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Shed-loads of money for old rope that would be the envy of Sven

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Barry Glendenning
theguardian.com, Monday 16 December 2013 11.20 EST

Poor the AVB. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

EVER TRIED. EVER FAILED. NO MATTER. TRY AGAIN. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER

When news broke that André Villas-Boas had been sacked by Tottenham Hotspur in the wake of yesterday's embarrassing home shellacking at the hands of Liverpool, Sky Sports News were lucky enough to have a crack team of experts on hand to discuss the matter. They had been assembled to discuss Big Cup draw, but Uefa bingo-caller Gianni Infantino and his bowls of Gianni Infantino's head-shaped balls were temporarily ignored, as Indeterminate Not Jim White Or Jeff Stelling Sky Man turned to Jamie Redknapp for an informed, carefully considered and totally impartial opinion on the Premier League's latest managerial casualty.

Pointing out that Spurs chairman Daniel Levy was capable of being ruthless and had sacked AVB's predecessor even though he had been "doing a good job", Jamie was at least magnanimous enough to concede that last year the Portuguese "did well", making sure to add the obligatory caveat that he had done well "with the previous manager's team". Perhaps by pointedly failing to identify the "previous manager" in question, he thought the Fiver wouldn't remember who it was. And do you know something? He's right, because our brain is addled by years of the kind of Purple Tin abuse that would leave lesser tea-timely emails unable to remember basic … letter-based speechy-writey description things you find in the dictionary.

Of course while Jamie's thoughts on the matter might not be the most objective, it is difficult to disagree with his view that after yesterday's White Hart Lane horror show, the jig was well and truly up for a manager who has now worked 25 months out of six years' worth of contracts signed and presumably has the monster pay-offs to show for it. In the face of relentless criticism from assorted folk clearly upset that he replaced "the previous manager" and happy to stick the boot in at any opportunity, he has often found an ally in the Fiver, who has always championed the little guy. Unless that little guy's name happens to be Sepp … or Subbuteo's Shaun Wright-Phillips. But with his team having failed to beat any of the Premier League's top 10 sides this season and been gubbed 6-0 and 5-0 by Manchester City and Liverpool in the past month alone, the Fiver thinks it's probably time that AVB took his pencil and ruler, went back to his drawing board and experimented with different kinds of lines to the fabled high one that has cost him his last two jobs.

"The club can announce that agreement has been reached with head coach, André Villas-Boas, for the termination of his services," read the literary equivalent of the look on Spurs chief executive Daniel Levy's face at the final whistle yesterday afternoon. While the club's season is still eminently salvageable, it remains to be seen if the same can be said for AVB's reputation as a hot young managerial talent. For the time being, he can take comfort in a reputation for earning shed-loads of money for old rope that would be the envy of Sven.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"It's true that it could maybe be better" – Manchester City suit Txiki Begiristain reflects on the club's Big Cup last-16 draw against Barcelona. The draw in full: Manchester City v Barcelona, Arsenal v Bayern Munich, Olympiakos v Manchester United, Milan v Atlético Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen v Paris Saint-Germain, Galatasaray v Chelsea, Schalke 04 v Real Madrid and Zenit St Petersburg v Borussia Dortmund.

FIVER LETTERS – STILL WITH PRIZES

"May I be the first of many to point out that Darren Leathley's pub quiz question (Friday's Fiver letters) is flawed. As the full name of Hull City is Hull City AFC, it certainly does contain a bit that one can colour in" – Dave Floyd (and 1,056 others).

"I very much enjoyed Darren's pub trivia about Hull. My own personal favourite is this: the only football team in all of the major English divisions not to have a letter from the word 'mackerel' in its name is Swindon Town. That should send the pedants into a piranha-like frenzy" – Marten Allen.

• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today's winner of our letter o'the day is: Marten Allen, who wins a copy of Tor! The Story of German Football, by Uli Hesse. We've got more prizes to give away next week in the run-up to the annual Fiver awards.

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

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BITS AND BOBS

PM David Cameron reckons England could stage a Wembley friendly against Afghanistan to mark an end to the 12-year war. "It wouldn't be as difficult as coming out here," he parped on a visit to Camp Bastion with Michael Owen. "I don't know what the politics would be," cheered Owen.

The last 32 of Big Vase will see Tottenham tackle Dnipro and Swansea City face Napoli.

Manchester City's Sergio Agüero has been ruled out for a month with calf-knack.

Rory Delap and his enormous throw-ins have called it a day. "We are honoured here at Burton that he finished his career with us," said Brewers boss Gary Rowett.

And Mike Phelan heads the shortlist for the vacant West Brom job after Steve Clarke was unceremoniously booted out of the door on Saturday. "Going into this season expectations were high, perhaps unrealistically so," sniffed Clarke.