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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

SUIYHA said:
If we beat Monaco at home we're guaranteed to qualify, regardless of our result in Baku. If we can't beat Monaco at home then we're clearly not good enough to win the Europa League so we should prioritise finishing in the top 4 - which may well be our last chance of getting into the Champions League via the league given that Chel53a and Liverpool surely won't be this bad again next season and England may lose it's 4th spot.

Given that Liverpool are playing Emirates Marketing Project away next week, if we win our next two league games we could quite conceivably find ourselves seven points and thirteen points respectively ahead of our two main rivals for a top four spot, going into a run of games against West Brom, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Southampton, Norwich and Watford.

Ergo - fudge the Qarabag game. If we can take anything from it then great, but for the reasons above we should not be risking anyone important for that game. Don't want to see Kane, Dier, Alli, Eriksen, Dembele, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Walker, even Lloris, anywhere near that plane to Azerbaijan. Hopefully Bentaleb and N'Jie will be approaching something resembling match fitness by that point and Townsend has made up his differences with the management.



On another note - just thought I'd point out that Poch has equalled Redknapp's longest unbeaten run as manager, and if we avoid defeat against West Ham, he will have equalled our longest unbeaten run of the Premier League era (12 games, under AVB in the 2012-13 season).
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It's not like we'll be remaining stagnant. I'm pretty sure we'll be much improved ourselves. We already are and have outplayed the two best teams this year, no reason why we can't get even better. We're not sitting in 5th today because Pool and Chelsea are doing poor. It's because we've been the better team in all our games (and we really could have been top of the league, if Kane had his shooting boots on in the early games).

So I'm not buying this "this is our only chance." We'll create plenty chances in future seasons too.
 
alekaras said:
It's not like we'll be remaining stagnant. I'm pretty sure we'll be much improved ourselves. We already are and have outplayed the two best teams this year, no reason why we can't get even better. We're not sitting in 5th today because Pool and Chel53a are doing poor. It's because we've been the better team in all our games (and we really could have been top of the league, if Kane had his shooting boots on in the early games).

So I'm not buying this "this is our only chance." We'll create plenty chances in future seasons too.
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People were saying this summer that the top four places were sewn up. People have been saying that Liverpool were going to pass us since we became better than them.
 
milo said:
People were saying this summer that the top four places were sewn up. People have been saying that Liverpool were going to pass us since we became better than them.
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I've heard stuff like this since Jol first got us into 5th... It's pretty much an anual thing whenever we finish close to, but not in the top 4. "This was our chance". Usually followed by some kind of argument about how something either the manager or chairman did was obviously wrong.
 
We have a chance every season
Hell I start the season with ambitions of us winning the league
Doesn't work out like that but it's almost pointless entering a competition without aiming for the big prizes
They key is aim high and fail rather than accept mediocrity
If we go up a place each season eventually we win the league (crude I know) but it's achievable with the right players, manager and luck
We haven't had much luck in games so far this season but we do seem tonne having the right players and manager
 
I think we had a fairly lucky time of it this summer in the sense that we had a reasonably good season last time and didn't lose any of our star players. That hasn't happened since 2011, and hasn't happened without any major speculation over one of them leaving since 2010. I do wonder how long we'll be able to hold onto Lloris and Eriksen if we don't qualify for the Champions League.

It infuriated me how Arsenal tied Henry down to a new contract in 2006 while we lost Carrick, or how they brought in Ozil in 2013 while we lost Bale because of not qualifying for the Champions League. Eden Hazard admitted that Chelsea were not even on his radar before they won the CL in 2012, they then came in with big money bids for him and Oscar to replace their aging players whereas we lost Modric because they took our place.

There are clearly massive deficiencies in the Chelsea and Liverpool squads. One thing that we can be certain of is that they will both throw lots of money at the problems whether they finish in the top 4 or not. But they'll surely have a better chance of actually fixing them if they're playing CL football next year.

I think it's a real testament to Levy that we've at least challenged for a top 4 spot most seasons since 2005 given the number of setbacks we've had. The failures in 2006 and 2012 really set us back - we got away with it a little bit in 2013 because of Bale's unbelievable form but then after that particular failure we were miles off the pace in the following two seasons.

