- Sep 20, 2005
- 19,146
- 46,140
I have been impressed by Poch’s adaptability.
I was on the fence with regards to his hiring. I thought he might be a strict play systems based manager and install a system regardless of personnel.
When we had Walker and Rose as wing backs and had front four pressing we had a distinctive high pressing style.
We no longer have that but have continued to improve. This is a good thing.
Have we really though?
The OP was referring to performances over the last 18-24 months or so and I can’t help but agree. I look back at the team with Rose, Walker and Dembele and Wanyama, with Kane as the focal point and Son, Eriksen, Alli etc interchanging behind him and it’s a far cry from how we’ve been playing since.
Now of course the obvious thing is a fair few of those players aren’t here anymore and injury has curtailed Rose and finished Wanyama, but some of that is down to us. We took too long to replace Dembele and sold Walker and didn’t replace him adequately.
And yes the end of that season I’m referring to coincides with the move from WHL and the wait for the new stadium, so there are mitigating factors.
But the bottom line is that we are going backwards in terms of performances. Kane is continually dropping deep to collect the ball, the width we had from out fullbacks has been blunted, we don’t collectively press as effectively, look miles less secure at the back and often pedestrian in attack.
Of course teams have to evolve and we need to give Poch a little time to integrate the new players, but despite maintaining our position in the top four in the last couple of years I find myself far less confident when beginning to watch games.
Two particular things which concern me that cannot imo be attributed to mitigating circumstances and which can only be attributed to Poch are :
Why do we start games so badly? It’s a good thing if Poch can tweak things at HT and improve us in the 2nd half, but when it becomes the norm rather than an occasional thing you have to ask the question why have we set up so badly in the first place?
I wouldn’t mind if it was just a case of starting slowly, knocking around and being patient whilst being in control. It isn’t that though. We’ve been starting slowly for ages and usually go a goal down, often lucky to avoid more and looking lethargic and lacking ideas.
The other thing is I’m sometimes left scratching my head as to what we are trying to do in a game. Yesterday being an example.
Nobody expected us to dominate City. I didn’t even expect us to trade blows with them. They are simply on a different level. I did expect us at least to have a game plan to compete. Yeah I know we got a point, but we were battered for the majority of the game.
Fair enough we can’t go toe to toe with them, but then surely we must counter attack them? And yet we leave the only player available to do that on the bench. In the end we really did nothing other than wait to be beaten ( and again yes I know we got a point, but it was gooner levels of jammyness ).