Andre Villas-Boas was sacked as Tottenham manager on this day in 2013.
A 5-0 home defeat to Liverpool saw the Portuguese lose his job, following a 6-0 loss at Manchester City the previous month.
Spurs were seventh in the Premier League, and had comfortably progressed from their Europa League group. They were only five points adrift of Manchester City in fourth, and eight behind rivals Arsenal at the top of the table, but the nature of their defeats hurt Villas-Boas’ position.
The former Chelsea boss insisted he would not resign as he was not a “quitter” after the loss to Liverpool but, after being summoned to a meeting with chairman Daniel Levy, his future was taken out of his hands, with the club issuing a statement confirming his departure was “by mutual consent and in the interests of all parties”.
During his 18 months in charge, Villas-Boas won 53.7 per cent of his league games, which at the time was the highest of any Tottenham manager since the Premier League era began in 1992.
He led Spurs to a fifth-placed finish in the Premier League in his first season but the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a then-world record fee had a drastic effect on his team.
The club reinvested over £100million on Paulinho, Roberto Soldado, Nacer Chadli, Etienne Capoue, Christian Eriksen, Vlad Chiriches and Erik Lamela with the money from the sale of the Wales international but Tottenham were thoroughly unconvincing, particularly at home.
Tim Sherwood was placed in charge of Tottenham’s next match – a Capital One Cup quarter-final against West Ham – and was eventually placed in caretaker charge until the end of the season, when the club appointed Mauricio Pochettino.
Villas-Boas has since had spells as manager of Zenit Saint Petersburg, Shanghai SIPG and Marseille.
