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Is this a fancier version of the Redknapp era?

thfcsteff

Terry Dyson
To be debated...I am fast-concluding that we are back to running the club along the lines of Redknapp-era Spurs. Great wonderful talents being told to basically "go out and do your thing up top"...the difference is that Mourinho is very structured defensively. But let's face it, going forward it has always been about speed and having world class talents. He has two up there now, arguably three if you want to count Sonny as world class (I don't think he quite is but still quality). We can also further debate how we got to this point, but for me, the fact remains that having achieved the impossible dream of building and an academy of some quality, we are now back to 2010-2013 era.
 
To be debated...I am fast-concluding that we are back to running the club along the lines of Redknapp-era Spurs. Great wonderful talents being told to basically "go out and do your thing up top"...the difference is that Mourinho is very structured defensively. But let's face it, going forward it has always been about speed and having world class talents. He has two up there now, arguably three if you want to count Sonny as world class (I don't think he quite is but still quality). We can also further debate how we got to this point, but for me, the fact remains that having achieved the impossible dream of building and an academy of some quality, we are now back to 2010-2013 era.

Nope

We played nice football under Redknapp.

You're both right

Mourinho is a high maintenance Redknapp without the free flowing football.
 
To be debated...I am fast-concluding that we are back to running the club along the lines of Redknapp-era Spurs. Great wonderful talents being told to basically "go out and do your thing up top"...the difference is that Mourinho is very structured defensively. But let's face it, going forward it has always been about speed and having world class talents. He has two up there now, arguably three if you want to count Sonny as world class (I don't think he quite is but still quality). We can also further debate how we got to this point, but for me, the fact remains that having achieved the impossible dream of building and an academy of some quality, we are now back to 2010-2013 era.

Yep, although I think you overrate our academy and the difficulty of getting it to where it is.

Right now, the academy generates fees to sustain its running costs - we usually sell most of our academy graduates for a tidy bit of money to the Champo/low-ish Prem sides. But when is the last time our academy genuinely produced a player that became an unshakeable part of our first eleven?

Kane. Before that, King. If you really stretch the definition of an academy product, then Rose, in the interval. Other than that, we've had a range of filler players like Winks, KWP, Mason, Bentaleb, Townsend, Carroll, Caulker and so on, who fulfill a valuable function in terms of filling out the squad, but aren't really the sorts of era-defining players that other academies have more claim to producing - the sort that go for 30m+ fees on a regular basis, that come from the likes of Ajax, Barca, Bilbao, and so on.

Even Poch didn't really do too much with the players our academy produced, despite being probably the best thing that could have happened to us from the perspective of blooding youth, instilling a common playing style from U15s up, and taking a deep interest in the structure of the club from top to bottom.
 
However, having said that, you're right in that we're now essentially back to an era with a roughly unstructured style of attacking play - go out there and create, more or less. Mourinho and Sacremento are both renowned for their periodisation approaches to training, but they focus on the defensive side of periodisation, unlike Klopp et al who divide their time between structuring their teams in the defensive and offensive phases of play.

Other than that, it's very much about instinctual decision-making on the part of players under Mourinho. He expects them to make the right choice when attacking, and leaves them to it. Like with Dele in the All or Nothing doc - in his first chat, he points out that a quicker pass from Dele would set players away, but the drills aren't structured to get players into those situations - it's an outcome of a general training drill, as far as I can tell.

It's funny that he's caricatured as a rigid coach - I suspect he's less rigid in the attacking setup than almost any of his contemporaries, from Pep to Klopp. But he needs great players for that - people who can make the right choices, inspire themselves and each other, and score goals.

I thought we had them, but..well, we have a problem there.
 
The difference is that Jose has shown an ability to win big games in the past, which is where we’ve always failed.

It was mostly fun under Redknapp, but the second we were up against competent opposition we lost and his shortcomings were obvious to all.

I’d say under Poch was a fancier version of the Redknapp era.

Hopefully Jose gives us a converted version of the AVB era.
 
I can’t work out what the hell we are TBF
It was fun under Harry and we haven’t had any of that with Jose
Watching tonight was not only awful because of the stream... it was just utter dogbrick all round
I don’t just blame the manager for that but we never ever used to lower ourselves to the level of the teams we played like that..
but Jose hasn’t had a year yet... so again, fudge knows what’s happening
 
And that problem is two-fold - 1) our players are not as good as we think they are, and b) they have declined in quality as a consequence of Poch's high-intensity pressing, compounding the former problem.

The first is fairly easy to explain - our players thrived in a pressing system where closing the down the opposition was a way of life. When you close the opposition down and win the ball in a dangerous area with the aim of getting to goal as fast as possible, the obvious pass or dribble is usually simple to see, simple to execute - because it's closer to goal, and more instinctual, with no time to think.

