Andre Villas-Boas has been prolific today, acquiring Roberto di Matteo as his new first-team coach and promoting reserve coach Steve Holland into a more prominent role as first-team assistant (and well-deserved, too). He's also been an absolute gold mine for quotes, saying, well, all sorts of things in all sorts of places. In no particular order, let's get down to the good stuff...
Andre Villas-Boas On Winning
What you expect from this club is to be successful straight away. I expect to be successful. To win straight away, on a weekly basis. There's no running away from that challenge. That's what I face. I'd be surprised to be kept on if I don't win. I want to be a winner - that's the challenge I promote to myself and my technical staff.
Source: Sky Sports.
Sky Sports' interpretation is that Andre Villas-Boas needs to win a trophy this year in order to keep his job, but that's a really black and white way of looking at it. I would argue that Villas-Boas merely needs to have his team mount proper challenges on most competitions to 'win'. Granted, that might be wishful thinking, but having a legitimate shot at the league and domestic cups would represent a huge improvement over last season, and I'd be shocked if he went anywhere before the end of the 2012/13 season at the earliest. Of course, he might just be saying this to motivate his players and staff. It's the sort of thing he does.
Andre Villas-Boas On Transfers
I am more than happy with the actual squad. It is nothing new that when a manager comes, radical changes are expected. I think at the moment and bearing in mind the success this club has had in the past six or seven years, we have to judge things carefully and make wise decisions.
Source: ChelseaFC.com.
I would be inclined to translate this as 'I think we have problems but I want to see if we can solve them internaly before we spend a lot of money.' Chelsea probably need to be active in the transfer market, and there have been rumours that Villas-Boas is pushing hard for Udinese's Alexis Sanchez, but if they can solve things without resorting to spending a tonne of money, so much the better. If Villas-Boas can somehow turn, for example, Florent Malouda back into a prolific player, that's more money that can go elsewhere.
Andre Villas-Boas On Style
It's not just about winning, but winning with a certain amount of flair. Everyone likes attacking football. If you see the technical staff in front of me, and my appointment of Roberto [di Matteo], these are people who like the quality of the game and have a philosophy. The Premier League has a certain amount of goals in every game and it should be an entertaining game for the fans and that is what we will look to do.
Source: BBC.
We are going to score a lot of goals and concede a lot of goals. Presumably a rampaging David Luiz will contribute heavily to both. Joking aside, although we all had a suspicion that Villas-Boas would continue his FC Porto style and focus on scoring more goals than the opposition, this is the first time he's confirmed it.
Chelsea have a significantly better defensive base than Porto, so it's not as though we should expect to leak goals, but in all honesty they were a much better team going forward than we were last year. If Villas-Boas wants the Blues to play like his previous team going forward, he's going to have to come up with a tactical trick or two - or dip into those transfer funds.
Andre Villas-Boas On Fernando Torres
We didn't tune the team to provide to [Radamel Falcao when he struggled], we tuned the team as a whole and in the end Falcao found the net and built on to another 30-goal season, and 60 goals in two seasons, so this is a question of fine-tuning the team, not fine-tuning a player so this is what we will try to do. The quality is amazing from every single player of Chelsea Football Club but the most important thing is for us to fine-tune the whole of the team and the organisation of the team, for them to perform for the team.
Source: ChelseaFC.com.
The easy way of reading this is that Villas-Boas believes that Torres simply isn't getting the service he needs to thrive on, and once that happens his confidence will be restored and he'll be back to being his old self. I'd agree with him too - the combination of rest and a team tweaked to help accomodate him will probably see a completely rejuvenated Fernando Torres. But that would, presumably, require a major midfield acqusition, be it Luka Modric, Javier Pastore, of Joao Moutinho.
Andre Villas-Boas On John Terry
When John [Terry] is available for sure he will take the captaincy as long as he challenges for a place as any other player challenges for a place.
Source: ChelseaFC.com.
Translation: John Terry will captain Chelsea until his legs fall off.
Honestly, there was a lot of fluff to wade through in all of those quotes, but the Torres discussion struck me as particularly illuminating in terms of the plans to get the most out of him. Obviously, Villas-Boas isn't going to be drawn into discussions about particular players, but I found his blanket 'we'll wait and see' approach to be a sensible one. That said, he's not supposed to have much say in the transfer market anyway, so his opinion may not ultimately matter.
Oh, and apparently not even one reporter was offended or thought of Villas-Boas as arrogant. Clearly he's not the Special One at all.