The Mauricio Pochettino thread

[doctor stefan Freud]

For me its not been quite right since we left the Lane.

Fuck it, tear down the new stadium and rebuild the fucker

 

[Gassin's finest]

Is this possibly the first troublesome period in his managerial career to date?
If so, then he's on a steep learning curve due to his own success.
I would love him to turn things round but top clubs aren't exactly the best place to learn your trade and we sometimes forget, because of that success, that he's still a young manager and has a lot to learn.
Ca we/will we grant him that?

I'd say taking over Espanyol when they were doomed to relegation was probably far tougher.

 

[wrd]

This is key. He’s done it before, when he first arrived. While CL qualification is crucial, I wouldn’t say it was guaranteed. Not by any stretch of the imagination. This either petrifies him and his coaching team and he sticks with familiar, albeit demotivated, players in the hope the collective quality is enough to get us over the line, or he boots out the disaffected players, brings in youth who will run through walls for him, accepting there will be a drop in quality but a rise in energy, commitment and cohesiveness. The second option is the braver option but it’s a much harder decision now that CL revenue is important to the club’s functionality.

Look at Lamela- his energy rates and desire are still crazy even if he is slower than a turd in a freezer. If the more senior pros aren’t prepared to work like him, get the kids in.

I’m not convinced Poch sees this as an option, or Skipp would have been trusted over the grossly ineffective Wanyama last Saturday

Interesting point and I think this will be really telling in terms of whether he himself wants to continue. Does he have the energy to do it again because you'd think this would be the aspect that would energise him. If he carries on with the likes of a disinterested Eriksen then we'll have our answer in my opinion.

 

[Primativ]

It’s depressing as you see Liverpool looking so fucking good.

City I couldn’t care else about but Liverpool for fucks sake. We were ahead of them for years.

At the end of the day Klopp has transformed them and sad to say he’s doing a much better job than Poch is. I really don’t see much difference between their starting 11 and ours. Yes they do have players playing at a higher level form wise and better fullbacks and VVD but it’s more than that. Klopp has made an incredibly well oiled machine yet here at spurs we don’t look well oiled at all. Klopp has players playing to their maximum and Poch doesn’t here at Spurs. And why do we have so many unsettled players? I’m not even just talking about ones with contracts finishing. Aurier and Rose want to leave. Wanyama told he has no future. Moura seems to be mismanaged by Poch too if you ask me. What happened to Alli? He’s been mostly useless for nearly two years now.

Ultimately we have fallen short under Poch despite regular top 4 finishes. It was good but never quite good enough. I don’t see why after 5 years of no trophies we now are told we have to be rebuilt and have more transition seasons.

If you think Kane will hang around for that you’re mistaken.

 

[McFlash]

I'd say taking over Espanyol when they were doomed to relegation was probably far tougher.

Maybe, but also with (arguably) less pressure?
I was just thinking, that this may be the first time he's had to refresh a squad that he built and with players that he's had such good relationships with.
He's now in the spotlight, at a big club, with big players - maybe he's finding it hard to manage it all?

 

[wrd]

It’s depressing as you see Liverpool looking so fucking good.

City I couldn’t care else about but Liverpool for fucks sake. We were ahead of them for years.

At the end of the day Klopp has transformed them and sad to say he’s doing a much better job than Poch is. I really don’t see much difference between their starting 11 and ours. Yes they do have players playing at a higher level form wise and better fullbacks and VVD but it’s more than that. Klopp has made an incredibly well oiled machine yet here at spurs we don’t look well oiled at all. Klopp has players playing to their maximum and Poch doesn’t here at Spurs. And why do we have so many unsettled players? I’m not even just talking about ones with contracts finishing. Aurier and Rose want to leave. Wanyama told he has no future. Moura seems to be mismanaged by Poch too if you ask me. What happened to Alli? He’s been mostly useless for nearly two years now.

Ultimately we have fallen short under Poch despite regular top 4 finishes. It was good but never quite good enough. I don’t see why after 5 years of no trophies we now are told we have to be rebuilt and have more transition seasons.

If you think Kane will hang around for that you’re mistaken.

If there was one thing that fucked me off more than VAR this weekend it was feeling like I needed Chelsea to drop points and not Liverpool.

 

[Primativ]

If there was one thing that fucked me off more than VAR this weekend it was feeling like I needed Chelsea to drop points and not Liverpool.

Yep. To be honest I still wanted Liverpool to lose. 15 wins in a row ffs. They will win the title this season. Everything is happening for them and their project is what i thought and hoped ours would become but for some reason we just never took the last step.

 

[Gassin's finest]

Maybe, but also with (arguably) less pressure?
I was just thinking, that this may be the first time he's had to refresh a squad that he built and with players that he's had such good relationships with.
He's now in the spotlight, at a big club, with big players - maybe he's finding it hard to manage it all?

