It's been a difficult week for Andre Villas Boas but then there have not been too many easy weeks for the Portuguese manager since he pitched up in English football some 3 years ago. Today in his post match press conference, AVB expanded on a point he brought up in a BTSport interview by having his say on what he (and an awful lot of others) perceive to be an agenda against him by some residents of Fleet Street. Chiefly Neil Ashton and Martin Samuel of The Daily Mail. Both journalists have written fairly damning articles recently about AVB with Samuel's farcical piece last week being particularly bad. The opening to that article bears repeating:
Andre Villas-Boas used to watch the game by crouching down on his haunches near the touchline. And then he stopped doing it. Isn’t that strange? People were making fun of him, but even so. If he thought it was the way to get the greatest insight, why would he change?
Unless it was an affectation. A quirk, a gimmick to make him look brighter than he is. After all, there have been some fairly successful coaches through the last century or so, and not one of them chose to observe the action from the perspective of a dachshund. So maybe they were the smart ones.
Samuel of course, was Harry Redknapp's ghost writer and thus is completely impartial on the subject of the bright, obscenely young thing that took Redknapp's job. Neil Ashton also reported in the Mail last week that players were "furious" with Villas Boas after he claimed they should feel "ashamed" after their 6-0 pasting by Manchester City. AVB also clarifies this in the video below by saying he included himself in that statement.
There are no fireworks from AVB here, just methodical, calm and polite rebukes to those who for whatever reason, have a real problem with him.
