Holloway(hope spelled it right)on AVB " You never make a club stronger when you sell your best player, but if anybody can survive losing somebody of the quality of Gareth Bale, it will be Andre Villas-Boas. I’ve got to be honest, I thought the former Chelsea manager was the luckiest bloke alive when he got the job at Tottenham. In fact, I said so in this column. But he’s done such a good job since then that I’ve completely revised my opinion and, after facing his Spurs side last week – and then watching them demolish Dinamo Tbilisi in the Europa League – I admire him even more. Now, he’s getting ready to face the challenge of being without the player who was his team’s talisman last season. AVB, though, is handling it superbly. For a start, it was a brilliant bit of strategy for Tottenham to go out and spend the money they will be collecting from Real Madrid BEFORE the world-record sale was concluded. If everybody knows you have buckets of money swilling around, then the asking prices go through the roof. And have you looked at the quality Spurs have been bringing in? Roberto Soldado, Etienne Capoue, Paulinho – these are top players who can have an impact in Premier League games, and that’s prior to tying up some others before the deadline. Will any of them be another Gareth Bale? No. I don’t think there is another Gareth Bale in the world, with his pace, his ability to run at people, the goals he scores, the dazzling swerving free kicks, the way he strikes the ball – and even the times he gets back and heads corners and free-kicks away to help out his defenders. But, sometimes, when a player wants to move on – and I don’t know for sure, but it seems pretty clear that was the case with Bale – you have to let him do so and then use the money to develop your team in a different way. That’s something I’ve had to do all through my career. From selling Barry Hayles and Jason Roberts when I was first at Bristol Rovers, then Danny Shittu at QPR, and Charlie Adam at Blackpool, it’s a fact of life for most managers. It’s happened again to me with Wilfried Zaha moving on. I suppose, if you are in charge of a really big club like Tottenham, you hope it’s a problem you won’t get, but it still happens. It seems to me that AVB has handled it with great calm and common sense. I thought Tottenham were class last week. They moved the ball around so well and the movement of their players was just as bewitching. I like their ethos. And I’ve got to say I like AVB too. I met him properly for the first time a couple of weeks ago and he’s an articulate, intelligent man, who thinks deeply about the game and understands it. That was probably why I got so upset with some of the refereeing decisions. My team were so close to containing them and showing we belong on the same pitch. If we gain the confidence to relax and trust ourselves in possession, then we don’t need to be frightened of even the best teams in this league. And, believe me, Spurs will be one of the best – despite losing their brightest star. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them back among the Champions League places by the end of the campaign."
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 08:46:03 +0000
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