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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

Disappointment at his increasingly petulant behaviour aside, he's fully earned the right to a bad year. I'm 100% Poch in for this season, whatever happens - whether we finish 5th or 15th. He deserves that much in terms of loyalty to him.

But the least I want is that our manager is committed to *us*, Tottenham Hotspur. And increasingly, it seems like he isn't.
 
I love the man and everything he has done for us, but this situation is a problem he seems largely behind. It started in the summer attitude-wise; form-wise it started in late January.

I am not at all ready to panic, that would be absurd, but he seems deeply unhappy or aggravated. Hopefully it is temporary and just about football. Hope all is OK with him y’know?
The trend started sooner than that. It just took until January for the results to catch up.

Tottenham-Hotspur-Premier-League-Trendlines.png
 
Holy brick. The pitchforks are out after one defeat? For a manager who has overseen out most successful period in recent memory, perhaps ever.

I'd say unbelievable, but unfortunately it's all too predictable. Fickle fudging tossers.
See my post above. This is a longer term trend than this season.

Poch hasn't been able to cope with the decline of Dembele and his laughable attempts to replace him with Sissoko and some kind of pathetic diamond formation are concerning.

Even Steve Bruce can probably see that and he's too stupid to keep his weight levels within the land mammal range.
 
What a absolutely limp performance today was; the most shocking thing is that we have been seeing these kind of performances many tiems for a while now.

A lot of people are asking about whether things are or have been going on behind the scenes and whether they are now starting to effect things on the field.
There may well be some things, they might be nothing, certainly nothing that the other top 6 clubs in the PL or elsewhere haven't had to deal with.

Perhaps our issue is more simple: Poch and his ways are too much based on physicality, athleticism and a posh version of "run about a bit", and now the players, mostly into their 6th year of such methods are simply spent.

This method gets us to be competitive but perhaps becomes limp because a) the players are human and human physicality has a lifespan and b) without an ingrained ability to grow in terms of natural creativity, finesse, passing attacking movements that almost make the team dangerous, we are then - eventually - easy to nullify.
What i mean by this is how many of the players we have had under Poch have gotten better in terms of creativity and attacking passing movement going forwards? Eriksen has been Eriksen for the most part, he has excelled to great levels because of the system, but individually: has he gotten MORE creative per say under Poch? Lamela: has he become more creative, especially given his form in the year or two before we bought him? Dembele was a physical beast good at protecting and driving us forward, but again: more creative under Poch? Son, Moura: has their creativity and attacking prowess improved under him? Are we now seeing a pattern?

I know there is much talk about Eriksen, Toby etc about them wanting out, but maybe without the ability to get the players over the line in terms of winning trophies, the attraction to stay and physically keep exerting yourself is just about lost. Why not join another 'top' team get paid similar to what we might now be able to offer now, but actually win something AND maybe (due to squad rotation etc) even possibly extend your career by not exetring so much physically ?

Maybe Poch knows his limitations are now being slowly exposed (see our form AND performances since the 3-0 win vs Dortmund) and hence the quite frankly crazy comments or outbursts in his media dealings since then (though i could even go back further to his comments about how "trophies are just for egos", but i really don't want to digress that way...)

The key worrying point for me is that for a long time now the players looked physically spent. Now not only do they STILL look like that (in the 3rd PL game ffs) but now also look like they aren't being very well coached! That's the most worrying thing and it feels like end of days.

It's one thing to play well, miss chances and batter the opposition in performamce but still not win (see an City vs us for example) but it's another to lose limply at home in August vs one of the worst sides (and coaches) in the PL (imo) and have the team hardly make any runs and move at all.

Very worrying and i fear the limitations with Poch's coaching and his overreliance on physicality and athleticism is now going to be laid bare and horrifically... :(

This is an interesting point. Poch is a disciple of Bielsa. Bielsa is understood to be the godfather of modern football tactics and the current crop of managers are all inspired by him.

The thing is though he hasn't won anything four years and the big issue with well his teams is that they burn out due to what is being asked of them, the most recent example being Leeds last season.
 
The previous excuse was the lack of summer break. What is the excuse now? Lack of spend? Mental exhaustion? Our steel in the centre of midfield has reduced.
 
Bleep me, i know i'm worried, but please can someone debunk this theory as it's more depressing than simply Poch's methods hitting a brick wall!!:eek:
I'm looking at you @thfcsteff ,@milo , @Raziel , @galeforce

He's building a new team that hasn't had a chance to play yet. People always latch onto his demeanor on the sidelines when we have a run of poor performances, it is exactly the same when we are playing great and jumping up and down does little to change how a team plays. We always start the season slowly, I am convinced it is because we are trained to reach peak condition in the winter when there are the most games. If we are still playing badly in November/December, that is the time to worry.
 
Having read the last few pages of this thread it seems quite a few agree with my view ..

Far too many times we have struggled to beat a weaker team at home when they simply come to defend.. Poch knew, as we all did, how Saudi Sportswashing Machine would play and they have had a week to prepare for the game.

However, we saw nothing inventive and all we did was play from side to side in front of them. That is Poch's fault as when you have so much time to decide what to do with the ball you must be following the instructions from the coach..

KWP is too weak and he failed to get a quality replacement in.. He let Llorente leave even though he won us games last season and offers a way to change tactics and play ugly..

We haven't played consistently well for a couple of seasons and sadly I think it might be best if he left and we had some fresh ideas...
 
Question - how do teams such as City and Liverpool overwhelm teams that park the bus?

For me, a lot of it is about the movement of the players - constantly pulling the opposition players around to make space with a lot of work going through the flanks. We just offer none of that. Everything seems to want to go through the middle at the moment - which isn't happening.
 
