One for the levy haters. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...-theyre-no-bigger-Aston-Villa-Sunderland.html It's hard to believe Neil Ashton was banned from our press conferences, isn't it Such a fairhanded and even article
For the FDB lovers out there...... Getting Ajax into the top 4 in Holland is like getting Celtic into the top 2 in Scotland. Steve McLaren had a much better accomplishment over in Holland and i bet most of you wouldn't want him in (i actually think he might have been pretty good). I'm happy with Poch, until i'm not, but i'll certainly give him time and support.
He has my support and respect for taking on one of the hardest jobs in the league and I have a slight glimmer of hope that he'll be ok. It's totally wait and see. Argentine players do ok in the PL but I just don't know about Argentine coaches.
We have 3 CM's - Paulinho, Capoue, Sandro (even Dembele doesn't mind a bit of closing down to be fair) - who pretty much do that already so hopefully they can be great under Poch's style, Lennon is an absolute workhorse of a winger, even though his form dropped massively in the last few months of the season, I don't know many wingers with his work rate to help at the back while trying to create going forward. Chadli, Lamela and Eriksen may need to work on chasing back as they're all very attack/ creative minded and as you've said already we play a highline already so that should hopefully suit our defence, just hope Poch can get them to work better as a unit as we concede some shocking goals despite having, on paper, very good individual players (Rose aside ).
Which £40m players were available and would have joined us? And who should he have signed to replace Modric?
Going to go off tangent...who do you think the gaffer will want to bring in? ship out? and a shoe in starter,maybe a surprise nominee? lol@ whoever just said Chadli there.
Spurmey, I don't get you here. He has won the title 4 years running, only losing 11 league games over those 4 years! Granted, it could be argued that Ajax are the Celtic of Holland, but regardless, he's still done a good job. But it's not just the stats, he's got them playing good football and beating some good CL teams. Also, despite losing their better players, he's kept them winning, whilst bringing through more youth. I wish Poch the best, but I can't help but feel a little nervous for next season. All we know is that he gets his teams playing good football and players like him. - That's a great start for us, bearing in mind the mess we currently have. However, how much more of Southampton's success is down to him? (Great youth set up already in place, Adkins did a decent job.....) With us he'll be dealing with Europa for the first time, probably having to bed in new players, and just generally having a good sort out of an unbalanced squad lacking leadership and direction. I sincerely wish him the best of luck, but I'm amazed how Levy came to the conclusion that he was the best manager for the job, especially over 5 years. Even after 18 months in the prem, he's still such an unknown, IMO But I'll be backing him 100%.
I thought someone earlier in the thread said something like "FDB has got Ajax top 4 four times in four seasons". Thats not much of an achievement imo. I might have misread it, i dunno, i've only been skimming as i'm getting a bit pissed off with the pessimism. Personally i think Poch is a decent appointment assuming Levy doesn't do a Levy. I'm hoping that the 5 year deal is one of 2 things: 1 - to incentivise Levy into not sacking, due to the cost 2 - to show the fans that he is not planning on pulling the trigger on this one Its debatable whether FDB would even come here. He has CL with Ajax and if he stays there a season or 2 longer then a bigger club will come calling. Also, if he came here and did well he'd be poached off us as he is a bigger name (from his playing days) than Poch. I enjoyed watching Southampton under him. Yes Adkins did ok but Poch did better with the same squad even when at the time people thought Southampton were crazy for ousting Adkins. I feel bad for Southampton, i really do. Managers that don't get sacked are few and far between nowadays, they had one that wasn't about to be sacked and we poached him. I'd be angry too, but mostly i just hope that a manager at Spurs could be in the position to be poached (like when Harry tried to poach himself for England) Seems like we're getting a whole coaching team, rather than the seemingly random combination of ex-pros hired by the chairman rather than chosen by the manager/coach. That in itself should yield results. The bitterness coming out of Southampton should say a lot for what they think/thought of Poch
Anyway I'm happy that we've appointed a coach in good time for the next season rather than leave it late.
Thanks SD, and apologies for misquoting you Tmt. I am also pleased we did the deed early. Signings too hopefully.
That's where we went wrong with AVB, we waited until July to bring him in, even though there were just six weeks until the season started and various members of the squad had yet to return from Euro 2012.
Its pointless talking about managers records in their perspective leagues. Its how they cope with the club they are at. Redknapp Rodgers, Martinez etc had poor records in the past and have done rather well at other clubs. Ramos and Avb excelled in Spain and Portugal but flopped at Spurs. Pochetinno is highly regarded in the game he could become a spurs legend or be a huge flop, we will just have to give him at least three seasons and back him. Regarding signings we have a hugely talented squad and there certainly wont be as many ins and outs as last season. Pochetinno needs to get the best out of Lamela and Soldado especially. We need two maybe three top signings, 2 in defence and an attacking player. We need leaders and winners. Regarding our youth players i really hope Caroll, Pritchard and Veljcovic get a chance in the first team squad for next season.
If we try and sign any of saints players, we're going to be paying over inflated prices, IMO. They are already bitter about how much bale went to RM for and the fact they got **** all other than tommy forecast and a packet of wotsits. Now their manager has left and their squad could be ripped apart, there are gonna be big transfer fees. I certainly wouldn't want us paying £25mill for Lallana. Good player, but not worth £25m.
I'd take Shaw for £25m though. I wasn't talking particularly about Saints players though. It would just be nice to see what we could do if our squad was done and dusted by the time preseason starts.
