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A Tale of Two Managers

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Brendan-Rodgers-Andre-VillasBoasIT seems odd that after witnessing the best team performance from a Liverpool side since the 4-1 victory at Old Trafford, I would want to defend the manager of the team we had just triumphed over.

More so given that the team was Tottenham, a club I dislike, at a ground where we have struggled to win in recent years. Add that the manager is someone that I have laughed at and ridiculed and that the victory was so emphatic I have been on a high all week, it seems bizarre that the thought would even cross my mind.

But it has.

And the reason is simply because were our manager in an identical situation to the one Andre Villas-Boas found himself in, I would find it repugnant for our manager to be removed from his position. And it is my fear that this circumstance is not an exception but that it is becoming the norm that is behind my desire to defend a man I have happily laughed in the face of.

It is also because there are so many similarities between Andre Villas-Boas and Brendan Rodgers that it is all the more pertinent.

Both are the very essence of modern managers, young football men who have been grounded in coaching from an early age. They are from a school of thought that wants to bring attacking dynamism to football to replace the intrusion of stoic mundanity that has become so pervasive.

Despite both men studying under the tutelage of Jose Mourinho, they have opted not to be mini Mourinhos but to look to destroy the vision of ‘The Special One’ who always opted for physicality and control over ingenuity and flamboyance. They look to bring awe back into the game and for this I want them to succeed. I want more instances of outrageous skill, I want to see world class goals and I don’t want to see players with the innate talent of Wayne Rooney and Joe Cole have their craft beaten out of them until they become mundane machines.

The hiring of these two by Liverpool and Spurs marked something of a gamble for both clubs. This was a case of the respective hierarchies placing faith in modern methods over the tried and tested in an attempt to dethrone the top four and establish a new era in the Premier League.

It was a rejection of older heads with Dalglish and Redknapp jettisoned in favour of managers with fresh approaches to the game.

It is perhaps no surprise that Rodgers and AVB were considered for both posts given the difference between them is incredibly thin. The only real difference is the power of perception. Villas-Boas was a man whose reputation had taken a hit following his spell at Chelsea. While Rodgers was seeing his stock rocketing after impressing at Swansea.

What had led them to their respective positions was perhaps the point of interest.

Rodgers cut his teeth in the savagely competitive Championship. It is a stern test for even seasoned managers. The talent level is relatively even which makes coaching and tactical acumen all the more important. Rodgers made a promising start to his career at Watford before enduring a brutal reminder of how tough management could be at Reading where he lasted only 6 months in the job.

Shortly after he received a tempting offer to join Roberto Mancini’s  Man City staff. It was an opportunity to re-assess his methods and work with another top coach. Convinced of his abilities though, Rodgers instead opted to build on Roberto Martinez’s legacy at Swansea, a club with foundations already in place and a chance for Rodgers to rectify his reputation.

Villas Boas on the other hand began his career in the safety of the Portuguese league and made an instant impact at Academica. Taking the club from bottom of the league to an 11th placed finish. However, it was the style of play he introduced which built his reputation and, having previously worked at Porto with Mourinho, it was no shock to see AVB take to the helm if his former club.

His time at Porto was an unprecedented success. Racking up a ridiculous 84.48% win percentage, winning the league, the cup, the Supercup and the UEFA Cup, Villas-Boas wrapped himself in silverware at the first ask. Suddenly he was the hottest managerial property and Roman’s Rubles quickly came his way.

However, while Rodgers built on his reputation at Swansea in the Premier League, Villas-Boas instead had seen his standing fall. His time at Chelsea was marred by malapropisms, a dressing room revolt, the dreaded ‘worms-eye-view’ and a failure that saw them hanging on the brink of elimination from Europe. The sacking was inevitable, his successor overturned an incredible deficit in Europe and claimed the Champions League trophy. AVB looked like a man out of his depth.

However,  that Porto win percentage still loomed large. While he had been seen as a failure at Stamford Bridge there was still an amount of sympathy for him. The Chelsea job was one which required patience if the old guard were to be replaced and the attacking vibrant football was to be stitched into the fabric of Chelsea. There was a feeling that Villas-Boas had been unlucky. Daniel Levy offered him the chance of redemption and on 15th December 2013, the two protagonists battled for supremacy.

But this should not have been a fight to the death.

The result was an embarrassing defeat, particularly given that AVB had been dismantled by a team that were supposed to finish below Spurs in the Levy grand vision. It was perhaps more galling because the coup de grace was delivered by the man they had wanted in charge in the first place.

Yet the tale reminds us of that very fundamental part of the mad world of the Premier League. So much is down to perception as much as reality. It is a world in which Rodgers is currently untouchable but Villas-Boas is deadwood. In the perception of the Premier League Rodgers is doing an excellent job and Villas-Boas was doing a terrible one. A league in which the two clubs are separated by 6 points, a gap that would have been 0 points had Spurs triumphed on the day.

