The former Tottenham Hotspur boss has made it clear that he was not in charge of signings at the club.
It is now a year since that Andre Villas-Boas was sacked by Tottenham Hotspur after a home thrashing against Liverpool. Since then he has been replaced by Tim Sherwood, himself replaced by Mauricio Pochettino this summer. AVB on the other hand went off to Russia. He has admitted he went there to avoid media scrutiny and has impressed since taking over at the Russian giants Zenit St Petersburg.
He left Tottenham with an excellent win record but it was fair to say he never truly won the fans over at the club. It was his second sacking in England after being dismissed by Chelsea, so a return to these shores is highly unlikely.
In an interview with Portuguese television station TV1 yesterday AVB discussed his time in England and in particular Tottenham, where he revealed that Daniel Levy failed to by a multitude of big name players that he had targeted.
He also revealed that he was not sacked, but that the decision was mutual after disagreeing with some of the buys from director of football Franco Baldini:
“Tottenham set a points and victories record in my first season, and missed out on the Champions League by one point and had a great run in the Europa League. In the second season, at the time I left we had more points than in the previous season.
“I ended up leaving by mutual agreement – it wasn’t a sacking – because I gave full support to the football director Franco Baldini who meanwhile had other ambitions, meaning that I ended up with players that did not fit the profile I wanted.
“The chairman proposed a challenge to increase Tottenham’s competitive level, but immediately [Luka] Modric left and we didn’t get any of the targets I had identified, such as João Moutinho, Willian, Óscar or Leandro Damião. These were promises that were not kept. I had a group of players I had not chosen. In two years I lost Van der Vaart, Modric, Bale, and all the promises made were unfulfilled. In any event I don’t look at my time at Tottenham as a negative experience. It was an experience I needed to have.”
Moutinho went on to join Monaco, Willian and Oscar Chelsea while Damiao moved from Internacional to fellow Brazilian side Santos.
Who knows if the Tottenham team would have been more successful had AVB had got the players he wanted and had the chance to mould a team. But it certainly appears that Villas-Boas is one man who thinks it would have been a hit.
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