Club Statement 19 Nov 19 - Pochettino leaves
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spursfan77
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- Aug 13, 2005
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I don’t think Newcastle is the right move for him. What he needs is a club with a ready made team, not a project. All that does is take more time out of his career. I don’t think he will anyway. He will be waiting for Man U or Real Madrid. That’s the direction he will want his career to go in. The Newcastle job has so many uncertainties.
Gassin's finest
C'est diabolique
- May 12, 2010
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I disagree with this. The thing that drives Poch in football is the opposite of bought success. He very much believes in the plucky underdog, moulding and building a squad in his ethos, and getting everyone on board. That's the type of team he always played in, and has managed ever since the Espanyol Ladies team. Newcastle actually suits him well... a provincial town, massive passionate fan base. If his time there were to be anything like it was here, then he will be deified up there, far more than he was here.
Of course you could be right, and he just wants a big pay day and some ready made superstars. But I doubt it'd go that well if he does.
Gassin's finest
C'est diabolique
- May 12, 2010
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Never go back.
TheVoiceofReason
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- Feb 5, 2005
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Spurs went back. Mauricio was always trying to drive us forward.
he is you know!
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- Dec 31, 2012
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Agree, but not necessarily about United. There are still a number of problems to resolve there.
The question then is what jobs are going to be available.
If Ligue 1 is done, then PSG could decide to let Tuchel go in a month. Bayern job is not available, Madrid who knows.
Gassin's finest
C'est diabolique
- May 12, 2010
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Won't disagree. But it's in the past now unfortunately.
mpickard2087
Patient Zero
- Jun 13, 2008
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Both agree and disagree. More and more I have evaluated Poch, particularly since he departed, and conclude he's quite hard to pigeonhole in terms of what sort of job would suit him in the future.
Lets look at what his strengths and relative weaknesses are as a coach.
The main areas that he improves are threefold - working hard on the fitness/physical capabilities of players, fostering a close knit culture of hard work and building a better resolve and belief within a group, and so on the pitch you see an aggressive, intense, and energetic performance (well, in the good times at least...!). From a tactical coaching perspective, his work improves some of the defensive aspects of individual players, mainly in the pressing aspect. He can and has shown he does make huge gains in these areas.
Where is he weaker? In the attacking aspects of the game, in my opinion, both tactical and technical. I'm sure loads of people will retort with the wins stats, league position finishes, goals scored etc, and I'm not saying he was totally useless because he obviously got something out of them... But at our best, that 2015-17 period, a lot of our wins came about through just going out and absolute steamrollering the opposition and battering them into submission with the intensity and energy in our play. I cant really say that looking back over the last few years I saw really any players improve something in the technical aspect of their game, and even more so tactically - Did we ever get comfortable playing out against any organised team pressing us high? Have Moura or Son ever demonstrated looking more intelligently for space between the lines? Did Rose and Walker ever show any inclination of picking out a better, more composed final ball? Winks show any progress in the positioning in the Pivot role? Basically all our attackers learning when to take one touch instead of five? How to use a big static back to goal Number 9 and play off him? And many other minute aspects too. Mainly our approach involved giving the front four a large degree of freedom and fluidity to go out and play their games, for good and bad, and do it via individual quality.
Compared to some other coaches, Guardiola and Klopp especially, I think he lacks a bit of attention to detail tactically. That might put off some of the very biggest clubs. Where and how to exploit the opposition involving subtle repositioning of players and how to tweak the line up for a particular game.
Then there is the question of what conditions he works best under. Obviously one is that he needs young hungry players who will take his ideas on board and embrace the hard work. But then furthermore, evidence suggests he does his best stuff taking a team that is a bit of a rabble and at its low ebb. With Espanyol, Southampton and us he took an existing group of players, chucked out the wasters and trusts a few kids, added the aforementioned physical and mental toughness, and his tactical vision of high press etc, and made considerable and pretty quick improvements over a couple of years. Beyond that though is where things get a bit more debateable, Espanyol sounds like it was a constant firefight of a job and that ok maybe inevitable that eventually you hit a bad patch, but on paper he struggled when he had to rebuild a team a few seasons in. With us it is a similar picture, after that initial group (plus a couple of additions) he struggled beyond that. I'm sure people can go 'Levy fucked him' and blah blah blah but it's also on him. Standards dropped across the board, signings were hit and miss and questionable as to how and where they fitted in, and I got the impression that the strong bonds he built, which helped at the start, meant he couldn't really let go and shake things up and where to take us next.
