Some media outlets have claimed that the doubts over Villas-Boas are so strong among those in power at White Hart Lane that a shortlist of possible replacements has been drawn up, with Celta Vigo manager Luis Enrique at the top.
While the Spaniard is a talented coach with significant admirers at the highest level of the game, bringing him in would be an even bigger gamble than continuing with Villas-Boas in charge, thanks to a top-flight record that leaves much to be desired.
A fine attacking midfielder in his playing days, Luis Enrique crossed the Real Madrid/Barcelona divide in 1996, and established himself as a cult hero at the Camp Nou over the course of eight seasons in the Blaugrana shirt.
It was at Barcelona that he took his first steps as a coach, and gradually, Lucho began to build a reputation as an unashamedly attacking manager capable of getting the highest yield possible with the resources at his disposal.
The Spaniard had a tough act to follow when he took the Barcelona B job in 2008, replacing Pep Guardiola, who had just guided the side to promotion to the Spanish third division.
Guardiola took Sergio Busquets, a pivotal player in his B team, with him to the first team, so Enrique wasn’t handed a simple task with the Miniestadi side.
Enrique's strategy was a sound one: mix the finest young talents available at the Barcelona academy with more experienced players (like free-scoring striker Jonathan Soriano) who could help to bring balance to the team. It soon paid off.
After narrowly missing out on promotion to the second division in 2008/09, Enrique’s side really hit their stride in his second season.
With a team built around the likes of Sergi Roberto, Oriol Romeu, Andreu Fontas, Marc Bartra, Jonathan Soriano, and the additional help of Thiago Alcantara, who would split his time between the reserves and the first team, Barcelona B finished second in the league and achieved promotion to the second division. The best was yet to come however.
In the 2010/11 season Enrique guided Barcelona B to third place in the Spanish second division, taking the first play-off spot for promotion to La Liga.
Though Spanish football’s rules prevent ‘B’ teams from playing in the same division as a club's senior side, and Barca B could therefore not be promoted, in principle, Enrique had managed to take the side from the third division, to the second division, to contending for the top flight in a matter of three years. It was a major achievement that no Barca B coach had managed before, and is unlikely to match any time soon.
Notably, the aforementioned Jonathan Soriano excelled under the coach, scoring 32 goals in the Segunda and finishing Pichichi (top scorer). Prior to the B team's play-off finish, Enrique had long been sounded out as a future replacement for Pep Guardiola as Barcelona first team manager, but the 2010/11 campaign produced a level of success at a rapid rate that perhaps even the club's hierarchy had not foreseen.
As a result of his achievements, Lucho's name was soon known by some of the top sides in Europe that were in search of a coach, and it was AS Roma that would succeed in tempting him, making the Spaniard their new manager in the summer of 2011.
Instead of marking yet another step forward in his career however, it is around about this point in Enrique’s career trajectory that things began to plateau.
At Roma, the Spaniard struggled to implement his Barcelona-esque playing style, with the side eliminated from the Europa League at the play-off stage, and finishing the Serie A campaign in a distinctly average seventh position, one lower than the season before.
As a result, Enrique was relieved of his position at Roma with one game left to play in the season.
The Asturian took a year off from coaching, before being given the job at Celta Vigo in the summer of 2013, taking charge at a club that had narrowly avoided relegation from La Liga in the final day of the 2012/13 season.
Only weeks into his new job he was heavily linked with the FC Barcelona position that had unexpectedly become available due to the ill health of Tito Vilanova. The genuine interest in Enrique from Barcelona sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta was a reflection of the strong reputation he maintained in Catalonia, despite a difficult season in Rome. In the end, Barcelona opted for Gerardo Martino.
At Celta, Enrique has once again attempted to implement his unashamedly attacking philosophy with mixed success at best. The coach brought in several of the players that once excelled under his tutelage at the Miniestadi, including Rafinha Alcantara (younger brother of Thiago) and Andreu Fontas, but that hasn’t helped him to bring back the magic that they once created together with Barca B.
With 15 games gone in the season, Celta have yet to win at home in La Liga, hovering precariously close to the relegation zone, and there are already some doubts over Enrique’s future. Their most recent defeat, a 4-3 loss to Real Sociedad despite leading 3-1 early in the second half, hasn’t helped his cause.
Looking back over his managerial career, Enrique’s record is impressive in the lower leagues, where he achieved incredible consistency with Barcelona’s B team and even made history, yet he has clearly faltered in the top flight, with neither Roma nor Celta replicating his feats in Catalonia.
Andre Villas-Boas has many doubters, but there is no denying the success he achieved across the board with Porto, as well as a strong Premier League campaign with Tottenham last season, missing out on the top four by a single point.
If sticking with the Portuguese coach is considered a risk to Tottenham’s Champions League ambitions, then surely replacing him with a man that has never even come close to guiding a side into Europe’s premier competition is an even bigger gamble.
Let’s be clear: this isn't an attempt to say that Luis Enrique isn’t a talented coach. He has excelled in the right conditions, and many of his pupils at Barca B have gone on to bigger and better things thanks to the excellent work he carried out with them in his formative years.
Eusebio Sacristan meanwhile, his replacement at Barcelona B, has shown that it isn't just as simple as throwing talented youngsters on to the pitch and letting them play, with the Catalan reserves suffering from his tactical naivety and a lack of the kind of older, more experienced players in the team that were essential to Enrique's side.
There is also a reason that Barcelona’s sporting director seriously considered him as a candidate for the first team job last summer, with the belief that he could still yet realise the potential he once showed as a manager.
Eventually however, potential has to be turned into tangible results for a manager to aspire to the highest level. Enrique has the credentials to be an excellent, top level manager, but only in the right conditions, and there is little to suggest that a Tottenham side already under huge pressure matches the criteria.
0 comments:
Post a Comment