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He didn't have what it took to manage Chelsea.

Couldn’t handle the dressing room.

Couldn’t handle the expectations.

Couldn’t even handle the media.

So when Andre Villas-Boas poses for pictures at White Hart Lane next week, addresses Planet Football at large and the Tottenham fans in particular, he has to show how much he has changed in the last 12 months.

It is not just that the Portuguese must demonstrate he is chastened from his nine months at Stamford Bridge.

That is just the necessary starting point, although it is hard to believe even his bruising exit from SW6 will harm Villas-Boas’ extensive sense of his own self-worth.

Conviction, belief and attention to detail make the 34-year-old what he is, what he was at Porto - when he took his own “Invincibles” to a league triumph and Europa League success - and what made him Chelsea’s No 1 choice to replace Carlo Ancelotti this time last summer.

But it was a lack of people skills which caused his ignominious, forced exit, as much as the failure to get his messages across, to transform Roman Abramovich’s vision for a side which resembled “Barcelona in blue”.

(Image: Darren Walsh)

Doubtless, Villas-Boas has spent those long, free hours since March on his various motorbikes in the mountains of his homeland - the down-time where he finds his moments of peace - reflecting on what went wrong, how his “three-year” plan disintegrated in the space of seven months.

Returning to London, effectively to the scene of the crime, represents a gamble on both Villas-Boas’ part and that of Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy.

The Spurs board had their doubts over Villas-Boas’ fitness for the task - a wariness which arose from his at times bizarre and self-defeating conduct at Chelsea.

Senior board members wanted to know, before Tottenham even made contact with the Portuguese, that he recognised his errors, had resolved to be different, better, more mature.

And that he could avoid needless, foolish and damaging spats with the media as well.

The messages that came back from his Algarve retreat were loud and clear.

Villas-Boas does accept he was the agent of his own destruction, that he made a tough job tougher, that he was responsible for trying to impose his will too swiftly on a dressing room that was reluctant to follow. Was too set in its ways.

He was not solely responsible for Chelsea’s travails - as Abramovich made clear when he ordered the Chelsea squad to assemble at Cobham for what basically amounted to a dressing-down and final warning, just after AVB cleared his desk and slipped away for the final time on March 4.

But it was Villas-Boas who told Didier Drogba - the man destined to bring Abramovich the trophy he craved most with his final touch of the ball in a Chelsea shirt in Munich last month - that he was no longer good enough to start games for the club.

It was Villas-Boas who alienated Frank Lampard when he accused one of Chelsea’s greatest servants of being selfish, self-obsessed and only interested in his own image and aggrandisement.

And it was Villas-Boas who dropped Ashley Cole and Lampard for the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie at Napoli, asked Raul Meireles and Ramires to function as the double pivot in midfield, and got it so horribly wrong as the Blues lost 3-1.

Getting into fights from day one was not the right thing to do, even if Villas-Boas believed - and was encouraged to believe - that he was merely carrying out Abramovich’s orders.

Villas-Boas did, in the aftermath of a horror-show 5-3 home loss to Arsenal last October, recognise that his idea of a high, pressing game could not work with a defence orchestrated and led by John Terry - the skipper who was one of the few remaining real supporters by the end.

That Porto model though is the game he will try to get Spurs to play - but perhaps with players and a dressing room more conducive and open to his technical, detailed (occasionally over-complicated), dossier-driven approach.

The news that Gareth Bale has signed a four-year deal, with Icelandic midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson, superb on loan at Swansea, set to arrive from Hoffenheim - even if Luka Modric’s future is less certain - will be a massive boost for the Spurs fans.

(Image: Action Images)

The White Hart Lane faithful are still doubting the wisdom of sacking Harry Redknapp, the man responsible for three straight top-five finishes for the first time since Bill Nicholson was manager.

What might help is a simple act of geography.

Villas-Boas will be walking into what is, quite literally, a new dressing room environment, where the players do not even have their favourite spots to get changed in and relax.

Next month, Spurs will open a new £30million state-of-the-art training base near Enfield - 10 miles round the M25 from their current HQ in Chigwell, Essex.

For everyone, including the new manager, it will be a walk into the unknown, a chance to stake out territory.

Villas-Boas will not be intruding on a private sanctuary equipped with the kind of hidden crevices and corners that players always find to mope and moan.

But he does have to show the faith of Levy is justified.

That he has learned.

That he can lead by imploration and explanation, not by just telling players to do what he tells them.

Many will argue that Villas-Boas does not deserve a second chance.

In truth, he does. But he has to take it.

This is a three-year plan he must see through.

He has to demonstrate he has matured, returned a better man, a better manager.

Because there will not be a third chance.

* Follow all of Tottenham's summer transfer moves at www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/tottenham%20transfer%20news

* See how the hunt for Spurs' new boss has unfolded at www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/next%20tottenham%20manager