Of course, since that spell at Porto AVB has been unable to deliver that magic marriage of aesthetics and results. While Rodgers has taken a free scoring Liverpool side to the upper echelons of the league. Dive slightly deeper though and the gap between the two is possibly as thin as the points difference in the table.

As Liverpool manager Rodgers has had a healthy win rate of 50% across all games. Healthy yes, but it is no more than that. His win percentage in the Premier League is 48%. In the same time period, AVB had a win percentage of 55% across all competitions and a win percentage in the Premier League of 53.7%. In a purely statistical sense AVB has outperformed Brendan Rodgers since they took over their clubs.

Which makes it all the more fascinating. Now, we all know that Rodgers’ results have improved as his tenure has gone on. He made a poor start at Liverpool so let’s compare the two since January when Liverpool’s fortunes started to change.

In 2013, Villas-Boas has recorded 18 wins out of 34 Premier League games. Rodgers has managed 19 wins out of 34. Therefore in the Premier League microscope, that one single match on Sunday was the one that decided AVB’s fate.

It is insane to think that whole projects can be cast aside simply due to a single result in a season but that would appear to be the case. There is no doubt that had Tottenham beaten Liverpool, he would still be in his job. In fact if Spurs were only 2 wins better off, he would probably be being lauded as some form of football maestro.

This is the lie of modern football. A world in which one win makes one man king and another a derelict.

Context of course plays its part. Villas-Boas took charge of a club that had finished in the top 4 in the previous seasons and was punching at its highest weight for decades. The expectation was for him to repeat that and more with the aid of £100m worth of investment.

Rodgers by contrast, had taken a club that was languishing below its previous level to second in the Premier League. Perhaps it was because Liverpool dished out a portion of fantasy football with plenty of goals that the spurs board were so irked.

Perhaps this allowed them to forget that they have had to contend with introducing 7 new players into the first team, the extra Carling Cup and Europa League games as well as losing their best player. But if one result is reason enough to forget that – then I pray that those in charge of our club do not see it the same way.

And there we have it. One game, two managers, an intertwined story and a microcosm moment that epitomises the insane behemoth that the top flight of English football has become. There is no future, there is no past all that remains is the lunacy of the present.

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33 comments

  • BOB says:

    Brendan Rodgers is just as suspect as AVB .But he still has his world class match winner and has no Europa league to juggle .

  • Halabil says:

    Well written and well reasoned opinion piece. As a Spurs fan, I was not a fan of AVB, however I thought it was ludicrous for Levy and Co to have sacked him at any stage before at least the end of the season and, even then, only if he had not shown that he had been able to get this group of individuals to gel as a team. But Levy has shown an inability to stick to his convictions when times get tough and has historically reacted emotionally to tough patches by sacking his managers at the first sign of trouble. I did not enjoy Spurs’ play thus far this year, and, as I said, I was not a fan of AVB to begin with but I am equally if not more disgusted with Levy and his poor decision-making. He has made it hard to recruit any promising and talented manager by demonstrating how easily he is prone to wield the axe at the first sign of trouble. Poor form Levy. Poor form.

  • murt says:

    Well written article that separates fact & fiction.As a Liverpool fan for 35/years i am enjoying the way the team are playing at the mo,but football Directors & Bosses are a fickle lot at times,just look at the situation @ West Brom.I know some fans would be on B.R.s case if we weren,t on the best run in a long time.I think A.V.B. case was not helped by the volume of fans crying for his head on Twitter & Social Media in the aftermath which was completed by impulsive Levy.Plus expecting 6/7 new players to gel in 1st season is always going to be a big ask for any manager.

  • Kudzi says:

    AVB is nt gud manager for EPL period

  • Yana says:

    BR will be another legendary PL manager just like Alex Ferguson. Just need a bit $ support this transfer window.

  • Ozred says:

    Always takes time to make 100m in new players plus the loss of one of the best players in the league. That said, they made some bad mistakes with some of their signings. 55m on Lamala and saldado was stupid. Paulinho the only real success to this point though eriksen will be a handy player.

    All that said, I don’t rate avb and spurs need to get the next appointment right.

  • CHUKWUEMEKA says:

    a wonderful piece, couldn’t help but agree the pen is migthier than the sword. so far this season i have been dissappointed with the sacking/impending sack of steve clark of west brom and malky mackey of cardiff. I hope fsg wld stop gambling with our games. they did it against s’ampthon, arsenal, hull and they intend to do it against cardiff (though suarez won’t have the off day cos of the contract) and chelsea (this is where they wld most likely do it). we will get a result at city ( possibly the 3pts if we score first)

  • Trevor says:

    AVB won everything in …PORTUGAL . Which means nothing. It’s like winning in Scotland with Celtic…absolutely no achievement there at all.

    He has not proved himself a top manager , should never been given chelski job.

  • Sam says:

    Who is this childish idiot yana ??
    F***ing trolling Manc fan

  • Ben says:

    Yana is just an attention seeking kid …lets just ignore the new troll in town .

  • Yana says:

    WTF, Mignolet conceded a goal. Grrrrrrrrr !!!

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