Villas-Boas arrived at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2011 with a big-time reputation on a young manager and many Chelsea fans considered him to be the next Jose Mourinho when he arrived after winning the treble with Porto. He experienced the highest of highs with Porto, but his reign at Chelsea was disappointing at best and disastrous at worst.
The dressing room had turned against him and the team’s performance on the pitch was very poor, prompting Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to part ways with the Portuguese tactician after just 8 months. Villas-Boas was critical of the Chelsea owner’s actions and accused him of cancelling his three-year project during his first Tottenham press conference.
AVB was nonetheless given a second crack at the Premier League last summer, when Spurs employed him after Chairman Daniel Levy was reportedly impressed with his long-term ambition and vision for Spurs. Many considered it a risky appointment due to Portuguese’s ill-fated reign in English football with Chelsea, but Villas-Boas has proved his doubters wrong with Spurs playing free-flowing attacking football and comfortably sitting third in the table with ten games to go, and also having developed Gareth Bale to the next level and arguably to the class of Messi and Ronaldo.
It’s been a little more than 12 months since his sacking, Villas-Boas would most obviously want to finish in the Champions League places and also above Chelsea, but if he does achieve his objective, he is not likely to gloat about it.
Tottenham were enjoying their best sequence of going undefeated in the league (12 games) before losing to Liverpool 3-2 in the Sunday game and Villas-Boas was questioned earlier in the week whether the undefeated streak would prove a point to Abramovich. According to the Daily Mail, he said, “We won’t know that until the end of the season. I won’t be egocentric now – we must wait.”
After sacking the Portuguese manager, Abramovich turned to Villas-Boas’s assistant and former Blues player Roberto Di Matteo to guide the club to a top four finish and more. Chelsea players seemed galvanized and Di Matteo led them to a flurry of victories, including a famous 4-1 win at home against Napoli to overturn the 3-1 deficit. Di Matteo continued his fine start as a manager at Chelsea and famously led them to their first ever Champions League triumph, as well as a FA Cup trophy.
After ending the season with two trophies, most people would reluctantly have to admit Roman made the right decision by sacking AVB, but Chelsea are in bits yet again, having bowed out of 5 trophies this year and having already replaced Di Matteo with Rafael Benitez. They are in a position in which they may end the season trophy-less and without the prospect of playing Champions League football next season, a situation that may not have arisen if the Blues owner had stuck with AVB.
However, Spurs are known to be chokers and they let a ten-point gap slip last season, which resulted in them playing Europa League rather than Champions League due to the Blues winning the CHampions League. AVB will have to deliver Champions League football to silence his critics. Spurs are still to face Chelsea and Man City but Villas-Boas believes his side are capable of coping with the pressure this season. He said, “Even if we have a setback I think we are able to bounce back. The players are really up for it after what they suffered last season.” We will see soon enough how Spurs respond to a setback and if they can bounce back from the loss against Liverpool.