The Mauricio Pochettino thread

United get embarrassed this week. Sack Ole. We get embarrassed next week. United go for Poch. Everyone's a winner.

United get a new manager who gets a new project

We get rid of Poch for free and make some money in the process.

I just struggle to see what the best move is. Whatever my thoughts on Jose or Allegri as tactical managers I just don't see ether one working well with Levy's budget. It's nice and romantic to think Jose will do it to prove his ability, but come on, he is used to working with huge budgets, he may not even know how to operate on a Levy budget anymore. And even if he does, why would he want to. I very much doubt he's short of offers. Levy is just way to tight for any big name manager. So then you look at Howle or Rodgers etc. Obv they could, but then I just don't see Kane or Son sticking around past summer to see if they will make this team into contenders. Both players should be playing for one of the best teams in the world. Ether of those two ask for a move and we are fucked regardless of what contracts they have. Obv, if Poch stays and we end the season mid table that is also us fucked. But unless Levy is really willing to spend like a challenging club we are not going anywhere regardless of who is in charge.

Aside from all this our team is broken. We need serious investment and I don't see how any manager is going to get much more out of this lot for longer then a new manager bounce of a few games. Too many players want out of Spurs, not just out from Poch. Taking all this in to consideration I completely understand why Levy would not pull the trigger. And I myself am not really sure what we should do as I don't see an obvious answer. The situation is so much more complicated then just sacking or not sacking Poch.

Ronwol196061 said:

The quality of our football has been crap. You talk of our players as an average lot that are badly in need of some quality.
These players should at least destroy some of these weaker teams at worst.
Our system was built in a certain type of way,mostly of a highly fit tough defence and playing off the counter.
We have so many quality players even now and Poch cant adjust his game. Every game is a struggle.
We cant even beat Colchester ffs

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I truly get your frustrations. I'm a Spurs fan like you. I'm not happy with what I'm seeing either. Pochettinho imo is one of the better managers he's given certain players enough rope and they've really hung him out to dry ie contracts not being signed now we're hearing various leaks to the press about being trained to hard Poch is a control freak etc. Maybe he'll get the sack that's the nature of the beast but I'd still want 5 - 7 players from our current squad released sold sidelined... Wanyama Lloris Aurier Alderweireld Vertonghen Rose Eriksen

skaz04nik said:

Didn't we try it vs Brighton?


Do you seriously believe Toby and Verts will significantly improve? Or Aurier? Or Rose?

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There's significantly improving and there's doing the basics right, these players forms just do not collectively fall of a cliff in a year, they can improve.

double0 said:

I truly get your frustrations. I'm a Spurs fan like you. I'm not happy with what I'm seeing either. Pochettinho imo is one of the better managers he's given certain players enough rope and they've really hung him out to dry ie contracts not being signed now we're hearing various leaks to the press about being trained to hard Poch is a control freak etc. Maybe he'll get the sack that's the nature of the beast but I'd still want 5 - 7 players from our current squad released sold sidelined... Wanyama Lloris Aurier Alderweireld Vertonghen Rose Eriksen

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Let hi get out a song on the other players. Dele played well yesterday Ill give him that but all around its too little too late for the team. More players or not. there is something seriously wrong.

Attackers:
Kane,Son,Moura,Dele,Lamela,Eriksen

Defenders Toby,Sanchez,Verts,Rose,

Midfielders Winks,NDombele,Sissoko,Dier

Poch cant get a song out of them

No Salah in Liverpool team today, he will be nicely rested to wreak further havoc next week , hope Poch has a plan.

Said it lon

SirHarryHotspur said:

No Salah in Liverpool team today, he will be nicely rested to wreak further havoc next week , hope Poch has a plan.

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Sissoko at right back with Victor back in central mid, that'll open them up.

skaz04nik said:

Ironically Poch did pretty much everything that was discussed on SC
- changed the formation. then again and again - getting worse
- dropped CE, brought him back, dropped again - no change
- tried Sanchez, dropped him, tried again - getting worse
- played KWP, was unhappy then switched to Aurier - no improvement

Can someone explain me what exactly Allegri could do with our current team, teach Winks how to pass fwd ? Sissoko how to strike on target?

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Allegri might accomplish
the former fairly quickly
but the impossible takes longer.

double0 said:

Pretty harsh words.
I disagree he is a fake.
Pochettinho is a good manager let's be fair.
He has in his time improved players and been able to work magic on a tight budget.
We will have to wait and see how this all pans out.
I personally am in favour of Levy backing Pochettinho for a couple of windows with incoming and the obvious outgoings so he can build the next version.
I get others reservation who believe Pochettinho has failed to win trophies and may have lost the players and our results over the last 9 months is unacceptable so should be sacked and we move onto the next.

