The Levy apologists will be out to tell us that this was all agreed during the ESL discussions...Unfortunately, in the same game of swapsies, Man City get Kane and Bayern get Sonny...whilst we get Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and a loan of Ceballos for a season. Personally, I reckon that the chairmen concerned were all so giddy, after stitching up the 'Super League', that a number of them threw their manager's car keys in a bowl and guess what Daniel drew out? So, now we get to **** Poch a second time.... Levy can't win at anything...as Fletch said, "If Elizabeth Taylor had triplets, he'd be the one on the bottle."
And yet some people still think of Levy as some shrewd financial genius. Sacking Poch with a big payoff and then reappointing him 18months later after he’s lost the league title to Lille will show how desperate Levy is
it's ****ing mental. There's been a really bad smell and a significant lack of focus about the club for a while now. There's no plan. Levy keeps appointing the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, rather than people who will challenge him to work smarter, who might make us successful. We owe a king's ransom on the stadium and more post-Covid and Daniel appointed Mourinho, who was always going to be a complete disaster. Now, Kane wants out and the rest of the squad have given up and we're in The Eurovision Song Contest, not the CL...AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL...fans are dumping season tickets and memberships, which would be the end of him. Conte's not coming to work for Levy, just as Nagelsmann and Flick weren't. If we appoint Poch, it won't work and we'll be ****ed for years...but there'll still be people saying the next bloke could just be worse...
Oh joy, r/coys are talking up Conte as a serial winner. Because that worked out well the last time, didn't it?
I worry there’s some substance in the Poch rumours. I always thought it odd that PSG gave him such a short contract, given he was one of the hottest properties in management when they signed him, and he has history with the club and had always spoken highly of his time there as a player. Only having a year left, plus other strong managers being available due to the current merry-go-round we’re seeing, may put Poch and Levy in a position of strength if they want to reunite. Levy knows he’s already in hot water and I’m concerned he sees getting Poch back as a way to mollify the fans. But I can’t see it going well on the pitch. It’s too soon to bring him back to the group, all the same issues exist that he couldn’t fix the last time round, and it’s going to be even harder to rebuild the squad than it was when he first joined. I’d love to see Poch back in the Spurs dugout one day but now is not the time for him. I don’t think it’ll work for either party right now.
I don't think anyone on this forum other than RWAEB was as much of a Poch loyalist as I was, and tbh this news terrifies me. Totally agree with Brian. The obvious dots to join in all this is that we put all our eggs in the Nagelsmann basket and probably would have got him had we sacked Maureen a month earlier. But we dallied, lost out and - as is typical - have no Plan B. Appointing Poch would be a lazy, desperate attempt to placate fans and make sure there aren't 60,000 people giving Levy dog's abuse next season. It is also an indication that we expect to keep Lo Celso/Tanguy and for Kane to leave and therefore need a manager who knows how to build from scratch...something Poch is superb at but given the presence of a dozen of the players he managed, it is hardly 'from scratch', is it?
I get the feeling that this is some sort of media play to save face for PSG when he goes to Madrid. With Mbappe supposedly heading the same way, it probably won't be a good look for the Parisians. We always get dragged into these ridiculous stories as a stalking horse, for some reason.
I thought Conte was nailed on for Madrid tbh, could be wrong though. Can’t remember where I saw it reported
Nobody from Spurs or Poch's camp is denying it and there's too much smoke for there to be no fire... https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1397831151704756225 Levy's definitely in for Poch. A more relevant question is... Will it happen...? If Levy's history has taught us one thing, it's that, if it's expensive, it normally won't happen...but Daniel's in a real big hole and that will make a world of difference.. He always get the cheque book out when there's trouble and his arse is in the sling... Welcome Poch!
yeah fair enough, I can see that. that said though, when he first came to the club Poch was quick to cull many a player, and built a really good side over the years. He may have got a couple wrong (so far) in Ndombele and Celso, but I’d feel much more confident having him back to do a rebuild than I would anyone else. I also think there will be a side to Poch we now haven’t seen in the sense that he’ll have reflected on past mistakes. Not just in terms of players he turned down, but perhaps his ability to make changes quicker during matches! don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I advocate him returning, but I think we could do a lot worse. And in fairness, options are bloody limited/risky. I reckon Daniel could well end up holding his hands up and indicate that “he got it wrong”, as he’ll feel far more comfortable having Poch around again, rather than an unknown.