Our players were great at that. But when we don't press as much? When we're in possession, stroking it around? Then creating a chance becomes an exercise of thought, figuring out the right things to do, playing the difficult pass, breaking down the opposition with controlled, intelligent play.

Our players *always* fell short of that, under Poch, and under Mourinho. The only thing now is that Mourinho doesn't bother to press, leaving them even more exposed. But they were never good at the sort of probing football that top teams can play - they were always instinctual, quick, basic. When it worked, it worked beautifully - when it didn't, we struggled, and relied on Eriksen and Kane (our only good passers) to create something out of thin air.

The second problem is that our players compensated for a certain lack of quality in their play by being energetic, strong, fast and superbly fit under Poch. However, all that took its toll - to be as superhumanly fit as Poch generally wanted, the players pushed themselves to levels they couldn't sustain - and now the regression is showing. There's no doubt in my mind that Kane is simply a *worse* player now than he was two years ago - mostly because, physically, he's declined. Likewise with Son, Dele, Lucas, Rose...the physical peaks they hit are simply impossible for them to meet now, since the damage of those times is now irreparable in my eyes. So we're dealing with worse players.

I think, if we were hoping for a systems manager to come in post-Poch, he would have had the same problems as Mourinho is now facing - maybe more, because the players simply can't execute a high-energy, high-intensity system anymore. It's why I think someone like Mourinho, who is laid back in his demands (at least, physically) is actually better at this point, to extract what we can from the players left over from the Poch era.

Poch saw this coming - he kept pleading for fresh legs and new players that never came. We all know what happened there. But I think it's unfair on Mourinho a little bit to blame him for either of the above. It's just where we are now - the consequences of the past half-decade of squad building, experiences and recruitment.
 
I didn’t see all of it due to stream issues, but I didn’t think there was anything new there on the negative side, shape and tactics were familiar and we dominated the ball, I felt we had a bit more in the midfield than against Everton with Sissoko in a more usual role. GLC and Bergwijn started well too.

Kane and Son need to sort themselves out though, another poor performance from them, Jose can’t keep letting them get away with it.
 
I bloody hope so. Redknapp brought us from the relegation zone to CL football playing some great football. A fancier version of that, with a harder mental edge to win the big games, is exactly what I want right now. However, I think there is an inference in your post that Harry was some sort of charlatan and Jose is just a better version of that but a charlatan nonetheless.

I'm not mad on this "project" and "philosophy" stuff when it comes to managers. It infers a long term thing. Nobody does long term anymore. In fact, with Jol, Harry and Poch, that was as close to long term as most clubs have come in that time. Results are all important. What managers have been successful with a "project"? Klopp is about the best bet but he's spent a brickload over the years and spent £140m on VVD and Allison to turn them from a fancy Ossie Ardiles team into champions. The academy is also a bit of a red herring. It'll produce a gem every now and then but you're hoping for that and a bunch of players you can sell to cover the cost and make us some money.

I'm expect Jose to last another 2-3 seasons. I'm expecting him to win trophies in his time here. I'm expecting us to be on another level by the inevitable end of his reign and Levy to consolidate us on that level and formulate a plan to take us up again as he's done 3-4 times over the last two decades. When it comes to philosophies, long term plans, visions and projects - it's Levy that's the key man for us, not the managers. They're just there for a period of time to bring us to the next step on the journey.
 
@thfcsteff , @milo , @DubaiSpur i make you all right in different ways.

We just have to suck it up for now and hope for the best. Physically a lot of these players are spent and we have to sadly put some of the blame for that at Poch's door due to:

a) him not adjusting his high-intensity training and methodology as the players got older (e.g. Dembele)
b) not rotating the first choice players when he had chances to

The biggest issue for me is seemingly the total absence of a gameplan in terms of passing patterns, triangles etc to break the opposition down. I honestly think Redknapp arranged for more training on that side of things (aeven baring how little he probably did)

If we tighten up even more at the back and in cm, we might just get away with it, but there has to be an upturn and in double-quick time otherwise we could easily enter in Juande Ramos territory...
 
I bloody hope so. Redknapp bought us from the relegation zone to CL football playing some great football. A fancier version of that, with a harder mental edge to win the big games, is exactly what I want right now. However, I think there is an inference in your post that Harry was some sort of charlatan and Jose is just a better version of that but a charlatan nonetheless.

