Here's a word AVB should recognise: Sack!
Last updated at 11:50 PM on 17th February 2012
Do you remember the quiz show Call My Bluff? Contestants would invent definitions for obscure words and try to fool their opponents into believing them.
Whenever I listen to an Andre Villas-Boas press conference I am convinced the man would have been utterly brilliant at it.
He's been throwing out ultimatums from what appears to be a position of serious weakness for days now without a flicker of self-doubt.
Call My Bluff: Frank Muir, Robert Robinson... and Andre Villas-Boas
According to AVB, he is absolutely sure owner Roman Abramovich is fully behind him.
What's more, he insists he is in complete control at Stamford Bridge, despite reports of a dressing room mutiny and some dismal performances.
Throughout, he employs a colourful vocabulary that quizmaster Robert Robinson would have been proud of in his day, drawing on his very expensive education at the Colegio do Rosario private school in Porto.
Villas-Boas instructed journalists that they had to become 'accultured' to owners like Abramovich, who say very little in public (i.e become familiar with).
He also said Chelsea needed to 'solidificate' their position in the top four. I checked. There is no such word and it appears to be Italian, but the meaning was clear and it still worked in the context of his discussion.
As Villas-Boas croaks out these eloquent assertions with unwavering confidence everyone wonders if is he hiding a 'Bluff' card in his envelope.
It's a crucial question.
The players have to believe in him or Chelsea will fail.
They have to have complete confidence in his method or 'the project', as he calls it, goes under. There is no real indication the players have signed up to AVB's scheme as yet and no real evidence of what that grand plan actually is.
Even so, he continues bluffing like a master, announcing that the playing staff 'do not have to back my project' because the owner is the only man that matters.
It is an extraordinary remark.
Villas-Boas had better hope Abramovich has brought his boots then, because it is a risky ploy to set himself at odds with the dressing room.
News that a number of players confronted their manager at a team meeting on Sunday, disputing his methods on issues ranging from man management to tactics was seriously damaging.
Everything from him since then has been an exercise in damage limitation, played out under the inert gaze of Abramovich lurking on the sidelines at the training ground.
'I am not concerned about a mutiny,' said Villas-Boas. 'My authority is total - because it is the owner's authority.'
But history shows Abramovich is as fickle as an owner can be.
His backing may indeed be total now, but an FA Cup defeat on Saturday followed by a Champions League exit against Napoli and that will surely evaporate.
Fickle owner: Roman Abramovich is a regular visitor to the training ground
Besides, since I'm among the many not quite 'accultured' to the phenomenon of resolutely silent owners, we only have Villas-Boas's word for all of this 'support'.
Abramovich remains mute and unreadable as ever. Remember, too, that AVB has not yet delivered on any of the immediate challenges he faced at Chelsea.
He once pronounced 'problem solved' when discussing the lingering puzzle of his ?50million misfit Fernando Torres.
It clearly remains anything but.
While at the back, for all his talents, David Luiz continues to perform with all the defensive acumen of a circus clown.
Sorely lacking: David Luiz (left) and Fernando Torres (right) have yet to show their true worth for Chelsea
The 'project' itself has only threatened to flicker into life on occasion. Usually, it has delivered fairly routine, sometimes even dull, football and Chelsea's fans pay enough cash every week to expect more than a yawn and fifth place.
Throughout it all, Villas-Boas keeps his poker face on, says Abramovich will give him time whatever happens, and looks to where Chelsea will be in three years' time.
True or Bluff? The next few days could answer that.
Barnes plays it straight on the race rows
I had a lively exchange with John Barnes on my Press Pass show on talkSPORT last Sunday, where he angrily offered some intriguing views on racism - opinions that became more lucid as he calmed down through the course of the interview.
Barnes, angry about the Patrice Evra v Luis Suarez fuss, said we often pay lip service to racism without taking practical measures to combat it.
Eloquent: John Barnes
However, he did not believe racism should be treated as a crime - a point on which we disagreed - and we differed again on his claim that football had made relatively little advance on racism in the past 20 years.
But Barnes' observations about bandwagons and the over emphasis on irrelevancies such as handshakes carried weight.
He added: 'In terms of overt racism, the situation at football matches has improved because we don't hear it. It hasn't improved in the way people feel about a different group of people though.
