Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

[Baleforce]

Interesting that we defend shambolically whether Toby is in or out of the defence. It suggests a systemic problem. I really am deluded enough to believe we can win a trophy this season but we need to to tighten up at the back to grind out results. Liverpool fans have become insufferable. Would love them to crash and burn.

I think we are done already, that 6 point cushion we have gifted City is almost certainly insurmountable, we can beat them twice and still be behind them on GD.

Likewise the best we can get from the CL now is 2nd place in the group making our route through so much harder.

The margins were so fine for us to begin with that anything less that perfect wouldn’t be enough.

 

[Spur of the moment]

Interesting that we defend shambolically whether Toby is in or out of the defence. It suggests a systemic problem. I really am deluded enough to believe we can win a trophy this season but we need to to tighten up at the back to grind out results. Liverpool fans have become insufferable. Would love them to crash and burn.

Good chance of that imo. True they are better overall than this time last year but Salah is already showing signs of returning to the norm, which for him would mean around half the number of goals he scored last season.

Also there may well come a point when they struggle to maintain their uber high-intensity press and that's when things could suddenly start going pear-shaped.

We can but hope.

 

[fernadez]

What I find interesting/worrying about those quotes are the fact that I flies in the face of what the league is about.

Ideally possession football is the goal, but for example Leicester and Chelsea have recently have shown that domestically it's not needed to be successful. Liverpool weren't bothering with it and if you look into the history of the Premier League, the teams that have won it/challenged haven't focused on it either. Even Ferguson has spoken about the difference of what works in the league and what works in Europe, and domestically possession is overrated.

There's many a time we go 1-0 up and don't go for the kill and end up being punished cause we just seem content with keeping the ball or struggle in games for the same reason. There's been a lot of debate about sticking to philosophies v being adaptable, again if you look at Ferguson he was able to be successful cause he understood adaption was needed v Wenger who didn't. Pep doesn't really count as City are in a artificial position.

 

[StephenH]

Walkers comments regarding Pochettino and that book. Disclosures like this will not increase current players trust of him, Walker was good lad.
Private should mean just that.

 

[Spurs7891]

I think Pochettino's main problem is he is too loyal to his players and too obsessed with youngsters. He simply trusts young players too much. He should start players on current form rather than reputation.

 

[Baleforce]

I think Pochettino's main problem is he is too loyal to his players and too obsessed with youngsters. He simply trusts young players too much. He should start players on current form rather than reputation.

I think our problems this season are from not trusting young players enough, Sanchez, KWP, Foyth, Winks and Amos should all have had more of a look in with the erratic fitness and form of the regulars.

 

[Moby]

I think our problems this season are from not trusting young players enough, Sanchez, KWP, Foyth, Winks and Amos should all have had more of a look in with the erratic fitness and form of the regulars.

I’d start Skipp against Brighton!

But then I’m a football maverick

 

[Bullet]

Basically you need skill/bravery/desire/urgency to win matches. Our skill levels are fine, but our bravery/desire/urgency has dipped recently. Pockle has identified this and will hopefully be lighting a fire under our players' asses as we speak.

It will be interesting to see if we play with huge bravery*/desire/urgency.



*Bravery to play good football, try things, control the ball.... not bravery to lump it long and smash into challenges 2 footed and get sent off

 

[Baleforce]

Certain irony in the fact that very few things we’ve done this season could be described as brave.

 

[metalgear]

Always thought this would be a tough season, thought we might have got away with it if we moved into the new stadium, the adrenalin from that seeing us through.
but fate has conspired against us this year.

no one can say for sure, but my hunch is that the stadium delay had a huge impact on our transfers, and poch was planning for transfers to alleviate the anticipated lack of freshness amongst the key players. but that's all behind us now.

however i thought all that good preseason work with llorente and gazzaniga was wasted. they would've been useful against at least watford. just going with the same tired legs match after match was just going to make us worse. after man u i really thought that poch would've wanted key players for the CL. he took a gamble, and lost badly. he needs to trust an alternative gameplan and the fringe players if he wants to compete on all fronts.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

no one can say for sure, but my hunch is that the stadium delay had a huge impact on our transfers, and poch was planning for transfers to alleviate the anticipated lack of freshness amongst the key players. but that's all behind us now.

however i thought all that good preseason work with llorente and gazzaniga was wasted. they would've been useful against at least watford. just going with the same tired legs match after match was just going to make us worse. after man u i really thought that poch would've wanted key players for the CL. he took a gamble, and lost badly. he needs to trust an alternative gameplan and the fringe players if he wants to compete on all fronts.

He is rotating nearly everyone in the squad. Llorente is pretty much the only one that isn’t getting a shake, but he kind of needs to prove he deserves it.

It’s interesting for Poch - and it will be interesting to see if the squad gets back to running as hard as they need to. If they don’t, there’s an argument to say he would need to adjust his system and philosophy (because if our players don’t think they need to run as much anymore, Real’s players certainly won’t think they need to).

Or he will just bomb out the worst offenders and start the cycle again with some youth to start getting the results.

