The Mauricio Pochettino thread

[pablo73]

We've had the most PL defeats of any club in 2019 and some seem to be suggesting we're just experiencing a slight dip in form. This can't be allowed to continue so either Poch needs to turn it round pronto or we'll have try to find someone else who can.

 

[nailsy]

It's mental that anyone thinks we're above Mourinho. Genuinely mental.

Do you want to continue being the plucky underdog who nearly gets there. Or become a genuine top club who actually wins things from time to time?

Yes he might be a prick, but maybe that's what this bunch needs. Either way they need a change. It's got boring for them and they aren't motivated anymore.

Hang on a minute, I don't think anyone has said we're above Mourinho. Almost everyone has acknowledged that he's a great manager and a very successful one, but he's not the only option available.

 

[Donki]

Not with sporting though, according to their chairman we offered €45m and another €20m if we won the league or cl. Obviously that’s only one side of the story but he wasn’t letting him go for that deal

Its was more than the release clause in his contract, it cost Sporting £4.5M so really up to them .

 

[rossdapep]

Club owners will look at him and see that he spent no money and still managed to get us into the top four and to a Champions League final. He's going to be in huge demand.



I can't see Levy sacking him soon. He's a valuable asset at the moment. If Real come in for him they'd have to pay us millions to get him. If Levy sacks him we'd have to pay Poch compensation. It just doesn't seem like something that Levy would do when he can just hang on for a few months to see if Poch can turn things around, or an offer comes in for him.



If he's lost the dressing room then it's just a question of when he goes. I've got to admit that I'm not surprised that players feel that way if he's like that all the time now. I'm starting to get annoyed with him and I don't work with him every day.



He's a very good manager. Tactically there aren't many better, and if he did join us I'd be pretty confident that we'd finally win something. The problem is that he's also a bully who creates divisions at pretty much every club he joins. Look at his treatment of the doctor at Chelsea, his treatment of Luke Shaw, the eye gouge on Tito Vilanova, constantly throwing his players under the bus during interviews, etc. There are other very good managers out there who we could get who could be just as successful as Jose, but far less disruptive if things were to go wrong.

can't disagree with those issues you mention. Although, Shaw was and is not a very good professional, he carries far too much weight. In Mourinhos defence he tried to motivate him but then Shaw obviously wasn't listening, it's at that point that Mourinho tries to show the world it's not him, it's the player.

He did it with Joe Cole and it worked as Cole improved. But not every playee responds in the same way. I do think we've got a good bunch here though, and they are good pros, which means they'll jump on board initially. The worry would be if things go awry and he starts throwing some under the bus.

Mourinho doesn't like others to think he failed or is failing so if we don't get results he'll point the blame at the players pretty quickly. At United I think it was justified.

Pogba - unprepared to do the basic defensive things and would ceaselessly lose possession in positions where you can't.

Martial - sulked when played out wide because he wants to play centrally. Mourinho wanted to sell him but Woodward and the club refused. They should have listened to Mourinho.

Rashford - same as Martial. There are stories that he was a nice lad but has started to get a little effected, believing the hype. Truth is he's not yet anywhere near the Kane level, so shouldn't be treated as such. Yet he has the fans backing, so Mourinho was always going to lose that one. It's not like Jose didn't give him chances either. Everytime he was given a start after a good sub appearance he'd do nothing.

Lingard - Mourinho actually got a tune out if him. Scored 13 goals in one season. Ole doesn't know what to do with him.

The other main issue was giving the likes of Sanchez and Lukaku 200k a week as the likes of Martial and Rashford started sulking. Too many players thinking they were on a pedestal and not pulling in the same direction.

We operate in a more humble way, therefore I don't think Mourinho would have the same issues.

 

[mill]

I think it was fucking unfair that he gave a striker a debut with nobody who could provide service behind him, seemed quite cruel to be honest then took him off when Eriksen came on.

Yeah didn’t exactly set him up to succeed

 

[thecook]

We could put Pochs 'Team-building' and 'Morale-Boosting' trophies in it that some of our fans cherish so much.

