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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

Yes, we do.

Did you not watch the game Sunday?

At which point were you thinking "If only we had a winning mentality"?

Was it when we equalised against the run of the first half?

Was it when we beasted them for the second half?

When we got the second, and then third to put it to bed?

Or maybe when we just settled in and dealt with everything they had to offer?

When were you thinking "Yeah, but .... winning mentality"?

The whole game was a display of it.

And to flip it on its head, lets put it this way. Suppose we win the FA cup:

1) How will we win it without a winning mentality in the first place?
2) What will change when we do?

Again, you are mistaking winning for “winning mentality” - ie the mentality of winners. Yes we won the game and did so in style. We have a great team with some exceptional individuals. Of course we will win games. We are always capable of a brilliant one-off result. We are steadily improving, when this team wins something we will have demonstrated a winning mentality by, er, actually winning something - not just one-off games. This victory is undoubtedly a step in the right direction and the next big step is the semi against United. But remember the stat that in twelve games we have conceded first this season, we have only come back to win twice.

To give an analogy. We want to climb Everest. We are near the summit and making upward progress because we are skilled climbers. However, we fail to reach the summit and plant our flag on it? Are we successful? Do we have that “winning mentality” to reach the ultimate stage or are we just good losers and content that “nearly there” will do? That’s not how real winners feel.

Oh, and btw, read what Poch says on the matter.
 
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No, Im not.

I know the difference, and yesterday was a game displaying winning mentality - not just a good performance.

The way we won was exceptional, and "winning mentality" perfectly encapsulates how we played.

Funny you mention one off results - if we win the cup this year, what is that if not one or two one off results?

"Oh, but this actually means something" Im sure youll say - but so did Sunday. Win and CL is virtually guaranteed, lose and Chelsea are snapping at our heels. We put them away. Winners.

I read what Poch says, and to be honest I think you can add your own slant to it, its not definitive.

To me, we have a winning mentality, and we will always and continuously build it up/work on it. Pochs comments support that.

To you we dont, but we magically will at some point in time when we win a game you think counts, and funnily enough Pochs comments support that too.


And Ill ask again, as you so deftly avoided the first time:
Suppose we win the FA cup:
1) How will we win it without a winning mentality in the first place?
2) What will change when we do?
 
Again, you are mistaking winning for “winning mentality” - ie the mentality of winners.

I was about to agree with you about the crucial different between winning and winning mentality, but then realised that you are mistaking winning competitions for winning mentality. I agree with NFTHL. It's about the approach rather than the end result.

Winning mentality is about the approach to a game, how players react to setbacks. Sometimes a team will be unlucky even when playing well and with a winning mentality. The applies even more to trophies. A team with a good record of getting result by showing a winning mentality will not necessarily win a trophy. Sometimes they are up against team with more talent and winning mentality is not enough to bridge the gap.
 
No, Im not.

I know the difference, and yesterday was a game displaying winning mentality - not just a good performance.

The way we won was exceptional, and "winning mentality" perfectly encapsulates how we played.

Funny you mention one off results - if we win the cup this year, what is that if not one or two one off results?

"Oh, but this actually means something" Im sure youll say - but so did Sunday. Win and CL is virtually guaranteed, lose and Chelsea are snapping at our heels. We put them away. Winners.

I read what Poch says, and to be honest I think you can add your own slant to it, its not definitive.

To me, we have a winning mentality, and we will always and continuously build it up/work on it. Pochs comments support that.

To you we dont, but we magically will at some point in time when we win a game you think counts, and funnily enough Pochs comments support that too.


And Ill ask again, as you so deftly avoided the first time:
Suppose we win the FA cup:
1) How will we win it without a winning mentality in the first place?
2) What will change when we do?

You deftly ignore the fact we have only come back to win twice in 12 games if conceding first. Where is the winning mentality there?

At our stage of evolution, to win the FA cup will demonstrate that we are winners and have ultimately achieved the winning mentality to reach the summit ( in my Everest analogy).

The change of actually having won something will put to bed the “chokers “ charge and help us kick on to achieve more success confident in the knowledge and extra belief that comes with winning. Not coming second, not coming third. WINNING a trophy.

If you don’t understand the difference between real winners and also rans then I can’t help you further.
 
Im not ignoring it. Im just not looking at it as proof of anything. It needs context. How do we rank in going behind? And coming back? And, as usual - where stats are concerned you are rather prone to cherry picking them to add your own bias. So no, not ignoring, rather not really caring.

Particularly when you look at where we are and how we are doing. Its irrelevant.


I think the thing is, YOU dont understand winning mentality. The idea that winning two games defines us more than our ongoing performance is ludicrus.

Placing such stock in what amounts to fortune as much as anything, rather than the competition where we have to perform consistently over time, it just doesnt add up.

The FA cup? We have made hard work of lower league teams, then have two games to win it. What would winning that prove over Sunday? Over the 4-5 games from hell we had last month?

Nothing.

And heres the truth - win the FA cup? NOTHING changes. We had to have the mentality to win to win the thing. We display it all the time. And if we do win the FA cup it will not prove anything, itll be just another step on our growth as a team. We wont wake up the next day magically possessed by the much needed winning mentality - it was there the whole time.

Well, not NOTHING, obviously itll shut up the short sighted types who think its somehow definitive.
 
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Thats not bad going, is that not winning mentality? People can say being knocked out by Juve shows a non winning mentality but I don't agree, we lost a game where two big and very decent sides went for it and we came out second, thats not mentality driven thats just the nature of winning and losing in sport. Tiger Woods has and had a winning mentality but he didnt win every play off? Does not mean his winning mentality came into question?
 
