Everlasting Seconds
Well-Known Member
- Jan 9, 2014
- 14,914
- 26,616
January window 
Spurs fans should never again be faulted for lack of optimism.
Spurs fans should never again be faulted for lack of optimism.
The Mauricio Pochettino thread
- Thread starter TaoistMonkey
- Start date
- Status
sausage
?
- May 17, 2018
- 11,872
- 47,993
Define 'stale' - it has become something of a buzzword, but it doesn't seem to fit. As per one of the other posts I think I made today, the squad isn't that old - the vast majority of the squad are 26 or younger. We signed 4 players in the summer, and Poch has brought in 22 since he's been at the club, excluding the likes of KWP, Winks, Skipp etc. so the squad certainly hasn't been left in stasis.
Are we using the term 'stale' to excuse Poch's unwillingness to drop players or to give out chances? I say this on the basis that in the last couple of seasons his selections don't seem to be based on form or merit any more.
Everlasting Seconds
Well-Known Member
- Jan 9, 2014
- 14,914
- 26,616
Stale not in age necessarily, but as in flat, demotivated, jaded, or like bread, loosing springyness and is hard to swallow.
doctor stefan Freud
the tired tread of sad biology
- Sep 2, 2013
- 15,170
- 72,170
Stale=shit
Looks, sounds and feels like Prince from the mid 90s
Looks, sounds and feels like Prince from the mid 90s
dagraham
Well-Known Member
- Sep 20, 2005
- 19,130
- 46,118
I still think Poch deserves time to turn it around, but yeah this is one thing that has niggled at me for a while ( even when things seemed to be going well).
As you say, all successful teams have a blend of youth and experience. You look at City and Liverpool now and the Arsenal, Chelsea and Utd teams of the past. It’s a bit of a myth about Fergie’s Utd because of the class of ‘92. In amongst them were some experienced players and players at their peak and Fergie got a tune out of all of them. Plus the fact that group of young players were probably the greatest ever example in the modern English game.
If I had to make a comparison with us I’d say possibly the Leeds side under O’Leary. Young and hungry, but inexperienced and although they were exciting and challenged near the top, ultimately didn’t win anything of note and got to the semi finals of the CL.
If Poch can only excel when working with young players then there is nothing to say this complete rebuild will not end the same way, with the rehashed phrases of “we need to mature and learn”, “grow as a group“, “take the next step” etc being repeated 3 or 4 years down the line.
arnoldlayne
Well-Known Member
- Aug 20, 2007
- 1,109
- 1,174
This from The Guardian today
www.theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Tottenham’s time for significant action came and went last summer | Eni Aluko
Eni Aluko
6-7 minutes
Many people are looking at Tottenham’s results this season and saying something has to change if they are to return to the level that took them to second place in the Premier League in 2017 and the Champions League final just a few months ago. I think those people are several months too late: the results that should have prompted the soul-searching and the desire for renewal happened a while ago. The writing was on the wall after their defeat by Liverpool in Madrid, and what we are seeing is confirmation that the warning signs were missed – or deliberately ignored.
Mauricio Pochettino now finds his position as manager under threat but he is not the one who should be questioned. This run of results has made people realise, once again, that Spurs would have been better off making significant changes in the summer, and it seems bizarre to blame the one person who was publicly demanding precisely that for much of last season.
They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results, and there is some truth in that, but in football it is also true that you cannot keep doing the same thing while expecting the same results.
Every member of Tottenham’s starting XI for the Champions League final was in the squad who came so close to a league title two years earlier and although Tanguy Ndombélé, Giovani Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon have arrived the team are largely unchanged. Going into this season the same people were expecting the same players under the same manager to reach the same levels or even improve on them. It was never likely to happen.
As I look towards my future I am thinking increasingly about the sporting director role and how you introduce a winning culture and continue to drive that culture to win until you achieve it. What is vitally important is how the players feel each day coming to training. Do they think the goals they are expected to achieve are reasonable? Do they feel confident that the group of players are good enough to turn their personal ambitions into reality? At this stage most members of the Spurs squad have got to be saying no to both questions – and as soon as that happens they are sunk.
