When a star player underperforms, clubs are quick protect them because they are usually too expensive to replace.
That’s not the case with talented managers. A manager is judged not by how much he knows about tactics or how vivid his project is but by the results. Andre Villas Boas is clearly a talented young manager. As he starts another managerial chapter at Zenit St Petersburg, he better take note from his previous jobs.
He inherits a club that has deep problems. Zenit imposed star signings Hulk and Axel Witsel on Luciano Spalletti, and things went downhill from there for the former manager.
The club’s myopic capture of the £64m duo created a rift because of the stark wage chasm between the new recruits and the old guard.
Players like Vladimir Bystrov, Aleksandr Anyukov and, the most vocal of all, Igor Denisov demanded a raise. Denisov went a step further by refusing to play and was eventually shipped out to Anzhi Makhachkala last year.
A year later, the team is still a divided group of stars contending with poor form, overbearing owners and mercurial tempers. AVB will have his hands full.
He had previously guided Academica De Coimbra from the bottom of the Portuguese Primeira Liga to a safe 11th place in the 2009/10 season. In the next season, at FC Porto, he won the Portuguese Super Cup, he also cruised to the title undefeated and completed a treble with the UEFA Europa League.
In June 2011, he was personally hand-picked by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich for the Chelsea job. The Russian owner was particularly impressed by how AVB worked as part of Jose Mourinho backroom staff at the Blues.
The Portuguese manager was tasked to rebuild Chelsea into a Barcelona-like attacking team. As soon as he took charge, his intentions were clear: senior players like Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard were surplus to his requirements. That caused a rift in the squad and the team terribly underperformed before he was sacked just after nine months in the post.
He had a second chance at Premier League management at Tottenham, where he also successfully took the development of Gareth Bale from an explosive left winger to the world’s most expensive player. He had a relatively successful debut season, which was followed by reported approaches from Paris Saint Germain and Real Madrid for their managerial vacancies.
Just after the record sale of Bale last summer, Tottenham spent more than £100m to rebuild the team. They signed seven first team players – far too many. In a pre-cursor to the sort of problems he might face at Zenit, an influx of players – not necessarily of his choosing – unsettled a relatively successful team.
Less than six months later, after a poor run of games aggravated by heavy defeats to Manchester City and Liverpool, he lost his job.
Villas Boas moved mountains in Portugal and he clearly showed his abilities with flashes of brilliance in England.
As he takes probably his hardest job to date, he will need his lessons, he will need his talent but most of all, he will need good fortunes. If he succeeds on this mission, he should be ready for any managerial job in the world.
