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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

Everyone does. Most of the accounts are published and audited.

I was looking at Spurs accounts recently and was pleasantly surprised about the debt position. We had around £200m cash in the bank and £180m debt, so net £20m, and this was after drawing down £150m of the famous £400m debt facility in April/May last year. The interesting conclusion to this is that assuming that facility is sufficient for building the stadium, which presumably it would be as we want to have all the financing committed before beginning building, then we only had another £250m to draw which would mean we'd be very roughly £230m in debt once it was built.

COnsidering that we made c.£300m turnover and £80m profit (before transfers and interest), thats a pretty decent position to be in and means we're far from highly leveraged like some people like to think.
 
Pochettino is the perfect United fit — at any price

Manchester United spent more than £30 million, plus salary, on Victor Lindelof. They will pay Alexis Sánchez considerably more than £100 million in wages over four and a half years. All of which makes me wonder what on earth they should be throwing at Mauricio Pochettino.

Break every record by paying the Argentinian £400,000 a week to rebuild the club from top to bottom? Offer Tottenham Hotspur at least £30 million to buy him out of his contract? Just because they would be unprecedented figures for a manager is not to say that they do not make sense.

There is a wider debate here than United, involving the managerial market. Coaches never have been traded the same way as players; partly because which club wants to spend a fortune on someone you may well be sacking before long (average tenure about 90 games in the top flight)? Even Lindelof has resale value.

...

Ed Woodward, United’s executive vice-chairman, is right to be looking for a technical director but the club cry out for a strategic coach with a plan that goes beyond patching together the first team by throwing money at a few new signings.

That need points much more to a Pochettino’s known qualities than Zinédine Zidane, despite his extraordinary record of success with Real Madrid.

The Argentinian’s lack of trophies is not a big stick to beat him with when he represents so many of the essential qualities of a modern coach; improving individual players on the training ground, motivating them whatever age and nationality, resourcefully promoting academy graduates, managing up and down at a club, playing a recognisable style but with tactical flexibility too.

Exactly what United should be looking for if they are not going to limit themselves to who is available but try to use all the financial muscle that has been so questionably directed, lacking a clear plan, over a number of years.

The unanswered question, as Spurs fans will have been shouting angrily long before reading this far, is whether Pochettino wants a different challenge in England by next summer — or at Real, which may well be offered to him even sooner.

Read it as recognition of Pochettino's qualities rather than the usual entitlement of the monied clubs to buy themselves out of their failures.
 
Sooooo you basically agree with what @DubaiSpur is saying then; so why such an aggressive tone? Chillax...

Uh no. He's saying we won't sign anyone in January, period. Read his post properly.

I'm saying we absolutely will make signings if the deal is right, just like we did with Moura last year.

No aggression. I'm just fed up with phony, entitled agenda pushing.
 
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Doesn't sound like he was particularly happy with what happened in the window - whatever it is.

Hopefully it's rectified two months from now.
 
Doesn't sound like he was particularly happy with what happened in the window - whatever it is.

Hopefully it's rectified two months from now.

Pretty sure in the pre match presser he also said that it's no use signing someone just to have signed someone. If we can't find someone that will improve us, or at least offer genuine competition for starting places, then we are better off keeping our powder dry.

January can work if we find someone in a situation like Moura, surplus to requirements at their current club and desperate to leave.
 
Pretty sure in the pre match presser he also said that it's no use signing someone just to have signed someone. If we can't find someone that will improve us, or at least offer genuine competition for starting places, then we are better off keeping our powder dry.

January can work if we find someone in a situation like Moura, surplus to requirements at their current club and desperate to leave.

I don't know, though. Were there really *no* players out there that could improve us or offer genuine competition for starting places? As it stands, we're content to let Llorente, a perpetually injured Wanyama, an untested and apparently disgruntled Juan Foyth, a declining Dembele and a quickly regressing Vorm (among others) form the backup/competition to our starters. And Dembele has been a starter himself, even though it's becoming more and more apparent that his mobility and overall fitness isn't what it was.

