Look at their bench.
Look at their resources.
Look at where they are in terms of their 'development' as a club from old school to new power.
Looks at the sheer amount of money poured into them by a nation.
Trust me Dubai, Pep Guardiola would NOT do a second season relying on squad development. David Silva wasn't available but Gungodan was. THAT COSTS MONEY!!!!!
As I mentioned, this narrative of them having loadsamoney, resources, blasting by us in terms of club development et al is the *overarching* story of Tottenham Hotspur vs Emirates Marketing Project. It has less bearing on what the situation was on matchday, when the Silva-Gundogan comparison isn't as potent. Because, if they could replace Silva with a 20m player in Gundogan, we had two 30m players on the bench (Lamela and Sissoko) to replace any of our players with. It's not as simple as 'THAT COSTS MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!', since Gundogan cost less than either of those two did, was as plagued by injury as Lamela was, and still managed to slot in seamlessly to replace Silva, while we had no one who could do the same for any of our injured players - *any* of them, on the day.
Your (frankly insane) ranting against Poch yesterday ignores the fact that hen has developed Dier, Alli, Kane, Eriksen and Alderweireld (not to men lion Rose and Walker) into 50 million + players. He DEVELOPED them into that. He did not pay that for them. Man Ute were prepared to pay 40mill for Dier!
Again, what this has to do with making horrendous tactical errors and refusing to change them *on the day* is
beyond me. Totally irrelevant, actually - an appeal lacking any substance whatsoever to the matter at hand. This is going right back to the 'Oh, Poch developed players, Guardiola doesn't' stuff. Sure, no one denies that. But, in this game, Pep overcame the weaknesses of his squad and matchday line-up by designing his tactics to ensure that Delph was not unduly taxed, Mangala was not unduly taxed, Silva was adequately replaced...it wasn't 'player development' that did that, it was in-game tactics. Whereas Poch set up with tactics that brutally exposed our right-back to the fastest player in the Premier League...then played *Trippier* to counter that. And then refused to change it as that weakness was exploited for goal number one, goal number two *and* goal number three, with a host of chances in between.
My complaint is not about Poch and the way he develops players - he does that, I love him for it and think he should be here until at least 2022 because of it. But my complaint is
*definitely* with his horrific tactical show and refusal to change it - which I am at a loss to explain.
I still cannot believe you stated that you though Poch was so afraid of being wrong that he purposely did not make changes which would help the team. I deleted my comment on it yesterday, but y'know, I still feel aggravated by it today so I will tell you again,...
The Aurier-Trippier change was an obvious one - a *blindingly* obvious one. Poch is too smart a man not to see the way Trippier was being exposed as Vanarama-league level by Sane, time, and time, and time, and *time* again. He did nothing. Nothing at all, from minute one to minute ninety.
It was a massively mystifying decision, which admits very few explanations to my mind - and I've thought about it quite a bit. Why was Poch so mystifyingly stubborn as his tactics collapsed around him?
I think he deserves MAXIMUM respect from our supporters, all of them.
There's this weird, febrile cultishness to your position on Poch that I just can't understand. The way you put it, he never makes mistakes, he is literally perfect, everything is perfectly planned, nothing ever goes wrong on his end, he's a genius when he gets out of bed and a bigger genius when he tucks back into it at the end of each day.
Yet, *he himself* will tell you that he makes mistakes, that he's still learning, that he isn't the finished article and neither is his team. He's no Sir Alex. He's no Jose Mourinho. He's no Pep Guardiola. He's no Arsene Wenger. Not yet. And he'll tell you as much - I'm
*damn* sure of that.
You are rushing to defend the man more than he probably would himself, and it's honestly damn weird to see, Steff. You also presuppose motivations that don't exist, and assume that I and other people hold positions that we really don't. And again, just being honest here, no snark intended - that's pretty weird to see, mate.