See my post above. This is a longer term trend than this season.

Poch hasn't been able to cope with the decline of Dembele and his laughable attempts to replace him with Sissoko and some kind of pathetic diamond formation are concerning.

Hang on, of course he is struggling to cope with the decline of Dembele because, at the sametime, he has also had to deal with the decline of Dier and Wanyama. Sissoko has dug us out of a hole. Watch yesterday’s game again, Sissoko was our best midfielder and far from the problem. It’s quite unfair and inaccurate to pin our decline on one man. Ndombele and Lo Celso are 3 games in. Give the man, (Poch) a chance.
 
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Question - how do teams such as City and Liverpool overwhelm teams that park the bus?

For me, a lot of it is about the movement of the players - constantly pulling the opposition players around to make space with a lot of work going through the flanks. We just offer none of that. Everything seems to want to go through the middle at the moment - which isn't happening.
They do it by moving the ball quickly and accurately. We are far too ponderous at the moment. This could be due a number of reasons, one of which is a lack of confidence,
 
Question - how do teams such as City and Liverpool overwhelm teams that park the bus?

For me, a lot of it is about the movement of the players - constantly pulling the opposition players around to make space with a lot of work going through the flanks. We just offer none of that. Everything seems to want to go through the middle at the moment - which isn't happening.

City especially play like his Barca side. When in the final third there’s at least 2 players making runs into the box. Never any standing around between the lines like we saw yesterday.

Kane was static . He did not attack anything in the box .

Sadly we are not at their level nor have the full backs to join the attack at pace which makes a huge difference.
 
Question - how do teams such as City and Liverpool overwhelm teams that park the bus?

For me, a lot of it is about the movement of the players - constantly pulling the opposition players around to make space with a lot of work going through the flanks. We just offer none of that. Everything seems to want to go through the middle at the moment - which isn't happening.

99% of the goals they score are the same, City will break quickly and get a man over for an easy tap in, Liverpool dive in the box and convert the penalty.
 
Question - how do teams such as City and Liverpool overwhelm teams that park the bus?

For me, a lot of it is about the movement of the players - constantly pulling the opposition players around to make space with a lot of work going through the flanks. We just offer none of that. Everything seems to want to go through the middle at the moment - which isn't happening.

Clever movement, pace and confidence.
 
Holy brick. The pitchforks are out after one defeat? For a manager who has overseen out most successful period in recent memory, perhaps ever.

I'd say unbelievable, but unfortunately it's all too predictable. Fickle fudging tossers.

Football fans have always been fickle. It’s nothing new, it’s not just one result though in fairness.

For a long time now our results have been wobbly at best with poor performances to match.

He has league wise been the most successful, there’s no denying it. I think Levy will have concerns though , and we know he’s not the most sentimental and has a reputation for action, when things are going south.

More and more fans are becoming bemused, with more and more asking questions of Poch, I’m sure you can see this?
 
Bleep me, i know i'm worried, but please can someone debunk this theory as it's more depressing than simply Poch's methods hitting a brick wall!!:eek:
I'm looking at you @thfcsteff ,@milo , @Raziel , @galeforce

I dunno what’s going on, but the way we’ve started the season, when on paper the club looks to be the strongest it’s ever been, has me worried.

It has the feel of the end of AVB, Jol or Hoddle, the players are just not performing anywhere near their level.

Results (and the failures of others) covered it for a bit but the performances have been appalling for the best part of a year. The last three games in isolation are not the story, the story is that after 2 months of preparation we don’t seem to have made any progress whatsoever.

Somebody isn’t doing their job properly.
 
Bleep me, i know i'm worried, but please can someone debunk this theory as it's more depressing than simply Poch's methods hitting a brick wall!!:eek:
I'm looking at you @thfcsteff ,@milo , @Raziel , @galeforce

We just don't know, what we do know is

- It several months of diminished performances
- We haven't figured out our "new" midfield, part of Poch's success was the change of deeper midfield per season i.e. original -> Mason/Bentaleb -> Dier/Dele -> Dembele/+ -> ? Winks/Sissoko was always a stopgap
- We also haven't replaced the tactic of leveraging Walker/Rose, do we want offensive/defensive FB's, if we change where does the attacking come from?
- We have real problems with several senior players (that is on Poch)

So basically our "optimum" Poch side was two years ago, we have made some good acquisitions (Lucas, N'dombele) but not addressed the tactics

@nayenezgani this isn't pitchforks (most people on the board know I give Poch a lot of credit), this is a serious conversation of why we have had 3 poor performances which really are a continuation of last season. Saudi Sportswashing Machine didn't do anything heroic, no edge of box defending, no great saves, no surviving of multiple chances and Poch puts that down to a lack of aggression and hoping for individual brilliance? how bout poor tactics, team selection, tactics?
 
Poch has come out and explicitly said that the squad is the most unsettled it’s ever been. We know that Toby, Rose and Eriksen have fancied leaving for a while. We know that something weird is going on with Jan. We know that of the fresh blood this year, Ndombele and Sessegnon were injured yesterday and Lo Celso isn’t yet up to speed.

These problems were also here last season, in addition to having to play a second season at Wembley.

Unfortunately I think all of this is clearly having an impact on the psychology of the players and staff, and so the team’s level of performance. Fingers crossed it will improve once the window closes and the new boys get up to speed. I think the question of whether or not it does depends on whether Poch can full motivate himself, and in turn his players, after 5 years at the club and some frustrating constraints.
 
Holy brick. The pitchforks are out after one defeat? For a manager who has overseen out most successful period in recent memory, perhaps ever.

I'd say unbelievable, but unfortunately it's all too predictable. Fickle fudging tossers.

Are you not concerned by the way we have been since the start of the year?
 
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