SPURS START STRONGLY

American goalkeeper Brad Friedel, who has been as one of the best footballers produced by the nation in the last two decades, says that the two managers of Tottenham – Andre Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood cannot be compared with each other. Andre Villas-Boas was the manager of the club for just over a year before he was ultimately replaced by Sherwood due to a poor run of results. Tottenham started the season strongly with a number of new players.

They managed to keep several clean sheets along the way, but the ploy to guide the team into the top four came off the rails during the months of October. Tottenham were conceding huge number of goals and this go to the management alarmed about reaching the objectives for this season. Hence, they were left with little option but to sack Villas-Boas and bring in Sherwood as his replacement. This is the first managerial job for Sherwood, who captained Blackburn several years ago.

After having worked with both these managers very closely in the last few weeks, and goalkeeper Brad Friedel says that there is little to separate them. The US veteran lost his place to Hugo Lloris at the start of the season, but he is expected to be a key player for the next few years at least.

“They both have different philosophies of football. Tim, being a Tottenham player, knows exactly what the fans want to see - that’s indoctrinated in his own philosophy. He likes the players to go for it, he likes crosses in the box, bodies in the box - it’s exciting. If you look through my career, the teams I’ve played for have been very similar – Liverpool and Galatassary were like that, Brondby at the time, Aston Villa when I was there, all very much on the front foot. I like that,” said the goalkeeper.