 

[Yiddo]

Looking at the squad last night, if we want to go up to that next level there is only 7 players i would keep. If some of the others are happy to be squad players then maybe a couple more.

Unfortunately at the moment this current squad is not good enough to challenge the Cities, Liverpool and Chelsea’s.

 

[metalgear]

He is rotating nearly everyone in the squad. Llorente is pretty much the only one that isn’t getting a shake, but he kind of needs to prove he deserves it.

It’s interesting for Poch - and it will be interesting to see if the squad gets back to running as hard as they need to. If they don’t, there’s an argument to say he would need to adjust his system and philosophy (because if our players don’t think they need to run as much anymore, Real’s players certainly won’t think they need to).

Or he will just bomb out the worst offenders and start the cycle again with some youth to start getting the results.

Not sure if he is rotating the players enough. Llorente looked ok in pre-season and poch could have asked him to take a beating for the team against watford. Aurier too. Lamela looked so much fitter than the rest and probably a better starter? Sanchez had more rest but features less than verts and toby.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Not sure if he is rotating the players enough. Llorente looked ok in pre-season and poch could have asked him to take a beating for the team against watford. Aurier too. Lamela looked so much fitter than the rest and probably a better starter? Sanchez had more rest but features less than verts and toby.

I think Llorente is the only one that hasn’t had any injury problems that hasn’t really had any chances either - everyone else is getting games. I think we then have to consider deserving a chance based on past performances, and Llorente hasn’t ever really done it for us.

 

[nayenezgani]

Looking at the squad last night, if we want to go up to that next level there is only 7 players i would keep. If some of the others are happy to be squad players then maybe a couple more.

Unfortunately at the moment this current squad is not good enough to challenge the Cities, Liverpool and Chelsea’s.

But we have been and will continue to challenge them.. You'd keep seven of our fudging players? Are you mad? We have one of the strongest starting 11's in the league...

 

[Bedfordspurs]

But we have been and will continue to challenge them.. You'd keep seven of our fudging players? Are you mad? We have one of the strongest starting 11's in the league...

No we need a full on rebuilding job... it’s clear after just 6 games

It’s always best to judge teams as early as possible in the season and ideal sack the coach nice and early too

 

[braineclipse]

But we have been and will continue to challenge them.. You'd keep seven of our fudging players? Are you mad? We have one of the strongest starting 11's in the league...

Taking a charitable reading of what he said.

We were nowhere near challenging City last season. If Liverpool or Chelsea push on to a similar level, or even a bit below that what has been good enough to challenge in recent seasons will no longer be good enough.

Not sure who the 7 players are. Lloris and Alli weren't in the starting line-up. Not sure if they are included in the 7 or not. Would be easier to take seriously if the 7 were named.

That we will have to improve to challenge at the very top of the table, to win the league or CL I think is beyond question. Unless City implode and others fail to improve. How do we do that? Sign 2-4 players for the starting line-up that are clear improvements on what we have? Develop our existing players further as Pochettino has proven himself capable of? A combination of the two? One of the latter two options would be my suggestion for most realistic and likely to succeed.

 

[DevonSpur]

Looking at the squad last night, if we want to go up to that next level there is only 7 players i would keep. If some of the others are happy to be squad players then maybe a couple more.

Unfortunately at the moment this current squad is not good enough to challenge the Cities, Liverpool and Chelsea’s.

Mate, I hope that you were off your tits when you posted this 'cos otherwise you are living in Cloud-Cuckoo Land and you need to change your medication!!!

In your opinion we should only keep 7 of our current squad.... let's have a hypothetical look.

OK, so we would need to sell/replace everyone but this Magnificent Seven over the course of how long? I'm guessing two seasons max (before this group of seven decide to sod off to the big boys), thereby ripping apart the squad that has got us to the top table in the european and domestic game.

After doing this - which would rip the heart out of the club - we then have to spunk an absolute fortune (that we don't have) on new players and hope that pretty much all the new guys fit in seamlessly and very quickly both on and off the pitch.

No fudging way this is ever going to happen. It might work on Football Manager but in the real world it is mental to even think it would be a sensible way to 'challenge' those teams you've named.

IMV we are already challenging the doped/mega-rich clubs as best we can but if that still isn't seen as good enough by some fans then I can't see any realistic way of appeasing them and I, for one, am bloody glad that we aren't and won't go down such a dangerous and stupid route.

 

[Yiddo]

Liverpool and City both overhauled their teams within 2 - 3 seasons and look at them now. Alot of our players are overrated and have been living off the "young and inexperienced" tag for too long. Big teams make ruthless decisions and i feel we need to start signing players that will improve our first 11 not players that are a gamble. We have the same mentality we had 4 years ago and it shows when the going gets tough.

Have we got experienced leaders in the team? Leaders who will see us through games like Watford & Inter? We come out and say we need to improve and learn from mistakes but do the same brick we have done for years.

 

[StephenH]

The heart of most threads like these here is the old chestnut ‘the huge chasm in financial clout’.
The bad news it will probably increase due to the stadium in spite of what the club said!