An interesting insight in to Pochettino courtesy of a Saints fan

[dondo]

People on here vilify and ridicule Ballague when he says something they don't like.

Remember him praising ramos to death when he took over as well

 

[stov]

I'd put it down to an influx of talentless managers.
Anyone that has a single mind set on formations and tactics is doomed to failure.
Flexibility is hugely important.
Being able to tell what isn't working and fix it, either in game our between games is what sets a great manager apart from the rest.
Playing the same thing week in week out is a FIFA computer game manager.

How do you know he is inflexible? Espanyol and Southampton were smaller clubs with limited squads and budgets maybe the style of play was the best option for the players at MP's disposal? A larger squad with more variety will allow alternative tactical options

 

[dagraham]

I'd put it down to an influx of talentless managers.
Anyone that has a single mind set on formations and tactics is doomed to failure.
Flexibility is hugely important.
Being able to tell what isn't working and fix it, either in game our between games is what sets a great manager apart from the rest.
Playing the same thing week in week out is a FIFA computer game manager.

This. The one thing I wanted in a manager is the ability to recognize there is more than one way of playing. As you say, real tactics is changing approach to suit circumstances when necessary. You can still have an identity and be flexible.

Unfortunately, everyone seems obsessed with "philosophy", which is a fancy way of saying "I've got an idea but I'm too stubborn to adapt it when it's not working".

It seems eerily similar to Avb in this regard. I'm just praying that he can adapt and show flexibility (as Rodgers has done this season).

Bit worried about how he is going to use the squad in light of the EL. Avb worked the first team too hard during the group stages and hoping we don't get a repeat of that.

My biggest concern though is our transfer strategy. It seems odd to me that a manager/head coach who has such a clear and concise philosophy would be comfortable having anything other than 100% input into signings. If anything, the more rigid in your system you are the more imperative it is that you get the players you want. At least that's the way it seems to me and I've got a nagging feeling that 18 months down the line we'll be hearing familiar things such as "he didn't get the players he wanted", "conflict in the boardroom" etc etc.

 

[barry]

Did Yakin not just get sacked for playing some of the most boring football ever seen in Switzerland?

Maybe. I know fuck all about his style of play. All I know is he's done far better in Europe than FdB on similar budget (I believe), and won the league twice in two years. Oh and he's Swiss, as are the owners of ze Saints.

 

[Timberwolf]

He makes some very convincing arguments and has given me plenty of food for thought, but I noticed he completely ignored some of Pochettino's positive traits, notably his man management skills and popularity amongst players. Almost every So'ton player interviewed emphasised how much they admired both his methods and his character, stating how important he was to the development of the football club.

Even if everything he says proves to be true, I can't help but feel this guy isn't being completely balanced in his arguments and is (perhaps subconsciously) trying to convince himself that Pochettino isn't all that in order to make himself feel better about the departure.

It's the same on here when a manager departs. As soon as AVB got sacked plenty of articles popped up denouncing all of his negative qualities. The same qualities that were often lauded or ignored when he was still manager.

 

[StockSpur]

I'd probably argue that AVB over-rotated if anything last season. Both Spurs and Utd hardly named the same XI all season and they were a mess. No in form players, no team chemistry. Compare that to Liverpool, Southampton and Everton for example.

Keeping those players who regularly sit on the bench happy will be a new lesson for Poch, and is a concern, but it should lead to us resting much more players for EL group games which I think is necessary.

I'd imagine our overall squad size will reduce over the summer by 3 or 4 players, so this will help.

Hopefully our (still) deeper squad will also help with the fade in performances and help us combat injuries better.

It's good to see a more frank article from a Southampton fan and it does raise some genuine concerns. It will be interesting to see how he grows as spurs manager, hopefully he is given the time to do so...

I think we have some of the happiest bench warmers in football, some lazy sods picking up money for nowt.

 

[beats1]

He makes some very convincing arguments and has given me plenty of food for thought, but I noticed he completely ignored some of Pochettino's positive traits, notably his man management skills and popularity amongst players. Almost every So'ton player interviewed emphasised how much they admired both his methods and his character, stating how important he was to the development of the football club.

Even if everything he says proves to be true, I can't help but feel this guy isn't being completely balanced in his arguments and is (perhaps subconsciously) trying to convince himself that Pochettino isn't all that in order to make himself feel better about the departure.

It's the same on here when a manager departs. As soon as AVB got sacked plenty of articles popped up denouncing all of his negative qualities. The same qualities that were often lauded or ignored when he was still manager.

I hate to rain on your parade but at Espanyol his man management were in question since he fell out with ex teammates and arguably one of his best players.

He has got plenty positive qualities but the man management and popularity is something that everyone presumes as a result of his time at southampton. I hope he doesnt got the way of bielsa tbh

Maybe. I know fuck all about his style of play. All I know is he's done far better in Europe than FdB on similar budget (I believe), and won the league twice in two years. Oh and he's Swiss, as are the owners of ze Saints.

