Is Andre Villas-Boas the man to end Valencia chaos?

There was an odd moment during Zenit’s 2-0 win over Valencia in midweek when the cameras panned in on the two technical areas – Andre Villas-Boas looking as animated as his team, Valencia coach Nuno looking as forlorn as his.

Nuno has lost seven of 19 games played this season and has picked up just six points in the first five games in the Champions League. Villas-Boas, who won the league last season and will leave the club at the end of this campaign, has 15 points in the Champions League.

There is an enduring relationship between AVB and Jorge Mendes, who is Valencia owner Peter Lim’s business partner and remains Valencia’s kingmaker. And it was enough to wonder if the coach shouldn't just board the plane from Saint Petersburg back to Spain with the rest of the Valencia team.

AVB will not be short of options when he walks away next summer. The question he will ask himself is the question most Valencia supporters are asking: Is the club actually moving in the right direction? Or is it just the players who are going places?

When Manchester City signed Nicolas Otamendi in August, Valencia supporters feared the worst. He led their defence last season and got some important goals at the other end too. It felt as though the lion-heart had been ripped out of the team.

At first they were told ‘don’t panic we’re getting Eliaquim Mangala instead’ but the only thing wrong with a deal that everyone in Valencia was convinced had been closed was that it seemed no one had bothered to ask the 24-year-old French defender and he declined the chance to move to Mestalla, preferring to fight for his place at Manchester City instead.

So Otamendi had got his big move and Valencia were without their most important player just as the season was about to start. Otamendi and Mangala are both Mendes players but they were now both at Manchester City.

The fans looked around for an inspirational new signing at the other end of the pitch but it was 19-year-old Santi Mina who was picked up from Celta Vigo. Another Mendes client and somebody else who will be able to use Valencia as a platform to get an even bigger move further down the line.

The lack of investment in the forward line has cost Valencia dear and the loss of Otamendi has been magnified by a long-term injury to keeper Diego Alves and the Argentine defender’s former partner Shkodran Mustafi who is currently out until the New Year.

With those three players in the team, Valencia might not have been the pushovers they have been in Europe so far this season. Without them on Tuesday there was a comedy of errors at the back and they were beaten easily.

At the weekend they face Sevilla, another club who have struggled so far this season, although there are important differences. Sevilla were drawn into the Champions League’s toughest group; Valencia into its easiest. And Sevilla supporter know how things work by now. Every summer they sell their best players and sometimes it takes a while before the squad renewal kicks in.

That was not meant to be the deal at Valencia.

Summer chaos set the tone for the season. The sporting director and former player Francisco Rufete left the club, as did president Amadeo Salvo and chief scout and Valencia legend Roberto Fabián Ayala.

Now power rests with owner Lim, Mendes and coach Nuno, who as a former goalkeeper was Mendes’ first ever client.

Valencia cannot afford to be too picky. Lim and Mendes have saved them from an impending financial Armageddon. And if Mendes uses the club to park his best young players there is no reason why that cannot be of huge benefit to the club too. Which brings things back to AVB.

Talk to players at Valencia and they speak very highly of Nuno’s assistant coach last season Ian Cathro. His replacement Phil Neville is also highly rated. Nuno has fewer supporters right now. He is seen as too hands-off for such a young team cutting its teeth in Europe.

AVB won with style at Porto, he was the wrong man at the wrong time at Chelsea, he was harshly sacked by Tottenham, his record at Zenit has been very impressive.

Time and the course of the rest of Valencia’s season will tell whether his next destination is Spain.