Spurs boss AVB: I won’t necessarily pick a ‘better’ squad in Europa League

By Ben Pearce, Tottenham Correspondent

Published: 11:57 AM July 18, 2012 Updated: 1:32 PM October 14, 2020

Andre Villas-Boas intends to give the Europa League his full attention – but the new head coach says he will not necessarily field his best available players, and will pick each of his sides on a game by game basis.

Spurs’ previous manager Harry Redknapp rested his star players in Europe and effectively played a reserve team in the continental competition.

And, although his Portuguese successor is hoping to win the Europa League for a second time – following his success with FC Porto in 2011 – he has stopped short of vowing to field a full-strength line-up.

Villas-Boas said: “We would like to compete in the four competitions differently – particularly in the Europa League, which is the first European competition I won, and the only one. Hopefully I’ll get some more in the future.

“It’s also a competition which has so much history in this club, so we would like to extend our competition, in terms of titles, to all of them.”

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Asked to clarify whether he intends to play a stronger team in the Europa League than his predecessor, Villas-Boas replied: “I’m going to choose regarding what I see in training, because I’ve always done that. What I see in training has always been my decisive factor in the team that I select.

“It doesn’t mean that, for you guys, it’s the better squad – but for me it’s always the better squad at that moment, based on what I see. Obviously that will be the case in the Carling Cup and the FA Cup as well.”