Good (if true). Absolute madness to sack him now. Yes our league position is likely to finish mid-table which is unacceptable but a cup win makes that completely go away and even if not, let him continue to build through the summer. If form like this continues into a third season then maybe can look at pulling the trigger then (although if we continue to back him like we have done the last couple of summers then I don’t think it will).
The only positive next season is less fixtures because European football is looking very unlikely. I can’t see this squad and manager winning a trophy this season.
We're in a catch-22. We're doing well, probably better than expected, in recruitment of talent for the future. But unless we add talent for the here and now, those youngsters aren't going to hang around for long enough to see our plan come to fruition. Before long, bigger/more successful clubs will start to circle overhead, and if the best we can offer is mid-table and an outside chance of a minor trophy, they'll be gone quicker than Timo Werner's highlight reel. Which brings me to the real dilemma. We struggle enough to bring in 'here and now' talent even with CL football. This is because the other 3 English teams in that competition usually have more money and pay higher wages than us. But without CL football, we've all seen that it is nearly impossible to genuinely improve the team. Lack of CL football leads directly to spending £115m on Solanke and Johnson, or £30m on Gil. You get fleeced because you're a big PL club, but you don't get any real value for money because all the best players want to play CL football. We're dancing to a dangerous tune. No European football next year will only do two things, and neither are good for our long term prospects: 1) Increase the likelihood of our better younger players leaving (I think Kulusevski, Micky, Porro and now even Spence all fall into this category). 2) Decrease the likelihood that we won't be fleeced again in the summer for bang-average players. And the sum total of those two consequences is that we get stuck in exactly the same cycle we were in throughout the 90s.
But when we had champions league football we brought in n’dombele, lo celso and sessegnon. Without champions league football we’ve brought in Van der ven, Vicario, Maddison, Bentancur, Kulusevski. I don’t think whether or not we’re in the champions league affects us in the players we bring in as even if we’re in the champions league, we’re not going to all of a sudden attract t the best players and as you’ve said, we’re usually the 4th most attractive option. That’s why we have to be absolutely right in every piece of recruitment rather than just throwing big money around and being able to write it off if the player flops.
The hope I’m holding onto is that come the second leg against Liverpool, they’ll be so solely focused on the title charge that they’ll **** the cup off. Doubtful, but I’m living in hope.
I just can’t see Spurs replicating the first leg performance at an hostile Anfield. Slot will want to get his first bit of silverware won asap as manager, I can’t think them not going as strong as possible.
I've been wondering for a few weeks now if Munn and/or Lange have already quietly been asked to draw up a list of potential managers for the end of the season, but we're focusing on continuity for now and are only willing to pull the trigger if things get truly untenable - much like with Conte, where that seemed to be the plan until he had one meltdown too many
Martin Jol and Pochettino were sacked for less and neither had an attitude problem. Could say the same about Nuno tbh.
You’re a Spurs fan. No time for dreams here. Just a lifelong struggle with a bit of hope (swiftly taken away) every now and then
Poch was certainly getting surly for his last year with us, most obviously demanding to be manager rather than coach - which turned out brilliantly when we signed his preferred targets
Pochettino let the Champions League final go to his head and I am sure Original Spurcat posted on here that he had become very arrogant. He definitely, as @humanbeingincroydon has already posted, started to drive recruitment as well as being the coach and that was a disaster. He was behaving nothing like the coach he had been for the previous few years when he was sacked. Speaking out publicly against company policy would be a sacking offence in almost any company and rightly so. If you can't influence things inside the company you don't deserve to be called a manager. Demanding more from a board who are already committing every penny to the football side is grandstanding at its worst. Both Mourinho and Conte would have known the situation when they signed up.
Original Spurcat was a bitter guy who had it in for Pochettino from the very start, he made no secret of that too. Not sure why you’d cite him though when countless times I’ve shown you articles or interviews on certain matters you’ve refused to believe them, now all of a sudden a forum poster’s word who disliked the manager is worth believing? Our signings after Pochettino had largely been a disaster too so I guess he was just following suit. Barely anyone at this football club seems to know what they’re doing these days, from the board to manager to even some players. But when ex-players, even current players along with ex-managers have all spoken about issues from above, it’s probably time to realise that maybe these people might have a point or two.
Ironically it's the talent for the here and now that are letting us down, one ones which are match fit anyway, with the obvious exception of Solanke Bissouma is the most glaringly obvious example, more obvious than Werner if we're being honest, and the only reason Maddison isn't such a glaring example is because he disappears during so many matches that we forget that he's there
As I've said elsewhere, unless we sign Rodri or build a time-machine and kidnap either Busquets or Dembele from 10 years ago, this whole system will continue to fail. We don't have a single press-resistant midfielder.
