As Easy As AVB – Pardew’s lesson on managerial manners
Posted on December 13th, 2011 | 15 Comments |
Lately my fears have been confirmed by the London media, who have even had to dumb down the name of the Chelsea manager for them, as they just can’t cope with, never mind pronounce, his name. So the mightily named Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas who is known in shorthand to the rest of the world as André Villas-Boas has had to be further shortened to simply AVB for the benefit of their poor fans.
Why is this significant?
Well, you may have noticed that there is a war of words going on at the moment between “AVB” and United manager Alan Pardew. If you have read some of the Chelsea fan blogs at the moment you will find the strangest, wierdest logic being applied to anything Alan Pardew has uttered on the subject. So my point is, when reading such blogs, bear in mind they are written by people who need to call their manager “AVB”. By the way, I’ve continued to use “AVB” here so that any Chelsea fans reading this can skip the big words and try to follow the story.
Anyway – to the war of words! Our story begins in the aftermath of the recent home defeat to Chelsea, in which the referee failed to show Chelsea centre-half, David Luiz, a red card for a challenge on Demba Ba early in the game, when Ba was clearly through on goal. At the time, Alan Pardew suggested that had Luiz rightfully been sent off then maybe, just maybe, Steven Taylor would not have had to work quite as hard for the rest of the game and may not have therefore suffered the Achilles injury which will now see him out for the rest of the season.
“AVB” didn’t like this claim at all, in a fit of latin pique he spat out:
“This is the same manager who got a (controversial) penalty at Old Trafford to get a 1-1 making a big scandal out of this. And then it was ‘It got their player (Steven Taylor) injured, because David Luiz wasn’t sent off’ – come on!”
Now I know “AVB” is new to this country and the way we do things here, but if he’s going to spit his dummy out reacting like this to Alan Pardew’s fairly innocuous comments, how on earth is he ever going to survive when he comes up against the media’s darling, “Mr Psychology” Alex Ferguson. “AVB” really has to learn that Managers in this country make statements for a number of reasons, whether that’s to appease their fans, appease their Directors, wind up the opposition or simply put pressure on officials for future reference – to name but a few.
In comparison with “AVB” Pardew has been around the block a few times in english football, and his response is a classic “nail on the head” put down for the Portuguese newcomer.
“Sometimes when you have defeat you have to find certain reasons why you’ve had that defeat, and you voice those concerns,” the United manager helpfully said, then adding:
“When you have a victory it’s nice to be a bit more respectful and honourable in saying ‘Well okay, we won the game but the decisions went in our favour.’ That’s what I did at Man United.
“I said it was a penalty and we accepted it and that was it. I think it would have been more honourable of him (“AVB”) if he accepted Luiz should have got sent off like the referee did (after the game, unfortunately).”
Pardew continued:
“When I looked at my stats of my players, Steven Taylor had put more work and effort into the game than any one he had played this season. That may be a factor in the fact he’s got an injury to his Achilles, maybe it isn’t.
“If they’d had ten men, maybe he might not have needed to work so hard. That was my only point. I’m not saying the sending off was related to his injury but they were pressurising and it was a factor in that. You’d be foolish to ignore that.
“But the guy’s new to the country, he’s new to our press and I think he’s under a bit under pressure. Maybe he could show a bit more respect.”
Eminent logic from the United manager and helpful advice for “AVB” if he cares to listen. If you want a chuckle about this whole episode however, read a Chelsea Blog!
he better stay away from tiote, speaking on him just have that nervous feeling about him going and it is coming close to January!…maiga deal to go through which does quash some bad vibes but then again he is off to the African nations cup :/