With Poch I think it’s also a case of what we bring him in for. The Poch who arrived to us from Southampton was a different manager to the one at PSG now. When he first came to us it was with the clear intention of executing a 5 year project and a rebuild. If anything we exceeded expectations during that initial period and that may have come back to haunt him. But what are we bringing him in for now? Yes we need another rebuild but having been through projects with us and Southampton, he may well view himself differently now. If he hangs on at PSG for another year he’ll almost certainly win the league (given that he’ll have had a preseason and Lille are going to get asset stripped this summer) and maybe a couple more trophies, that gives him the credentials to go and be considered for most top jobs in Europe. I don’t know what vision Levy sells him that is more attractive than that. So yeah I have no doubt Poch wants to come back and finish some unfinished business at Spurs at some point in his career, but the stepping stone from PSG for him if the next year goes as it should is to one of the European mega-clubs, not to us. We’re in the **** right now and it’s a massive risk to his career for him to come back this summer, just as it would be a big risk for us to go straight back to him.
A lot of people said or hoped the same about Maureen. He certainly gave the impression he'd reflected on and learned from previous mistakes in his early interviews and in the Amazon doc. But ultimately, when push came to shove and his back was against the wall, he reverted to type and fell back on the default approach that served so well in yesteryear's teams and showed that in fact, he had learned nothing. This is true in all walks of life. Until you see cold, hard evidence that a person has changed, there isn't a reason under the sun to believe they have just because they claim it to be so. One of the things we were all looking for in Poch was his ability to take a group and get it over the line in winning a major trophy. At PSG, that bar was the CL. He failed to jump that bar. He even failed to jump the bar of a league title they stroll every year. Bottom line is, if PSG let him go it will be because of these failures. Why then is he any better qualified to manage us than he was 18 months ago? Because he's dealt with Neymar's ego for half a year? The correct and most sensible approach now is to look at the reality as it has unfolded and match the best possible solution to the clearest possible set of problems. If those problems include the next manager: a) having to work with the bulk of the current squad, b) work with limited funds in the market due to Covid, c) work without Harry Kane, appointing Poch is simply daft as his final year in charge saw the squad become totally dysfunctional with reports of fallings-out, he openly requested heavy backing in the window, and he was wholly over-reliant on Kane. My worry is that Levy is so poor at matching solutions to problems, most of his on-pitch decisions smack of pot-luck and hoping for the best. Which means he'll appoint Poch as the cheap, lazy option to placate fans.
That's sort of where my worry is, we know he culled a bunch over his first 12 months but many that are here now were here when he got sacked and I think he's still close to a lot of them. Reports (to be taken with a pinch of salt) are even saying players are excited he might return and that some may have even told Levy to get him back... I just can't help but think the dross like Winks, Sissoko, Lamela, Dele etc will get reprieves if Poch returned because he's too pally with them and won't have the mettle to say "**** off". As for learning on past mistakes, I doubt that, he's not been gone long enough to have learnt much Love the bloke but I really do think this could end badly and the last thing I'd want is for Poch to become a villain amongst the fanbase if he returns and doesn't do much. Levy obviously does need a boot up his arse too but is he really going to change and listen more to the manager? I dunno.
Been saying for weeks that Daniel is panicking. He ****ing should do, too. He's made an absolute bollocks of things over the last few years and this isn't going to change anything for the better. Yet another short term solution to a long term problem. There'll be no DoF appointed and we'll criminally waste the proceeds of selling Harry Kane... I wonder if Tanguy Ndombele has got a less fit cousin who we could spunk £100m on?
I thought part of the problem with Poch previously was that he was seduced by the notion of getting a call to Real Madrid. He would only return to spurs to treat us as a stepping stone to a bigger platform. This is where someone like Potter might be better because I doubt he would be thinking "what's next?" if he joined us. Not for a while yet anyway! Poch shouldn't return until everything that went wrong before is fixed. Whatever they are.
I have said it several times and nothing has changed my mind. Back in January/February it was clear that JM was going to have to be sacked. Back then I said that if we had no manager sorted it would be massively negligent. When JM was sacked in April I said it was clear that he had been sacked to distract angry fans from the ESL and that there was no one lined up to replace him. Talk of Southgate, Martinez and especially Pochettino show that we did nothing concrete to plan for JMs removal. Complete incompetence from those responsible
Once Nagelsmann fell through it’s felt like “****, what now?”. Maybe this urgency and desperation will do Levy some good, may have to make certain promises to the new manager and that could be a positive for the team going forwards. Wishful thinking like... but... you know.
