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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

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
If only we could afford the wage demands of someone with this level of arrogance to have as a backup forward...

 
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

True, but everytime we got close they dived. 3 times in the midfield the signed it was a dive yet no booking
 
It never fails to amaze me how melodramatic some fans can get after a loss.

Agreed, it was a poor performance - they happen. Had we got away with a point, which we almost did, people might have been saying that getting a point when you dont play well is the sign of a good team!

The main thing which I think Poch got wrong yesterday was the double sub simply because it meant that we ended up with a midfield three who were all very similar in style (Winks, Dembele, Eriksen), took off both our main attackers which had some pace and made us one-dimensional.

If the next performance or two are also crap then I might get a bit concerned, but there's nothing at the moment to suggest they will be
 
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 agree in general with your post eze. You would think that a manager of Poch's standing in the game that hasn't won a trophy would be desperate to get the first trophy under his belt and the league cup represented the most straightforward route to a final for us. I would have been annoyed if we had lost to Shrewsbury/insert another team here in the manner that we did on Wednesday, the fact that it was West Ham just compounded the frustration. Poch clearly believes we can win the league and in his mind has to priortise the competitions as follows; PL, CL, FA, CC. I get that but we still have a squad that should be capable of challenging on all fronts.

His record in away games against the top teams leaves a lot to be desired. We have Arsenal away in a couple of weeks so Poch has a chance to improve his record quite quickly. However, I do think Poch has been let down by the players in said big games; one example is Lloris. Granted he was amazing against Real Madrid and Liverpool, but he has a made a series of high profile blunders against the top teams, his pass in the first half which led to Lukaku having a chance to cross to a team mate and when he fumbled Mkhitaryan's shot in the second half were both moments I'm sure he'd like to forget. Sorry if that comes across as singling out Lloris but it really isn't. As a team, I'm not sure if we have the belief to go to those grounds and win.

I disagree with the comparison to Jol. Our defence was like a sieve under Jol, we often had to score 3 or 4 goals just to get a draw. Not to mention our record in general against the big 4, no wins against Arsenal, Liverpool, United despite the great win over Chelsea. Our defensive record under Poch the last 2 seasons has been exceptional.
 
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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.
but we did look vulnerable on the break, many times going down to a 1:1 race to the flanks with no cover. it looked like a mistake, slip or odd bounce could undo us throughout the second half ... and it did.
Loyal Spurs supporters and we moan after every game...
...moaning in search of excellence isn't that bad, well at least to me, and until we win the league
 
Read what you just wrote. I think there's a big clanger in there. Te, he.

Is the clanger about Dier's distribution? Because it didn't seem so bad.
Or are you talking about Mourinho targeting Sanchez? Because I think, after the Europa League final, it was admitted that Sanchez was targeted. With some success. So it's fair to speculate that Poch didn't think there'd been enough change in his game yet to allow him to withstand such focus if it was applied again.
 
Poch, trying to understand on what basis Sanches got dropped for Dier today!! WHY MAN!! WHY!! and it effing cost us!
You have no idea if it cost us. As I mentioned in the Davinson thread, it's not like they ran riot over our defense. We held them at bay quite comfortably, with the exception of one or two spells where they put us under pressure. And the goal didn't even come in one of those spells. So don't get your knickers in a bind over this. If Dele had scored that golden chance he got, it would have been a completely different narrative and everyone would have said how the defense didn't miss a beat with Dier in place of Davinson. Fine margins. Very fine.
 
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.
Huh? A showing like what? We played a park-the-bus Mourinho team. Chances were going to be few and far between. And we more than held our own and dominated more than they did. It was just one of those games where we didn't take our gilt-edged chance and they took theirs. Simple as that. You can't judge an entire performance on one single moment.
 
I agree in general with your post eze. You would think that a manager of Poch's standing in the game that hasn't won a trophy would be desperate to get the first trophy under his belt and the league cup represented the most straightforward route to a final for us. I would have been annoyed if we had lost to Shrewsbury/insert another team here in the manner that we did on Wednesday, the fact that it was West Ham just compounded the frustration. Poch clearly believes we can win the league and in his mind has to priortise the competitions as follows; PL, CL, FA, CC. I get that but we still have a squad that should be capable of challenging on all fronts.

