The beginning of the end...

[Gilzeanking]

Two weeks ago he was absolutely beaming before the Villa match, now all of a sudden since we lost people are concerned by his comments, people just look into stuff that aren't there and end up whipping themselves into a frenzy.

It should be added that several insiders are putting petrol on the rumour flames here atm .

That is what has made this thread so long .

 

[Gassin's finest]

Come on, lets just get Harry back, yeah?

https://www.football365.com/news/harry-redknapp-great-lad-eriksen-has-to-play

Bit of 5 a side, ketchup on the table, let the lads have some fun. Play your best players, let them express themselves. Simple game, innit.

 

[Gb160]

Come on, lets just get Harry back, yeah?

You're not fooling anyone, you're as worried as the rest of us.
You wept in the foetal position all night, admit it.

 

[bat-chain]

How nauseating for Levy and Pochettino to have to listen to that.

 

[beats1]

I think we are potentially seeing the beginning of the end, but the end being the end of this team and us going in to a rebuild mode

We may still make champions league as we still have the quality but if at the end of the season we have Rose leaving joined by Vertonghen, Alderwiereld and Eriksen leaving for a free, well that's end of the team that took us to 2nd and 3rd in the league

 

[Gassin's finest]

You're not fooling anyone, you're as worried as the rest of us.
You wept in the foetal position all night, admit it.

I'll admit to being a tiny bit excited about Harry with this squad

 

[hakano]

Blame Levy? Why would he have anything to do with issues

Why would must he have anything everything to do with issues at the club?

If you ask yourself the five whys you might start to understand why the best manager of our generation at the club has gone from overachieving to underperforming.

 

[Gb160]

If you ask yourself the five whys you might start to understand why the best manager of our generation at the club has gone from overachieving to underperforming.

What?

 

[SpartanSpur]

3 ITKs now all saying similar things, not good.

I'm really concerned the issue is where Poch's head is at. For the new project to work he needs to be bang up for it and I'm not sure he is right now. He seems fed up most of the time. If his heart is not in it we are in trouble. Trix's info suggests Poch is a big part of the problem currently. If he is lacking motivation it will trickle down to the players.

Fingers crossed things have improved since the wake up call on Sunday. NLD could be ideal timing to get everyone on the same page...

 

[Gassin's finest]

What?

https://sebpearce.com/bullshit/

 

[hakano]

If you break it down 5 years at a time, the club has improved immensely since 2001. Even before Poch arrived.

Improved ever so slowly and to be honest he took over where the club was at a very low point under Sugar. We have qualified for the CL 5 times in total under Levy as an example and guess who’s overseen 4 of those in consecutive years? So the rapid improvement under Poch has put the club way ahead of where it would have been otherwise.

 

[Dougal]

What?

You’ve started badly.

Just read about it. Worth googling. My 4 year old daughter is an expert.

 

[hakano]

I wouldn't say he's lost the dressing room, but things are far from harmonious. I don't know whether it's a build up of pressure, expectation, frustration or a combination of all 3 but he is not the same motivational maestro the players would have ran through walls for 12 months ago.


I honestly wouldn't be disappointed if Zidane got the push tomorrow.

But we’d still be stuck with Levy even if Poch goes. Which manager can be successful on the pitch at the level we now demand with him negotiating all our transfers?

Fans now want us challenging for the title, not going to happen just with a change of manager.

I’ve seen it all on this thread, some even believe Poch has had the same backing as Klopp and Pep ?

 

[hakano]

Devils advocate, but he could have also just not piped up with the comment. It hardly makes him sound committed to the cause long term.

He fucked up big time playing mind games with Levy in front of the press when he should have it done it behind closed doors.

 

[ziggy]

Maybe levy's putting feelers out to see how the fanbase would react to poch getting the boot ?
He could read this thread and still be none the wiser ?

 

[Matthew]

Still going with the meltdown, are we? You people are beyond saving. Go and believe what you want. Us rational people will just be here laughing at you in 3 weeks time.

 

[Coyboy]

I know what you are saying, but you must get what I mean here. The villa game was a struggle, and we were 15 minutes away from defeat, we got battered at City and lost on Sunday. Basically, none of the games have been anything like convincing, not what you'd expect from a top 3 side. You can include 5 months of last season in this assessment too.

You can't blame new signings not being bedded in, or injuries. We had loads of top quality players out there for all 3 games. It seems we've become an excuse factory under Poch recently, and whilst some were justified at the time, like playing at Wembley and a bad injury list last season, now they have to stop. Poch really has nowhere to hide this season.



The Villa game was very much like the Newcastle game. Granted we played slightly better, but it was still extremely slow and pedestrian. yes we pummeled them with shots but we didn't create many clear cut chances at all. The difference is Villa wilted once we found the equaliser, but it was still skin of your teeth stuff. Nobody can say it was a convincing performance. We were all sitting there at 65 minutes feeling exactly like we were on Sunday. The last 15 minutes ensured the previous 70 minutes of huffing and puffing were largely forgotten.

I don't need to fit a narrative, the results and performances do that for me. We have taken 15 points from as many League games and lost 11 of the last 21 matches in all competitions, winning just seven.