As a group they are capable of competing for the most important trophies – they have proved that – but all the evidence tells us they are not able to actually win them. Ultimately they just cannot get over the line and in their hearts they must know it. In the past five years there have been three semi-finals, two finals and significant tilts at the league title but not a single trophy. At some point the club’s senior management should have reacted to this and realised they need something extra. Instead they have tinkered around the edges.
Maybe Daniel Levy does not feel Tottenham need to win anything to be successful. Perhaps for him the evidence of success is on the balance sheet rather than in the trophy cabinet. But there is nothing better for business than winning and top players do not want to dedicate their peak years to boosting their club’s profit margins.
Players plan their careers and have long-term strategies and the best ones at Spurs will be restless. Some have made no attempt to hide it. In any squad once a few want to leave, you are in trouble. The only focus a player should have is winning for the team and it looks to me that too many have their minds elsewhere. Sure, it may be that when Harry Kane visualises the remainder of his career he sees himself staying at Spurs and being a one-club man but there will not be many with that ambition and most who dream of being a club legend in the style of John Terry or Steven Gerrard will expect to collect a few trophies along the way.
Pochettino’s loyalty to his players worked for a while but he could have taken a different approach. I was at Chelsea for six years under Emma Hayes, who is still there in her eighth season. Her managerial ethos was that if you find a method that brings success, you’ve got to find a totally different one next year. It was the opposite of the old saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. She was always looking for new tactics and bringing in players. Sometimes you would be certain we had enough strength in a particular position but she would still bring someone else in and it always pushed people on. There have clearly been times when Pochettino has chosen not to do that and other times when he would have liked to but was not given the chance.
What is the lifespan of a largely unchanged squad? I think it depends on what they have achieved as a unit and what remains undone. Liverpool have not significantly changed since last year but in winning 97 points and the Champions League they had enough success to feel confident they could achieve more and they are massively motivated by the chance to win the club’s first league title since 1990. Bringing in players this summer may have disrupted that balance but if they do not win the title this season it may then be the right time to freshen up things. Without new players or a recent history of winning trophies it is difficult to see what would be motivating Tottenham’s players.
There may be other factors at play. There have been rumours of personal problems between some of the players, and the 7-2 drubbing by Bayern Munich and emphatic defeat at Brighton were embarrassing enough to have added more tension. With the transfer window closed a change of manager may be the most obvious way of changing the direction of the season but it seems to me that would not deal with the cause of the problems. The right answer is not to change the manager but for those in charge to learn there is a moment to settle for what you have got and a time to rebuild, rejuvenate and push the limits. Someone at Tottenham seriously missed their moment last summer and I don’t think it was Pochettino.
Tottenham’s time for significant action came and went last summer | Eni Aluko
Daniel Levy may judge success by the balance sheet but players want to win things and Mauricio Pochettino’s squad have not been given the best chance to do so at Spurs
www.theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Tottenham’s time for significant action came and went last summer | Eni Aluko
Eni Aluko
6-7 minutes
Many people are looking at Tottenham’s results this season and saying something has to change if they are to return to the level that took them to second place in the Premier League in 2017 and the Champions League final just a few months ago. I think those people are several months too late: the results that should have prompted the soul-searching and the desire for renewal happened a while ago. The writing was on the wall after their defeat by Liverpool in Madrid, and what we are seeing is confirmation that the warning signs were missed – or deliberately ignored.
Mauricio Pochettino now finds his position as manager under threat but he is not the one who should be questioned. This run of results has made people realise, once again, that Spurs would have been better off making significant changes in the summer, and it seems bizarre to blame the one person who was publicly demanding precisely that for much of last season.
They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results, and there is some truth in that, but in football it is also true that you cannot keep doing the same thing while expecting the same results.
