Jose Mourinho

E17yid said:

If it’s true that Poch wanted a total rebuild and was sacked for that reason then it’s not looking so great now. The spin from the club, which Jose naturally followed, was that we have a fantastic squad of players that were performing well below what they should be. We saw a mini manager bounce but that looks well and truly over now and has done for at least a few weeks really.

It goes without saying that Mourinho needs time, of course he does, but if we’re all saying that Poch was right all along and we do need to overhaul this squad then maybe we should’ve written off this season and given Poch him a few more windows.

It’ll be interesting to see how this month and the summer pan out. I’m not expecting any incomings this month but if we see 3-4 out the door and the same in the summer you’ve got to feel for Poch as this is what he was saying needed to happen. Having said that Tobi has signed a new deal so maybe he is, for the most part, looking to work with this group (with a few tweaks) and in the next 18 months he’ll win us a FA, League or Europa Cup (when we finish outside top 4 this year) and we’ll look back and think it was definitely the right call to sack Poch for Mourinho. I’m not optimistic at that moment. I think it’s more than evident now, after well over a year of watching absolute shit, that we have a lot of players who, for whatever reason, are simply are not good enough. If that is true then we need to do a lot of business in the next 2-3 years really and 1, I’m not even convinced Mourinho will be around that long and 2, I don’t have enough faith in the club (board, scouting network) to recruit well enough to put us back in a place where we’re competing for top honours.

Obviously I’m fully behind Mourinho, in fact I want Mourinho to go full **** mode and shit house everything (as long as we win) so I’m still holding out hope that we get past Leipzig and play the winner of Atalanta v Valencia in the QTRs and then go onto win the Champions League after Jose eye gouges his opposite number in the final. Stranger things have happened.

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McFlash said:

Poch wasn't sacked because he wanted a total rebuild, he was sacked because the players were bored of him, his training methods and lack of game changing tactics.
I pretty much agree with the rest of your post though.

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McFlash said:

Poch wasn't sacked because he wanted a total rebuild, he was sacked because the players were bored of him, his training methods and lack of game changing tactics.
I pretty much agree with the rest of your post though.

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McFlash said:

I still think that the time to judge Mourinho is half way through next season. He needs a time and a bit of money to sort this out.
We can make rash judgements now, or harp on about Poch, or we can give him the time that any other manager would be afforded.

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rossdapep said:

Seeing as it's typical to compare with Poch and some are getting at Jose, I think it's worth looking at Poch's first season.

Remember when Poch first walked through the door he had a squad full of talented players who were not the most 'professional' shall we say, and some of these had lost desire (Lloris/Vertonghen).

We started of with a couple of wins (WH away and QPR at home) but these wins only papered over the cracks as we got turned over 3-0 by Liverpool at home.

In fact after Poch's first 10 games, our record read

W 4
D 2
L 4

Hardly inspiring, we'd been turned over by both WBA and Newcastle at home.

If anyone can remember the Villa win (Kanes free kick), will be able to say that the performance was absolutely dreadful. Insipid, boring, slow football from what I recall.

It was around this point where Poch started to ditch certain players (Remember he had had a preseason to work with some of these bad apples - Jose hasn't even had that yet).

Form improved but it was still very sporadic. Five 2-1 wins in November and December showed the team were winning but still overcoming defensive and attacking issues. We lost 3-0 to Chelsea inbetween, another hammering from a bigger team.

For the rest of the season we'd win a couple only to lose 1 in 3/4 games. We even got teared apart 3-0 by Stoke. There was also the drab 0-0 with Burnley (Paulinho shot) and the basketball game (4-3) at home to Leicester.

Poch's defensive set up then consisted of Kaboul, Fazio, Dier, Vertonghen and Chiriches. I recall he would rotate them regularly and ditched Kaboul half way through the season. Protecting that back four was Stambouli, Capoue, Bentaleb, Mason - four players not good enough and quickly out the door.

The point here is that Jose is in a very similar situation. He's got a talented bunch of players (Kane, Alli, Toby, Son) mixed with some who aren't good enough (Sissoko, Foyth, Aurier), new players still bedding in (Sessegnon, Ndombele, Lo Celso) some past their best (Vertonghen, Lloris, Rose) and some who want out (Eriksen).