Indeed, alongside the bollocks that is 'Poch fit' and the legendary 'Poch pre-season'

 

[Rob]

We're not overachieving.

We've had one of the most valuable squads in the world for the last few seasons (Kane, Alli, Eriksen, Son, Lloris, Toby, Jan, Moura... all insanely valuable at their prime) and we have barely flirted with the notion of winning stuff.

Not quite...

Poch has developed the players into one of the most valuable squads in the world. That's quite a difference to just buying half a billion worth of players.

 

[Stamford]

Overachieving. Jesus Christ.

 

[nasescoba1985]

How are we underachieving? We are overachieving! Forget the last 30 years, that's not Poch or the players' fault. We've overachieved over the last few seasons, and Poch to an extent is a victim of his own success in that now it's gone a bit tits up, we're all saying he failed to win anything. The only reason everyone is spouting bollocks about not winning anything is because he overachieved so much, that we ended up being in title races and CL final!

I agree there's serious problems at the Club now that need addressing, but you can't spout shit like we're underachieving. Don't start all the "A club like Spurs should win things..." as that sounds like the crap Newcastle & Liverpool fans shout. You win what you deserve as a group of players. This group of players were never good enough to win a league title, bar the Leicester year where we never expected to win the title at the start of the season anyway.

This is the mentality I’m taking about. Overachievers in what ? Getting to a few finals ? Ffs mate. When do you accept that getting to countless finals, but not actually winning anything becomes a non achievement? This isn’t 8 years ago dude. We are far into the project and as a club in general where we should be expecting more silverware on the table. These current group of players should of achieved a lot more sorry. Getting to the CL final was a fantastic, but it wasn’t an achievement. We didn’t bloody win anything.

 

[freeeki]

Not quite...

Poch has developed the players into one of the most valuable squads in the world. That's quite a difference to just buying half a billion worth of players.

*Had.

Eriksen, Alli, Lloris, Toby, Jan, Lloris have all easily halved in value in the last two years, and age is only a factor in a couple of cases.

If you want to credit him for building them up, fine, but he can also take the credit for knocking them back down.

 

[CookieYiddo]

As many have said, the project is done. It’s gotten as far as it is going too. We should have won something in that time and we didn’t.

 

[doctor stefan Freud]

You’re all fucking ridiculous

You’re right, of course.

They are ridiculous

 

[Stamford]

Ironically the change in mentality that Poch craves means that we find what is currently serving up to be unacceptable. We should accept mediocrity or see what has happened as overachieving. That isn't taking away from what he's done but people are really over doing it.

 

[Johnny J]

Just to clarify for you all... if Poche were to leave, by push or jump, its not just him that we lose. The entire coaching staff, physios, and players who are intrinsically linked to him leave as well. That means Hugo and Lamela at the very least. Ndombele and Celso were both convinced to join by him as well.

We fans either don't appreciate or won't admit how much Poche is this club in its current era. Losing him will result in a wholesale change of everything. As opposed to just sorting out a few players and stabilising the current form.

Repeating myself, but reset your expectations of the club this season. Accept that we ain't winning anything this season. The times for this squad to win stuff is gone now. It should have won at least one title and the CL final. Man City and Liverpool have made title challenges redundant for anyone else in the league for at least a couple more years.

I'll take a 6th place finish and Poch rebuilding his squad if it means that we're ready to challenge seriously again next year or after. It's a lot less disruptive than the alternative would be.

Managers change all the time. The idea that all our best - and highly paid - players will leave just because Poch goes is naive in my view.

 

[Gb160]

I wear my 'weirdness' as a badge of pride
and Tottenham daring to be different
is what makes us interesting.
Let lesser men follow and be seduced by baubles.

Don't just take my word for it.

'It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low.
And we of Spurs have set our sights very high,
so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory.'

Sir William Nicholson

You've gotta see the irony in you quoting Bill Nicholson, a man who is remembered because he was a winner Jimmy.

