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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

DubaiSpur said:

As expected, the first questions about the anecdotes in the book popped up today - Poch seemed prepared for them, which indicates that he was at least aware that those questions were coming. But there were quite a few.
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Good watch that, especially like him calling out that Shearer comment about taking Harry off when he had scored 2 goals yet by leaving him on in the Liverpool game he's actually going to end up with less pitch time.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Going to give this a listen now - do they serial why now with the book? The timing, with such a current manager doing so well, is a little odd. You’d expect us not to want to rock the boat with anything. Is this all part of a strategy to boost our profile therefore? Or to continue to build the cult of personality around Poch? Who’s idea was it?
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Sorry just picked up on this now and you probably have the answer to your questions if you listened to the podcast.

But for those who haven’t listened to it, it doesn’t seem to be anything to do with boosting profiles, nor about a cult around Poch (the very idea that Poch would want to be a cult figure is contrary to everything we know about him imo). Balague being an Espanyol fan has long had an interest In Pochettino and is clearly a fan of his and knew him years ago. Balague had written books on Benitez, Guardiola,and Messi. Then he wanted to write a book on Poch, as recommended by his Spurs supporting publisher. Poch knew him and Poch’s wife said ‘do it’. It doesn’t seem there was any particular motive around timing, it just happened and Poch was happy to do it.
Whilst it’s not an official biography, It seems that everything is good with the club - the book is on sale in the club shop. Levy contributed. Him and Levy get on very well. Why would it be a problem).

The Dier story about his conversation with Mourinho after we played them last season is topical obviously and could be controversial ~ yet it transpires that it was Dier who told the story to Balague (although Balague already knew some of the details before he interviewed Dier towards the end of the season) - so no indiscretion by Poch at all. Dier acknowledges that he had a dip in form at the start of the seaso but ends the season wishing he could play longer and agreeing that he would avoid speak8ngnwith Mourinho in the future. This kind of ties in with the bit if ITK from @AberYid in the summer about the players discussing transfer rumours in their Whats App group and laughing at the Dier-Utd rumours.

He talks about Poch’s great relationship with his coaching staff and how they are all very close mates.

And a side of Poch that we might not envisage : when at the training ground and he wants to have some time to himself, he hides away in a chair in the corner of John McDermott’s office. If he’s there, you don’t disturb him.

Levy is a fan, he loves his job and Poch has enhanced that. Levy believes Poch is the right man.

The players and Poch and Levy feel that something special is being built - that’s Balague’s impression.

I wanted to read the book anyway but listening to Balague on that podcast has just whetted my appetite even more.
 
afsoc4life said:
Poch, trying to understand on what basis Sanches got dropped for Dier today!! WHY MAN!! WHY!! and it effing cost us!
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Flexibility? A show of faith to Dier? A reward for his focus and dedication in training? Sanchez easing off a bit in training? Sanchez hitting a tough point in his settling in period and looking a little distracted?

Dier has done enough for us to deserve faith. Now he’s ballsed up, it will be interesting to see the decision making going forward though.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Flexibility? A show of faith to Dier? A reward for his focus and dedication in training? Sanchez easing off a bit in training? Sanchez hitting a tough point in his settling in period and looking a little distracted?

Dier has done enough for us to deserve faith. Now he’s ballsed up, it will be interesting to see the decision making going forward though.
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Dont agree. I think back to a few horror moments last season - e.g. Liverpool away. I worry when the ball or game gets near Dier when he is playing CB against tough teams.

Also Dier didnt play well against WH in the previous game. Sanchez didnt play against WH so well rested. He is also consistently being a member of the back 3. I wonder what his morale is like now.
 
First time I’ve been properly annoyed with the manager today.

We lose, we are all used to that - but the way we did was terrible and after saying the cups are pretty worthless they manage to put in a showing like that is a supposed important competition.

Bad week all round.
 
As much as Poch has improved us, it has to be stated that when it comes to the crunch do or die/winner takes all games he is still looking not capable of taking that next step.
Midweek cup giveaway and then the typical late loss of focus again in a crunch game.

It doesn't help that pundits and now a book is bigging him up before he can cement his work; making him - and us - an easy target for the "yeah but what has he won" jibes.

Feels a bit higher level Martin Jol at this point sadly
 
I think Poch Just needs a reality check on where we are at this moment in time. We have made great strides but we are not going to win the PL or CL this season - especially playing our home games at Wembley. To debase the cups by a manager who hasn’t won a thing in his managerial career is the height of Ozymandias in my opinion.
 
glorygloryeze said:
As much as Poch has improved us, it has to be stated that when it comes to the crunch do or die/winner takes all games he is still looking not capable of taking that next step.
Midweek cup giveaway and then the typical late loss of focus again in a crunch game.

It doesn't help that pundits and now a book is bigging him up before he can cement his work; making him - and us - an easy target for the "yeah but what has he won" jibes.