Luckily for us two clubs with bigger resources than we have are a shambles at the moment. I'd like to be in a position next season where we can keep our young squad together but add a world class or potentially world class player or two to the mix, whereas Liverpool and Chelsea end up losing Coutinho and Hazard, as opposed to them bringing in Marco Reus and us losing Lloris. If England loses its 4th Champions League spot, we may not get another chance to recover from a big setback like this.
 
Might we also see some changes for the West Ham game?

Some players like Alli and Dier are away for the international break. Whereas Mason will be with Pochettino for the two weeks getting ready for the game and getting instructions. I imagine our "back 5" pretty much picks itself, particularly as Rose continues to be overlooked for England. But haven't we seen some changes in the past under Poch after international breaks where players that have stayed at home get the chance ahead of those that have been away for internationals?
 
I think he will proably go with virtually the same side for West Ham pending any injuries from the internationals. I would imagine the next two games are where the changes will be made.
 
SUIYHA said:
I think we had a fairly lucky time of it this summer in the sense that we had a reasonably good season last time and didn't lose any of our star players. That hasn't happened since 2011, and hasn't happened without any major speculation over one of them leaving since 2010. I do wonder how long we'll be able to hold onto Lloris and Eriksen if we don't qualify for the Champions League.

It infuriated me how Arsenal tied Henry down to a new contract in 2006 while we lost Carrick, or how they brought in Ozil in 2013 while we lost Bale because of not qualifying for the Champions League. Eden Hazard admitted that Chel53a were not even on his radar before they won the CL in 2012, they then came in with big money bids for him and Oscar to replace their aging players whereas we lost Modric because they took our place.

There are clearly massive deficiencies in the Chel53a and Liverpool squads. One thing that we can be certain of is that they will both throw lots of money at the problems whether they finish in the top 4 or not. But they'll surely have a better chance of actually fixing them if they're playing CL football next year.

I think it's a real testament to Levy that we've at least challenged for a top 4 spot most seasons since 2005 given the number of setbacks we've had. The failures in 2006 and 2012 really set us back - we got away with it a little bit in 2013 because of Bale's unbelievable form but then after that particular failure we were miles off the pace in the following two seasons.

Luckily for us two clubs with bigger resources than we have are a shambles at the moment. I'd like to be in a position next season where we can keep our young squad together but add a world class or potentially world class player or two to the mix, whereas Liverpool and Chel53a end up losing Coutinho and Hazard, as opposed to them bringing in Marco Reus and us losing Lloris. If England loses its 4th Champions League spot, we may not get another chance to recover from a big setback like this.
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I wouldn't be too down heartened. The beauty of our approach now is we actually have a strategy. That strategy doesn't involve chucking money at the problem. In fact, chucking money at our squad will often have detrimental effects, because part of our strategy is based on unity, spirit and cohesion. I think part of Chelsea's problem to be honest is that they've gotten so used to throwing money at a problem, buying players just so others can't have them etc that the team spirit has eroded a bit. There's probably a fair few cliques in that dressing room now as opposed to a bunch of guys that are united beyond a common belief as in ours.

Our approach won't be perfect. Sometimes we will lack the quality to kill teams off etc but we will be consistent. If teams want to usurp us should we finish above them by thinking they can throw a load of money at the issue, it won't always work. We proved it with the Bale money. And ultimately, despite the wasted cash and the failures in signings, it was probably the biggest wake up call Levy needed to finally put a proper strategy in place, to stop trying to act like the richest club when we clearly weren't and ending up falling well short. It was a waste of money but probably the best learning experience we could have hoped for.
 
Libero said:
I think he will proably go with virtually the same side for West Ham pending any injuries from the internationals. I would imagine the next two games are where the changes will be made.
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I'd be tempted to play Fazio and Wimmer against West Ham, seeing as Verts and Alder were struggling a bit under the Arsenal long balls.
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd be tempted to play Fazio and Wimmer against West Ham, seeing as Verts and Alder were struggling a bit under the Arsenal long balls.
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You would prefer the lumbering mistake on legs that is Fazio and the inexperienced Wimmer against Andy Carroll & Co instead of Verts/Alder? Can I have a pint of whatever you're drinking please?
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd be tempted to play Fazio and Wimmer against West Ham, seeing as Verts and Alder were struggling a bit under the Arsenal long balls.
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I'll have what he's having!!!