Some of it. In 2019 in the league:

-We battered Cardiff.
-We battered United and lost, we then lost Kane and he was more or less done for the season after getting injured against against City.
-We played poorly at Fulham and won (enter cliché about winning when not playing well). I think for both of these games we were missing Son.
-We beat Watford late on after battering them by which time we were also missing Dele.
-We then beat Newcastle and Leicester, playing well in both (yes to be fair scoring late and with Leicester playing well and missing a pen).
-At the end of February we played poorly (apparently, I missed this one) and lost to Burnely with Kane just back and lost to Chelsea in a game neither team played badly in but we played worse with some sloppy and comical defending (Trippier own goal).
-In March we drew with Arsenal, lost to Southampton and to Liverpool- the last of which we played well and again were guilty of comical defending right at the end.
-In April at the new stadium we beat Palace, Huddersfield and Brighton with vary degrees of quality; and lost to City in the league playing pretty well and West Ham playing badly but not terribly at all.
-In May we lost to Bourmouth in a bat shit crazy game with absences and stupid individual decisions by Foyth and Son. We drew with Everton in a pedestrian game.

In the cups, we obviously went out narrowly to Chelsea on pens with a lot of absentees, the FA Cup ditto playing very badly and we all know about the CL; but we need a bit of perspective before we start complaining how badly we played in the UCL knockout stage (we didn't). Our worst performance was either City away which we obviously still progressed from or Ajax at home at least in the first half, I missed the second half.

I am not too bothered about the club politics because I don't know what's going on behind the scenes with Levy, Poch, Eriksen, Vertonghen or any one else. If there has been a massive falling out and all of the above other than Levy leave then it's a great shame but so be it, we've been through worse.

But on the bare facts and what we do know, this has been a poor but far from disastrous start and looking at the above (and I think I am being fair) I don't think last season or rather the last half was all that bad especially when you take into account injuries, UCL distraction and tiredness and the new stadium. I am not saying you are either I just picked out your post as I came across it. I'd agree it was not befitting of a top three side but there were reasons for that and people tend to forget the games we did play well in which were not always the games we won.

 

[Seafordian Spurs]

The ITK consensus on this so far utterly, utterly depressing.

Bummer in the Summer as Arthur Lee sang.

 

[Primativ]

Some of it. In 2019 in the league:

-We battered Cardiff.
-We battered United and lost, we then lost Kane and he was more or less done for the season after getting injured against against City.
-We played poorly at Fulham and won (enter cliché about winning when not playing well). I think for both of these games we were missing Son.
-We beat Watford late on after battering them by which time we were also missing Dele.
-We then beat Newcastle and Leicester, playing well in both (yes to be fair scoring late and with Leicester playing well and missing a pen).
-At the end of February we played poorly (apparently, I missed this one) and lost to Burnely with Kane just back and lost to Chelsea in a game neither team played badly in but we played worse with some sloppy and comical defending (Trippier own goal).
-In March we drew with Arsenal, lost to Southampton and to Liverpool- the last of which we played well and again were guilty of comical defending right at the end.
-In April at the new stadium we beat Palace, Huddersfield and Brighton with vary degrees of quality; and lost to City in the league playing pretty well and West Ham playing badly but not terribly at all.
-In May we lost to Bourmouth in a bat shit crazy game with absences and stupid individual decisions by Foyth and Son. We drew with Everton in a pedestrian game.

In the cups, we obviously went out narrowly to Chelsea on pens with a lot of absentees, the FA Cup ditto playing very badly and we all know about the CL; but we need a bit of perspective before we start complaining how badly we played in the UCL knockout stage (we didn't). Our worst performance was either City away which we obviously still progressed from or Ajax at home at least in the first half, I missed the second half.

I am not too bothered about the club politics because I don't know what's going on behind the scenes with Levy, Poch, Eriksen, Vertonghen or any one else. If there has been a massive falling out and all of the above other than Levy leave then it's a great shame but so be it, we've been through worse.

But on the bare facts and what we do know, this has been a poor but far from disastrous start and looking at the above (and I think I am being fair) I don't think last season or rather the last half was all that bad especially when you take into account injuries, UCL distraction and tiredness and the new stadium. I am not saying you are either I just picked out your post as I came across it. I'd agree it was not befitting of a top three side but there were reasons for that and people tend to forget the games we did play well in which were not always the games we won.

I’m sorry mate no offence but all I see in your post is loads of excuses. The poor performances speak for themselves. People see what they want to see I guess. I’m not saying you’re wrong, it’s just the way we choose to interpret what we see. You are choosing to believe their were justified reasons why we’ve been playing so poorly for so long, and if you asked me in May I’d have possibly been with you, but it’s continued this season which is now setting alarm bells ringing. No one is panicking yet but it’s worrying.

 

[Wadec]

I’m sorry mate no offence but all I see in your post is loads of excuses. The poor performances speak for themselves. People see what they want to see I guess. I’m not saying you’re wrong, it’s just the way we choose to interpret what we see. You are choosing to believe their were justified reasons why we’ve been playing so poorly for so long, and if you asked me in May I’d have possibly been with you, but it’s continued this season which is now setting alarm bells ringing. No one is panicking yet but it’s worrying.

I agree we cannot go into a 3rd season with excuses ready for why we cannot perform at the level required.

No Wembley, no world cup, transfers done.

This should be a positive time at the club.

Poch can turn this around, just needs to remember the things that made most of the players great and not dwell on negatives.