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Yep everyone can surely see historically that even the best managers fail in the end.
Would love magic to make it suddenly work again but can’t see any magic about.

stevenurse said:

United get embarrassed this week. Sack Ole. We get embarrassed next week. United go for Poch. Everyone's a winner.

United get a new manager who gets a new project

We get rid of Poch for free and make some money in the process.

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No. No way we should let him go Man Utd. Probably what the bloody plan is, who knows. Would be disappointing to see Poch go to another P/L club.

I think above all we need to question (and it's a time old question), when does a philosophy reach its end? When does it become not a philosophy but an actual thing you can realise?

A lot of these discussions eventually become labelled echo chambers, and they always will be with this many people voicing opinions on a common subject, especially with so many variables to react upon. But, it's never been our job, or career, or something most of us will never be paid to do. Poch does get paid, and his echo chamber is starting to wear thin with me. When will his philosophy become fruitful? Because to me, and like him as a character as much as I do, it seems his philosophy has been overtaken by other managers and the focus he has on his philosophy seems to have got old very quickly.

If there's a few standout points to his philosophy that I clearly remember from his tenure so far and some of the pros along the way have been, for me, the attention to fitness, which has been highly effective, his high press, which was highly effective, and the way he built this squad into a team. He helped us get our first wins and higher league positions over Utd., Chelsea and Arsenal for years and got us into the Champions League consistently. On our day we can beat anyone. We have definitely had moments of magic we've all desired for years under Pochetinno, and he delivered on his objective to make sure our first season in the new stadium was in the CL. He hasn't done that much too badly really, when you look at his pros.

On balance, some of the cons, which stand out for me, was his constant reluctance to ever make a bold statement about progress. He wouldn't ever really make bold statements about going for the title or ambitions in that regard. He'd get so far in cup games and then decide to swap players for finals like Vorm for Lloris, Chelsea 2015, and then do similar in the CL final with Moura and Kane and not learn from it. He has also suffered when playing the other big teams in the league, see this article back in February 2018...

Mauricio Pochettino, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, has said his side must improve their dismal away record against the Premier League’s top sides if they are to go one step further and claim the title.

A 2-1 win over Manchester City in February 2016 is the only victory Spurs have claimed in 18 away games against the other members of the Premier League’s so-called Big Six. They have lost 11 times on the road against the league’s biggest teams under Pochettino, including three defeats this season.

Spurs face Liverpool on Sunday at Anfield, where they have won just two games out of 25 meetings in the Premier League.

“That is why maybe we miss a title, why we don’t win the Premier League,” Pochettino said when asked about his side’s poor record on the road against the top sides. “Maybe because we are the younger team in the Premier League, maybe we need time to mature. There are many reasons why this happens that we cannot win most of the games that we play away from home.

There are other reasons, like not playing new signings and clearly favouring some players, but as much as I have loved having Poch here, he's not the messiah, he really isn't. Blah blah, turn down players, didn't get money, did get money, whatever. One party says there is money and the other says there's not. Then they swap stories. This just isn't something that's working and it's time for a change.

Who knows? January might come, we get rid of Aurier, Rose, Wanyama, Vertonghen, Alderwiereld, Eriksen, and sign 500 million pounds worth of replacements and we might finish 4th again. Then we restart the philosophy and give Poch another 6 years? I dunno, it's not that I hate him, I just want a change now.

Even Poch says in the article, 'maybe we need time to mature', well here we are. We're worse. If we give him a load of young new players will he just say we need to wait and mature again?

Gutting really.

SirHarryHotspur said:

No Salah in Liverpool team today, he will be nicely rested to wreak further havoc next week , hope Poch has a plan.

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I'm well past the point of looking at opponents teams and hoping for missing players, we have way too many problems of our own

soup said:

I think above all we need to question (and it's a time old question), when does a philosophy reach its end? When does it become not a philosophy but an actual thing you can realise?

A lot of these discussions eventually become labelled echo chambers, and they always will be with this many people voicing opinions on a common subject, especially with so many variables to react upon. But, it's never been our job, or career, or something most of us will never be paid to do. Poch does get paid, and his echo chamber is starting to wear thin with me. When will his philosophy become fruitful? Because to me, and like him as a character as much as I do, it seems his philosophy has been overtaken by other managers and the focus he has on his philosophy seems to have got old very quickly.

If there's a few standout points to his philosophy that I clearly remember from his tenure so far and some of the pros along the way have been, for me, the attention to fitness, which has been highly effective, his high press, which was highly effective, and the way he built this squad into a team. He helped us get our first wins and higher league positions over Utd., Chelsea and Arsenal for years and got us into the Champions League consistently. On our day we can beat anyone. We have definitely had moments of magic we've all desired for years under Pochetinno, and he delivered on his objective to make sure our first season in the new stadium was in the CL. He hasn't done that much too badly really, when you look at his pros.

