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***OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool Sunday 31st August 1330 KO***

DubaiSpur said:
So we are quite happy to start our manager at a disadvantage and yet expect the world from him. Considering that AVB almost never got the exact players he wanted for a variety of reasons, I doubt Poch will be enthused watching a gettable target like Schneiderlin slipping away while Levy pushes Stambouli into his face as the low-cost, low-risk alternative instead.

Ah, screw it. In 18 months, will we shout the same things at Poch that we shouted at AVB when Poch has some bad games? And then what, do the exact same 'don't like your targets, here's some cheap alternatives' schtick and shout 'inflexible, incompetent' at the next poor fool as he walks away as well?
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I think that the situations appear to be very different. The transfer policy at Spurs was meant to have been explained to AVB before he joined and he accepted this. Then on joining he started asking for expensive players who did not fit our policy. We still tried for his principle target but third party ownership meant that the deal could not be closed.

Poch seems far more pragmatic and realistic. It is obvious that he wants Schneiderlin but we have moved to sign an alternative when it became clear that the deal was looking difficult. Personally, I would not be surprised if we went back in for him tomorrow and will reserve judgement on our summer's business when the window closes.
 
Cal_Yido said:
Looked to me today that our players were almost scared of Liverpool. Showed them far too much respect. Was like watching a different team to last week (albeit much much better opposition) but the movement and speed off pass wasn't there today.

I wonder if the heavy defeats to Liverpool last season played on our players minds today?
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That's what I thought. There were times when Sterling was winning headers against one of our players! He's tiny! Scared both physically and mentally.
 
NWND said:
In my opinion this game came too early for us. Rogers plays a very similar style to Poch and they're very good at it. Problem is with a high press as a unit is you can't carry stragglers. Only takes one or two to be slack or not up to speed with the press to leave massive gaps. And once you concede early you're on the back foot. Liverpool lost 3-0 to West Brom early in Rogers reign getting picked off when the gaps in his system appeared. That was early days for him and it's early days for us too, no need to panic
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I agree. Liverpool's first two goals came at the worst possible time for us. We still played ok in patches but did not look sharp enough and did not take our chances.
 
Hemant said:
The thing is we knew that Henderson and Allen would run beyond the midfield. Henderson did that last year, yet we let both run untracked into the box.
Capoue tried but his alignment was as if he was the only DM and Bentaleb, just watched or jogged, watch the first goal, as Henderson is driving into the box. He is just ambling.
Surely, POCH made plans for this and instructed the DMs?
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Rossi22 said:
Wasn't it Capoue who completely left Henderson to run into the box for the first goal?
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What an omnishambles... Sturridge leaves Vertonghen and Chadli for dead, Kaboul drops deep playing Henderson onside and then ends up isolated when he pulls the ball across the 6 yard box, Dier loses Sterling perhaps thinking for a split second that he should mark Balotelli...

DenseWatchfulDorado.gif
 
Viper said:
The good managers also change their system based on the opposition and how the game pans out. This modern trend of having a way you play and no plan B is never going to work. Even Guardiola got found out at Barcelona and subsequently Bayern. The way to deal with Liverpool was to sit deeper and negate their pace and put 2 upfront because they are weak at the back. Passing it around in our own half until someone makes a mistake is always going to fail against better teams.
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But the basis of Pochs system and strategy is not changing our style no matter who we play.
 
DubaiSpur said:
So we are quite happy to start our manager at a disadvantage and yet expect the world from him. Considering that AVB almost never got the exact players he wanted for a variety of reasons, I doubt Poch will be enthused watching a gettable target like Schneiderlin slipping away while Levy pushes Stambouli into his face as the low-cost, low-risk alternative instead.

Ah, screw it. In 18 months, will we shout the same things at Poch that we shouted at AVB when Poch has some bad games? And then what, do the exact same 'don't like your targets, here's some cheap alternatives' schtick and shout 'inflexible, incompetent' at the next poor fool as he walks away as well?
Click to expand...

Yeah pushing relatively unknown midfielders from France down the face of our managers and head coaches really has been standard operating procedure for Levy. :lol: He probably scouted him himself too, decided that he was good enough and started bringing him up in transfer committee meetings...

Seriously, the signing isn't even completed yet, he hasn't even been close to kicking a ball on a Premier League football pitch and already the conclusion about him being someone Poch doesn't really want has been made? This is just getting ridiculous...

NWND said:
In my opinion this game came too early for us. Rogers plays a very similar style to Poch and they're very good at it. Problem is with a high press as a unit is you can't carry stragglers. Only takes one or two to be slack or not up to speed with the press to leave massive gaps. And once you concede early you're on the back foot. Liverpool lost 3-0 to West Brom early in Rogers reign getting picked off when the gaps in his system appeared. That was early days for him and it's early days for us too, no need to panic
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Agreed. It takes time.
 
Some thoughts on today's game:

1. Games hinge on key moments; Chadli's miss just before half time was the turning point. Had that gone it it may - may - have been a different second half
2. It will take Poch more than a few weeks to address the issues we say time and time last year - ask Van Gaal
3. We seem to have a psychological block against the top teams
4. The first signs of progress will come against the QPRs of the premiership - not the top 4.
5. Liverpool were simply magnificent; there is no dishonour to lose to a better team.
6. Vertonghen and Kaboul SUCK! Would love to see Dier and Fazio given a chance
7. Chadli has gone back to default mode
8. Bentaleb needs time and is a major liability against the better teams.
9. Anyone who says Danny Wellbeck would not improve us is living on another planet
10. Poch has started a journey; there will be stumbles and falls but we need to keep on BELIEVING!!
 