Every member of Tottenham’s starting XI for the Champions League final was in the squad who came so close to a league title two years earlier and although Tanguy Ndombélé, Giovani Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon have arrived the team are largely unchanged. Going into this season the same people were expecting the same players under the same manager to reach the same levels or even improve on them. It was never likely to happen.
As I look towards my future I am thinking increasingly about the sporting director role and how you introduce a winning culture and continue to drive that culture to win until you achieve it. What is vitally important is how the players feel each day coming to training. Do they think the goals they are expected to achieve are reasonable? Do they feel confident that the group of players are good enough to turn their personal ambitions into reality? At this stage most members of the Spurs squad have got to be saying no to both questions – and as soon as that happens they are sunk.
As a group they are capable of competing for the most important trophies – they have proved that – but all the evidence tells us they are not able to actually win them. Ultimately they just cannot get over the line and in their hearts they must know it. In the past five years there have been three semi-finals, two finals and significant tilts at the league title but not a single trophy. At some point the club’s senior management should have reacted to this and realised they need something extra. Instead they have tinkered around the edges.
Maybe Daniel Levy does not feel Tottenham need to win anything to be successful. Perhaps for him the evidence of success is on the balance sheet rather than in the trophy cabinet. But there is nothing better for business than winning and top players do not want to dedicate their peak years to boosting their club’s profit margins.
Players plan their careers and have long-term strategies and the best ones at Spurs will be restless. Some have made no attempt to hide it. In any squad once a few want to leave, you are in trouble. The only focus a player should have is winning for the team and it looks to me that too many have their minds elsewhere. Sure, it may be that when Harry Kane visualises the remainder of his career he sees himself staying at Spurs and being a one-club man but there will not be many with that ambition and most who dream of being a club legend in the style of John Terry or Steven Gerrard will expect to collect a few trophies along the way.
Pochettino’s loyalty to his players worked for a while but he could have taken a different approach. I was at Chelsea for six years under Emma Hayes, who is still there in her eighth season. Her managerial ethos was that if you find a method that brings success, you’ve got to find a totally different one next year. It was the opposite of the old saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. She was always looking for new tactics and bringing in players. Sometimes you would be certain we had enough strength in a particular position but she would still bring someone else in and it always pushed people on. There have clearly been times when Pochettino has chosen not to do that and other times when he would have liked to but was not given the chance.
What is the lifespan of a largely unchanged squad? I think it depends on what they have achieved as a unit and what remains undone. Liverpool have not significantly changed since last year but in winning 97 points and the Champions League they had enough success to feel confident they could achieve more and they are massively motivated by the chance to win the club’s first league title since 1990. Bringing in players this summer may have disrupted that balance but if they do not win the title this season it may then be the right time to freshen up things. Without new players or a recent history of winning trophies it is difficult to see what would be motivating Tottenham’s players.
There may be other factors at play. There have been rumours of personal problems between some of the players, and the 7-2 drubbing by Bayern Munich and emphatic defeat at Brighton were embarrassing enough to have added more tension. With the transfer window closed a change of manager may be the most obvious way of changing the direction of the season but it seems to me that would not deal with the cause of the problems. The right answer is not to change the manager but for those in charge to learn there is a moment to settle for what you have got and a time to rebuild, rejuvenate and push the limits. Someone at Tottenham seriously missed their moment last summer and I don’t think it was Pochettino.
Flashspur
Well-Known Member
- Jul 28, 2012
- 6,883
- 9,069
I cant argue with that really however it glosses over Poch's own meltdown, the weird shit he was saying in the press about leaving before the CL final. Another issue has been his poor in game management and his inability to out think the opposition manager tactically plus our sloooooow starts which have been a feature for 12-15 months now and probably contributed greatly to the CL defeat.
SpursSince1980
Well-Known Member
- Jan 23, 2011
- 4,754
- 14,485
I really don't understand this rush to blame one faction over the other. It's stupid and not remotely helpful.
