West Ham boss: AVB learned a lot from ‘bitter’ Chelsea experience

By Nick Wright Monday, February 25, 2013
7:00 AM

Sam Allardyce believes Spurs counterpart Andre Villas-Boas is stronger for his unsuccessful stint at Chelsea.

The Portuguese tactician, who leads his Spurs side out against the Hammers at Upton Park tonight, was axed by Chelsea last March after nine stormy months in charge.

Villas-Boas led Porto to a historic treble prior to joining the Blues and he has made a steady start as Harry Redknapp’s successor at White Hart Lane, with Spurs sitting fourth in the Premier League and in the last 16 of the Europa League.

“I think he has probably learned an awful lot from his short time at Chelsea,” said West Ham manager Allardyce, who will be hoping to dent Spurs’ top four hopes with a home victory tonight.

“He’s probably seen and learnt from the bitter experience he obviously had.

“It was the first time that things haven’t gone so well for him,” he continued.

“You can probably learn more in that period of time than you can when things went as well as they did at Porto.”

Allardyce also credited Tottenham’s players for the club’s encouraging season so far and admitted he envies the resources Villas-Boas has at his disposal.

“He has inherited a fantastic squad of players [at Tottenham],” said the 58-year-old.

“You can be a great manager but without the players you can’t produce a team that will produce results which will make people say you’re a great manager.

“You can only be as good as what your players are. If you’ve got great players you’ll get the results and I think they’ve got some great players at Tottenham and they’re really producing.”