The Mauricio Pochettino thread

[Navin R Johnson]

What happened to Wanyama is sad to see. He was incredible for us when he first joined. Injuries have done for him and he’s not even 50% of the player he was. Such a shame but...it’s a ruthless cut throat game and he shouldn’t be near a premier league game for us thesedays unless we are down to bare bones.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but the disloyalty shown and the term used by VSLP is disappointing.

 

[@Bobby__Lucky]

Not sure why people are blaming a lack of transfers from past windows on the bullshit we are being served up. Every week it's a change of formation/system/tactics. Pnot to mention players playing out of position or out of form just because they are who they are.

Pochs biggest strength as a coach is his player motivation. I can tell you as fact a lot of the senior players are far from motivated and haven't been all season. They don't like the ever changing tactics and roles they are being asked to do. Every week at training it's like starting from scratch, with another bright spark tactical plan for the next opponents.

Why this has all of a sudden become a thing I have no idea, but pochs very clear plan and philosophy all the players believed in so abundantly is very much missing atm. His happy go lucky, cheeky chappy persona has been replaced by a moody, miserable, git!.

As I've said before if Zidane got the boot tomorrow I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if Madrid came in for him now.

I think you said some crucial points here. We do seem to have a brand of football anymore. When we go hard and maverick the players seem to come to life. Barca away and ajax comeback spring to mind.

I think and have said before the juventus quarters where they suckered us was the turning point of poch playing progressive attacking football.

The players do constantly look confused and unmotivated.

I think kanes form and motivation is down to him losing faith in poch too. That is a huge huge problem if so. Poch said kane speaks to him for hours about tactics.

Think we're at that point now where we must lose a lot of players in the jan window...jan, Toby, eriksen, wanyama, aurier, rose. Or else poch goes.

Is it possible that certain players aren't signing new contracts because of poch, but are sticking around?

Poch has to smash the squad to bits and Continue, or probably be gone.

 

[Deleted member 27995]

I'm not disagreeing with that, but the disloyalty shown and the term used by VSLP is disappointing.

He was good two years ago, he almost left the club less than a month ago, he offered nothing coming off the bench today and hasn't in almost two years, not sure me saying he looked clueless is disloyal, some times the truth hurts.

 

[double0]

Not to mention a toxic manager such as Mou is HARDLY what a mentally weak side such as us need. This squad needs a hard reboot. We’re far from good enough anymore. Sadly, that requires investment in the team. Something which ENIC outright refuses to do.

I have nothing against Eriksen, it's ok he wants another challenge or Toby insisting on a buyout and not signing contracts or Rose wanting to move up North on Kyle Walker money. Players come and players go we've seen Anderton Carrick Berbatov Modric Bale Dembele come and go the great Ledley King retired... Pochettinho has to be allowed and backed to be able to change the squad / team and shift players out so to recycle.

 

[Gb160]

Think we're at that point now where we must lose a lot of players in the jan window...jan, Toby, eriksen, wanyama, aurier, rose. Or else poch goes.

Theres no way we could replace all those players in a January window... probably take us 5 windows.

 

[double0]

If Poch does leave before the end of the season, would Toby sign a new contract, if Levy offered him one?

That would be absolutely poor. It's similar to when Vertonghen played up.



The mangers has to be backed .

 

[rossdapep]

He spent an absolute fortune with United and they were playing worse than when he arrived by the time he left.

I think Mourinho's a great manager but agitating to sack Poch for the likes of him is mindbogglingly risky.

He did, true.

But so did Van Gaal.

United had so many background problems from the end of the Fergie era, Moyes and Van Gaal.

- Pogba - Mourinho was trying to mould him more defensively but Pogba is too 'maverick' to stick with it and they fall out.

- Rashford - Solskjaer is having the same issue now, a very inconsistent striker. Mourinho demands winners not players who only do it when their back is up.

