West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce believes Andre Villas-Boas needed more time at Tottenham Hotspur as he was dealing with a whole new team after the Summer of changes.
Spurs sold their star-man Gareth Bale in the Summer and then replaced him with seven new players from abroad, and Allardyce believes it would have been a miracle to get success this season from the new-look team.
“You would have to be a miracle worker to get everybody functioning to the best of their ability,” said Allardyce.
“They’ve arrived from foreign countries in a different culture and an arena that they’ve never played in before.”
“To get the [Spurs] team playing together and understanding each other in such a short period of time is nearly impossible,” said Allardyce.
“I think the fruition of the change around at Tottenham starts more next season, not this season.”
It is well known that players from abroad take a while to settle into Premier League football due to the different style of English football, but after several poor results, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy decided to fire Villas-Boas which makes him the fifth managerial casualty this season.
Many people are suggesting that Allardyce could be the next man out of a job, but he insists that he doesn’t fear for his job, despite the lack of wins and goals coming out of Upton Park.
“I don’t fear for my job,” said Allardyce, who says he plans to bolster his squad in the January transfer window.
“There’s always going to be a time when there’s a difficult period and my responsibility is to manage the players through that.
“My particular situation will ease and will get better as long as we get our injured players fit.”
He added: “We have the same amount of clean sheets that Everton have had so it doesn’t take a genius to know what our problem is.
“We’ve been a few goals short of what would have been a very good position in the league.”
Written by Alex Batt – @AlexBatt – @AlexsArticles