His record in away games against the top teams leaves a lot to be desired. We have Arsenal away in a couple of weeks so Poch has a chance to improve his record quite quickly. However, I do think Poch has been let down by the players in said big games; one example is Lloris. Granted he was amazing against Real Madrid and Liverpool, but he has a made a series of high profile blunders against the top teams, his pass in the first half which led to Lukaku having a chance to cross to a team mate and when he fumbled Mkhitaryan's shot in the second half were both moments I'm sure he'd like to forget. Sorry if that comes across as singling out Lloris but it really isn't. As a team, I'm not sure if we have the belief to go to those grounds and win.

I disagree with the comparison to Jol. Our defence was like a sieve under Jol, we often had to score 3 or 4 goals just to get a draw. Not to mention our record in general against the big 4, no wins against Arsenal, Liverpool, United despite the great win over Chelsea. Our defensive record under Poch the last 2 seasons has been exceptional.
I don't think he's that insecure. As many others have mentioned, and as you can clearly see with your own eyes, he is someone who has put us on a path to achieve loftier ambitions than a Carabao cup and he is confident enough in his vision and approach that he will not let other things derail it.
 
You have no idea if it cost us. As I mentioned in the Davinson thread, it's not like they ran riot over our defense. We held them at bay quite comfortably, with the exception of one or two spells where they put us under pressure. And the goal didn't even come in one of those spells. So don't get your knickers in a bind over this. If Dele had scored that golden chance he got, it would have been a completely different narrative and everyone would have said how the defense didn't miss a beat with Dier in place of Davinson. Fine margins. Very fine.
Noone said they run riot over our defence. But if you make changes to a settled central defence basic errors like the one on Saturday are more likely to happen. Sanchez didnt play against West Ham and bar injury no logical reason to bench him in what had been a very solid defence.....
 
Noone said they run riot over our defence. But if you make changes to a settled central defence basic errors like the one on Saturday are more likely to happen. Sanchez didnt play against West Ham and bar injury no logical reason to bench him in what had been a very solid defence.....

I think the possible logical reason is that we were coming up against an opponent who had made a specific point of targeting Davinson when they last faced him a few months ago. As I guessed above, it's possible Poch didn't think he'd seen enough change in Sanchez to sufficiently reduce the risk of it happening again.
 
Rediculous ... overreaction from some.

Poch is allowed to learn. Had we nicked it he would have been hailed as a genius etc
Nail on head. Dele scores and we win 1-0 it is genius managing to nick all three points up there in the squall with a bare bones squad. The result as it stands shows that Poch is naive, we are big-game bottlers, we have a fundamentally weak mentality and we Poch is naive and should be better than Moaninho.
 
Nail on head. Dele scores and we win 1-0 it is genius managing to nick all three points up there in the squall with a bare bones squad. The result as it stands shows that Poch is naive, we are big-game bottlers, we have a fundamentally weak mentality and we Poch is naive and should be better than Moaninho.

Worth revisiting Carlo Ancelotti's quotes on this subject, about how we are in thrall to the cult of the individual with football, always looking for a hero to revere or a loser to point the blame at. In reality football is a low scoring game and we can just as easily win as lose them in a lot of instances. The main work takes place during the week, and although Poch disagrees with Ancelotti in how much coaches can affect games on a match day (Poch thinks he can have a good impact), the fact that it is a low-scoring game is true.
 
Worth revisiting Carlo Ancelotti's quotes on this subject, about how we are in thrall to the cult of the individual with football, always looking for a hero to revere or a loser to point the blame at. In reality football is a low scoring game and we can just as easily win as lose them in a lot of instances. The main work takes place during the week, and although Poch disagrees with Ancelotti in how much coaches can affect games on a match day (Poch thinks he can have a good impact), the fact that it is a low-scoring game is true.
And it is a game often decided by a mistake or series of mistakes - as evidenced on the weekend.
 
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