AVB lands £16m Spurs job

Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 by The Sun

AVB lands £16m Spurs job
NEW FOCUS ... Andre Villas-Boas is Tottenham's new manager

ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS will be confirmed as new Tottenham boss within the next 24 hours.

Former Chelsea chief AVB has sacrificed £11million from his Blues pay-off to sign a four-year contract worth £16m at White Hart Lane.

Villas-Boas was left ruthlessly exposed by a player revolt at Stamford Bridge, but told Spurs chairman Daniel Levy he will not make the same mistakes that led to his Chelsea downfall.

And Levy is determined not to burden the 34-year-old Portuguese coach with the pressures he faced during his eight-month Stamford Bridge reign.

Tim Sherwood will become director of football — as SunSport exclusively revealed last month — leaving AVB free to concentrate on coaching and building a team capable of delivering success.

And Villas-Boas could be handed a massive transfer kitty to bolster the Tottenham squad.

We also revealed that Villas-Boas was Levy’s No 1 target the moment he thought Harry Redknapp was nailed on as England manager.

Levy, who sacked Redknapp last month despite Spurs finishing fourth in the Premier League, was hugely impressed by AVB when he interviewed him for the job.

Villas-Boas is determined to repair his tarnished reputation in England.

He was given unlimited authority to rebuild Chelsea and get rid of some of the Blues’ highly-paid, ageing players.

But the former Porto boss came a cropper as senior players turned the dressing room against him and he was axed in March.

Unlike Chelsea, Spurs have a young squad and the senior players are not as outspoken or rebellious as some at Stamford Bridge.

Villas-Boas’ appointment is expected to be announced on the club website tomorrow.

He will not be officially unveiled until after the club’s players return to pre-season training on Monday.

But one of AVB’s first jobs will be attempting to talk Luka Modric out of quitting.

Spurs stress they will not sell the Croatian to Manchester United or any of their Premier League rivals.

But Real Madrid also want Modric. And if Spurs fail to convince him to stay, then cash from the sale will go straight to AVB giving him up to £80m to spend.