Feels a bit higher level Martin Jol at this point sadly
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Today wasn’t one of those and neither was Wednesday imho. But if we accept they were, then all those “big games” he has won like Liverpool last week, like Man Utd, Arsenal, City and Chelsea last season are conveniently ignored.
 
Pirate55 said:
I think Poch Just needs a reality check on where we are at this moment in time. We have made great strides but we are not going to win the PL or CL this season - especially playing our home games at Wembley. To debase the cups by a manager who hasn’t won a thing in his managerial career is the height of Ozymandias in my opinion.
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Exactly like I said earlier this week. Its giving yourself an excuse for not winning.
 
Robspur12 said:
Today wasn’t one of those and neither was Wednesday imho. But if we accept they were, then all those “big games” he has won like Liverpool last week, like Man Utd, Arsenal, City and Chelsea last season are conveniently ignored.
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Today is maybe debatable, though i think it was sort of do or die, in that one of teams had to win to keep City within sight; it was at the least do not lose. But alas we couldn't even keep the draw for another 8 - 10 mins.
Wednesday absolutely was do or die; a cup game that has to be decided on the night always will be. You may not see it as an important competition but it was do or die. We lost that one and haven't won a cup in GHod knows how long, whilst Poch himself hasn't in his career.
Fine margins in all of this, but Poch ultimately is always on the other side of those margins sadly.

Regarding those wins against those teams you mentioned last season, how many of them were really do or die?
 
did poch say anything in that book about buying lorente? i'm struggling to see how he intends to play an ageing 32 year old striker into our game which is based on mobility. perhaps theres a plan to utitlise his height and close control - but i don't see it happening yet. it seems we've lost half a player everytime he comes on.
 
Our passing out the back was crisp today. Mourinho targetted Sanchez last year because he was less able with the ball. Dier's distribution was spot on all game.
 
glorygloryeze said:
As much as Poch has improved us, it has to be stated that when it comes to the crunch do or die/winner takes all games he is still looking not capable of taking that next step.
Midweek cup giveaway and then the typical late loss of focus again in a crunch game.

It doesn't help that pundits and now a book is bigging him up before he can cement his work; making him - and us - an easy target for the "yeah but what has he won" jibes.

Feels a bit higher level Martin Jol at this point sadly
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Oh come on. We all loved Martin Jol, but we are clearly on a whole different level now under Poch. We have taken so many "next steps" that we would have failed at in the past. We lost yesterday due to a late defensive error by a player who otherwise had a very good game. A mistake, it happens. It hasn't ended our season, it hasn't ended our title challenge, so in that respect it was not 'do or die'.

On Wednesday he put out a side full of experienced players. Makeshift as a team maybe, but with plenty of experience nonetheless. He didn't play 'the kids'. There was enough there to go through to the next round but the players got complacent because they were cruising against a dire West Ham team and got caught out when that dire team found a bit of drive. I don't for one moment believe Poch was happy about the nature of the defeat. But from the perspective of his roadmap for our season, going out of the competition is not the end of the world for him.
For me, that does not reflect on Poch's capability as a manager, rather it is reflective of the pragmatic approach he has to take to focus on his priorities (which I would assume have been agreed with Levy).

Pirate55 said:
I think Poch Just needs a reality check on where we are at this moment in time. We have made great strides but we are not going to win the PL or CL this season - especially playing our home games at Wembley. To debase the cups by a manager who hasn’t won a thing in his managerial career is the height of Ozymandias in my opinion.
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But Poch believes we can win the PL this season. (I don't know if he believes we can with the CL, but he certainly wants to take us as far as possible in the competition). Where are we "at this moment in time" that you mention? We are on the back of a season where we finished 2nd in the league, following a season where we finished 3rd (and should have finished 2nd). With a squad that we kept intact with one exception. A squad that we have improved. 3rd in the table now after only a quarter of the season played. Winning the PL is not an unrealistic ambition to have. Difficult for sure. But we are good enough and it is achievable. Why should Poch step away from that just because we are playing at Wembley?

Should he be saying to the players "you've come very close to winning the league in the last two seasons but this season you haven't got a chance so I want to focus on winning the league cup instead, and just see how we get on in the league"?

OK, I know that's not what you are suggesting but I would far rather a manager who has real (and realistic) ambition for us. If that ambition can also dovetail with winning a domestic cup as well that would be fantastic of course. But not at the expense of challenging for the bigger prizes. Just because Poch doesn't have any trophies to his name yet doesn't mean there is some kind of pecking order where he has to start off at the bottom of the trophy ladder before he can aim for the ones at the top.
 
what we are missing, imo, is arrogance, we stood an extra half yard off them rather than aggressively pressing like we normally do against teams without exceptional pace, shied away from trying to beat someone with the ball (other than verts) and didn’t break with enough bodies
 
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