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.”

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.”