The beginning of the end...

Trix said:

A few of the senior players are not happy ATM with tactics and individual roles/responsibilities within those tactics,.

How that's seen from the club's pov may well be different to how the players themselves see it!

Remember nearly all my stuff comes from agents not from the club.

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SpartanSpur said:

I do suspect Kane is one of them. The two man forward line is something to consider in tough away games, but we need to move away from it in the majority of games. Let Kane go back to being at the sharp end of the attack, where one smart little pass can give him a shot on goal. Moura just isn't cutting it against the low block. He occupies Kane's space and doesn't offer anything when he drops deep.

Dele will be another, he took a lot of flak last year when doing a job for the team. Let him play off of Kane again and I think we'll see an improvement on both.

As for the formation, I think the big complaint amongst the players will be the diamond formation and the pressure it puts on our full backs. The other thing will be the constant changes to formations and personnel. It's good we are becoming adapatable, but right now we need to go back to the early days and just establish a rock solid plan A. That's up to Poch.

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Trix said:

Ahh was waiting for this... are the players on low contracts and not wanting to resign Levy's fault or Pochs?

Eriksen is different, but none of the three are because of Levy/money!

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Japhet said:

Couple of great posts there. My one concern is whether Poch really has the heart for it at this moment in time. He was getting increasingly tetchy throughout our prolonged dip in form last season and then went into full blown euphoria at the CL quarter and semi final stages, and then into full on sulk after the final defeat. It all seemed very bi-polar.

The pattern has continued with a poor start to the season and all the transfer shenanigens which seem to have upset him, when he really should be enthused by the fact that Levy has delivered the 3 players he most wanted. That seems to be overshadowed by whatever issues are going on behind the scenes. As I've said before, elite managers take this stuff in their stride and if that's where Poch thinks he is, he needs to shape up and get the team motivated and firing on all cylinders. He needs to stop all the cryptic press conference bullshit which is doing as much to rock the boat as anything else and show some of the loyalty he displayed when Levy left him high and dry time and again in the transfer market.

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Primativ said:

The other thing is, his public comments he's made about his own future, fueling the uncertainty, has been a bit of an insult to the fans and club. He seems to have become very self serving over the last 12 months.

If you look at it objectively, it seems the wheels came off quite profoundly when Poch was linked to the United job in January and he did absolutely nothing to quash the rumours. I'm not saying it's all linked, but players are not stupid. They see the speculation. They probably wondered if Poch was casting eyes elsewhere, doubted his commitment? maybe in turn Poch started doubting theirs?

Or maybe the wheels came off before that. I've grown quite sick and tired the way he constantly seems to tease us with leaving his future so open and out there. Like he enjoys the uncertainty. Noone can deny he has come out with some utter bewildering quotes about his future, things that just didn't need to be said. Particularly towards the end of last season. We all commented on the quotes at the time, trying to understand his motivations for saying the things he was. We all guessed he was putting pressure on Levy but maybe it was the players and maybe he has failed at that.

Sometimes things run their course. It is very feasible the squad needs a new voice, different methods, a new project. If Poch does go, I'd like to see us go for a manager who has actually won things. I want to see exciting football but most of all I want to see us win trophies. It's hardly like we've been entertained over the past 18 months with Poch's football is it? His style of play is non existent and one of the most boring styles out there now, we've turned into AVB football.

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Primativ said:

That was unbelievable. Days before our biggest game in decades and he throws his future into doubt, lo and behold we then put in an utterly abject and demotivated performance.

Something stinks.

I think the people who think we are overreacting are going to get a nasty surprise, wouldn't surprise me if Poch was gone fairly soon.

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fishhhandaricecake said:

Spot on. So Mouriniho or Allegri then?

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Dougal said:

You seem to go very hard on our good luck and not so much on our bad. We gave City 2 good games in the CL. Lucas hat trick wasn’t luck. It’s was exciting, entertaining, nail biting, but it was a Poch/Levy signing living up to his potential. Just as much as any player who scores against us does. This complete dismissal of all the positive things we’ve achieved and the incessant highlighting of the negative is really only self-serving to a narrative that we lost to Newcastle and people have jettisoned the fragile amount of patience they hold to have a moan while we’re down.

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danielneeds said:

In what world does anyone see Mourinho coalescing happily in the same orbit as Levy? If you think there is tension at the club now, just wait until Jose was here six months.

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Primativ said:

I don't feel he justifies his place in the side at all. It's just my opinion, but if I feel like that watching games, I wonder if some of the players do.

Winks feels like Poch's pet. We will have to agree to disagree that he has grabbed his chance. Our CM last season was weak as hell, Sissoko carried us, Winks didn't.

All I'm saying is Trix mentioned that some senior players are unhappy with an or some individuals role in the team. To me Winks is the obvious candidate. We have been setting up with Winks as our DM and he doesn't protect the defence, so I can see why it could very well be linked to Verts making a comment. Based on the first 3 games, our defence has been exposed far too easily, even in the Villa game, when they broke on us they looked like scoring every opportunity. Same with Newcastle. We have zero protection, yet Poch sets up the same way. If we set up like that again on Sunday we will get a mauling.

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Shadydan said:

This would be a good argument if it wasn't so myopic.

Why is it we're the ones who were considered to be 'lucky' when we were missing key players in the games against Man City and Ajax?
Why is it we're the ones who were 'shit the bed' when we dropped points meaning that we let Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd back into the race for top 4

etc etc...

Luck argument doesn't wash with me, it's bollocks I'm afraid and we'd be here all day arguing the toss, that's why I said we are where we are, not where we could have been.

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Maske2g said:

Gave City a good game away in the Champions league? Are you sure?


We defended like children! It was daylight robbery!
Thankfully LaPorte gave use a couple of chances. (Take nothing away from the 2nd finish) & Llorente scored with his hip. Even the goal that never was showed sup for what we are in big games. Utter cowards.

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dudu said:

Ponced 2 wins? We didn't ponce anything off City. We Scored 4 goals against them over 2 games of football. Stop rewriting our history mate.

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Primativ said:

Sure he's loving it at the minute as he seems to get picked regardless of how poorly he plays.

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HenryDuquemin said:

What’s been so poor about Winks? Or is this just him being entirely blamed for playing sideways passes while we ignore the absolute lack of any decent movement upfront?

There are way, way bigger issues with our play than Harry Winks at the moment.

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Maske2g said:

In the 2nd game I saw some of the worst defending I've ever seen. We absolutely melted at the back to a man. They can all have a say for knob of the match.

Trippier for the first, absolutely no where near him and no interest in getting near him.

2nd goal. Rose, same as above.

3rd. Players falling over while passing on runners. Jan's feeble attempt at the front post.

4th. Embarrasing. Actually shit their pants, we had about 5 players to their 2.

The non goal. . Not enough room on the page. Lloris, Eriksen, Toby, Take you pick. Absolutely shit the bed.

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Maske2g said:

In the 2nd game I saw some of the worst defending I've ever seen. We absolutely melted at the back to a man. They can all have a say for knob of the match.

Trippier for the first, absolutely no where near him and no interest in getting near him.

2nd goal. Rose, same as above.

3rd. Players falling over while passing on runners. Jan's feeble attempt at the front post.

4th. Embarrasing. Actually shit their pants, we had about 5 players to their 2.

The non goal. . Not enough room on the page. Lloris, Eriksen, Toby, Take you pick. Absolutely shit the bed.

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