At Espanyol? Definitely not.

I don't think he's struggling at all. Teams and people change. The CL final defeat was a much bigger blow to the morale of this club than everyone appreciates... from fans to players to coaches. Either they'll get their taste and their heads back, or they'll have to leave.

We were warned that this was to be a painful transition season. Whether its just players, or management leaving, or just the inconsistency of the performances, we need to tough it out. The time for us to win the league was two seasons back. Man City and Liverpool have put that beyond our squad now, and we need to reset expectations.

Sorry.

 

[Stamford]

At Espanyol? Definitely not.

I don't think he's struggling at all. Teams and people change. The CL final defeat was a much bigger blow to the morale of this club than everyone appreciates... from fans to players to coaches. Either they'll get their taste and their heads back, or they'll have to leave.

We were warned that this was to be a painful transition season. Whether its just players, or management leaving, or just the inconsistency of the performances, we need to tough it out. The time for us to win the league was two seasons back. Man City and Liverpool have put that beyond our squad now, and we need to reset expectations.

Sorry.

Good post this. The one thing that is incredibly frustrating however is that our rivals in season of transitions are still reaching cup finals or bringing home trophies.

We are caught in the middle, we think we are too good for a league cup / Europa but we cant win the big prizes. If we are resetting out expectations (don't think we should) then start taking these things seriously and start breeding a wi ming mentality.

 

[Seafordian Spurs]

If we got a Poch replacement in, like, tomorrow you just know this lot would on the back of it win the Littlewoods/Milk/Etc Cup and the FA Cup this season.

We'd end up 8th and still have the prospect of Europa next season with a manager saddled with a depleted squad and a Champions League less Levy 'warchest'.

Backwards. But with a couple of pots.

We need to back Poch. I have no grounds for saying that other than recent memory of one man. Tim fucking Sherwood.

 

[Coyboy]

Good post this. The one thing that is incredibly frustrating however is that our rivals in season of transitions are still reaching cup finals or bringing home trophies.

We are caught in the middle, we think we are too good for a league cup / Europa but we cant win the big prizes. If we are resetting out expectations (don't think we should) then start taking these things seriously and start breeding a wi ming mentality.

I am not sure about that; Chelsea under Sarri was an odd aberration and in a sense they are an aberrant club and I am not sure what a transition season looks like for them, maybe this season.

Arsenal didn't win anything last year in their 'transition' season; Liverpool didn't win a trophy under Klopp until last year and so didn't win anything in any transition; City aren't really worth discussing but IIRC didn't win anything in Guardiola's first season and United won trophies under Mourinho but look where they are now, and they won the league cup (which I would be happy with definitely in any year but it's not a barometer of progress) and the Europa Cup (having effectively sacked off the league in 2017 whilst we finished second; I know which I would prefer).

I am not interested in getting to finals or see it as progress; we got to two under Poch and should have won at least one of them and so I am not sure how we are different to other teams in that respect.

That's off the top of my head so I could be wrong.

 

[Gassin's finest]

Good post this. The one thing that is incredibly frustrating however is that our rivals in season of transitions are still reaching cup finals or bringing home trophies.

We are caught in the middle, we think we are too good for a league cup / Europa but we cant win the big prizes. If we are resetting out expectations (don't think we should) then start taking these things seriously and start breeding a wi ming mentality.

Exactly this.

When Van Gaal and Mourhino managed Man Utd, did they say that unless it's the Prem or CL they didn't care? No, they went and won the League cup and Europa League.

We've been in positions to do the same, easy. And we've passed them up because it's the league or cl or bust.

You don't get a winning mentality unless you actually win things.

 

[SPURSLIFE]

It’s depressing as you see Liverpool looking so fucking good.

City I couldn’t care else about but Liverpool for fucks sake. We were ahead of them for years.

At the end of the day Klopp has transformed them and sad to say he’s doing a much better job than Poch is. I really don’t see much difference between their starting 11 and ours. Yes they do have players playing at a higher level form wise and better fullbacks and VVD but it’s more than that. Klopp has made an incredibly well oiled machine yet here at spurs we don’t look well oiled at all. Klopp has players playing to their maximum and Poch doesn’t here at Spurs. And why do we have so many unsettled players? I’m not even just talking about ones with contracts finishing. Aurier and Rose want to leave. Wanyama told he has no future. Moura seems to be mismanaged by Poch too if you ask me. What happened to Alli? He’s been mostly useless for nearly two years now.

Ultimately we have fallen short under Poch despite regular top 4 finishes. It was good but never quite good enough. I don’t see why after 5 years of no trophies we now are told we have to be rebuilt and have more transition seasons.

If you think Kane will hang around for that you’re mistaken.

