Analysing the Long-Term Future for Tottenham Manager Andre Villas-Boas

From disappointment to doom-mongering, Tottenham Hotspur dropping points in early November has led already to stories mooting potential replacements for Andre Villas-Boas, should they not make the top four this season.

Well, one to be precise: former Spur and current United States national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann.

In his "The Football Grapevine" column, the Daily Mail's Rob Shepherd wrote that should Spurs finish outside the top four, Villas-Boas could well go "and the White Hart Lane hierarchy would love to lure Klinsmann back to the club not just for his managerial abilities but how he would raise the club’s profile to potential overseas partners in a new stadium development or indeed buyers."

Shepherd does also note "that there is no immediate pressure on AVB" and "he is likely to be given more funds in January to bolster his strike force," should he need them.

Despite the story being jumped upon by other media outlets, including Major League Soccer's official website, there is plenty of football to be played before the Tottenham hierarchy will consider calling Villas-Boas' future into question.

Even at this early stage, though, it is understandable why Villas-Boas' long-term future is not a given.

The scale of Spurs' summer spending was not as dramatic as it would have been without the money generated by Gareth Bale's £85 million move to Real Madrid. The increased television revenue for Premier League clubs will also partly compensate for the financial outlay.

Nonetheless, what BBC Sport calculated as £105 million spent on new signings is still a substantial investment from Spurs in their attempts to at least finish in the top four this season.

It is the increasing importance of the Champions League to both a club's financial health, and its prestige, that makes it so the notion of Villas-Boas being sacked is not out of the question.

Chairman Daniel Levy has shown Spurs' ruthlessness here after the near-misses in achieving this goal under the management of Martin Jol and Harry Redknapp. The different circumstances of those two's respective dismissals shows there is no set time-frame, but it is not unreasonable to assume the backing provided Villas-Boas would play a large part in deciding his fate after the conclusion of his second season.

Manager	Year One	Year Two	Year Three	Year Four
Martin Jol	2004-05—9th	2005-06—5th	2006-07—5th	2007-08—Sacked in October, Spurs eventually finished 11th under Juande Ramos.
Harry Redknapp	2008-09—8th	2009-10—4th	2010-11—5th and quarter-final exit in the Champions League	2011-12—4th, but sacked after Chelsea's Champions League win cost Spurs a place in the following season's tournament.

With the competition for a top-four spot this year strengthened by a resurgent Liverpool—not to mention intriguing starts by Everton and Southampton—Levy and the Tottenham board would be fair to consider that qualifying for the Champions League is looking harder than ever.

But for them being disastrously out of contention long before 2013-14's final month, there is a scenario where a near-miss and a trophy success could constitute a solid season for Spurs.

If nothing else, removing Villas-Boas would likely set the team even further back beyond this campaign. An undesirable prospect in English football's current climate.

Klinsmann is an intriguing potential candidate to replace Villas-Boas. As Shepherd noted, he is the kind of big name that would not be unwelcome for a club with Spurs' aspirations, while his past in North London (two successful spells in 1994-95 and 1997-98) only sweetens the prospect of a return.

Based on past and current form though, Klinsmann would be an unsuitable choice for the kind of quick-fix Spurs would be envisioning in the instance of Villas-Boas being sacked. 

In an interview earlier this month with BBC Sport's Jamie Gavin, the 49-year-old spoke of how as Germany manager he fully engaged in the DFB's attempts to build "from the bottom up."

While Bayern Munich were not prepared to tolerate such a long-term approach, the United States (and indeed it seems, international football rather than club) has proved the ideal recipient for Klinsmann's ideas.

Talking to Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl last month, Klinsmann's assertion of his hope to continue as USMNT boss beyond the 2014 World Cup also serves to underline why Spurs would only be embarking on another grand plan in employing him:

"

A lot of the stuff we’ve done now is foundation work. It’s really just starting to connect the dots that you always talk about in the soccer landscape in the United States: Getting connected to the youth level, to coaches’ education, getting connected really well with MLS.

So yeah, that is my interest to continue that work.

"

Villas-Boas is a different coach to Klinsmann in some respects, and would certainly hope to achieve with Spurs in the short-term. However, in appointing a manager with plans to change certain things from the previous regime (notably in playing style), the North Londoners had to know overnight success was not a guarantee.

Spurs' first season under Villas-Boas management was encouraging enough and, despite the naysayers saying otherwise, there have been enough positives from this campaign so far to be optimistic moving forward.

A lot could change before next May, but Tottenham abandoning Villas-Boas' approach after just two seasons would likely mean taking a sizable gamble on there being a better way to go about things.