At the end of the day, there are three core reasons for a team to be in a malaise; 1) Ownership refuses to invest in players, infrastructure, etc 2) The manager's tactics are either crap or aren't being carried out by the players 3) Speaking of... the players are a combination of piss poor, bad attitude, injured, whiny, bitchy.
All three play a role when it comes to the state of a team. Of course, one may play a bigger role than the other... but make no mistake, they all are contributing factors. So, it's misleading to point the finger exclusively in one direction, as that rarely tells the whole story.
I think that's where we are at as a club right now. 1) The ownership have done great with the infrastructure, but poorly with player investment, as compared to the clubs around them. 2) The manager's tactics have been erratic at best, catastrophic at worse. Moreover, the players do not seem bought in. 3) A large number of the playing staff are acting like little assholes right now. And it shows in how they are performing on the pitch. They should be embarrassed and ashamed.
So, given the above, where do you start?
I certainly haven't a clue. All I do know, is that all three will need changing, if there is a remote hope of continuing in the same vein we have over the last four years. I also know, that we should all reset our expectations for this season, and perhaps the next as well. As I'm guessing we are about to undertake a significant transition and transformation. But it'll take time.
If I were a betting man, I'd say two seasons from now, only about 5 or 6 of the current squad will still be around. I also think we'll have a different manager. And counter to historical behavior, I do believe ownership will invest.
Bottom line is... we need a major overhaul... in all three areas.
At the end of the day, there are three core reasons for a team to be in a malaise; 1) Ownership refuses to invest in players, infrastructure, etc 2) The manager's tactics are either crap or aren't being carried out by the players 3) Speaking of... the players are a combination of piss poor, bad attitude, injured, whiny, bitchy.
All three play a role when it comes to the state of a team. Of course, one may play a bigger role than the other... but make no mistake, they all are contributing factors. So, it's misleading to point the finger exclusively in one direction, as that rarely tells the whole story.
I think that's where we are at as a club right now. 1) The ownership have done great with the infrastructure, but poorly with player investment, as compared to the clubs around them. 2) The manager's tactics have been erratic at best, catastrophic at worse. Moreover, the players do not seem bought in. 3) A large number of the playing staff are acting like little assholes right now. And it shows in how they are performing on the pitch. They should be embarrassed and ashamed.
So, given the above, where do you start?
I certainly haven't a clue. All I do know, is that all three will need changing, if there is a remote hope of continuing in the same vein we have over the last four years. I also know, that we should all reset our expectations for this season, and perhaps the next as well. As I'm guessing we are about to undertake a significant transition and transformation. But it'll take time.
If I were a betting man, I'd say two seasons from now, only about 5 or 6 of the current squad will still be around. I also think we'll have a different manager. And counter to historical behavior, I do believe ownership will invest.
Bottom line is... we need a major overhaul... in all three areas.
SirNiNyHotspur
23 Years of Property, Concerts, Karts & Losing
- Apr 27, 2004
- 3,127
- 6,761
[QUOTE="arnoldlayne,
[/QUOTE]
Fantastic write up from the guardian, cheers for posting
[/QUOTE]
Fantastic write up from the guardian, cheers for posting
Flashspur
Well-Known Member
- Jul 28, 2012
- 6,883
- 9,069
We are a club in turmoil right now if you believe the press. I don’t know perhaps Poch can still turn this around. But we all know his game management sucks, right?
If not then I can see this taking over from Colleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy’s Wagnarok as the next cause célèbre of ‘has he lost the dressing room yet?’ It probably won’t be half as entertaining though as Rooney and Vardy going toe to toe.
If not then I can see this taking over from Colleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy’s Wagnarok as the next cause célèbre of ‘has he lost the dressing room yet?’ It probably won’t be half as entertaining though as Rooney and Vardy going toe to toe.