'All they have to do is keep their mouths shut for 90 minutes, and I'm not interested in you keeping your mouth shut.'
But having heard racist abuse rain down on Manchester City's black players in Portugal this week, I'll quite happily settle for people being forced to keep their mouths shut.
At least it's a start.
Barnes followed up his point on education being a key factor by seemingly going on a crash-course degree in English Literature himself, judging by a wordy follow-up piece that appeared under his name in The Times this week.
In it Barnes said: 'When Aristotle spoke about races he was differentiating between uncivilised barbarians and civilised Greeks. But it was introduced by governments, backed by the Church, to validate slavery and colonialism, to justify treating some people as less equal than others. Just as Linnaeus classified plants, so people were classified by the colour of their skin.'
Indeed.
They were saying something similar in The Boot Room only the other day.
I prefer the straight-talking Barnes.
Red card for the fast-trackers
Referee Stuart Attwell was demoted from the Premier League list and told to blow his whistle in the Football League instead after a number of recent errors.
Attwell was fast-tracked to the elite level at the age of 25, despite obvious signs that it was all proving too much for him.
So perhaps the people who put him in that invidious position should be relegated as well?
Keep debt-ridden Rangers out of Championship
How ironic that at a time when Scotland is making bold noises about devolution and going it alone, their national game is collapsing in a disastrous heap.
The news that Rangers are beyond broke means the Scottish league is now a one-horse race, destroyed as an attraction for TV companies and sponsors alike.
Rangers owe anything between ?49million and ?100m, with season-ticket money 'missing' and mired in a financial mess that it could take decades to escape from.
Desolate picture: The John Greig statue outside Ibrox Stadium
One solution being touted is that Rangers could play in the English Football League at Championship level.
Some see this as the only possible solution for the Old Firm.
But why would English football want a broken Rangers on board?
No reason whatsoever, unless they intend to play Portsmouth in a debtor's League every week, one of the few competitions that will be expanding over the course of the coming seasons.
On his way: Why would Robin Van Persie want to stay?
Why Van Persie has to go
There is talk that Arsenal are planning a 'clear-out' after their disastrous Champions League defeat in Milan.
It sounds decisive, it sounds like affirmative action. It transmits a message that second best won't be tolerated.
But the truth is Arsene Wenger's real concern is not going to centre on which underachieving players he might be able to shove out the door - his worry is the one who might clear out of his own accord.
Robin van Persie is a sensational player, a contender for Footballer Of The Year and a talent whose individual performances have papered over some of the cracks at Arsenal in recent weeks.
But he is certain to be asking himself why he would want to stay with Arsenal for another year when some staggering opportunities will be laid in front of him this summer.
Van Persie has one season left on his contract and he is 28 years old.
He is in the prime of his career - and at a club that is doing little more than slip towards mediocrity.
The FA Cup is being billed as Arsenal's last possible route to salvation this season, but I doubt even winning that would be enough to keep Van Persie.
Tevez must be barking
Carlos Tevez doesn't help himself, does he?
After sulking for months, he strolled back into Manchester City claiming he had been 'treated like a dog' while wearing a jacket with the word 'Billionaire' emblazoned across the back.
I can only assume the pampered prima donna must have been thinking about one of those dogs that has a bank account in Monaco?
Big shot: Tevez leaves training at Carrington (left) as City continue to play out a charade with their striker
The lad certainly has developed a misplaced narcissistic streak, one that was peculiarly in evidence when he landed at the airport earlier in a T-shirt adorned with a picture of his own face.
Roberto Mancini and City have to go through this charade of 'welcoming' Tevez back to ensure he does not wriggle away from the club free by invoking some employment clause or legal claim relating to a 'restraint of trade'.
But he is actually about as 'welcome' at the club as a bout of gastroenteritis.
As for the idea that he has been treated like a dog, Tevez is clearly wrong for the following reasons: Dogs are loyal. Dogs obey simple commands. Dogs can be trained to 'stay'.
Tevez does none of these things.
He is only at City so that other clubs can ask: how much is that doggy in the window?
And until he is sold, they should fit him with a muzzle.
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Here's a word AVB should recognise: Sack!