Given he signed a lengthy contract extension late last year, the compensation package would've been hefty AF
If it was between him or the likes of Southgate/Martinez, yes - every day of the week. But I think by the end of his reign he'd lost sight of how to move the team forward. Too close to and reliant on a core of players who either wanted out or who were declining. And his final transfer window at the club can be described with hindsight as one of the worst in the club's history. My take on Poch is that he struck gold with a brilliant cohort of youngsters coming through just as he took over, then benefited hugely from 3 or 4 brilliant windows in which we managed to clear the dross and replace it with absolute bargains. His peak with us was the 16/17 season. That is the strongest spurs side I have ever seen and I still use it as the yardstick by which I judge all others. In all honesty the wheels started to come off when we attempted to replace Walker with Trippier/Aurier. Continued when we tried to replace Wanyama with Sissoko and reached a climax when Dembele became Winks. The team got better in Europe as it grew together and gained experience. But our domestic form dipped in 17/18 and dipped again in 18/19. Was Wembley to blame for that? To a point. But no sane fan is going to argue that Aurier has been a better signing than Walker, Sissoko than Wanyama etc. Bottom line is we replaced quality players with inferior options and this trend has continued with Sanchez replacing Jan, Lo Celso replacing Eriksen and NDombele replacing Dembele. One way or another, Poch oversaw all of that.
To be fair he was also hamstrung by the financial situation. Just as he got lucky with the cohort of players he could build on when he came in, he was unlucky that our peak coincided with such a huge investment into club infrastructure. Yes Poch also had his part to play in the lack of signings but the investment in the stadium can’t have helped. But I agree with you, he lost his way by the end, as good a manager as he was. I feel he was too loyal to some players and also could have done with some fresh faces in the backroom staff but was too set in his desired setup to make that happen, unlike someone like SAF who routinely freshened up his coaching team even if he couldn’t make wholesale changes to the players.
No...loved what he did but he had real weaknesses. He will not have addressed all of the after just 4 months at PSG. If the reports of him being willing to sign Aurier are true that only further makes my point.
Or he's willing to do us a favour by getting Aurier out of our door and do it in a way the PSG brass won't be suspicious of Now if Le Parisien report a double deal for Aurier & Sissoko, that might get them suspicious...
I agree. Said elsewhere that Levy's reaction at the end of the 16/17 season seemed to be "hang on, we're 2 years ahead of schedule here! This isn't meant to be happening so soon!" Instead of "wow. We're two years ahead of schedule here. With a bit of a push this group could make history and actually win the league while playing away from home". But at the same time, we did spend money in that window and with hindsight we can say that it was largely a total waste. Sanchez isn't fit to lace Vertonghen's boots. Aurier somehow made Walker look like prime Thuram. Llorente and Lucas have been useful squad players but nothing more. And Foyth has been with the club for 4 years and still hasn't achieved a breakthrough, even as a squad or utility player. That window was the first of many haphazard ones to follow where we followed a scattered approach without much coherent strategy. Of course no one foresaw that by the end of 17/18 all of Wanyama, Dembele and Rose would be finished as top players despite being in their prime years. But that is where Levy deserves blame and guilt in spades. We entered the 18/19 season already weaker at RB and CB and it was clear to all and sundry that CM, LB and DM needed urgent attention. We didn't attempt to fix any of it and the squad stumbled to 4th and the CL final through sheer power of will and VAR. The 19/20 window, which Levy doesn't deserve blame for, finished off all hopes of salvaging glory with this cycle.
He’s the absolute number 1 choice for me Would he leave Lesta for us? We are the bigger club for the CV but they have a much healthier infrastructure for immediate success than us and they will be playing CL next season...we won’t. Ten Hag because he can work with the dogshit squad Levy will provide him with and get the best out of them imo.
I don’t think he will leave Leicester for Spurs and tbh I don’t blame him. I just want the club to be aiming higher than Parker or Potter.
ideally me too but I can’t thing of a single manager I think we can get that is a level above those that we are speaking of
Rodgers has supposedly already turned us down (see tweet at top of page). He’s as much as a “no” as Nagelsmann I’d say. Ideally I’d like us to do what Bayern have done though and have the manager announced ASAP. Want them in the moment the season ends so they can start planning.
How about Rafa Benitez? He has replaced Jose Mourinho on more than one occasion and knows the demands of the PL.
I don’t care if it’s announced 3 months ahead of time or the day of, as long as we’re planning for it ahead of time.
Just goes to show how bad things were that we sacked Mourinho with no replacement lined up. Clearly a levy had no plan in place, otherwise we’d see evidence of that now!
I'm a tad peeved that it appears we've once again jumped without first making a safety net, but there is every chance Nagelsman was nailed on until Flick unexpectedly threw his toys out the pram.
Yeah it definitely would be. Very similar but I’d rather him than a ‘project’. He’s a big enough name and seen and done it all in the game
