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.