Flickr – TheSportReview
Former Chelsea FC manager and current boss of Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg Andre Villas-Boas has been defending his management record and took credit for building the Chelsea team that won the Champions League in 2012. After being sacked from his post at Tottenham Hotspur earlier this season, Villas-Boas has now been unceremoniously fired from two Premier League clubs midseason and felt the need to defend himself.
Having his seen his star rise and fall so quickly from top managerial prodigy and being labeled the next special one to managing in Russia must have jarred his memory. Villas-Boas did experience great success with Porto and did well for himself at Tottenham, he has surely not met the lofty expectations placed on him.
Andre Villas-Boas defending himself and taking credit for things he did not do:
"“I’ve always had success wherever I’ve been. With Academica I got to the semi-finals of the League Cup; with Porto I won four titles in one year; and at Spurs we finished the season with a club record points total. When I didn’t finish the season with Chelsea, the club ended up winning the Champions League. You have to give the players credit but I was the one who built the team.”"
If anything it was Chelsea that won the Champions League in spite of him. His poor man management skills and banishment of established veterans such as Alex and Nicolas Anelka to the reserves caused rifts within the team. Andre Villas-Boas seemed to lack basic understanding of the Chelsea dynamic and ignored stalwarts like Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba.
The team rallied around Roberto Di Matteo and by some combination of destiny and luck were able to win a double despite being managed by Villas-Boas for half the season. His “project” at Chelsea was a complete failure and he has continued to maintain an air of arrogance and entitlement despite managing five clubs in six years. Good luck in Russia, Andre.
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