Fazio is good in the site but still gets done by decent lumps like benteke last year for example

We should play our best available 11 which would be significantly better than there's and more than good enough. We don't need rotation at this stage of the season and certainly not for players who are miles away from the first team
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd be tempted to play Fazio and Wimmer against West Ham, seeing as Verts and Alder were struggling a bit under the Arsenal long balls.
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Thought we dealt really well with the Arsenal long balls, but struggled with their set pieces. Set pieces have been a worry over the last weeks and hopefully we can tighten up a bit in that regard.

Absolutely no need to change the centre back partnership. Even if Fazio and Wimmer were better suited to dealing with Carroll the downside of losing our settled CB partnership would be a much greater downside. Not to mention overall Vertonghen and Alderweireld are our two best centre backs. West Ham will probably do more than just lump it long too, no more Allardyce...
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd be tempted to play Fazio and Wimmer against West Ham, seeing as Verts and Alder were struggling a bit under the Arsenal long balls.
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Fazio got beaten in the air by Benteke when we last played Villa and it cost us the game so I wouldn't be confident he could win headers against West Ham. Haven't seen enough of Wimmer to comment but I see no reason to break up the current pairing.
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd be tempted to play Fazio and Wimmer against West Ham, seeing as Verts and Alder were struggling a bit under the Arsenal long balls.
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Not a chance!!! The Dutch lads for the Spammers game, and then on the Thurs they put their feet up at home whilst Fazio and Wimmer go to Baku with CCV on the bench
 
The reason the reason we struggled with arsenals long balls/crosses was that for a spell they're were almost constant and they just threw bodies forwrad overloading our defence. It's hard to keep every ball and every man ways from the goal. There were times where we were counter attacking and they still had 5 people in our half (Gary Neville even slagged them for it)

I also thought Dier struggled in the air for once and again I'm not sure he knew who to pick up

It happens and frankly I'll live with it and think it's part of the learning curve
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd be tempted to play Fazio and Wimmer against West Ham, seeing as Verts and Alder were struggling a bit under the Arsenal long balls.
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Nope.
The reason we were bombarded was because

a) we tired
b) Arteta came on and pushed the game further towards our goal/crunched the space

Won't happen again.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
The reason the reason we struggled with arsenals long balls/crosses was that for a spell they're were almost constant and they just threw bodies forwrad overloading our defence. It's hard to keep every ball and every man ways from the goal. There were times where we were counter attacking and they still had 5 people in our half (Gary Neville even slagged them for it)

I also thought Dier struggled in the air for once and again I'm not sure he knew who to pick up

It happens and frankly I'll live with it and think it's part of the learning curve
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Again, that Arteta sub was massive for them, prevented Son from having an impact. I DO think if Njie had been fit, he'd have been a perfect player for the last 10 mins as his blistering pace would've kept them a bit more honest. The truth is, had Erikesn not missed by inches and Cech made that wonder save from Toby, we'd not be breaking it down at all. And I agree, I will take the learning curve re: Dier, all day.
 
thfcsteff said:
Again, that Arteta sub was massive for them, prevented Son from having an impact. I DO think if Njie had been fit, he'd have been a perfect player for the last 10 mins as his blistering pace would've kept them a bit more honest. The truth is, had Erikesn not missed by inches and Cech made that wonder save from Toby, we'd not be breaking it down at all. And I agree, I will take the learning curve re: Dier, all day.
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Have to agree with this, the truth is Giroud strength is in the air ( taking off the hate anything about the Arse glasses) he may be nothing on the ground but he ( along) with Benteke are probably the best in the Prem when the ball is played in the air to the right places.

We will not be the first team that allow him the amount of headers he won and I think its silly to think about changing our CB's because of this.
 
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