What would I conclude? For the perception that he's a long term project manager type, I actually think his work shows him to be as short term as his contemporaries, especially in terms of effectiveness. It might be working with a younger, less established, group but he hasn't shown any ability to manage change and work past his initial core of players anymore than the likes of Mourinho, Guardiola etc. do and get criticised for. To be honest I think there would be question marks as to if established teams/players buy into his methods, or whether he is the type for a nouveau riche club who will want to invest and change heavily and quickly. Maybe he is determined to manage one of the very biggest clubs and show he methods will work there, but I think he's suited to firefighting somewhat, working largely with what he has got, and turning around clubs over a 2-3 year period.
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Gilzeanking
Well-Known Member
- May 7, 2005
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Great , clear-eyed , post from Mr P I've bolded a coupla things I particularly agree with .
The other thing I'd add is that there was an element of novelty and surprise when Poch started re his high press system . This made us
particularly effective...until teams worked out how to counteract our system . Then it got trickier for us .
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Only if he learned from his mistakes. If he did, i'd have him back in a New York minute.
mpickard2087
Patient Zero
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That might have been part of it, but what was worse was that, as I've just been making the point on an unrelated topic, we/he totally lost oversight as to what made the team tick, what was important, allowed standards to completely drop and the make up to the team largely lost the plot.
I have always thought that the main thing that made our Poch team tick was what we did off the ball. People can point to wins/goals/league positions but I don't think we ever played the best technical football or had the best technical players. We always played our best when working hard, with intensity and energy - that, along with confidence and the freedom our attackers were allowed, fed in to what we did with the ball. Our best wins for me were always the ones where we battered the fuck out of the opposition and just trampled over them.
That team though had everything pointing in the right direction. Manager wanted to play high press, intense football, had the knowledge and ability to teach this to the players, and more crucially had the tools to carry it out. The front four (even Eriksen) prepared to press their bollocks off, a sturdy cm2 that anchored the middle of the park, wing backs in Rose and Walker who had tremendous aggressive energy up and down their flank for 90 mins, two centre backs who would squeeze up the pitch, and a keeper who swept up anything over the top...
From 16-17 though standards dropped. The front four even then in our best spell were easing off a bit, I'd get slated at the time for pointing it out but it was true, and it just carried on getting worse. We ended up with various line ups of no midfield. Rose and Walker became Davies and Trippier/Aurier, whatever qualities they have it isn't running power and aggression and intensity. The centre backs/defence stopped pushing up the pitch, partly because the press in front of it was crap and partly because they were getting old and decrepit, and the keeper is getting on a bit and more and more reluctant to come off his line these days.
Everyone at the club, fans, players, chairman, and most importantly manager forgot what put us in that position and what took us forward.
spids
Well-Known Member
- Jul 19, 2015
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It was not just other teams working us out, it was as much to do with us losing:
- The aggressive, pacey FBs who totally dominated the flanks - this ceased when Walker left and Rose subsequently got injured.
- The physical presence and control in the middle of CM this ceased when Wanyama got injured and Dembele left.
Spurs 1961
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- Aug 31, 2012
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No question we were in a difficult run but imo panicked and so all has hurt us more long term. A poor season whilst new players were found and tactics re-thought would have been a bump in the road; right now it looks like a car crash
spursfan1991
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- Jul 3, 2008
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Most of us would like him to come back and finish the journey too.
D
Deleted member 27995
It's never the same the second time around.
Gassin's finest
C'est diabolique
- May 12, 2010
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Poch-beard is epic.
Thanks PL Tuck for posting that. just went through it...... Sigh. What a great chapter in all our lives. I do hope there is a sequel. He does sound refreshed and mentally much stronger than he was.
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