(SportsNetwork.com) - Andre Villas-Boas arrived in England in June 2011 with plenty of fanfare, but he leaves the country less than three years later with his tail between his legs having failed to live up to expectations at both Chelsea, and most recently, Tottenham.
Villas-Boas was hailed as one of the game's brightest young minds after guiding FC Porto to a treble-winning campaign in 2010-11, which included an unbeaten league season and a Europa League title, making the 33-year-old the youngest manager to ever win a European trophy.
Naturally Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich felt compelled to snap up the young Portuguese boss with an exorbitant fee of $20 million to activate his release clause from Porto, hoping that he was unearthing the next Jose Mourinho.
Instead, Villas-Boas lasted just eight months at Stamford Bridge before being fired in February. And to make matters worse, interim manager Roberto Di Matteo took over and guided Chelsea to the Champions League title.
That failure can almost be forgiven as Villas-Boas was making a big jump from Porto to Chelsea and found himself with nearly impossible expectations to meet under a trigger-happy owner in Abramovich who is famous for keeping his managers on a short leash.
However, he was given a quick reprieve by one of Chelsea's London rivals, Tottenham, which signed Villas-Boas to a three-year contract in July 2012.
His first season at White Hart Lane went well with Spurs amassing a club- record 72 points in the league, although that total wasn't enough to earn Champions League qualification.
Much of Tottenham's success that season was due to the exploits of star winger Gareth Bale, who opted for a record move to Real Madrid over the summer that netted the club a fee of $132 million.
That type of sale allowed Spurs to embark on a spending spree that included the arrivals of Nacer Chadli, Paulinho, Christian Eriksen and Etienne Capoue, in addition to a pair of $40 million players in Roberto Soldado and Erik Lamela.
The thinking before this season was that the new infusion of talent would make Spurs a more balance side, instead of relying time and again on the match- winning talents of Bale.
However, Tottenham has looked like a side with few ideas in the offensive third with just 15 goals in 16 league games, a total that eclipses just five other sides in the top flight.
You can make the case that with so many new faces there was always going to be a tough transition period. Yet Villas-Boas still hasn't figured things out four months into the season, and after Sunday's 5-0 humiliation at White Hart Lane at the hands of Liverpool, it was no surprise to see the boss put out of his misery.
A 3-0 home defeat to West Ham in October placed doubt in the minds of the Tottenham supporters, while a 6-0 pasting at Manchester City really turned up the heat on Villas-Boas.
A draw with Manchester United followed by wins over Fulham and Sunderland offered a nice response, but Sunday's debacle was the last straw, despite Tottenham residing just five points from a place in the top four.
The roster has enough talent to contend for a top-four place, but at this point it is clear that a new voice is needed in the dressing room who can bring with him some fresh ideas.
At just 36 years of age, Villas-Boas should take some time to recover from a trying three years in England before turning his attention to a new challenge.
A job outside of England would appear to be best at this point, and maybe he can latch on with a Spanish club or even return home to his roots in Portugal.
A manager doesn't win a treble in any league without having some kind of idea of what he is doing, and despite his recent struggles, Villas-Boas still has plenty of time to prove himself.
He may have simply made too big a jump when going from Porto into the cauldron of the English Premier League.
The important thing, though, is that Villas-Boas uses this experience as a valuable learning tool and that it will ultimately be just a bump in a long and successful career.
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