I think he was dealt a bad hand in his first season with King/Modric/VdV leaving, but he was lucky to have Bale (and his use of him was phenomenal).
My concerns are:
- the lack of bravery with substitutions (irritating because when he *does* make brave decisions, they usually work well).
- some weird tactical decisions - bringing on a poacher when you're struggling to create, for example. In those situations, "bring on Defoe" is almost always never the right answer.
- the lack of a 'passer' as one of the '2' in our 4-2-3-1 - to me it seems so obvious that one of the reasons we struggle to break teams down and maintain a quick tempo is that we let the opposition regain shape too quickly as we don't move the ball quickly enough to our '3'. Dembele and Paulinho between them just do not have the direct passing ability that we need from at least one of the players in that role IMO.
- the lack of time for inexperienced youngsters, beyond the occasional game for Carroll/Kane/Fryers. At least have a couple on the bench for the Europa League to bring on when we're winning games easily - I'm meaning Veljkovic/Bentaleb, etc. Just including them in squads/giving them 10/15 mins exposure here or there could work wonders. Not using and then selling Luongo baffled me too.
- the fact that he's already talking about his next move. He doesn't stay at clubs long, so as much as we might see AVB's Spurs as a long-term project, he almost certainly doesn't. OK, that's a slight assumption, but it's probably true.
On the whole I really like AVB and I *really* like AVB/Baldini (the work we did in the summer was mostly excellent), but I definitely think he needs to deliver at least a cup this season to deserve praise.
Not that I'd suggest sacking him anytime soon, that'd be totally counter-productive.
Totally agree with all of this. My main beef with AVB, which was my key concern when he first joined us and hasn't been allayed since, is that he runs his sides very much like a coach who's just coming to terms with what it means to manage a side. That is to say, he has a template in his mind that he wants to see enacted on the pitch, and when it goes wrong, it's more a problem with the players not manifesting the vision properly, rather than the circumstances of the match itself. This was acutely clear in our last two games, where both times a switch at half-time or earlier than the 65th minute were situationally required- in the Chelsea game, because of the resurgence of our opponents just before the break (I would've liked to have seen more of a 'scrapper' like Holtby thrown in to the mix), and against West Ham, because Big Sam's 4-6-0 had clearly thrown the side and needed reacting to. Both times, AVB failed to make the changes required, and both times the result was sub-optimal. Or, in the case of the last game, absolutely dire.
I've said it many times here, so at the risk of repeating myself- AVB, for me, thinks like a coach. He seems to like discipline, drilling, perseverance with a particular style. These are all fantastic attributes for a first team coach who runs the training, briefs the players, works out our tactical approach. But at the helm of the side, it's been a recipe for sluggish, disjointed performances. Because matches aren't static and predictable- opponents, like we saw at the Lane two Sundays ago, will do all they can to thwart you once they figure out that you're not going to experiment with some cavalier changes. AVB throwing Paulinho and Dembele into the midfield together all season has started to look very much like pounding up against a brick wall, with opponents holding a rigid shape knowing they won't be prised apart by clever passes from deep. It's also seemingly meant that players who don't fall in line with his vision, or just straight-up don't show him the kind of deference he wants, get pushed to the margins despite their continued usefulness. It's terrible man-management, and it's exactly the kind of behaviour (albeit driven by different motives) that we used to slate Redknapp for.
On the rare occasions he does make a big switch in a tactical sense, they feel ill-considered and forced, like he's just bowing to the pressure of having to do something rather than actually making an organic decision- cf. Benny on the left in a game last season, one of the worst tactical calls I've seen a Spurs manager make for some time. It's issues like this that make me wish a Harry type would come in and wrestle the reins off of AVB and shake things up properly, in a way that inspires the squad.
My tl;dr on that- as above. AVB is still a top-quality technical coach, not yet a top-5 standard manager. For me.
