AVB: our part in his downfall?

Covering the mishaps of a reluctant young conscript, the first of Spike Milligan’s autobiographical war stories rejoices in the title Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall. The tongue-in-cheek hubris is magnificent.

For QPR fans, perhaps there is some fun of this sort to be had when considering the irritable and seemingly very naïve Portuguese man who managed Chelsea for part of last season. It does feel, after all, as though our ragtag outfit played their part in his downfall. André Villas-Boas even admitted as much himself.

People love a handy initialism. The young Portgueezer provided one, his name quickly being reduced to 'AVB' by the English football public. An initialism favoured by many QPR supporters? ABC. Anyone But Chelsea. So it was music to many pairs of west London ears when, in February, sports journo Yann Tear reported on Chelsea’s badly stuttering attempt to recapture the Premier League trophy. The Pensioners' then-manager felt that his side’s acrimonious defeat at Loftus Road was the beginning of the end of Chelsea’s title bid. Lovely stuff.

During that bad-tempered match, it certainly became clear that the southwest London side could be rattled. Apparently surprised by the hostile crowd and the doggedness of the home team, Chelsea’s discipline evaporated. Seven players booked. Another two sent off. The captain getting drawn into a situation that led to him being charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.

It also became very clear that Villas-Boas could be rattled. His tetchy post-match comments to the press and his attempt to remonstrate with the referee got him in hot water. This lack of composure also surely provided encouragement to any other managers considering the use of mind games.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The Rangers may have done their bit in sowing the seeds of doubt in the inscrutable mind of AVB’s temperamental Russian sugar daddy. But the young Portuguese boss was undone mainly by his own mistakes and shortcomings.

Among these was an inability to win over the big egos in the Stamford Bridge dressing room. It’s a tough gig down there. In the popular imagination, a cabal of senior players can get managers fired by refusing to go along with any boss with whom they do not click. Whether or not this is a fair characterisation of what goes on behind the scenes at Chelsea, the newspapers were soon reporting that Villas-Boas was somewhat aloof, apparently not communicating the rationale for his team selections to those players disappointed at being dropped. Some managers are able to rule their clubs with an authoritarian style at the same time as commanding the respect of their players. AVB did not manage to pull off this balancing act at Chelsea. Why was that? One can only speculate, but his background may well have been an issue. Not much older than most of his senior team members, he came into management with no career as a professional player behind him. You have to ask whether the likes of Lampard, Terry and Drogba ever took him seriously when he was crouching in his technical area, gesticulating enthusiastically and trying to give detailed tactical input. Is it really fanciful to imagine that when ‘Lamps’ and ‘JT’ looked over at him their thoughts were along the lines of “cheeky little cunt, never played the game and he’s telling me where to fucking run”?

It’s hard to see why this approach to match-day communication and to man management will go down any better at Spurs than it did at Chelsea. The Tottenham squad have reputedly become used to a regime which was all about letting talented players express themselves, playing the game without the shackles of overly prescriptive instructions or overly rigid tactics. Their former boss is also someone known as a highly personable man manager. The transition from Redknapp to Villas-Boas, then, may not be a smooth one for some Spurs players. How long, one wonders, will it be before the spiky Portuguese coach is clashing with members of his new team?

We should also observe how Villas-Boas handles the media in his new job.

It seems to be the case than here in England it is possible for foreign managers to create an initially very favourable impression. They speak slowly and carefully. We think this means that they are more articulate and more intelligent than our home-grown gaffers, failing to realise that slow, careful speech is simply a consequence of operating in a foreign language. When we compare these guys to a Sam Allardyce or a Mick McCarthy, we think of them as more suave and sophisticated. But that’s just because we are better able to make judgements about the education and background of our own countrymen than we are about people from other countries.

Fooled by the appearance of a calm, almost scholarly demeanour, we perhaps imagine that managers from mainland Europe will be clever and unflappable when interviewed. We assume they are all going to be charming. But they all crack in the end. The pressure here is great. Our newspapermen are bastards. Our pundits can be cruel. The only real surprise with Villas-Boas was that he cracked so quickly, almost immediately proving unable to charm the media. He answered pretty harmless questions rather warily, looking paranoid in the process. He thereby showed signs of weakness. This is fatal. Our newspapers are sharks. They go in for the kill when they scent blood in the water.

At Spurs, AVB faces a particular challenge. His predecessor was a media darling, a great favourite of the football press, who united almost as one to proclaim him as the only viable candidate for the England job. Unless Villas-Boas has somehow radically reinvented his approach to media relations, there exists the danger of him being given a very rough ride indeed, especially if Tottenham do not make a strong start to the season.

For our part at QPR, we don’t get to give a Villas-Boas-led team the full Loftus Road treatment until January. But other managers, teams and fans would be well advised to test his temperament before then. Unless the man has changed a lot over the summer, he looks vulnerable to psychological warfare and is unlikely to enjoy the lessened pressure of a long honeymoon period in the media.