Add to this the fact that Jose hasn't really had a chance to implement his style, hasn't worked out his best 11, is having players get injured and the season is half way through, it just seems incredibly complicated for him to really work well.

We are going to need a couple of windows similar to Poch's second one.
In the 2015 window he sold;
Paulinho
Soldado
Yedlin
Fazio
Stambouli
Townsend
Chiriches
Friedel
Kaboul
Capoue
Lennon
Adebayor
Holtby

He then only brought in 5 first teamers.

Now I think we may need 6 but the truth is Jose needs to declutter this squad and until he's allowed to do that and work with the squad we aren't going to see consistency and we aren't going to see what he really wants from this team. If after that we still look abject, then all criticism is fair.

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riggi said:

I’ll probably put my ticket up for a lot of games. Can’t justify it..

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Wheeler Dealer said:

Mourinho has inherited a far stronger squad than Poch did. He was quick to state when he got the job that we had the 3rd best squad in PL. His results and performances since would severely question this, and his ability as a so called "Super manager" to set the team up effectively and not this absolute shambles we are all currently witnessing

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shelfboy68 said:

I know a couple who are thinking the same

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rossdapep said:

Seeing as it's typical to compare with Poch and some are getting at Jose, I think it's worth looking at Poch's first season.

Remember when Poch first walked through the door he had a squad full of talented players who were not the most 'professional' shall we say, and some of these had lost desire (Lloris/Vertonghen).

We started of with a couple of wins (WH away and QPR at home) but these wins only papered over the cracks as we got turned over 3-0 by Liverpool at home.

In fact after Poch's first 10 games, our record read

W 4
D 2
L 4

Hardly inspiring, we'd been turned over by both WBA and Newcastle at home.

If anyone can remember the Villa win (Kanes free kick), will be able to say that the performance was absolutely dreadful. Insipid, boring, slow football from what I recall.

It was around this point where Poch started to ditch certain players (Remember he had had a preseason to work with some of these bad apples - Jose hasn't even had that yet).

Form improved but it was still very sporadic. Five 2-1 wins in November and December showed the team were winning but still overcoming defensive and attacking issues. We lost 3-0 to Chelsea inbetween, another hammering from a bigger team.

For the rest of the season we'd win a couple only to lose 1 in 3/4 games. We even got teared apart 3-0 by Stoke. There was also the drab 0-0 with Burnley (Paulinho shot) and the basketball game (4-3) at home to Leicester.

Poch's defensive set up then consisted of Kaboul, Fazio, Dier, Vertonghen and Chiriches. I recall he would rotate them regularly and ditched Kaboul half way through the season. Protecting that back four was Stambouli, Capoue, Bentaleb, Mason - four players not good enough and quickly out the door.

The point here is that Jose is in a very similar situation. He's got a talented bunch of players (Kane, Alli, Toby, Son) mixed with some who aren't good enough (Sissoko, Foyth, Aurier), new players still bedding in (Sessegnon, Ndombele, Lo Celso) some past their best (Vertonghen, Lloris, Rose) and some who want out (Eriksen).

Add to this the fact that Jose hasn't really had a chance to implement his style, hasn't worked out his best 11, is having players get injured and the season is half way through, it just seems incredibly complicated for him to really work well.

We are going to need a couple of windows similar to Poch's second one.
In the 2015 window he sold;
Paulinho
Soldado
Yedlin
Fazio
Stambouli
Townsend
Chiriches
Friedel
Kaboul
Capoue
Lennon
Adebayor
Holtby

He then only brought in 5 first teamers.

Now I think we may need 6 but the truth is Jose needs to declutter this squad and until he's allowed to do that and work with the squad we aren't going to see consistency and we aren't going to see what he really wants from this team. If after that we still look abject, then all criticism is fair.

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Wheeler Dealer said:

If we continue to play this shambolic, turgid football, then he'll be lucky to see this season out, as I suspect the large majority of fans will quickly lose patience and the pressure will intensify if results and performance don't improve.

