Pochettino is a big reason we are in this mess imho. No signings in 2018-19 cos he didn't want Tielemans as he wanted to wait for Ndombele ! Letting Llorente go without replacing him and wasting £140m on Sessegnon, Ndombele, Clarke and Lo Celso and playing the likes of Danny Rose and Dele week in week out when they were delivering sod all on the pitch. And that's without his signings like Aurier and Sanchez (another £60m wasted) while refusing to play KWPs despite his motm performances when he was forced to play him through injuries. I loved what he did for us but fans are kidding themselves if they think he'd improve things.
Our physio team can get in the bin. Haven't trusted them since they totally mishandled Vertonghen's concussion a number of years back. It is incredible that our players pick up apparently innocuous injuries and then vanish for months on end.
Was at that match.. CL semi at home... me and my youngest couldn't understand how he wasn't immediately subbed off. Was so clearly concussed
As with everything else Lunatic Fringe, they miss an open goal and slot it past their own keeper from 100 yards: if there's anything to be petrified about it's Perisic as our only fit LWB until April at the earliest, which was entirely avoidable if we decided to keep Doherty until the summer given he's played as a LWB for us this season (and, on a wider note, binning him off so quickly does appear to have been a bad call given how well-liked he was in training)
Not sure why people would be kidding themselves. There's about 4-5 years of proof at Spurs and about 2 years of proof at Southampton that Poch is capable of improving things, especially with younger players and/ or technically sound ones. To allow 1 awful year at Spurs to cloud the work he'd previously done would be very harsh. Managers just sometimes fizzle out at a club which is what I think happened to Poch, there's an argument to say that's currently happening with Klopp at Pool. There's no doubt the 19/20 summer was an absolute car crash and he has to take full responsibility for that but all four of those players have either left permanently, temporarily or simply aren't in the club's plans, whilst there's been some considerable changes in personnel in general since too, so I'm not sure we can say that he's still responsible for the mess we're in, that's lazy to say such to be honest. Conte literally pushed for us to spend £60m on Richarlison, so it's not really a rarity that managers get it awfully wrong with big spends. I don't necessarily think Poch is the best man/ first choice for the job should Conte go but I also think he's far from the worst.
Other results are going our way again (although I’m sure bruno’s usual unpunished screaming g at the ref at every decision will gain United something at some point) so season’s not dead yet, just need someone to grab Conte by the toupe and tell him to either start giving a s**t or f**k off!
I think the issue with the 2019 signings was they didn't really fit Poch's MO at all Before that summer his usual practice would be to sign young players at reasonable prices on reasonable salaries, meaning they had room to grow and their salaries would do so too if things worked out as hoped - and that's the opposite of what Ndombele and Lo Celso were given they came in for hefty fees and were immediately among the highest-paid players on our wage bill (especially Ndombele, who was immediately on a base salary of £120k p/w) so it's not just the outlay but the undermining of his own philosophy which was the issue, sort of like how Wenger suddenly chucked a large chunk of change at Arshavin Going from the stance of telling players they were there to train and not play to effectively telling players they'd made it as soon as the ink of the contract had dried certainly did more damage than it first appeared, because it's not difficult to imagine that if we signed Ndombele for the €10m Lyon ultimately paid for him he would've bucked his ideas up just a bit given he'd have known the club wouldn't have had any issue cutting their losses on him
So Skipp and Sarr in central midfield V Milan in the champions league, Unless conte does something odd!! Personally I hope that whoever gets the nod longer term to partner Hojbjerg takes the opportunity to show themselves to be 'ready' sticking a metaphorical 2 fingers up at Conte. Feel sure that we will have to see Davies at LWB in some games now though reverting to a flat back 4 with him and Emerson as full backs would make much more sense.
Our wafer thin squad is coming back to bite unfortunately, I hope I am wrong but losing Bentancur and Lloris in particular, is going to all but finish our season. Forster is just not agile enough, he is a big bloke and can`t get down quickly enough, the difference when Bentancur is missing is clear to see. We can probably cope without Sessegnon given Davies can play LWB, but midfield is going to be a problem, we might see more of Dier in midfield, meaning more of Sanchez and Tanganga at the back, oh lord.