Everlasting Seconds
Well-Known Member
- Jan 9, 2014
- 14,914
- 26,616
Really respect Aluko and also think she's rather cool, but I think she misses the mark. It reads like a lot of blabber from somebody musing about a club she actually doesn't follow that closely.
ackie
Well-Known Member
- Dec 29, 2005
- 8,780
- 6,660
All good and we'll saying he will be backed in January transfer window but I'm concerned about the games till January.
IF Bayern won 7-2, Brighton beat us 3-0, I'm very concerned about Liverpool. Just hope we don't get thrashed.
Personally, Id like to think he will turn this around but I'm not confident.
And here's another thought.
What if we back him to rebuild then RM or Man Utd comes knocking, will he remain with us or jump.
I sadly don't trust Poch that much anymore.
Fantastic manager but...
IF Bayern won 7-2, Brighton beat us 3-0, I'm very concerned about Liverpool. Just hope we don't get thrashed.
Personally, Id like to think he will turn this around but I'm not confident.
And here's another thought.
What if we back him to rebuild then RM or Man Utd comes knocking, will he remain with us or jump.
I sadly don't trust Poch that much anymore.
Fantastic manager but...
worcestersauce
"I'm no optimist I'm just a prisoner of hope
- Jan 23, 2006
- 26,957
- 45,230
What a load of drivel.This from The Guardian today
Tottenham’s time for significant action came and went last summer | Eni Aluko
Daniel Levy may judge success by the balance sheet but players want to win things and Mauricio Pochettino’s squad have not been given the best chance to do so at Spurs
theguardian.com
Tottenham’s time for significant action came and went last summer | Eni Aluko
Eni Aluko
6-7 minutes
Many people are looking at Tottenham’s results this season and saying something has to change if they are to return to the level that took them to second place in the Premier League in 2017 and the Champions League final just a few months ago. I think those people are several months too late: the results that should have prompted the soul-searching and the desire for renewal happened a while ago. The writing was on the wall after their defeat by Liverpool in Madrid, and what we are seeing is confirmation that the warning signs were missed – or deliberately ignored.
Mauricio Pochettino now finds his position as manager under threat but he is not the one who should be questioned. This run of results has made people realise, once again, that Spurs would have been better off making significant changes in the summer, and it seems bizarre to blame the one person who was publicly demanding precisely that for much of last season.
They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results, and there is some truth in that, but in football it is also true that you cannot keep doing the same thing while expecting the same results.
Every member of Tottenham’s starting XI for the Champions League final was in the squad who came so close to a league title two years earlier and although Tanguy Ndombélé, Giovani Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon have arrived the team are largely unchanged. Going into this season the same people were expecting the same players under the same manager to reach the same levels or even improve on them. It was never likely to happen.
As I look towards my future I am thinking increasingly about the sporting director role and how you introduce a winning culture and continue to drive that culture to win until you achieve it. What is vitally important is how the players feel each day coming to training. Do they think the goals they are expected to achieve are reasonable? Do they feel confident that the group of players are good enough to turn their personal ambitions into reality? At this stage most members of the Spurs squad have got to be saying no to both questions – and as soon as that happens they are sunk.
As a group they are capable of competing for the most important trophies – they have proved that – but all the evidence tells us they are not able to actually win them. Ultimately they just cannot get over the line and in their hearts they must know it. In the past five years there have been three semi-finals, two finals and significant tilts at the league title but not a single trophy. At some point the club’s senior management should have reacted to this and realised they need something extra. Instead they have tinkered around the edges.
Maybe Daniel Levy does not feel Tottenham need to win anything to be successful. Perhaps for him the evidence of success is on the balance sheet rather than in the trophy cabinet. But there is nothing better for business than winning and top players do not want to dedicate their peak years to boosting their club’s profit margins.
Players plan their careers and have long-term strategies and the best ones at Spurs will be restless. Some have made no attempt to hide it. In any squad once a few want to leave, you are in trouble. The only focus a player should have is winning for the team and it looks to me that too many have their minds elsewhere. Sure, it may be that when Harry Kane visualises the remainder of his career he sees himself staying at Spurs and being a one-club man but there will not be many with that ambition and most who dream of being a club legend in the style of John Terry or Steven Gerrard will expect to collect a few trophies along the way.
