AVB dissatisfied with performance

Andre Villas-Boas it seems is singing from the same team sheet as I, the performance against Monaco was simply not good enough.

"Obviously, we're a bit disappointed," said Andre.

"The first half wasn't good for either team, played at a slow tempo and both teams only really had one chance at goal.

"We had a good meeting at half-time and the problem was that we conceded the two goals straight away.

"We wanted to avoid that because the players left the dressing room with the spirit that we could turn the game around and go on to win it.

"So we paid a price for that and it made it difficult for the second half.

"Monaco looked strong with individual quality, we made some mistakes and they punished us. We had belief that we could have got a better result but we'll now work hard to improve before the season starts.

"We were missing lots of players and they will help us improve, but we wanted to do better. We're aware we're better than this, but we'll take our lessons from it."

Whilst some of our supporters look to make excuses, the new culture being generated at the Lane allows little time for such sentiment. You either produce or you don't. Wherever and whenever you are playing you give it your best shot and hold your hand up when you are not up to the required standard. If you can go away, work on it and put things right you have a chance to succeed, if you don't you won't play. They are the harsh facts of life for top teams in the Premier League.

The culture in football now is one of instant success and players have to be almost finished articles. Top clubs don't buy up and coming strikers and develop them in the team anymore, they can't afford to, they buy, as we have done with Soldado, a finished article because they can't risk doing anything else.

Teams chasing a Champions League spot can't afford the luxury of  'giving a player a go' simply to see if he will develop. A defender giving away 6 points while he learns to adapt will have cost you £35/40 million for missing the Champions League. A manager prepared to take that gamble is gambling on his own future, it's simply not an option, which is why we are desperate to sign a left-back and now a centre-back.

It's tough on Danny Rose, Tom Carroll, Harry Kane and Jake Livermore but that's the way it is. The loan system is now the development system. You send a player out to get a season under his belt and get back a better commodity, to either sell or introduce into your team. They'll learn more playing for someone else than they will sitting on a bench, not that there are many spots on our bench available.

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