Andre Villas-Boas Reveals Liverpool Talks, Discusses Chelsea, Tottenham and More

Andre Villas-Boas has opened up about his time as a coach in England, revealing that he held talks with Liverpool about potentially becoming their manager.

In an interview with Portuguese TV Channel TVI (per Tom Kundert of Portu_Goal) the former Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur boss spoke about his time at each of those clubs, but it sounds as though he could just as easily have ended up at Anfield:

According to the London Evening Standard, the Portuguese was approached by Liverpool before he took up a position at White Hart Lane. The Merseyside club went on to appoint Brendan Rodgers. The Reds’ current owners are clearly an admirer of the current FC Zenit boss and with Rodgers under big pressure at the moment, these quotes will do little to nullify rumours about the Northern Irishman's future.

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Indeed, as noted here by Jack Wilson of the Daily Star earlier in the week, the bookies currently have the Portuguese instilled as the favourite to replace Rodgers, should the Northern Irishman be deemed not good enough by the club’s American owners. But at the moment, Villas-Boas seems happy plying his trade outside of the intense atmosphere of the Premier League.

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The 37-year-old came to England to take over at Chelsea with a glittering reputation. But he struggled to make an impact at Stamford Bridge and was sacked after just nine months in charge; Roberto di Matteo took up the job and guided the Blues to FA Cup and Champions League success.

Nonetheless, Villas-Boas thinks coaching in the Premier League was a positive experience, although he maintains that the job he was asked to do at Chelsea was a long-term one:

While he may have been given the role under false pretence, it looked as though the Portuguese was out of his depth from the off at Chelsea. He was 33 years old when hired and for a manager with relative inexperience, taking charge of a club like the Blues with the massive characters they had in the dressing room was always going to be difficult.

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Things started well for Villas-Boas in his next job in the Premier League, when he took over from Harry Redknapp at White Hart Lane. And while he was eventually sacked early in his second season at the club, the former Porto man insists that his tenure at Tottenham was necessary for his development:

In his first season at the club, Villas-Boas steered Spurs to a record points haul in the Premier League and got the very best out of Welsh wizard Gareth Bale. But when the aforementioned talent was flogged to Real Madrid for a world record fee, Villas-Boas was unable to integrate the raft of players that the club brought in to compensate.

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Villas-Boas went into great detail about his time at Tottenham, via Ed Aarons of The Guardian:

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'The chairman proposed a challenge to increase Tottenham’s competitive level, but immediately [Luka] Modric left and we didn’t get any of the targets I had identified such as João Moutinho, Willian, Oscar or Leandro Damião,' he told Portuguese television. 'These were promises that were not kept. I had a group of players I had not chosen. In two years I lost [Rafael] van der Vaart, Modric, Bale, and all the promises made were unfulfilled.'

Villas-Boas added: 'Tottenham set a points and victories record in my first season, missed out on the Champions League by one point and had a great run in the Europa League. In the second season, at the time I left we had more points than in the previous campaign. I ended up leaving by mutual agreement – I wasn’t sacked – because I gave full support to the football director Franco Baldini despite him having other ambitions, meaning that I ended up with players that did not fit the profile I wanted.

'I speak of Franco Baldini, who came from AS Roma and is now in a down position, exiting the club. But I don’t look at my time at Tottenham as a negative experience. It was an experience I needed to have.'

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At the moment, Villas-Boas is having a pretty decent time of things in Russia. Zenit are seven points clear at the top of the league and playing an enthralling brand of attacking football. He was unable to guide the team through the group stages of the Champions League, but will fancy their chances of winning the Europa League, a competition which the manager has won before.

Currently, a move back to England would not suit Villas-Boas. He’s undertaken some harsh learning experiences in the Premier League and by going abroad to a division of lesser profile, he’s done the right thing as he looks to rebuild his reputation. But he’s an undeniably talented coach, and when the time is right, will surely be back on English soil one day.