As Andre Villas-Boas prepares to return to Stamford Bridge one year after he was sacked, the Portuguese manager has revealed that Chelsea players were not prepared to “commit to his ideas”.
The 34-year-old would be looking to mastermind a rare Spurs victory over Chelsea and seek to secure a Champions League place for the North London side. However, he has praised their readiness to accept his methods, while he also admitted that he has tweaked some of them, since his turbulent time in charge of the Blues.
“It becomes easier when the players are willing to commit to your ideas, they need to be able to take something from learning new things and also enjoy learning new things that they can use in their game,” Villas-Boas is quoted in The Sun.
“All the players have received me well (at Tottenham) and when you receive that sort of openness, you can create a good environment. I’ve been very well received by everybody, particularly this group of players, whose drive and ambition towards achieving results has been tremendous.
“The Chelsea experience allowed me to see things in a different way and helped me address the mistakes I made. That always allows you to develop on a personal and a professional level.
“The experiences of managing Chelsea and Spurs are different and I learned a great lesson from last year. There are things I do dramatically different and things that I do exactly the same because you still have to stay true to your principles.”
Having said that, he maintains that his Spurs side is not yet a finished article and he is still moulding them into a top team.
“There are always things to refine,” he added. “It can be difficult sometimes because the nature of the Premier League means it is driven by passion and emotion.
“Sometimes it can be difficult to set out your philosophy but, like every other team, we have had great games and bad games, and games where we should have expressed ourselves better.
“In the end, however, we have always been recognised as a team that has always been very driven, that wants to score and that is the Tottenham way.”
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