By Samindra Kunti in Amsterdam
October 4 – Portuguese coach Andre Villas-Boas has admitted that managing Chelsea “was too much too soon.” He also blasted Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy as an “expert in sacking managers.”
Andre Villas-Boas had been hailed as the successor of Jose Mourinho, but his sojourn in English football was rather brief. He left after two seasons.
At Chelsea he lasted just nine months. “The Chelsea experience was too much too soon,” said Villas-Boas at Aspire4sport Global Summit on Football Performance & Science. “I wasn’t flexible as a manager at that time. I was communicative, but I wasn’t flexible in my approach. At Tottenham I learnt to be different.”
At Chelsea the group was more important, I stuck to my methods too much.”
But, while pragmatic about the reason his Chelsea career faltered, Villas-Boas saved his harshest words for Levy. The Spurs chairman fired him in December 2013 after 17 months in charge at White Hart Lane. “Daniel Levy is an expert in sacking managers,” said Villas-Boas. “There’s no time for long term projects in the Premier League.”
“I like a lot of what is happening in German football,” reacted Villas-Boas when probed about a possible return to the Premier League.
“There are a lot of great young coaches. I watched Monchengladbach – Barcelona. The teams were playing 5-3-2 vs 4-3-3. We have the Dortmund of Tuchel which is very interesting. They look for depth and pressing. Schmidt at Leverkussen is fascinating in terms of pressing, the verticality and the counter attacks. There is also the way the teams attack the space. It is the championship that is bringing new things. In the end, the Premier League has become a one billion pound product, but Germany is where a lot of tactical trends are happening.”
At the end of last season, Villas-Boas’s left his last coaching role at Zenit St. Petersburg.
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