I work with that rarest of things a decent West Ham fan, and he says that there are very strong rumours circulating amongst fans groups with close links to Sullivans son that Chelsea will be Moyes last match and that Allardyce will be given the job of keeping them up (which he probably would)
Based on last night's showing they need to ensure they’re really warmed up post Chelsea otherwise they won’t be faring any better against those sides than they have so far against us and Wolves. They really do look terrible. Hard to see where the goals are going to come from.
Yeah Big Sam’s a master at that. I kind of have mixed emotions with wanting them to be relegated or not. On the one hand it’s always hilarious seeing a rival suffer. Though it does mean we lose one of our London derbies unless we draw them in a cup and I personally love a derby game. Whenever fixtures get released I always look for Arsenal, Chelsea and West Ham games - in that order.
Mourinho v Ndombele: I do not have a firm opinion in this matter, at this time. but maybe Ndombele would be an entirely different player if managed by Poch. I've also heard it said that certain high maintenance managers develop reputations for unintentionally stifling extremely gifted complex players.
Yeah it’s possible, Poch was desperate to get him so I think he would’ve been a “project” Poch would’ve worked a lot on. Similar with Foyth, Poch was turning him into a promising RB. Equally though Jose’s having success with other individuals. Tanganga never got a minute under Poch. He’s found a way for Aurier to excel on the front foot (7a, 2g under Jose) and based on the last couple games he’s turning Dier into a monster of a CB.
I’m baffled as to what Poch would have done that would have magically transformed Ndombele into a PL footballer with basic levels of fitness and drive...something he is failing to show for us when he has had the chance. That’s on the player...where is his professional pride? after that it’s tactics... and I can’t see any signs of Jose having mismanaged Ndombele...he has always played him in the correct position whenever he has managed game time
Ndombele’s issues and problems at Spurs are to do with himself and started before Poch left and Jose came in The guy needs to either knuckle down and show us all how good he is or accept defeat at Spurs and move on. Spurs can’t afford to be carrying any passengers especially a record signing.
I think Poch would’ve been a lot more lenient with him seeing as he was his priority target. Worth pointing out he did have some good games under Poch too. Different managers will favour different players and find certain ways to make them work. We saw on Jose’s first training session video that he earmarked Tanganga out, that doesn’t mean Poch was wrong to not give Tanganga game time, it shows that managers view things/ players differently. There’s no guarantee Tanguy would’ve fared better in the end under Poch but I see Bajan’s POV. Would Tanganga/ Dier/ Aurier be the same under Poch right now? Probably not. Could Tanguy/ Foyth have been different under Poch right now? Possibly.
At this point, he's got to go but I guess that we'll have a better idea of Ndombele's qualities when we see where he ends up next? If PSG, Barca or the like come in for him, then we'll have an idea that he's still seen as a talented prospect and we have failed to get it out of him. When at United, Mourinho really wanted rid of Martial because of his supposed 'questionable attitude'. However, Poch was extremely keen on him. Now Mourinho's gone, Martial is doing much better there and all of the suggested problems have disappeared. Some players have an approach that he doesn't like but his way isn't the only way as seen by the departure of De Bruyne and Salah from Chelsea. Mourinho has a track record for this sort of thing that can't be overlooked and may well be a factor in this...
There’s been talk that Jose wants a DM to help the defence out and until he gets one then he can’t play both Lo Celso and Ndombele as they’re too attacking
That makes a lot of sense as we can’t play a 2-man midfield of Gio and Tanguy as it’d be too lightweight and it’s why Hojbjerg has been linked a fair bit. Though I would argue that Sissoko’s style can cover certain DM attributes so I’d like to see a midfield three of those guys given a go before the season ends.
Alasdair Gold claims that the plan going forward is to play 433, with a DM behind Lo Celso and Ndombele - which we can't do at the moment due to our obvious lack of a DM Tanganga certainly did get minutes under Poch, as he started against Colchester in the Season Killer Cup, and this sums up how Poch introduced youngsters: he drip fed them into the team, with a start in a low priority fixture here and a few minutes off the bench there, which is what he did with Winks and Skipp to name but two The issue was that, as our form was in the toilet, there were no low priority games as Poch was trying to brute force us back into form and, with the Season Killer Cup off the table after the ****up against Colchester, the only way the likes of Tanganga or Parrott would get games is if the first team created a situation where they could start
Could be worse, thanks to Twitter I have been reminded that I paid to see both Sucker Punch and Lucy...
Similar was said about Teddy Sheringham, yet he only managed one season at Stevenage and one in the Indian Premier League - yet several players he played alongside, notably Klinsmann, Rebrov, Edinburgh and Poyet (plus some bloke we don't like talking about on here...) have all had far more impressive managerial careers