FDB record in CL
Wins 6 Draws 5 Losses 8 = 1.2 ppg

Matches include: AC Milan (x3), Barcelona (x2), Real Madrid (x4), Dortmund (x2), Man City (x2), Lyon (x2) and the only rubbish team Zagreb (x2)

Looking at that list that record is not bad at all especially considering that other than Zagreb the other teams have got better squads

without Zagreb its 1ppg against harder opposition than southampton

Now take in to account Poch's record

Poch record against top 4
Wins 3 Draws 2 Losses 6 = 1 ppg

Matches include: Chelsea (x3), City (x3), Manchester United (x1), Liverpool (x2) and Arsenal (x2)

Neil Lennon in CL
wins 4 draws 1 losses 9 = 0.86 ppg

Matches include: AC Milan (x2), Barcelona (x4), Benfica (x2), Juventus (x2), Spartak Moscow (x2) and Ajax (x2)

Now Lennon has the worst record out of the lot and arguably has the easiest matches of the lot. Of course the dutch league is shit blah blah, Tito once said Neil Lennon is great and ajax has the best team

Yakin in CL
Wins 2 Draws 2 Losses 2 = 1.33 points
Matches include Steaua, Schalke and Chelsea

It is better but he played shitter opposition tbh
If you take FDB record in CL from his first season and its about the same with 1.57ppg(including AC Milan, Real Madrid, Lyon and Zagreb). Their groups did get harder after that

Of course his Europa League(during 90mins) fucks over FDB but he did have a title race on whereas
4 win 6 losses
5 win 5 draw 4 losses

The only big teams Yakin has beaten is Chelsea and us(only after extra time and we got vertonghen sent off). If we want to look at similar managers who have done well on tiny managers why not Rosler(someone I like) beat city and unlucky in the FA cup semi final and has done wonders at brentford and wigan

 

[thinktank]

He makes some very convincing arguments and has given me plenty of food for thought, but I noticed he completely ignored some of Pochettino's positive traits, notably his man management skills and popularity amongst players. Almost every So'ton player interviewed emphasised how much they admired both his methods and his character, stating how important he was to the development of the football club.

Even if everything he says proves to be true, I can't help but feel this guy isn't being completely balanced in his arguments and is (perhaps subconsciously) trying to convince himself that Pochettino isn't all that in order to make himself feel better about the departure.

It's the same on here when a manager departs. As soon as AVB got sacked plenty of articles popped up denouncing all of his negative qualities. The same qualities that were often lauded or ignored when he was still manager.

Course not, the thread running through that piece was 'inevitable failure'.

That's all he kept coming back to.

They are all projecting failure on him here to make themselves feel better.

 

[Eric_s]

Course not, the thread running through that piece was 'inevitable failure'.

That's all he kept coming back to.

They are all projecting failure on him here to make themselves feel better.

We can understand as its coming from bitter saints fan. Unfortunately it becomes ammunition for our own fans that want Poch to fail.

 

[beats1]

Course not, the thread running through that piece was 'inevitable failure'.

That's all he kept coming back to.

They are all projecting failure on him here to make themselves feel better.

I don't doubt that he will be a success this season and he is a good manager but there is alot of blind love going on and if someone says anything slightly negative bang they are labelled as wanting him to fail.

Of course alot depends whether he will a success in the long term whether he can set things straight or learn from past mistakes.

Alot of the success of Liverpool and Arsenal this season has been down to them changing to more a counter attacking style compared to last season. I think poch will have to incorporate that as plan b tbh.

 

[arunspurs]

First of all, I compare Poch's style of play similar to Pep's style. In fact Pep knows only one style of playing. He has his faith in a system & he sticks to it.

Similar to Poch, Pep's team also has majority possession, defend as a team, high line, entire team presses, full backs playing as wingers etc... This style has given great success to Pep. He couldn't do much in CL semis but fact is, the system delivered longest consecutive winning streak for Bayern in the league.

Other point raised is Pochettino team cant win from behind. We need to have some perspective. First of all, the make up of Southampton suggest that there is no single star player or players with some x factor. Same can't be said for Spurs. In 2012/13, we had more points coming from behind - guess what - we had a certain Gareth Bale rescuing us with top corner finishes.

Regardless of tactics, come from behind victories are decided by heart shown by players & more importantly individual brilliance. This squad of us has quite a few such players. So, I am quite optimistic about this situation.

 

[thinktank]

I don't doubt that he will be a success this season and he is a good manager but there is alot of blind love going on and if someone says anything slightly negative bang they are labelled as wanting him to fail.

Of course alot depends whether he will a success in the long term whether he can set things straight or learn from past mistakes.

Alot of the success of Liverpool and Arsenal this season has been down to them changing to more a counter attacking style compared to last season. I think poch will have to incorporate that as plan b tbh.

Where?

 

[beats1]

First of all, I compare Poch's style of play similar to Pep's style. In fact Pep knows only one style of playing. He has his faith in a system & he sticks to it.

