Could Andre Villas Boas Be The Man For Tottenham?

For a while now, Andre Villas Boas, former manager of both Chelsea and Porto has been linked with the Spurs job. The 34 year old divides opinion, is he the right man for the Spurs job who can take them forward?

His talent as a manager is undoubtedly prominent however success at Stamford Bridge was few and far between last season. He began his managerial career as José Mourinho's, more widely known as 'the special one', assistant. Wherever Mourinho went, Villas Boas followed whether it be Chelsea or Inter Milan. His own career only really started in 2009 when he became the manager of Portuguese side Academica. He got off to a flying start as when he joined the side were bottom of the league but with his guidance they reached a safe 11th place finish. They also reached the Portuguese League Cup semi-finals only going out to FC Porto. Villas Boas, or AVB as he has been christened in England had an immediate impact in Portugal, people weren't just impressed with the results he had obtained, he had added a new style to the club and this attractive football was ultimately what led to him being linked with the FC Porto job in Summer 2010.


AVB signed a deal at Porto on 2nd June 2010 and immediately found success after winning the Portuguese Super Cup, however this was only the start of an amazing season. He led the club to an unbeaten season which had only been done once before in the Portuguese League, this meant that Porto won the league title with over 20 points to spare. Again, similar to at Academica it wasn't just the results that were getting everyone's attention, his team only conceded 13 times in the campaign and he had introduced a flowing style of football helping to win over critics too. The success didn't stop there as he led the club to a treble by winning the Europa League and Portuguese Cup. On 21st June 2011, Villas Boas resigned as manager of the club.

Just the day after he was named the new manager of Chelsea, signing a 3 year contract. His previous success didn't follow him however. His side were below expectations and slipped outside the top 4. They lost a number of rival matches which didn't please Roman Abramovich. In a Champions League match against Napoli he chose to leave out 3 of arguably his best players in Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole and Michael Essien. This prompted questions about his managing and pressure began to mount as he wasn't reaching Chelsea's expectations. On 4th March 2012 he was sacked by Chelsea and assisstant manager Roberto Di Matteo appointed as a replacement. It was not an enjoyable time for the man who had previously enjoyed immense success in Portugal.

At the age of just 34, Villas Boas has already had a very 'eventful' managerial career with massive success at Academica and Porto but failure at Chelsea. Following speculation linking him with the Tottenham job it begs the question 'Is he the man for it?'. The answer, in my opinion is 'yes'. There are a number of reasons supporting his cause, not least of all his record in Portugal where he had an 88% win percentage. Another thing which supports him is his past, José Mourinho, unquestionably one of the best managers in the game at the present time, took him under his wing as a young manager and this can only be a positive thing as we forget that he is still young with much to learn. Although he ultimately failed at Chelsea, his career is similar to that of Roy Hodgson. Hodgson recently managed Fulham where he had success along with an excellent cup run in the Europa League. After this success he was offered the Liverpool job however it didn't work out for him and he left by mutual consent after just 31 games in charge. Following this he took the reigns at West Brom where he did an excellent job guiding a borderline Premier League side into a solid team that was difficult to beat. This short career is similar to AVB's as he began with success, moved onto a bigger club where it didn't work for him, Hodgson then went on to do well and this could be the same for Villas Boas at Spurs if he were to take the job. However, why could he not achieve at Chelsea? He had the resources in players and transfer funding but it just didn't work out for him. Admittedly if Tottenham were to appoint him it would be a gamble however in my opinion one that is worth taking.

Feel free to leave a comment as I have now made it so that anyone can comment as I would be interested to hear others' views. I have put a poll at the top right of the page too, so vote on there whether you think AVB would do well at Spurs. Also if you have any suggestions on topics for future article then I'd love to hear them too! 

Thanks for reading!