- Imbalanced attack - Mata, Rashford, Martial never had the work ethic or cleverness to work for him. Lukaku wasn't a good pick for United but he still outscored the others and Mourinho could at least count on him.

- Over aged and weak defence - he inherited Jones and Smalling who we can all agree are very poor. He got Bailly, who got injured almost immediately and was never the same. Lindelof was improving.

- Inadequate full backs - Shaw is overweight and is not professional enough, Valencia and Young are both winners reverted to full backs and not too mention past their best.

Poch would have struggled with that lot.

He did get things wrong too to be fair.

- Fred - a bad buy but he did look like a good player at the time.
- Mkhitaryan, again a player many rated but it didnt work out for some reason
- Sanchez - again a mystery why he didn't work

I think you could make a case and say because the squad was so imbalanced it failed, but they should have done better.

The difference between us and United is that we have a squad that isn't imbalanced and are very good players who are probably desperate to win something. We don't have egos so it shouldn't be a problem for Mourinho to get them buying into his ideas.

 

[rossdapep]

Didn’t Woodward insist on getting too involved in who came in and who didn’t come in?

Ring any bells!

My bro is a United fan and says Woodward has an ego in that he can get the deals done. The problem is he's only capable of getting one over the line at a time. Secondly he doesn't know how to play the bidding game.

I don't expect Levy to give Mourinho everything and I'd imagine they'd be disagreements but Levy does get good deals over the line and can work on a few at a time.

 

[wiggo24]

I think, after all he's done, we owe him until at least Christmas.

However, if our form hasn't improved by then, it's been a full year of shite and very justifiable to sack him imo. We have, undoubtably, the third best squad in the league. This long-term form is unacceptable, and it's happened through a complete lack of identity.

If/when he leaves, he'll have left us in a much better position than we started. 5 years ago, the likes of Allegri/Mourinho wouldn't have looked twice at Spurs. Now, I'd be fairly confident that we have the pull to secure a quality replacement. For that we should thank him.

 

[rossdapep]

He spent an absolute fortune with United and they were playing worse than when he arrived by the time he left.

I think Mourinho's a great manager but agitating to sack Poch for the likes of him is mindbogglingly risky.

Just to add. In his second season the fans were enjoying things for a while. Something happened with Pogba, Martial and Rashford then things started to unravel. We don't have any ego types at the club so I imagine it's something he'd not have to worry about

 

[wiggo24]

Also, if it is Howe that's brought in, I'd expect a serious exodus of most of our top players.

He's a good young manager, but the likes of Kane, Son, NDombele don't sign for a Howe, they sign for an Allegri/Simeone. Would signal a serious lack of ambition.

 

[Phomesy]

The difference between us and United is that we have a squad that isn't imbalanced and are very good players who are probably desperate to win something. We don't have egos so it shouldn't be a problem for Mourinho to get them buying into his ideas.

Didn't Poch create that though?


I can't quite believe this conversation is even being had really. The only EPL manager Poch hasn't outperformed since arriving at Spurs based on relative wage and transfer spend Vs points improvement is Klopp isn't it? I get the desire for shiny trophies is a make/break deal for some supporters but who gives a shit about Mou's United trophies - the club's in the shitter and he couldn't do anything but make it worse. How on earth is he supposed to make it happen at Spurs under Levy?

Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Seafordian Spurs]

I think you said some crucial points here. We do seem to have a brand of football anymore. When we go hard and maverick the players seem to come to life. Barca away and ajax comeback spring to mind.

I think and have said before the juventus quarters where they suckered us was the turning point of poch playing progressive attacking football.

The players do constantly look confused and unmotivated.

I think kanes form and motivation is down to him losing faith in poch too. That is a huge huge problem if so. Poch said kane speaks to him for hours about tactics.

Think we're at that point now where we must lose a lot of players in the jan window...jan, Toby, eriksen, wanyama, aurier, rose. Or else poch goes.

Is it possible that certain players aren't signing new contracts because of poch, but are sticking around?