Why should we believe that you know the difference? For all we know, you could just be another loud mouth on the internet.

You made a similar snide comment before and I let it slide. What exactly has that got to do with anything?
 
And you deftly ignore that we had the second best record in the league for points gained from a losing position last season.

Cherry picking! Context! We are discussing this season and whether we have a winning mentality NOW.

Or shall we talk about last seasons results away to our rivals or our Champions League and Europa League exploits?
 
Im not ignoring it. Im just not looking at it as proof of anything. It needs context. How do we rank in going behind? And coming back? And, as usual - where stats are concerned you are rather prone to cherry picking them to add your own bias. So no, not ignoring, rather not really caring.

Particularly when you look at where we are and how we are doing. Its irrelevant.


I think the thing is, YOU dont understand winning mentality. The idea that winning two games defines us more than our ongoing performance is ludicrus.

Placing such stock in what amounts to fortune as much as anything, rather than the competition where we have to perform consistently over time, it just doesnt add up.

The FA cup? We have made hard work of lower league teams, then have two games to win it. What would winning that prove over Sunday? Over the 4-5 games from hell we had last month?

Nothing.

And heres the truth - win the FA cup? NOTHING changes. We had to have the mentality to win to win the thing. We display it all the time. And if we do win the FA cup it will not prove anything, itll be just another step on our growth as a team. We wont wake up the next day magically possessed by the much needed winning mentality - it was there the whole time.

Well, not NOTHING, obviously itll shut up the short sighted types who think its somehow definitive.

Ha. Winning trophies is irrelevant now! I really have heard it all.

Poch gave the ultimate definitive view on this. So I will leave him to let you know that we are on the way to developing a winning mentality and it is not the same as having one now. That is it really- quite simple to understand and no room for wiggling.
 
Wasn’t that what Pirate was getting at, were at a certain stage that of developing such a mentality but in order to truly achieve it there are further stages to get to....

what differentiates having a winning mentality and winning trophies, in light of the above? because to me it just sounds like you're using the two interchangeably

do Chelsea have a winning mentality?

they won the league last season, they're the current champions of England - if the Champions of England don't have a winning mentality who does? if they do, why are they 5th getting beat at home to a Spurs team that is so far away from having a winning mentality the idea that they do is laughable? did they get a winning mentality but lost it in the celebrations?

do City have a winning mentality? all they have won under Guardiola so far is the league cup, we've already established that winning one trophy, especially the league cup, doesn't give you a winning mentality and we know that you can't have a winning mentality until you've won something (just not a cup competition, or a league if you're Chelsea or Leicester) so when can we say they have a winning mentality? once they've won the league? Once they've won the league twice on the spin? when?

do Arsenal have a winning mentality? 3 cups in 4 years coming in to this season, two of them coming when they were underdogs, the greatest FA Cup record of them all, id certainly like to win 3 FA Cups in 4 years - if we won 3 FA Cups in 4 years would we then have that winning mentality? would the type of winning mentality that this current Arsenal team display be the missing ingredient that takes us up a level or two, like it has them?

Liverpool - no trophies in a long old while but have a good record against the big teams and do well once they have fallen behind, do they have it?

Man United, they won 3 trophies last season etc etc


do people really think any of those sides have a better mentality than us? that if you somehow transplanted that one thing from their players/coaches mindset that we so obviously lack that we'd see us jump up a level or two? is mentality really what is holding this team back? Are we even being held back? are we not just a very good team competing with other very good teams for a limited number of trophies?

Can we even as a club be expected to be a dominating force? what happens in a hypothetical scenario where we win the league/cup whatever and then City and United go out blow their huge piles of money on the best players around and it all falls in to place and they over take us? will it be because we lacked the mentality to repeat the achievement or would it be because we're just up against clubs with far too much money to fall behind for too long

if Leicester and Chelsea don't have a winning mentality, or Arsenal and whoever else then what the hell is it that you're actually expecting?
 
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Ha. Winning trophies is irrelevant now! I really have heard it all.

Poch gave the ultimate definitive view on this. So I will leave him to let you know that we are on the way to developing a winning mentality and it is not the same as having one now. That is it really- quite simple to understand and no room for wiggling.

Im not saying winning trophies are irrelevant, I want to win as many as possible.

Im saying winning trophies is irrelevant, in the context of our winning mentality. We already have it. Winning would be affirmation of it, for those unable to view life outside of black and white, but it changes nothing. We have a winning mentality, to win in a final we would display that winning mentality - just as we did Sunday - and after the final our mentality is as it was. It wont have miraculously changed.

As already stated, Pochs comments have plenty of wiggle room. You would have to be pretty dense to take them as literal, especially when English isnt even his first language.

Winning games away like this does build a winning mentality. To say we are building a winning mentality is not to say we dont have one. It is to say we are building up what we have.

In a competitive environment I would expect no less than to ALWAYS be building on it. I would not expect to have one game, one day when *ping* we miraculously have one.
 
I would say this Chelsea don't have a winning mentality. If they did they wouldn't have such ups and downs from season to season. It suggests a fragile mentality. They have some very good players who do very well when confident and on a winning run, enabling them to win titles. A bad start and their season falls apart.

I would also say Leicester have a winning mentality. They kept winning when the whole world said they couldn't. The reason they couldn't keep challenging for the titles was they don't have enough good players and some were raided. They are still difficult to beat, even for the top sides.
 
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