Does MoPo know what he is doing?

[prawnsandwich]

Simple question.

 

[DCSPUR]

take this thread down

 

[prawnsandwich]

take this thread down

Why?
It's not a trick question. Either you think he does or he doesn't.

 

[eddiev14]

I'm guessing you think that he doesn't?

 

[prawnsandwich]

I'm guessing you think that he doesn't?

Why not put your own opinion instead of guessing mine?

 

[MetalFace D]

I'll bite.

Yes and no. I understand what he wants to do and what his philosophy is, which we do see glimpses of it in full action (against Chelsea and more notably, Arsenal) I think the defence has been an issue all season, we keep leaking in silly goals and i honestly think thats due to us missing a true CDM; we don't have an anchor, we need someone who covers the defence and and breaks up play effectively, unfortunately the closest we have to this is Capoue and he isn't going to be in the first team anytime soon. Mason and Bentaleb also don't cover our defence enough, especially for the type of system we play in and that is why we keep conceding unnecessary goals.

As for the 'no' part, Poch has only been with us for a season and is still assessing the squad, so he's going to make a few tactical mistakes here and there, we also have to take into consideration the fact that he's only had one summer TW to buy the necessary players he wants, so its rather unfair to assess him before he's had a chance to pick out the type of players he wants, which is probably why he keeps making suspect sub decisions.

I still think he's the right choice and we should stick by him.

Thats just my take.

 

[JerryGarcia]

If he identifies and fixes the main problem positions in our squad this summer then it will be hard for anyone to say he doesn't know what he's doing, until then he's earned the benefit of the doubt. I think he's done a great job so far but we need to start scoring more goals or conceding less.

Teams don't just win 3 in a row at Old Trafford though, it's almost like we had to lose this match or else time and space would fold in on themselves and the world would end. Poch might have predicted this and so picking the team he did actually makes him a true hero for all huamanity and the animal kingdom.

 

[eddiev14]

Why not put your own opinion instead of guessing mine?

Fine.

My opinion is yes, he knows exactly what he is doing.

However he has inherited a wretched squad and for almost 6 months now he has had to rely on a core or tremendously inexperienced players because:

A) There are some experienced professionals at our club who should be completely ashamed to call themselves professionals

B) In the last four transfer windows the club has purchased only one player (Eriksen) out of a grand total of about 15 signings who were good enough to improve our first team.

I hope this summer points A and B are dealt with by Levy, Baldini and Mitchell respectively so that we can give our extremely talented manager what he needs to turn us into the team we want us to become.

You?

 

[fortworthspur]

I think he does.

We simply arent as good as we were with Bale, Modric and VdV. He is producing reasonable results with the current talent level.

 

[cookiemonster]

I think he is unable or incapable of organizing/setup a team to defend properly

 

[JerryGarcia]

I think he is unable or incapable of organizing/setup a team to defend properly

His Southampton team last season let in 46 goals, that was less than us or 2nd place Liverpool and only 5 more than Arsenal who had a solid defence for a large part of that season. We've already let in 42 but we have a 20 year old CB in his debut season and average full backs, I think he just needs some better defenders to work with.

 

[DaSpurs]

I think he is unable or incapable of organizing/setup a team to defend properly

I don't think a starter for a WC Argentinian side at CB is clueless to set up any team how to defend, and I think that's only further evidence that the problem lies in the system as a whole. I think we're too easy to contain, too easy to counter, and too easy to plan for because we always play the exact same formation with the exact same system with almost the exact same players (which are very similar themselves). As a result, teams find it too easy to break us down.

 

[TTID2002]

Why not put your own opinion instead of guessing mine?

Why not put your own opinion in the thread that you start instead of forcing all of us to guess yours?

 

[Strikeb4ck]

I'm not sure yet. I will reserve judgement until next season when he has a squad of players that HE wants at the club.

For now I will give him a pass.

But I have made my feelings clear on how I think we are playing this season. Largely very poor, and he would probably be out of a job had Kane not emerged. We were simply shocking up until that point in the season, then hit a month or month and a half patch around Christmas where we were in great form - fortunately that's when you play the most games. But apart from that, we have had numerous woeful performances.