Poch has to smash the squad to bits and Continue, or probably be gone.

We are not losing all of those in the Jan window, dude...

 

[Joeyboey]

the only result in any way that was a shock, was our loss to Newcastle at home. if I offered you 9pts from Villa, Palace @ home and Man C, Arsenal, and Leicester away are you telling me you wouldn't of accepted it? unfortunately, we lost today away from home to a good team. shit results happen in football like Norwich beating Man C. let's see where we are by the halfway stage before panicking.

I think we’re on 19 points from our last 18/19 premier league games. There’s your half a season right there.

 

[@Bobby__Lucky]

Theres no way we could replace all those players in a January window... probably take us 5 windows.

If we were to sign a top CB, bruno maybe for eriksen and a quality left back thats all we would need for now. Davies, Dier, sanchez, tanganga isn't really that bad a batch of players that have and can play at CB. Toby and Jan are not really performing, nor Rose. Yet KWP is always the problem ?‍?‍.

If poch is to stay the players who dont want to play for poch have to go. And go fast. I'm hoping there's mileage in the eriksen to juve swap. Weirdly I thought last season where he played deeper was probably one of his best at the club. First half season anyway. Another big mistake my poch was to switch alli and eriksen. In the final. ?‍. Made no sense.

 

[danielneeds]

Also, if it is Howe that's brought in, I'd expect a serious exodus of most of our top players.

He's a good young manager, but the likes of Kane, Son, NDombele don't sign for a Howe, they sign for an Allegri/Simeone. Would signal a serious lack of ambition.

That would be up to Howe to connect with the players and convince them. Did Ronaldo sign for Sarri, Messi for Valverde, etc, etc?

 

[leray]

That would be up to Howe to connect with the players and convince them. Did Ronaldo sign for Sarri, Messi for Valverde, etc, etc?

Valverde is former Barcelona player, who made Bilbao a very strong team in La Liga with a good, offensive style of play. That's all they, and indeed Messi, needed - a manager that knows the club inside out and can coach team in a certain style.

Juventus went for Sarri who just won his first title with Chelsea and proved in Italy that he can mount a title challenge with Napoli.

Plus, both Juve and Barca have the best players in the league.

We're below that level, we still need to prove to new and current players that we're on the right path to success. I'm not saying that with Howe it'd be impossible, but it certainly would be very hard. Would Lo Celso come to us with Howe in charge? Or would we rather focus on getting Brooks or Fraser?

I'm afraid it'd be similar to what United experienced with Moyes. He went for the right players: Kroos and Thiago, United had the money, the stadium, the training ground, the great history, but both Kroos and Thiago were like 'naah' when they thought about the prospect of working with Moyes.

So he ended up with Fellaini.

 

[wadewill]

If Poch goes in the next few weeks it’s surely got to be Jose.

And whether people like it or not, he is the winner we would need

Something isn’t right and if changes are to be made it has to be soon. We are still in everything. By Xmas we will be out of the CL and playing massive catch up in the league (for top 4, nothing else) if this continues like it is

 

[nedley]

I completely agree. It's impossible to judge who's to blame. Who's to say Levy was offering C rate players and Poch knew we would end up having to ship them out after two seasons. Andre Gomes for example. Or Levy actually offered quality and Poch wasn't interested. For what it's worth, Lo Celso, Ndombele and Dybala are exactly the type of players we should be after. But getting only two of those in two seasons is sooooo far from acceptable for a team trying to, or supposedly trying to, win something.

It's

What happened to Wanyama is sad to see. He was incredible for us when he first joined. Injuries have done for him and he’s not even 50% of the player he was. Such a shame but...it’s a ruthless cut throat game and he shouldn’t be near a premier league game for us thesedays unless we are down to bare bones.

That ball is firmly in Levys court.

 

[Hakkz]

Theres no way we could replace all those players in a January window... probably take us 5 windows.

Even if we did, that new defense wouldn't have time to gel whatsoever.