Andre Villas-Boas: Some Complaints

even when the older players are being rubbish.

If Chelsea fails to qualify for the CL then he should be sacked. As far as I’m concerned he is beginning to behave like Arsene Wenger and we all know the last time Arsenal won anything. His insistence on playing the same people in the same way and expecting a different result is the definiton of madness.
Just casually looking around I notice that all our rivals bought/loaned someone to help their team. 3 above 32 players were gotten. Henry for Arsenal, Scholes for Man Utd and David Pizarro for Man City. Heck, Aston Villa got Keane… Chelsea should have loaned someone, at least, until the end of the season. Not replacing Anelka is the height of arrogance and everyone from AVB to Emenalo and even Torres is to blame if it all goes to sh*t at the end of the season.

Rant over.

I sure have a few problems with him like Ryan not playing, why did he sign Raul when Arteta and Pjanic moved the same day for lesser money and why aren’t the players motivated. But they are bound to be somethings that don’t go our way. I was and am still ready to give AVB time.

This is why I love this site.

I love the dichotomy of people criticism AVB for shutting out the youngsters, and then turning around and criticizing him for signing ONLY youngsters!

We criticized AVB for a shoddy defense early on. He’s shored that up. But now we want to eat our cake, too (and not just have it), and we still want a free-flowing offense.

He’s still not comfortable with the vultures in the English media, who continue to eat him up mercilessly. But that’s hardly his fault. Maybe he just needs to pull a Ferguson and boycott some of them.

And let’s not underestimate the magnitude of the task facing him – of having to phase a generation of stars and try to usher in a new era. Winston Churchill may run into some trouble trying to motivate his troops in circumstances such as that.

I’m not saying he’s blameless. He’s got a bit of Uncle Carlo going on currently – doing the same thing over & over and expecting different. Let’s see if he can recover “actively” rather than just waiting for the ship to right itself (like Carlo did).

City – 9 points, 1 loss
United – 9 points, 1 loss
Spurs – 7 points, 2 losses
Chelsea – 8 points, 0 losses
Liverpool – 4 points, 2 losses
Arsenal – 0 points, 3 losses

We sucked yesterday. We still drew. We’re not going to win the title, but we are not in some sort of crisis either

From the Torres loving fans to the CPO, Roman, Ray Wilkins and his silly punditry, Pastore, Daniel Levy, Torres, Dr. Eva, Cech, Drogba and Torres.

Just saying.

Chelsea in the following categories:

Shots per game – 18.2, 3rd (Spuds 18.7, Utd 18.3)
Shots conceded per game – 10.3, 1st (City, Arsenal 11.4 in 2nd)
Possession – 56.4%, 3rd (Le Arse, City)
Pass completion – 85.5%, 2nd (City 85.8)

We’re doing quite a few things very well, but we are undoing them by fouling in stupid locations and defending set pieces very poorly. We’re also putting far too few of our shots on target in comparison to other top teams, something which needs to be corrected going forward.

You stated how he was oddity in that he was a LEFT footed player operating at Rightback. For lack of something better to do, I was doing my own little recon on him, and what I’ve ended up reading in most places, is that Azpilicueta is RIGHT footed, rather than left. FIFA stats, transfer market tab-keeper sites, even checked the FIFA & PES in-game databases on my cousin’s laptop just to be sure. So I just want to confirm, he is very much a regular right-footed traditional RB isn’t he? Or have you read/seen something I haven’t? If maybe Graham or another reader could answer this too? Much obliged. :)

I consistently have problems with his player selection and formation choices. Also, the overall “sleepiness” of Chelsea drives me crazy. I constantly find myself yelling at the TV for them to just “play harder!” and such.

That being said, I really want to give AVB more time and hope that Chelsea does too. If he had as big a hand in bringing Mata, Miereles (which as I said yesterday, seemed a good enough signing at the time), and Romeu to the team as I suspect he did, them he’s certainly got us on the right track. We’re definitely a team in transition, and for better or worse we need to actually let this play out for once and see where we end up. Part of Chelsea’s biggest problem over the last few years is that we’re still just the core of Mourinho’s team with random bits and pieces added on, but no clear vision of what the hell we’re supposed to be, like some awful steam punk frankenstein counter-attack monster trying to play “beautiful football”.

Everything about how the team has moved in terms of the “big picture” since AVB took over (buying youth, giving certain youths a chance, emphasis on passing and buildup, etc etc) is really exciting as far as the upcoming seasons are concerned. It’s just that he’s stuck with some old pieces that can’t be moved and some new pieces that have yet to fully gel.

But I still wish he made different choices in terms of formations, lineups, and substitutions WITH THE TEAM HE HAS NOW. Yes, he’s driving someone else’s car, and I suspect that once he gets his own car it’ll be awesome, but he still keeps driving it into trees and ditches