 

[Rob]

Overachieving. Jesus Christ.

Wage bill is generally considered a good indicator of where you'd expect to finish. We're 6th. Consider that pretty much par for us. Thanks to Poch, we've been consistently punching above that (and considerably so) for the past 5 years. So much so that we now "expect" to be 3rd and consider 4th a failure. The other reason we've been so conistently above par is because we've been so stable. No manager upheavals like at Chelsea or Man U which have caused them real problems.

 

[nailsy]

can't disagree with those issues you mention. Although, Shaw was and is not a very good professional, he carries far too much weight. In Mourinhos defence he tried to motivate him but then Shaw obviously wasn't listening, it's at that point that Mourinho tries to show the world it's not him, it's the player.

He did it with Joe Cole and it worked as Cole improved. But not every playee responds in the same way. I do think we've got a good bunch here though, and they are good pros, which means they'll jump on board initially. The worry would be if things go awry and he starts throwing some under the bus.

Mourinho doesn't like others to think he failed or is failing so if we don't get results he'll point the blame at the players pretty quickly. At United I think it was justified.

Pogba - unprepared to do the basic defensive things and would ceaselessly lose possession in positions where you can't.

Martial - sulked when played out wide because he wants to play centrally. Mourinho wanted to sell him but Woodward and the club refused. They should have listened to Mourinho.

Rashford - same as Martial. There are stories that he was a nice lad but has started to get a little effected, believing the hype. Truth is he's not yet anywhere near the Kane level, so shouldn't be treated as such. Yet he has the fans backing, so Mourinho was always going to lose that one. It's not like Jose didn't give him chances either. Everytime he was given a start after a good sub appearance he'd do nothing.

Lingard - Mourinho actually got a tune out if him. Scored 13 goals in one season. Ole doesn't know what to do with him.

The other main issue was giving the likes of Sanchez and Lukaku 200k a week as the likes of Martial and Rashford started sulking. Too many players thinking they were on a pedestal and not pulling in the same direction.

We operate in a more humble way, therefore I don't think Mourinho would have the same issues.

I'm not going to suggest you're wrong in any of that, but there's no need to Jose to say what he does to the media. He can say what he wants to the players in the dressing room and on the training pitch, but mugging them of in front of everyone doesn't really work these days. Players are too powerful. It just creates disharmony. It's something he's done at Real, at Chelsea and at United so he's bound to carry on doing it at his next club.

Actually with Luke Shaw the guy seemed to start his United career really well and then got that horrific injury and then had Jose on his back from almost the moment he got back. It really did just come across as bullying.

 

[Lighty64]

Levys got some massive decisions to make, not just getting rid of Poch, but what direction the club goes in if/when he goes.

Im not sure match going fans will be happy with a patsy when we're paying absolute top whack every other week, and I'm not sure our big hitters (the ones on long contracts) will want to stick around unless a big name comes in.

The troubles we have are more than just sacking Poch.

1, will the unsettled players still be unsettled. If Rose, Eriksen, and Toby intend to leave what difference will a new manager make

2, no guarantee them, or the Poch players will want to work with the new guy.

the thing is these players are involved with Poch and the squad most days of the week, but also the players will socialise with each other out of work. none of us know exactly how many players are not behind Poch, and so many reasons why.

 

[Rob]

*Had.

Eriksen, Alli, Lloris, Toby, Jan, Lloris have all easily halved in value in the last two years, and age is only a factor in a couple of cases.

If you want to credit him for building them up, fine, but he can also take the credit for knocking them back down.

What absolute rubbish. The reason all of their values are low is either age or contract length. Alli is the only exception and there's no way he's halved in value unless you were valuing him at 200 mil.

 

[Primativ]

Overachieving ? Deary me.

We’ve seen inferior squads such as Leicester, Chelsea, United and Arsenal win trophies in Pochs time here. In fact everyone has now had their turn. Spurs under Poch are the only club who consistently fail to win anything.

We are underachieving. We have a fantastic squad. Yes we have some weaknesses but who doesn’t? Not many.