The transfer of Paulinho from Corinthians to Spurs was confirmed on Saturday to the relief of a lot of Spurs fans.
He has seen a dramatic rise in his career from roughing it in the Polish and Lithuanian leagues to gaining a starting role in the Brazil national team. His performances in the recent Confederations Cup brought him to prominence to the majority of the British media and it seems to be widely thought that Spurs have pulled off somewhat of a coup.
There is no doubt that Paulinho is an extremely talented player but Andre Villas-Boas needs to be careful with controlling expectations. His performances for Brazil were impressive but he was playing in his home country, in an immensely passionate and inspirational environment and with players that he is familiar.
Moving to England will be a big culture shock for him and there is also the language barrier to overcome. This is why Villas-Boas should be patient with introducing him into the Spurs starting team. A large transfer by any Premier League club is always heavily scrutinized by the British media, and experiencing this kind of criticism early into the process of adapting to a new country could be severely problematic to his integration.
Jupp Heynckes did a great job slowly introducing Javi Martinez into the Bayern Munich team. The lowering of expectations helped enable him to improve at his own rate and become critical for the Bayern side. This was proven when he produced a series of strong performances in the latter stages of the Champions League.
Villas-Boas was criticised at first for the way he managed the Lloris/Friedel situation. However he was proven correct in the long term with Lloris performing well for Spurs and he also maintained the support of Brad Friedel. This shows he has the backbone to not give in to media pressure and also the management skills to handle Paulinho's introduction.
Source: DSG