Pochettino’s loyalty to his players worked for a while but he could have taken a different approach. I was at Chelsea for six years under Emma Hayes, who is still there in her eighth season. Her managerial ethos was that if you find a method that brings success, you’ve got to find a totally different one next year. It was the opposite of the old saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. She was always looking for new tactics and bringing in players. Sometimes you would be certain we had enough strength in a particular position but she would still bring someone else in and it always pushed people on. There have clearly been times when Pochettino has chosen not to do that and other times when he would have liked to but was not given the chance.
What is the lifespan of a largely unchanged squad? I think it depends on what they have achieved as a unit and what remains undone. Liverpool have not significantly changed since last year but in winning 97 points and the Champions League they had enough success to feel confident they could achieve more and they are massively motivated by the chance to win the club’s first league title since 1990. Bringing in players this summer may have disrupted that balance but if they do not win the title this season it may then be the right time to freshen up things. Without new players or a recent history of winning trophies it is difficult to see what would be motivating Tottenham’s players.
There may be other factors at play. There have been rumours of personal problems between some of the players, and the 7-2 drubbing by Bayern Munich and emphatic defeat at Brighton were embarrassing enough to have added more tension. With the transfer window closed a change of manager may be the most obvious way of changing the direction of the season but it seems to me that would not deal with the cause of the problems. The right answer is not to change the manager but for those in charge to learn there is a moment to settle for what you have got and a time to rebuild, rejuvenate and push the limits. Someone at Tottenham seriously missed their moment last summer and I don’t think it was Pochettino.
RikkiRocket
Well-Known Member
- Jul 21, 2015
- 1,605
- 3,277
The thing is with Danny. He likes to buy at 2008 prices and sell at over inflated modern day prices. Nothing wrong with that if it can be done, but the days of bullying smaller PL clubs are over. Ditto for European teams.
wrd
Well-Known Member
- Aug 22, 2014
- 13,603
- 58,005
I do find it strange no other team seems to have trouble offloading deadweight quite like we do.
Gb160
Well done boys. Good process
- Jun 20, 2012
- 23,677
- 93,432
90% of the media right there.
Does that really sum up our summer business?
Tripps £20m
Ndombele £65m
Sess £25
GLC circa £60m
spursfan77
Well-Known Member
- Aug 13, 2005
- 46,684
- 104,964
Yep. They’re pushing the blaming the players narrative in the press rather than Poch being to blame now. They’ve moved on from criticising the tactics to criticising the players. People will lap it up and blame the players. What you really don’t want on match day.
spursfan77
Well-Known Member
- Aug 13, 2005
- 46,684
- 104,964
I agree and it’s only useful if you’ve got players to sell you can get good fees for. We’ve chopped a lot of our deadwood so that ship has pretty much sailed and because we’ve done an Arsenal on contracts we are struggling with those players.
OPModric
Well-Known Member
- May 10, 2010
- 1,104
- 2,450
This from The Guardian today
Tottenham’s time for significant action came and went last summer | Eni Aluko
Daniel Levy may judge success by the balance sheet but players want to win things and Mauricio Pochettino’s squad have not been given the best chance to do so at Spurs
theguardian.com
Tottenham’s time for significant action came and went last summer | Eni Aluko
Eni Aluko
6-7 minutes
Many people are looking at Tottenham’s results this season and saying something has to change if they are to return to the level that took them to second place in the Premier League in 2017 and the Champions League final just a few months ago. I think those people are several months too late: the results that should have prompted the soul-searching and the desire for renewal happened a while ago. The writing was on the wall after their defeat by Liverpool in Madrid, and what we are seeing is confirmation that the warning signs were missed – or deliberately ignored.
