Villas-Boas reveals ‘massive argument’ over Tottenham’s ‘unfortunate’ failure to sign ex-Wolves star

Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas has revealed that he had “massive arguments” with their board over a failed transfer.

The player in question is former Wolves midfielder Joao Moutinho, who was heavily linked with a move to several Premier League clubs before he joined the West Midlands outfit for around £5m in 2018 from Ligue Un outfit AS Monaco.

The Portugal international has always been a classy operator and he made over 200 appearances for Wolves during his five years at the club. He was linked with a move back to Porto in the summer but he ended up joining their rivals Braga on a one-year deal.

Villas-Boas was regarded as the next big thing in management when he joined Chelsea in 2011 but he was sacked after less than a year in charge.

The 46-year-old took over at Spurs ahead of the 2012/13 campaign but he was dismissed after around 18 months in charge. His career has continued to falter since then as he has had unsuccessful stints at Zenit Saint Petersburg, Shanghai SIPG and Marseille.

Villas-boas has now reflected on his time at Spurs. His interest in Moutinho came during the summer of 2012 when the 37-year-old was still with Porto.

The manager has revealed that Spurs were keen to sign Moussa Dembele over Moutinho.

“I wanted to sign Joao Moutinho and he was sitting sixth on the list compiled by data people,” Villas-Boas said at Web Summit in Lisbon. “The first on the list was [Moussa] Dembele and we ended up signing him.”

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“It drained me emotionally to the point where, here was a guy that the data was not showing all that he represented from the coach’s perspective, which is a player that knows your leadership, a player that knows your style, adaptability to your style.

“This can be quantified, but it must be done in the view of a coach and not a single view. This was the problem in the beginning and we had massive, massive arguments in the beginning because of this with Moutinho.

“We signed Dembele but missed out on Moutinho and it was unfortunate because we were going to build up a very strong midfield.

“This is precisely where you have to have that balance to understand, what is your coaching philosophy and how it should be integrated into the data that has been provided to you.”

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