Nobody could have predicted that Bissouma and Bentancur would both get injured. I’ve got faith in Sarr and Skipp. Both got energy and young. Will be good experience for them.
The squad isn't wafer thin by any means. It is exponentially deeper than the squad we finished 2nd with in 16/17. The gulf is in the quality of the first team. Piece by piece we are clawing our way back to that level, but we aren't doing it quickly or sensibly enough. Quick in the sense that while we've dallied, Hugo has declined and Son has hit an absolute brick wall for form. Sensible in the sense that we have made poor decisions in addressing the starting XI (Perisic "upgrading" Reguilon for example), poor prioritisation of investment (spending £60m on a backup attacker instead of a top class CB). And all of this has been compounded by a manager whose tactics clearly aren't impressing any of the players and whose determination to lean on a narrow group of favourites means said "wafer thin" squad only gives the impression of being that thin because half of it lacks even the lowest level of match fitness.
Agreed. I'm certainly more excited to see them in action than I was watching the Winks-Sissoko pivot every week. Sure, they'll make mistakes, but that's what player development is all about. We seem to have lost sight of that over the years.
I really have had it with Conte, the baffling decision to pick Tanganga again over Sanchez yesterday is just the latest in a series that he is responsible for. Whilst Sanchez is no ones favourite defender, he currently is miles ahead of young Japhet who has looked out of his depth every time he has played this season, constantly the wrong side of his man, trying to win balls that he has no chance of winning and just generally poor defensively. Sanchez has a mistake in him without question but i have never seen him actually out of position and in the wrong place as frequently as Tanganga has in the last 2 premier league games he has played.
I think for many of us the only way to look at the situation is to look forward to the young players getting a chance. These are good players, remember that before Skipp's long term injury he was often the best player on the day. You cannot expect to see the best of players like Richarlison without some kind of run in the side it's very unusual for players to come into a side and fit straight away. Bentancur & Kulusevski were very unusual. Fans already writing off Poro is just nonsense. The surprise for me is just how inconsistent Spurs have been this season. You might expect that if we were constantly chop and changing players. It's always easy to forget that the opposition always have a big say in the performance nevertheless you have to impose yourself on a game and that's what Spurs have failed to do in the majority of games this season. I doubt any are very impressed with Conti this season (whereas we were last season, noticing the up in fitness for example) it's a bit of a mystery. I can only think that the loss of his friends and his family being in Italy has proved too big a distraction when you have such a hands on job. A job that all depends on you transferring confidence and hope to your team. Difficult to do if your personal life is taking big knocks. BUT! do we really want even more upheaval by changing manager yet again. Would it not make more sense to work through it and try to find consistency, this current squad just needs a couple more players to be one of our best for some time.
You’ve both jinxed it now for Dier to start at CM! Though I wouldn’t be completely surprised if Conte decides to play Kulu in a central role and have Richarlison come into the side on the right, sort of **** Conte will do to ensure a young player don’t get a start.
I think we're at a stage of Conte's reign where it is well worth reassessing his actual impact last season. When we take into consideration who he took over from and how poor the football was under that person, the bar was pretty damn low. It also helped immeasurably that his first four fixtures were Everton, Leeds, Brentford and Norwich. Liverpool followed and tbh that was the first game I was genuinely impressed with his impact on the team, especially considering we started that game with a midfield of Ndombele, Winks and Alli. But from Liverpool onwards? We were already very strongly showing signs of the inconsistency that has plagued us all of this season. We followed up the Pool draw with a win over Palace but then played terribly as Soton held us to a draw, then we scraped a win (scraped being an understatement) at Watford courtesy of Sanchez of all people before THAT game at Leicester...but then we were outfought and outclass by Chelsea, Soton and Wolves in quick succession, only our standard win over City getting us back on track...after which we lost to Burnley. I'm already labouring the point but the truth of the matter is we've struggled to really control games since the day he sat in the dugout and it is this fundamental lack of control that has led to an inconsistent return. Ultimately he deserves credit for getting us back into the top 4 but absolutely not the adulation he gets from some fans. Let's not forget we needed a monumental Arsenal bottle job to make it. Had they not messed up like they did, the red flags that were already waving last season would've been noticed far earlier this season.