I'm not mad on this "project" and "philosophy" stuff when it comes to managers. It infers a long term thing. Nobody does long term anymore. In fact, with Jol, Harry and Poch, that was as close to long term as most clubs have come in that time. Results are all important. What managers have been successful with a "project"? Klopp is about the best bet but he's spent a brickload over the years and spent £140m on VVD and Allison to turn them from a fancy Ossie Ardiles team into champions. The academy is also a bit of a red herring. It'll produce a gem every now and then but you're hoping for that and a bunch of players you can sell to cover the cost and make us some money.

I'm expect Jose to last another 2-3 seasons. I'm expecting him to win trophies in his time here. I'm expecting us to be on another level by the inevitable end of his reign and Levy to consolidate us on that level and formulate a plan to take us up again as he's done 3-4 times over the last two decades. When it comes to philosophies, long term plans, visions and projects - it's Levy that's the key man for us, not the managers. They're just there for a period of time to bring us to the next step on the journey.


Out of interest, what exactly is this journey in your opinion? Basically, what's the destination as you see it?
 
Out of interest, what exactly is this journey in your opinion? Basically, what's the destination as you see it?

I think it's one of two journeys but both end in the same place. Scenario one is that we continue to grow revenue and become more competitive on the pitch as we go until such a time as we're up there with Man Utd in terms of generating cash. That'll enable us to compete for the big prizes consistently and compete for any player except that, unlike United, we'll have a man with brains running the show.

Either that or we get sold to someone with deep pockets who can get us there quicker and ENIC make a profit and ride off into the sunset.
 
To be debated...I am fast-concluding that we are back to running the club along the lines of Redknapp-era Spurs. Great wonderful talents being told to basically "go out and do your thing up top"...the difference is that Mourinho is very structured defensively. But let's face it, going forward it has always been about speed and having world class talents. He has two up there now, arguably three if you want to count Sonny as world class (I don't think he quite is but still quality). We can also further debate how we got to this point, but for me, the fact remains that having achieved the impossible dream of building and an academy of some quality, we are now back to 2010-2013 era.

No it's like the AVB era. The plan is to keep it tight and hope Bale will do a goal.

Although Redknapp might not have had a plan, Modric was controlling the game on the pitch. That's why it worked. He was effectively managing things from the centre circle by the passes he choose, the tempo he played with and whether he decided to skip by a few midfielders with the ball at his feet.
 
Poch had been blessed with a young hungry team who he got the most out of but always failed at the final hurdle.

Our problem has been the right recruitment and succession planning. Poch effectively broke Wanyama, Dembele, Rose and Eriksen. However, he was a coach only to the first eleven. He didn't manage to bring on enough of the 26 players he signed. He didn't manage to maximise the potential of our promising youngsters.

I suspect this is one of the main reasons he hasn't landed a plum job yet.
 
I’ll judge him after a full season where “hopefully” he has less bad luck with injuries...although the fixture congestion scares me. Get Bale and Regs in, LFG!
Yeah, but surely you pay someone squillions of quid a year to be able to cope with the bad luck that happens (admittedly losing Kane, Son AND Sissoko all in one was rare)?
 
Poch had been blessed with a young hungry team who he got the most out of but always failed at the final hurdle.

Our problem has been the right recruitment and succession planning. Poch effectively broke Wanyama, Dembele, Rose and Eriksen. However, he was a coach only to the first eleven. He didn't manage to bring on enough of the 26 players he signed. He didn't manage to maximise the potential of our promising youngsters.

I suspect this is one of the main reasons he hasn't landed a plum job yet.
Poch Out. He should have won the title seven times in his tenure with us. Took us backwards and now we are a joke club. all Poch's fault. He couldn't manage a McDonalds in a famine where burgers are given out for free.
 
However, having said that, you're right in that we're now essentially back to an era with a roughly unstructured style of attacking play - go out there and create, more or less. Mourinho and Sacremento are both renowned for their periodisation approaches to training, but they focus on the defensive side of periodisation, unlike Klopp et al who divide their time between structuring their teams in the defensive and offensive phases of play.

Other than that, it's very much about instinctual decision-making on the part of players under Mourinho. He expects them to make the right choice when attacking, and leaves them to it. Like with Dele in the All or Nothing doc - in his first chat, he points out that a quicker pass from Dele would set players away, but the drills aren't structured to get players into those situations - it's an outcome of a general training drill, as far as I can tell.

It's funny that he's caricatured as a rigid coach - I suspect he's less rigid in the attacking setup than almost any of his contemporaries, from Pep to Klopp. But he needs great players for that - people who can make the right choices, inspire themselves and each other, and score goals.

I thought we had them, but..well, we have a problem there.
I'm surprised you think we have them . Sonny Moura Dele Lamela are far from that type of player.
 
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