We have too little information to be able to assess what is really going on with Spurs. Our usual debate following defeat is not happening because I suspect those of us who generally put forward the positive side are at a loss after such a dismal performance yesterday. Pochettino and his press conferences do not clarify anything, they often tend to cause further confusion and speculation. He has gone from elation in the CL semi final and expressing great delight following our four signings in the window to misery about the window remaining open in the rest of Europe. Yet another example of how out of step the UK is. On the surface it would appear that Pochettino had not considered he would have to put up with continuing speculation about his squad until Sep 2nd. OR he thought issues such as Eriksen had been resolved. Rose being left behind to sort his own future out seems bizarre in a world where agents and clubs seem to be in constant contact. It's possible of course that Rose is at the heart of the teams disarray. maybe this is why Vertonghen has not been picked to play? Did he express an opinion about picking Rose? Then you have Eriksen? I think it's reasonable to speculate that the team is destabilised by all this uncertainty. The change of mood from Pochettino suggests to me that this has all happened once the team returned from pre season. I think we just have to hope that once the Sep 2nd window closes everyone can settle down and get on with the job in hand. The worst case is of course that this drags on until January. A few more weeks of what we saw yesterday and fans will begin to turn against the management and that IMO would be a tragedy for Spurs who we did expect were on the verge of something special at the beginning of this season.
Fans will begin to turn against management? Did you forget about the BackPoch farce from a month ago? Fans are all too ready to do it, hence the r/coys thread was full of people tossing around the "happy clapper" jibe so popular with Harry ****espout and his brainless following
I've said it in the past and it bears repeating: there's a section of the Spurs support who see ArsenalFanTV and think "Yes, that is how I shall support my club" - which only serves to make a section of the fanbase completely bipolar on matchdays
I worry about this too. His comments towards the end of last season and throughout the summer were extremely worrying. Many fans dismissed them as him simply toying with reporters or blamed the language barrier but that doesn't wash, for me. I also feel we moved into the new stadium at the wrong time. I get the rush to do so and in all likelihood moving there carried us to 2 extra victories last season we otherwise might not have managed without the boost, but the move came with the team and manager in a right slump - a slump this window appears to have failed to alleviate. I'm sure other posters will tell me (rightly so) to stop reading so much into the events of the past few months, but I really do think Poch is so done with the bulk of this group. And to a large extent, so are we. The list of senior players we've either lost patience with, are on their 'last chance' or we'd prefer to lose now rather than lose for free next summer is worryingly long. An unsettled manager - especially one who knows the club inside out and is held in high regard - can and will unsettle the entire club. We saw this in Harry's last season when his flirting for the Ingerland job led to an otherwise very established and familiar group of players collapse and bottle the CL. It's so strange because thinking back to this time last year, there was so much positivity, so much defiance running through the club. And it ran from Poch all the way down. As if the challenges of no real pre-season combined with playing at Wembley combined with zero signings lit a fire of determination in his and our bellies as we set out to prove the world wrong. And for half a season, it looked as though it was working. And then everything went to **** after the new year. And the CL run masked just how to **** it went. And Poch very clearly recognised that fact - his comments about leaving clearly reflected the fact that we were miles off the requisite standard to challenge for the PL. Now, everything is so different. Poch seems miserable, defeatist, distracted. We've had a proper pre-season, don't have post-WC fatigue, had a decent summer and start the season in the new stadium. Given all of that, why the negativity?
Here we have a football site where you can have a debate, an argument even, and it's done in a respectful and intelligent way. We see all too clearly what happens on some of the boards on not606. I find it very helpful to be able to come here especially after a game like yesterday. Football has always had it's idiots but they are not here.
"This is my sixth season and the most unsettled group we are working with," "That is why we are relaxed and calm. Some situations we cannot fix. Nothing to say about that, situations that are going on in the squad. Still we need to wait. "That is the circumstances after playing the Champions League on June 1, we knew that some situations like this would happen but for us and the club it's difficult to handle. "What can we do? We can only wait. I say again, you have for sure more information than me about what's happening in the market. "It is a natural evolution and we are looking to find that balance. This season looks like it will be the one where we will start the regeneration of the squad. This is a new cycle." "That's why I cannot do more than try to help the team find the best dynamic to train and not to create too many problems and be a person who is not being very emphatic, but understand every single situation and try to get a good result." "This type of stuff happens in the Premier League and that's why you not only need quality players, you need a very good dynamic, and strong team bond and at the moment that situation in our group is still far, far away from what we expect." It's all here, black and white. There was a group of players he wanted out of the club at the onset of this summer. That group could be as big as (for varying reasons but all with the common denominator of unsettling the dynamic and/or not being part of his long-term plans for this 'new chapter'. Toby Jan Aurier Trippier Wanyama GKN Janssen Llorente Rose Eriksen
Watching our team is like watching a wheel with a kink go round...its irritating and not smooth at all. For all the off field issues why can't Poch pick a team to do a job at home to Newcastle. No excuses I'm afraid whatsoever.
That's certainly the talk on most forums at the moment. It also explains Poch's comment about how the CL final being so late in the year has become part of the current problem. Obviously had we won it, he wouldn't be picking that out. But with hindsight, at half time in Amsterdam what was going through his mind? A strong a resolute decision to begin the clear-out process the minute the season ended? 45 mins of appallingly inexperienced football from Ajax and excellent finishing from Lucas wasn't going to change that decision, the conclusion of months of mulling things over. And then the CL final delayed that process by 3 weeks and also complicated matters in that players who he doesn't see as good enough now think 'but I got to a CL final so I must be' (Wanyama, Aurier?). Others who do want to leave now think 'I'm only moving to the best 2 or 3 teams in the world, after all - I got to the CL final' (Rose, Eriksen?).
He did. The team he picked was easily good enough to beat that Toon side, who were frankly ****e and barely capable of stringing 2 passes together. The Eriksen and Jan situations are irrelevant. Sure, Jan might have prevented their goal and Eriksen might have produced a long-range special to seal a 1-0 win, but the performance would have been the same. Slow, turgid, uninspiring. The problems at this stage run far deeper than team selection for individual games. Roll on Sep 2nd. I hope everyone he wants gone is gone by then and we can just pick ourselves up and start again.
Yes and no. I don't think that any of the players he picked aren't up to scratch, but the team selection and tactics were poor. Leaving Eriksen out would be fine, if there was someone taking up his role in the team. Lo Celso's not up to speed though, so that leaves us little choice. Going from neither to both made no sense, either. Picking Moura, Son, Lamela and Kane together didn't make much sense. Playing Lamela centrally and having Kane dropping deep and drifting wide constantly nullified them both. Moura isn't a striker and Pochettino needs to stop using him as one.
