Villas-Boas deserves time, says Neville

Gary Neville says Andre Villas-Boas deserves another chance of success in the English Premier League at Tottenham.

The former Porto manager was sacked by Roman Abramovich following Chelsea’s poor form in the first half of the 2011/12 season, but has taken over at rivals Tottenham after Harry Redknapp’s sacking in June this year.

England coach Neville believes that while Villas-Boas may be fortunate to have landed the Spurs job after a chastening time at Chelsea, he has improved as a manager since then.

“We shouldn’t be too quick to judge Andre Villas-Boas a failed manager. He has admitted that he made mistakes at Chelsea but you can be sure he will have learned from them,” he wrote in the Daily Mail.

“(Villas-Boas) might have been fortunate to be invited back into such a good job so quickly, but I don’t begrudge him that.

“In fact, I hope that more managers are given second and third chances to prove their worth rather than be written off too quickly.

“The knocks you take while you still have the L plates on as a manager might be the making of you.

“Too often we bury people on the basis of their early mistakes and brand them failures, or inept, or tactically naive.

“We’re very quick to trash reputations before people have even got going in their managerial careers.”

Neville believes the 35-year-old showed great strength leading his side to an unlikely win against Manchester United at Old Trafford last month, proving his doubters wrong.

“Leading Tottenham to a win at United helped ease some of the pressure on him from those who do expect – or even want – him to fail,” he said.

Tottenham, who suffered a 4-2 loss at home to Chelsea in the English Premier League on Saturday, sit fifth on the table – eight points behind Villas-Boas’ former club.