And these were points made in the summer as well - and Poch has indirectly admitted as much, given his complaints over tiredness and the World Cup (which comes down to not having a sufficiently strong squad). I appreciate moving them on may have been an issue, but it seems to me like there was something else going on, and Poch saying this now is admitting that. Not signing someone because the only options were apparently either Messi (unattainable) or Grealish (attainable, but pretty crap) doesn't seem like a healthy approach.
 
I don't know, though. Were there really *no* players out there that could improve us or offer genuine competition for starting places? As it stands, I'm content to let Llorente, a perpetually injured Wanyama, an untested and apparently disgruntled Juan Foyth, a declining Dembele and a quickly regressing Vorm (among others) form the backup/competition to our starters. And Dembele has been a starter himself, even though it's becoming more and more apparent that his mobility and overall fitness isn't what it was.

And these were points made in the summer as well - and Poch has indirectly admitted as much, given his complaints over tiredness and the World Cup (which comes down to not having a sufficiently strong squad). I appreciate moving them on may have been an issue, but it seems to me like there was something else going on, and Poch saying this now is admitting that. Not signing someone because the only options were apparently either Messi (unattainable) or Grealish (attainable, but pretty crap) doesn't seem like a healthy approach.

The full quotes don’t suggest he is trying to pressure Levy like is being reported. He is, as always, being honest and balanced in his assessment. We tried in the summer, we explained the circumstances and we will try in January. If we don’t sign anyone we will explain again. He even says he is not saying that it is not doing things properly if you don’t sign someone, just that he always wants to improve the team. To me it’s more just honest assessment and if anything, a nudge to the players so they know they have to keep their standards up.

Foyth is 4th choice centre back, Vorm is now 3rd choice goalkeeper, Llorente is third choice lone striker, and Wanyama is perfectly good back up for Dier. I believe in a couple of months we will see that Dembele’s decline has been exaggerated - he’ll still do well for us this season. But I think we probably would have sold Wanyama if we got a buyer and Dembele if he wanted to go - either way they are now at best squad players because we have Winks and Dier playing well and deserving of game time.

The point is not that there was absolutely no player out there. Just that when you weight absolutely everything up, the players that are clear, certain improvements on what we already have are actually few and far between. When it comes down to wondering whether Foyth et al are good enough for our squad...these guys are back ups to back ups, if we’re wondering whether they really need improving, we aren’t talking about that much impact in the grand scheme of things.
 
The full quotes don’t suggest he is trying to pressure Levy like is being reported. He is, as always, being honest and balanced in his assessment. We tried in the summer, we explained the circumstances and we will try in January. If we don’t sign anyone we will explain again. He even says he is not saying that it is not doing things properly if you don’t sign someone, just that he always wants to improve the team. To me it’s more just honest assessment and if anything, a nudge to the players so they know they have to keep their standards up.

I don't agree that he's excusing us not signing someone - that last quote ('today we can say well done...but I think you cannot play with destiny, you need to build the team properly') is pretty indicative of the fact that we can't get away without signing anyone. It will have an effect, which is largely negative in nature. I agree with him on that - just as I agree with him when he emphasizes that our steady start is also not down to us not signing anyone. It wasn't a genius move, it was because we were skint.

Foyth is 4th choice centre back, Vorm is now 3rd choice goalkeeper, Llorente is third choice lone striker, and Wanyama is perfectly good back up for Dier. I believe in a couple of months we will see that Dembele’s decline has been exaggerated - he’ll still do well for us this season. But I think we probably would have sold Wanyama if we got a buyer and Dembele if he wanted to go - either way they are now at best squad players because we have Winks and Dier playing well and deserving of game time.

Dembele's decline is, for now, very evident. Even if he does well going forward after January, that's half the season in which we either use him sparingly or we see how he's becoming slower and more unfit, being bypassed or outfought more and more frequently.

As for Foyth being a 4th choice center-back, or Vorm and Llorente being third-choices, they're different to each other. In Foyth's case, he's 4th-choice center-back now - but if we had signed someone better (or readier) than him, we would likely have seen that person play more than him. Which might have given our other center-backs more rest, allowing them to get back up to speed more quickly after a long World Cup campaign. As ever, having more depth is never a bad thing - conversely, having a 4th-choice CB you can effectively never play because he isn't ready (as seems to be the case) can hurt us.