Absolutely agree. To many under performing and Poch doesn't seem to be able to change it. I also agree about Kane with the likely hood of another trophy less season or certainly no hope of the PL title after 6 years then Kane will be off.
A year ago we were optimistic that with 2 or 3 real quality players we would be challenging for the title now we are praying that we get 4th for CL next year which is looking unlikely at the moment.
I hate the criticism we get about being to soft but sadly it's true.

 

[Lighty64]

My biggest concern at the moment is that we don't look particularly well coached. We have the third best squad in the league yet for the best part of a year our passing has been predictable, our defence shaky and unless we're playing on the break we consistently struggle to break teams down or pass our way through them.

I watched Brighton against Newcastle the other day and Brighton, who don't have half the talent we have, were able to consistently put together intelligent passing moves and create spaces behind the opposition. They didn't convert any of the opportunities they created because they don't have the individual talent, but they looked a well drilled side who knew exactly what they were doing going forward. You could say the same of Norwich - they're a flawed side but they look extremely well coached in the way they pass the ball around and put attacking moves together.

In the last year it feels like most of our goals have come from individual moments of brilliance rather than any kind of coaching. When the other team gets into a defensive shape we seem to just pass the ball around from side to side and occasionally throw in a speculative cross if the ball gets out wide. Occasionally a quick vertical pass will create a pocket of space, but despite our technical talent we seem almost incapable of passing through the middle or creating space in the way that the best attacking sides do. Even against Palace, a game we dominated, our goals were fairly one-dimensional - every single one of them coming from crosses from the right side. Some of them were exceptionally well taken, and fair play to Poch for exploiting Palace's weakness, but they were all a result of us ruthlessly exploiting an obvious weakness in our opponents rather than well-coached passing moves. Despite winning 4-0, amazingly our xG was only like 1.2 compared to palace's 0.6. We were converting low percentage chances due to individual brilliance rather than creating reliable goalscoring opportunities.

When Poch came in he got all of our players to over-perform. Now it seems more and more like our players are stuck in a rut and underperforming. Eriksen's in terrible form, we haven't seen the best of Alli in about 2 years, we're massively underutilising Kane and I often feel that players like Son and Lucas aren't being used in the most efficient way. The only players on an upward trajectory are young players like Winks and those brought in from the cold like Sissoko - everyone else has gone stale.

It's a very difficult situation as Poch has been loyal to us, is on a long contract and has a huge amount of credit in the bank. He's also capable of getting this squad into the top 4, though it will be one hell of a slog and a close race. Moreover, if we were to replace him we could easily create huge amounts of unrest and things could get a lot worse before they get better. Ultimately we're stuck between a rock and a hard place and I think the most likely outcome is that we suffer a slow, inevitable decline over the course of the season. I think Poch will then parts way come the summer or if we go on a terrible run and are in serious danger of dropping out of the top 4.

mate did Newcastle ever have 10 men stuck in their own half v Brighton. If Newcastle played that open against us we would have ripped them a new 1, just like we did v Palace

 

[Grapo2001]

If we got a Poch replacement in, like, tomorrow you just know this lot would on the back of it win the Littlewoods/Milk/Etc Cup and the FA Cup this season.

We'd end up 8th and still have the prospect of Europa next season with a manager saddled with a depleted squad and a Champions League less Levy 'warchest'.

Backwards. But with a couple of pots.

We need to back Poch. I have no grounds for saying that other than recent memory of one man. Tim fucking Sherwood.

Would prefer to win a cup and finish 8th than do nothing each season.

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

The fact that next summer will definitely be a mass clearout, reboot, whatever you want to call it, is one reason that Levy might just be prepared to accept a less than stellar season.

So, is next year going to be the transition season, then? If so, what is our current season?

 

[ardiles]

Lamela is better suited to the bench

I doubt they’d allow benches to be placed on the pitch, around Kane.

 

[Seafordian Spurs]

So, is next year going to be the transition season, then? If so, what is our current season?

Pre transition consultation

 

[ardiles]

Fuck it, tear down the new stadium and rebuild the fucker

Would we finally get a cheese room then?

 

[McFlash]

At Espanyol? Definitely not.

I don't think he's struggling at all. Teams and people change. The CL final defeat was a much bigger blow to the morale of this club than everyone appreciates... from fans to players to coaches. Either they'll get their taste and their heads back, or they'll have to leave.

We were warned that this was to be a painful transition season. Whether its just players, or management leaving, or just the inconsistency of the performances, we need to tough it out. The time for us to win the league was two seasons back. Man City and Liverpool have put that beyond our squad now, and we need to reset expectations.

Sorry.

Fair point, well said.
Got to say that I know nothing about Espanyol, or Poch's time there.
I know that he said it was going to be a painful transition but maybe I didn't really believe him. After all, I tend to think of transition as being a massive squad overhaul and that didn't happen, for whatever reasons.
Although maybe not to Liverpool and City standards, I expected us to be more competitive than we are showing so far this season.