On balance, some of the cons, which stand out for me, was his constant reluctance to ever make a bold statement about progress. He wouldn't ever really make bold statements about going for the title or ambitions in that regard. He'd get so far in cup games and then decide to either swap players for finals like Vorm for Lloris, Chelsea 2015, and then do similar in the CL final with Moura and Kane. He has also suffered when playing the other big teams in the league, see this article back in February 2018...

Mauricio Pochettino, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, has said his side must improve their dismal away record against the Premier League’s top sides if they are to go one step further and claim the title.

A 2-1 win over Manchester City in February 2016 is the only victory Spurs have claimed in 18 away games against the other members of the Premier League’s so-called Big Six. They have lost 11 times on the road against the league’s biggest teams under Pochettino, including three defeats this season.

Spurs face Liverpool on Sunday at Anfield, where they have won just two games out of 25 meetings in the Premier League.

“That is why maybe we miss a title, why we don’t win the Premier League,” Pochettino said when asked about his side’s poor record on the road against the top sides. “Maybe because we are the younger team in the Premier League, maybe we need time to mature. There are many reasons why this happens that we cannot win most of the games that we play away from home.

There are other reasons, like not playing new signings and clearly favouring some players, but as much as I have loved having Poch here, he's not the messiah, he really isn't. Blah blah, turn down players, didn't get money, did get money, whatever. One party says there is money and the other says there's not. Then they swap stories. This just isn't something that's working and it's time for a change.

Who knows? January might come, we get rid of Aurier, Rose, Wanyama, Vertonghen, Alderwiereld, Eriksen, and sign 500 million pounds worth of replacements and we might finish 4th again. Then we restart the philosophy and give Poch another 6 years? I dunno, it's not that I hate him, I just want a change now.

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Good to analyze the situation.
I think one of the negative things is the slow build ups and with it the lack of creating space. We have too few creative players to open up the game earlier.
I also think that Pochs ideas are base heavier on defence and it was good before.Younger and fit,hard tackling kept us in and it would create the space in the form of quick counters.
There was a lack of a plan B.One of the reasons was the lack of creative players.Poch was more about the defensive side.
This season we bought 4 attacking type players.Only one,Ndombele,has played.
Ndombeke showed a lot of promise going forward and making quick passes but I'm not sure Poch knows how to work with him.
There are a whole bunch of attackers that cant really find opportunities to shoot.
The reason is the midfield is not built for any creativity.Poch doesnt seem to find it enough of a value and doesnt nurture it so time and time again we have a hard time piercing through.
Now he lost his edge in defence with power and pace gone, there isnt much left after all that

SirHarryHotspur said:

No Salah in Liverpool team today, he will be nicely rested to wreak further havoc next week , hope Poch has a plan.

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And that is the difference between Klop n Poch
He dont need Salah every frikin game, especially the meanless ones

AnotherSpursFan said:

And that is the difference between Klop n Poch
He dont need Salah every frikin game, especially the meanless ones

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I'm sure he's got a plan, won't make the slightest bit of difference, if he hasn't managed to get the players back on side though. Not even sure that's even possible now.

stevenurse said:

United get embarrassed this week. Sack Ole. We get embarrassed next week. United go for Poch. Everyone's a winner.

United get a new manager who gets a new project

We get rid of Poch for free and make some money in the process.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the Man Utd attitude alright.

Surely Levy needs to act soon.

stonebrow said:

Surely Levy needs to act soon.

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You'd think so, but then I thought Levy might act after the Brighton game, so who knows

Way Man U have approached 1st half no sacking of Solskjær yet, still another half to go so could change.

TH Women won on penalties today so how about demote Poch to women's team and promote Karen & Juan to 1st team.

skaz04nik said:

Ironically Poch did pretty much everything that was discussed on SC
- changed the formation. then again and again - getting worse
- dropped CE, brought him back, dropped again - no change
- tried Sanchez, dropped him, tried again - getting worse
- played KWP, was unhappy then switched to Aurier - no improvement

Can someone explain me what exactly Allegri could do with our current team, teach Winks how to pass fwd ? Sissoko how to strike on target?

Click to expand...

Coach the team in a consistent system that they're comfortable with?
Make the players think that they're valued members of the squad?
Make them believe that the manager isn't thinking about walking out?
Lift the mood around the club?
Make them think they can win something?
Etc.

There's a hundred things they could do differently, which is why there are so many managerial changes.