In the case of Vorm and Llorente, they've both hurt us by being on the pitch and being sub-par (in Llorente's case) and outright terrible (in Vorm's case). That shaky spell where we lost to Liverpool, Inter and Watford - we looked exhausted, but Vorm also did a very poor job in all those games. Imagine if we'd brought in someone better - Gazzaniga might still have been picked, but there's no conceivable scenario in which we end up weaker for the exchange.

Re: Wanyama, he's only perfectly fine as cover for Dier if he's actually fit, which is vanishingly rare these days. Again, having a fit back-up might have meant we could have rested Dier a bit more when his form dropped.

The point is not that there was absolutely no player out there. Just that when you weight absolutely everything up, the players that are clear, certain improvements on what we already have are actually few and far between. When it comes down to wondering whether Foyth et al are good enough for our squad...these guys are back ups to back ups, if we’re wondering whether they really need improving, we aren’t talking about that much impact in the grand scheme of things.

Like I said, Foyth et al aren't back-ups to back-ups, they have either been used this season or would have helped avoid our over-reliance on our starters had they been better. The impact we could have gotten simply by improving on them would have been considerable, to say nothing of the unheard-of tactic of actually buying players of comparable or better ability to your starters (which is a shocking-but-true way other teams have improved).

I'm not convinced that this excuse flies, tbh - our squad has holes, big ones, and ample area for opportunity. I can definitely accept that it might have been difficult to move players on this summer. I cannot accept that we took a look at our squad and decided that improvement for what we could spend was utterly impossible - unless, of course, what we could spend was 0.00 pounds. Which, I concede, is definitely possible with the man at the top we have.

Either way, I hope we don't repeat the mistake this January.
 
The good thing so far is that Poch isn't really complaining or singling out anyone but describing the situation as it is. Perhaps there is a committee for transfers where everyone including Poch have truly shared responsibility and goals.

That said Poch has got to be responsible for player improvements and value from their performances. Not just the first 11 but fringe and young players too.

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Doesn't sound like he was particularly happy with what happened in the window - whatever it is.

Hopefully it's rectified two months from now.
How have you read those quotes and decided he’s unhappy with what went on in the summer?

Also when do you decide to believe what Poch says? Because he’s been quoted almost 10 times saying he’s happy with how the transfer window panned out!
 
Some will believe what they want to believe i guess....it seems people still think when Poch said "we as a club need to do things differently this year" and that the club has "to be brave" last summer what he meant was "be brave and buy nobody"....

Now Poch is quoted above as saying "We need as a club in January to try to refresh the squad to move the club on" those same people will say if in the likelihood we don't strengthen in January, something like what Poch meant was the "the club need to move on from strengthening in January and be refreshing"...

As i say, some will believe what they want to believe..
 
Some will believe what they want to believe i guess....it seems people still think when Poch said "we as a club need to do things differently this year" and that the club has "to be brave" last summer what he meant was "be brave and buy nobody"....

Now Poch is quoted above as saying "We need as a club in January to try to refresh the squad to move the club on" those same people will say if in the likelihood we don't strengthen in January, something like what Poch meant was the "the club need to move on from strengthening in January and be refreshing"...

As i say, some will believe what they want to believe..
And when he says something like “Spurs top targets were unavailable and there is no point buying just anybody” what does that mean? Or do we ignore those sort of quotes because it doesn’t suit your agenda? As you say, some will believe what they want to believe, despite what Poch says.
 
We were the first club in 15 years not to sign a player. If anyone thinks Poch is happy with that, you need to take off the Spurs tinted glasses. He’s putting on a brace face in public and I admire him for it but no manager would be happy or even okay with the summer window.
 
We were the first club in 15 years not to sign a player. If anyone thinks Poch is happy with that, you need to take off the Spurs tinted glasses. He’s putting on a brace face in public and I admire him for it but no manager would be happy or even okay with the summer window.
Not happy, just realistic! Think it’s you who needs to take the blinkers off.
 


Makes no difference to those who wanted to see new signings and will not accept that for what ever reason it was not done. The biggest point/fact is that the summer window has gone/finished/dead, If we did win a trophy this season there will still be some who will blame Levy/club for not doing what THEY wanted us to do. Despite what has been given as reasons.
 
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