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KingSandro said:

JJ on twitter reiterating that Jose is losing patience with mistakes .

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rossdapep said:

Seeing as it's typical to compare with Poch and some are getting at Jose, I think it's worth looking at Poch's first season.

Remember when Poch first walked through the door he had a squad full of talented players who were not the most 'professional' shall we say, and some of these had lost desire (Lloris/Vertonghen).

We started of with a couple of wins (WH away and QPR at home) but these wins only papered over the cracks as we got turned over 3-0 by Liverpool at home.

In fact after Poch's first 10 games, our record read

W 4
D 2
L 4

Hardly inspiring, we'd been turned over by both WBA and Newcastle at home.

If anyone can remember the Villa win (Kanes free kick), will be able to say that the performance was absolutely dreadful. Insipid, boring, slow football from what I recall.

It was around this point where Poch started to ditch certain players (Remember he had had a preseason to work with some of these bad apples - Jose hasn't even had that yet).

Form improved but it was still very sporadic. Five 2-1 wins in November and December showed the team were winning but still overcoming defensive and attacking issues. We lost 3-0 to Chelsea inbetween, another hammering from a bigger team.

For the rest of the season we'd win a couple only to lose 1 in 3/4 games. We even got teared apart 3-0 by Stoke. There was also the drab 0-0 with Burnley (Paulinho shot) and the basketball game (4-3) at home to Leicester.

Poch's defensive set up then consisted of Kaboul, Fazio, Dier, Vertonghen and Chiriches. I recall he would rotate them regularly and ditched Kaboul half way through the season. Protecting that back four was Stambouli, Capoue, Bentaleb, Mason - four players not good enough and quickly out the door.

The point here is that Jose is in a very similar situation. He's got a talented bunch of players (Kane, Alli, Toby, Son) mixed with some who aren't good enough (Sissoko, Foyth, Aurier), new players still bedding in (Sessegnon, Ndombele, Lo Celso) some past their best (Vertonghen, Lloris, Rose) and some who want out (Eriksen).

Add to this the fact that Jose hasn't really had a chance to implement his style, hasn't worked out his best 11, is having players get injured and the season is half way through, it just seems incredibly complicated for him to really work well.

We are going to need a couple of windows similar to Poch's second one.
In the 2015 window he sold;
Paulinho
Soldado
Yedlin
Fazio
Stambouli
Townsend
Chiriches
Friedel
Kaboul
Capoue
Lennon
Adebayor
Holtby

He then only brought in 5 first teamers.

Now I think we may need 6 but the truth is Jose needs to declutter this squad and until he's allowed to do that and work with the squad we aren't going to see consistency and we aren't going to see what he really wants from this team. If after that we still look abject, then all criticism is fair.

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IfiHadTheWings said:

Yeah definitely does, was definitely easier when we were shit as you get to enjoy the wins a lot more than going in to near enough every game expecting a win only to be gutted when you don't...easy to see how the entitlement amongst the fans creeps in and why our atmosphere has gone to pot.

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spids said:

The frustrating thing is that Arteta has only had a week with Arsenal and already you can see a team style emerging with all their players fully bought into it. Their players are actually being coached on things like shape, transition, team pressing etc. We look even more like a team of individuals than we did under Poch. Mourinho has been unlucky in terms of injuries, suspensions and volume of games, but it must be incredibly clear to him he needs to go back to basics starting with the back 4 and CM. It also must be clear that we need at least two new faces now to lift the squad and add quality. A top drawer DCM would make the most difference. I think Mourinho will privately be shocked as he thought he had the players and they just needed a combination of confidence and street nous, and it turns out the whole squad is stale, past it or woefully out of form. With Son returning from suspension as Harry looks at a month out, it will be interesting to see if we get better movement up top, as Harry has been very static since his last ankle injury.

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spursfan77 said:

The atmosphere at the new stadium gets worse every week. Brighton was the worst it’s been. Absolutely terrible. South lower was full of tourists not singing.

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Metalhead said:

I reckon it would have to be pretty bad for Levy to call time.

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