People were very optimistic heading into the United match but I just didn't see it...all the games we've had recently have been very poor for the most part - Fiorentina, Chelsea, West Ham, QPR, etc. The game against Swansea was an outlier.

I'm also a bit concerned with some of his team selections.

But for this season I will give him a pass.

 

[TH1239]

He's a good manager, with the potential to be great, but he could ultimately fail at Tottenham, just like he did at Espanyol, if he isn't backed in the coming transfer windows with players he wants (and the players he likely wants are ones that typically don't have dirt cheap release clauses).

So far in two transfer windows, he's not been provided a single player that fits his high press, fast transition philosophy. We haven't even signed ONE attacking player in his time at the club, which is strange, since we've essentially let Lennon, Holtby and Sigurdsson go in that same time period.

Beyond that, my only big issue with him so far during his tenure has been some very suspect team selections that have directly cost us points. He picked Chiriches twice over Vertonghen in matches earlier in the season (I believe Sunderland and West Brom), and we dropped points we shouldn't have as a result. His handling of Lamela and Dembele in the last month has been flat our poor. These two were our best players against Liverpool, then in the most critical 7 game stretch of the season, they each only start one single game (Dembele against West Ham and Lamela against Fiorentina away).

If you want to press high up the pitch and have players who constantly look to win the ball back, then at least one of these two needs to start. You'd almost certainly never see managers like Marcelo Bielsa or Jorge Sampaoli start a player like Andros Townsend after some of the performances he'd turned in throughout the season. Yet for some reason, Townsend started the Fiorentina game at home (completed lots of dribbles, but no end product) and then proceeded to start both the West Ham game and the Cup final against Chelsea. He wasn't good in either of those games, yet Poch strangely stuck with him for the next three games, too. Dembele, meanwhile, didn't play against Fiorentina at home so that he could start against West Ham, which was a fine decision. But then, Poch did something totally inexplicable: he didn't play Dembele at all against Fiorentina away and just had him on the bench against Chelsea and not even starting. That is the kind of thing that AVB would do last season that would have people rightly questioning his handling of the squad.

Poch has 9 games to really sort things out. I'll be very disheartened if I see the same starting XI as today against Leicester. I think Fazio, Lamela, and Demebele should all come in, and I'd actually even consider rotating Mason or Bentaleb out for at least one game.

 

[jezz]

Yes but not yesterday.
Playing Chadli and Townsend was just wrong.
Townsend was unlucky to be subbed but only because Chadli was so inept.
Lesson learned hopefully.
No more of them 2 please.

 

[nidge]

Why?
It's not a trick question. Either you think he does or he doesn't.

It's not as simple as he does or doesn't. There are areas in the middle and as Pochettino is still a relatively young coach he also has things he can learn and improve upon.

 

[shelfmonkey]

I don't think a starter for a WC Argentinian side at CB is clueless to set up any team how to defend, and I think that's only further evidence that the problem lies in the system as a whole. I think we're too easy to contain, too easy to counter, and too easy to plan for because we always play the exact same formation with the exact same system with almost the exact same players (which are very similar themselves). As a result, teams find it too easy to break us down.

Just like almost every other club then?!!!

 

[DaSpurs]

Just like almost every other club then?!!!

They don't though, especially the ones at the top. They adapt based on different players they have, have squads of strong depth to experiment with, and have loose variations of formations that are tailored somewhat to the individual players. We do not. Poch has very few players in the squad who seems to actually favor, we're low in depth as is, the players are always played in the same slots in the same formation regardless of personnel, we always play the high press and high line, and always play a flat double pivot without much cutting edge from deep. It's too rigid and too predictable. The only other side towards the top which adheres to a set plan is Chelsea, which they can get away with on outstanding quality in players that happen to be balanced themselves.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

What makes me wonder is the fact that this man played in defence for club & country & look at our defence. It has not improved this season, it's been consistantly piss poor