Similar to Poch, Pep's team also has majority possession, defend as a team, high line, entire team presses, full backs playing as wingers etc... This style has given great success to Pep. He couldn't do much in CL semis but fact is, the system delivered longest consecutive winning streak for Bayern in the league.

Other point raised is Pochettino team cant win from behind. We need to have some perspective. First of all, the make up of Southampton suggest that there is no single star player or players with some x factor. Same can't be said for Spurs. In 2012/13, we had more points coming from behind - guess what - we had a certain Gareth Bale rescuing us with top corner finishes.

Regardless of tactics, come from behind victories are decided by heart shown by players & more importantly individual brilliance. This squad of us has quite a few such players. So, I am quite optimistic about this situation.

You're are spot but some people on here didnt want FDB because they assumed he played the same style as Pep and Poch didnt. People are calling Pep boring now but forget that 4 years ago the very same people said barca are the best team to watch in the world. The thing is with this system it is hard for a team to carry on playing that over a couple of seasons which we have seen with Barca(though they played it at a higher quality), Bielsa's team and etc. The football will be great but it may get boring in a couple of seasons.

We had more points coming from behind this season as well without bale btw and the argument of not having stars is a moot point since neither did the teams in the league who got more points in the season.

 

[teok]

A huge part of management is getting your players to buy into your philosophy no matter what style of football you play.

There is no reason he can't do this at spurs.

 

[beats1]

Where?

If anyone talks about his time at espanyol or southampton in a bad way they get dismissed as it was Southampton or Espanyol and he didnt have the squad and etc.

TBF its been happening for a while on the forum, not with poch

 

[thinktank]

If anyone talks about his time at espanyol or southampton in a bad way they get dismissed as it was Southampton or Espanyol and he didnt have the squad and etc.

TBF its been happening for a while on the forum, not with poch

Haven't seen any poch supporters dismiss any questions/criticism levied at him; I've seen those points countered.

 

[SpartanSpur]

Other point raised is Pochettino team cant win from behind. We need to have some perspective. First of all, the make up of Southampton suggest that there is no single star player or players with some x factor. Same can't be said for Spurs. In 2012/13, we had more points coming from behind - guess what - we had a certain Gareth Bale rescuing us with top corner finishes.quote]

Or like Spurs 13/14, due to going behind far too often due to slow, lethargic starts, and having plenty of time to turn the game around.
This is something that we should be able to address with Poch, as even with his lesser Southampton squad he went behind in less games than Spurs (Soton 13, Spurs 18). Spurs still lost 11 of those 18 games, managing to come back to draw 2 and to win 5. Teams lose games, and normally when that happens they go behind and fail to come back (see our games v Arsenal, Newcastle and West Ham) I think this shows Spurs found themselves in a few false positions along the way (early goals like v Sunderland at WHL or WBA away). If Poch can bring us more consistency in terms of taking the lead and reduce our slow starts I think we can do well next season.
*Stats quickly scribbled off our sky sports PL results, could be slightly off

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

I don't know because I haven't done the analysis, but this "not coming back from being a goal down" might be a little misleading.

Perhaps it just means that his teams don't concede early goals to teams they should be beating.

 

[sloth]

Imagine Utd transferred in Levy, one of their fans enquired about him on here and NEVILLEB put his hand up, or Mullers...

Certainly you'd get an insight from them, but you'd be wrong if you gave it much weight, you'd need to interview lots of us before you began to build a picture.

 

[SpartanSpur]

You're are spot but some people on here didnt want FDB because they assumed he played the same style as Pep and Poch didnt. People are calling Pep boring now but forget that 4 years ago the very same people said barca are the best team to watch in the world. The thing is with this system it is hard for a team to carry on playing that over a couple of seasons which we have seen with Barca(though they played it at a higher quality), Bielsa's team and etc. The football will be great but it may get boring in a couple of seasons.

We had more points coming from behind this season as well without bale btw and the argument of not having stars is a moot point since neither did the teams in the league who got more points in the season.

I think we all share your concerns, I certainly do. I think Poch's system gives us the best chance of hitting the ground running than FDBs and I think that's exactly what the whole club needs after this season. After that it comes down to how adaptable he is as a coach. There have been suggestions he had to tweak his system to be more direct due to the differences to La Liga, hopefully he can continue to grow as a coach, as for me that adaptation is why Rodgers just signed a new contract and AVB is managing in Russia, despite the latter looking the better coach for much of last season.

From a lot of stats from Southampton last season you get to see quite a few trends (high possession even against top sides, take the lead a lot more than going behind, etc...), which suggests his system is well implemented and consistent, if he can apply that to Spurs where hopefully he has the better tools to combat his lack of points gained from behind, things could be very interesting. Looking at last years results we only took the lead in 19 games, Soton did so in 23. We however did not lose a single game from a winning position. If he can bring us more leads and not lose that side of Spurs' game we could be in business...