In hindsight it was suicidal playing that high against sterling and Sturridge, we saw how they tired against City, we should have played keep ball deep against them for an hour then thought about scoring ourselves
 
milo said:
I think that the situations appear to be very different. The transfer policy at Spurs was meant to have been explained to AVB before he joined and he accepted this. Then on joining he started asking for expensive players who did not fit our policy. We still tried for his principle target but third party ownership meant that the deal could not be closed.

Poch seems far more pragmatic and realistic. It is obvious that he wants Schneiderlin but we have moved to sign an alternative when it became clear that the deal was looking difficult. Personally, I would not be surprised if we went back in for him tomorrow and will reserve judgement on our summer's business when the window closes.
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This is what I hope for. This is what I think must be done. But my point all along has been that the policy of routinely (and almost inevitably) giving the manager cheap alternatives to the players he wants and then shouting abuse at him when he fails to integrate said players is extremely counter-productive and downright irritating, all the more so when Levy escapes blame for that and we as a fanbase collectively assure ourselves that the manager in question (AVB, in this case) was just a bad manager who couldn't do the miraculous job we expect all our managers to be able to pull off. It bothers me. More so when it looks like the cycle is just repeating itself with Poch, because the same fans who praise our transfer policy as sensible and entirely 100 percent right will be the ones who stick the knife into Poch's back when he fails to integrate the players that weren't his first or (in some cases) even second choices. I was wildly angry at AVB's tactical inflexibility around the time he left, but a lot of time and consideration has convinced me that he was just hampered by our reluctance to give him the tools he wanted, even after we'd sold the player he built his entire team around and earned 80 million pounds from that sale. He wasn't a bad manager. He was just unable to become the master bargain-basement shopper who turns unpolished gems into diamonds that we seem to want every time. And now Poch is seemingly in the same position.

I'd like him to stay here for the entirety of his five year contract, because there's a great coach in him somewhere. But if he's never given the players he wants first and foremost, then I won't be able to expect much of him, and that is what frustrates me.
 
The fact is Liverpool were better than us today all over the pitch. But Rodgers has had 2 years to get to this point, they played how I guess Poch is aspiring to get us playing, with very good pressing and then impressive movement when they attacked and quick to get back when we had the ball. The worst thing in my eyes was after the 3rd went in the game fizzled out for us. I think the players had the mindset that if they pressed too hard for a consolation goal we could have easily been on the end of a real drubbing. As it was they could easily had a couple more goals especially after quote Rodgers "Sterling dribbled into the area like Ricky Villa but had a finish like Ricky Gervais"

I would also be surprised if we are still chasing Schneiderlin who would cost us over 20 mil when we have just bought Stambouli. Same old same old really we will beat lesser teams but I can see the likes of Chelski and Emirates Marketing Project giving us real problems.

On a plus note I thought Dier looked good today, some on here will slate him for the 1st and 2nd goals but I thought it was a real soft pen. Bearing in mind he is a centre back pushed into playing right back for us due to injuries I thought he did well.
 
milo said:
I agree. Liverpool's first two goals came at the worst possible time for us. We still played ok in patches but did not look sharp enough and did not take our chances.
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To be fair Balotelli should have scored with those two easy headers and Loris' mad rush effort should have been punished. Not to mention, Sterlings useless finish after rounding the whole defence. It could have been much worse and that is why there is such a reaction, not really the loss.
 
DubaiSpur said:
This is what I hope for. This is what I think must be done. But my point all along has been that the policy of routinely (and almost inevitably) giving the manager cheap alternatives to the players he wants and then shouting abuse at him when he fails to integrate said players is extremely counter-productive and downright irritating, all the more so when Levy escapes blame for that and we as a fanbase collectively assure ourselves that the manager in question (AVB, in this case) was just a bad manager who couldn't do the miraculous job we expect all our managers to be able to pull off. It bothers me. More so when it looks like the cycle is just repeating itself with Poch, because the same fans who praise our transfer policy as sensible and entirely 100 percent right will be the ones who stick the knife into Poch's back when he fails to integrate the players that weren't his first or (in some cases) even second choices. I was wildly angry at AVB's tactical inflexibility around the time he left, but a lot of time and consideration has convinced me that he was just hampered by our reluctance to give him the tools he wanted, even after we'd sold the player he built his entire team around and earned 80 million pounds from that sale. He wasn't a bad manager. He was just unable to become the master bargain-basement shopper who turns unpolished gems into diamonds that we seem to want every time. And now Poch is seemingly in the same position.

I'd like him to stay here for the entirety of his five year contract, because there's a great coach in him somewhere. But if he's never given the players he wants first and foremost, then I won't be able to expect much of him, and that is what frustrates me.
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I disagree that there are similarities in the situations beyond them being midfielders and hard to close deals.
 
braineclipse said:
Yeah pushing relatively unknown midfielders from France down the face of our managers and head coaches really has been standard operating procedure for Levy. :lol: He probably scouted him himself too, decided that he was good enough and started bringing him up in transfer committee meetings...

Seriously, the signing isn't even completed yet, he hasn't even been close to kicking a ball on a Premier League football pitch and already the conclusion about him being someone Poch doesn't really want has been made? This is just getting ridiculous...
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Oh, don't give me that, you're perceptive enough and intelligent enough to know perfectly well what I mean.
 
milo said:
I disagree that there are similarities in the situations beyond them being midfielders and hard to close deals.
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Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then. Suffice to say that a manager leaving after we spent a 100 million pounds in the summer window because the players we bought weren't the ones he wanted....that ludicrous scenario should be enough to at the very least provoke some consideration of the point on your part. 100 million pounds, and we couldn't close a signing that the manager wanted as his first choice. Do you not think that's a salient point?
 
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