Mauricio Pochettino now finds his position as manager under threat but he is not the one who should be questioned. This run of results has made people realise, once again, that Spurs would have been better off making significant changes in the summer, and it seems bizarre to blame the one person who was publicly demanding precisely that for much of last season.
They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results, and there is some truth in that, but in football it is also true that you cannot keep doing the same thing while expecting the same results.
Every member of Tottenham’s starting XI for the Champions League final was in the squad who came so close to a league title two years earlier and although Tanguy Ndombélé, Giovani Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon have arrived the team are largely unchanged. Going into this season the same people were expecting the same players under the same manager to reach the same levels or even improve on them. It was never likely to happen.
As I look towards my future I am thinking increasingly about the sporting director role and how you introduce a winning culture and continue to drive that culture to win until you achieve it. What is vitally important is how the players feel each day coming to training. Do they think the goals they are expected to achieve are reasonable? Do they feel confident that the group of players are good enough to turn their personal ambitions into reality? At this stage most members of the Spurs squad have got to be saying no to both questions – and as soon as that happens they are sunk.
As a group they are capable of competing for the most important trophies – they have proved that – but all the evidence tells us they are not able to actually win them. Ultimately they just cannot get over the line and in their hearts they must know it. In the past five years there have been three semi-finals, two finals and significant tilts at the league title but not a single trophy. At some point the club’s senior management should have reacted to this and realised they need something extra. Instead they have tinkered around the edges.
Maybe Daniel Levy does not feel Tottenham need to win anything to be successful. Perhaps for him the evidence of success is on the balance sheet rather than in the trophy cabinet. But there is nothing better for business than winning and top players do not want to dedicate their peak years to boosting their club’s profit margins.
Players plan their careers and have long-term strategies and the best ones at Spurs will be restless. Some have made no attempt to hide it. In any squad once a few want to leave, you are in trouble. The only focus a player should have is winning for the team and it looks to me that too many have their minds elsewhere. Sure, it may be that when Harry Kane visualises the remainder of his career he sees himself staying at Spurs and being a one-club man but there will not be many with that ambition and most who dream of being a club legend in the style of John Terry or Steven Gerrard will expect to collect a few trophies along the way.
Pochettino’s loyalty to his players worked for a while but he could have taken a different approach. I was at Chelsea for six years under Emma Hayes, who is still there in her eighth season. Her managerial ethos was that if you find a method that brings success, you’ve got to find a totally different one next year. It was the opposite of the old saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. She was always looking for new tactics and bringing in players. Sometimes you would be certain we had enough strength in a particular position but she would still bring someone else in and it always pushed people on. There have clearly been times when Pochettino has chosen not to do that and other times when he would have liked to but was not given the chance.
What is the lifespan of a largely unchanged squad? I think it depends on what they have achieved as a unit and what remains undone. Liverpool have not significantly changed since last year but in winning 97 points and the Champions League they had enough success to feel confident they could achieve more and they are massively motivated by the chance to win the club’s first league title since 1990. Bringing in players this summer may have disrupted that balance but if they do not win the title this season it may then be the right time to freshen up things. Without new players or a recent history of winning trophies it is difficult to see what would be motivating Tottenham’s players.
There may be other factors at play. There have been rumours of personal problems between some of the players, and the 7-2 drubbing by Bayern Munich and emphatic defeat at Brighton were embarrassing enough to have added more tension. With the transfer window closed a change of manager may be the most obvious way of changing the direction of the season but it seems to me that would not deal with the cause of the problems. The right answer is not to change the manager but for those in charge to learn there is a moment to settle for what you have got and a time to rebuild, rejuvenate and push the limits. Someone at Tottenham seriously missed their moment last summer and I don’t think it was Pochettino.
Worst I´ve read for a while
BringBack_leGin
Well-Known Member
- Jul 28, 2004
- 27,719
- 54,929
Just the usual tired media myths. Lazy journalism at its worst, if it hadn’t been attributed to any individual I’d have assumed it was Jamie Redknapp.
- Status
Similar threads
