Is this the right move for Villas-Boas?

Its been a heady few months for the Premier League’s newest and youngest boss. Villas-Boas is coming off the back of winning the treble with his home club Porto, including the UEFA cup,  and Chelsea have just paid close to €15million for his services. These are amazing occurences in any manager’s career, even more so for one who is 33 years old.

Details of the rise of Villas-Boas were repeated over and over on Sky Sports News last night. His relationship as a teenager with Bobby Robson which led to his start in the game at Porto, his diligence and dedication in pursuing his qualifications, his first employment at Chelsea with Jose Mourinho and finally his great success with Porto – its fairy tale stuff. But Chelsea will most certainly be his biggest challenge, biggest achievement and potentially his biggest risk.

Roman’s Impulse Buying not good for Chelsea

So, you’re a billionaire with a high profile football club. You want success on the European and World stage and you wanted it yesterday. You have a good squad of players who have won domestic titles but you want some great players so you win things on a grander scale. What’s the solution?

Let’s go shopping!

And that is what Roman Abramovich has done in the past, and looks to continue in the future. The problem is that he has no experience in how to put a successful team together. He has no experience in managing a squad and making a group of people play together with a shared vision. The organization of individual footballers to result in a group stronger than the sum of the individual parts is an art form. Roman doesn’t mind this though, when he wants a big-name or world-class operator, he will get his cheque book out.

Case in point; Fernando Torres. Two years ago Torres was one of the most feared strikers in the world. He was in blistering form for both club and country and looked to be on the cusp of being a Liverpool great. Since then, he missed a lot of games through injury, resulting in a loss of form, disillusionment with his former club’s ambitions, and criticism from the press and fans. Roman didn’t see those problems.  Instead he saw the class of the former Torres, the lethal goal-scorer, as the missing link to bring his Chelsea side to the heights he desires. A cheque for £50 million and “El Nino” was on his way to London.

Is this the beginning of the end for Harry’s Spurs?

Take away last nights 4-0 battering at the Bernabeau last night, and this season has been the stuff of dreams for Spurs fans. It was the season that they arrived on the Champions League scene and announcing themselves to the rest of Europe. Unfortunately for them, it could be their last.

At the end of last season Spurs achieved something they have not done in the history of the Premier League, they qualified for the Champions League and were about to join Europe’s elite on midweek evening dates. They thrilled us during their qualifier with Young Boys as they came from behind to reach the group stages. They were then treated with one of the benefits of being a Champions league club, they attracted Rafael Van Der Vaart to come to White Hart Lane. Then they thrilled us further by topping the competition’s “Group of Death” surpassing Inter, Werder Bremen and FC Twente. And they played some brilliant attacking football along the way. Finally they took on the European super-power, AC Milan, and put them out setting up an encounter with Read Madrid.

Do Man City have an identity?

“They’ll need time to gel.” (Pundits, fans, taxi drivers, arm-chair enthusiasts and bartenders; various dates)

The phrase above is in high demand in the period during and immediately after the transfer window. It gives the reason for why a team may not play better just because they sign a better player. Players need to get used to new surroundings, new teammates, new language in some cases, new tactics, new jersey, new house, new (bigger usually) paycheck, new questions from media……… the list goes on. Like all environments, be it professional, sporting or otherwise, the more change – the less stability. And in Man City’s case – the lack of identity.

Manchester City has changed more than any club in world football over the last 2 seasons.  They are now the wealthiest club around, challenging for titles in domestic and European competitions and attracting some of football’s big names.

But, when will this modern Man City define itself?