You've got it wrong. It's not that fans (like me) deny that Redknap wasn't good for the club - as, clearly, the fact that he was with the club during our most successful spell in Prem history demonstrates that he must have been doing something right - it's rather that I get wound up by the view that some fans have that it was only Redknap who could have done that for us. I will forever maintain that when Redknap took charge we were a team that was massively under-achieving, such that any half-decent manager coming in would have elicited from the players the exact same response that Redknap got, which propelled us up the table, inspired confidence and self-belief in the squad, and carried the club to new heights. I'm not saying Pulis or Fat Sam could have done the job as well as Redknap, but certainly Martinez, Laudrup, and even Moyes (pre-United) could have done it just as well, if not better. So, please, no more of all this ridiculous Redknap worship.
And for some reason it seems to be impossible to discuss the merits of any new manager without having to take a position on the merits of previous ones. I'm of the firm view that Spurs are still on the up, despite a couple of hiccoughs recently and that is actually because each of Jol, Redknapp and AVB have been reasonable managerial appointments but they've all gone a bit wrong at the end. If Poch is about as good as them on average but has particular skills related to our current needs we ought to be fine
I agree. I think it stems from this view amongst some posters that 'Arry was some sort of messiah who is irreplaceable by anybody, short of the deity himself. A view that I, and several others do not share.
We've had a mention of VDV, Modders and Bale of course, but as far as i can tell nobody has mentioned the other big loss - Ledley
Since Ledders retired we have been awful defensively, he was a world class defender and pretty much irreplaceable.
In 2012-13 we were far more solid at the back that we were last season, partly because we had a more settled back line as our defensive options weren't all getting injured one after the other, but also because we had better cover: in 2012-13 we had Vertonghen, Kaboul, Dawson, Caulker and Gallas available, so if one of the first two got injured we had players that could easily fill in, but in 2013-14 we had Vertonghen, Kaboul, Dawson and Chiriches - that's less options, a situation made worse by having Vertonghen fill in at left back for a time during the season.
People can pretend King played each season under Redknapp (playing every league game) but in reality King was missing for large chunks, in 2010-11 he played 6 league games and we conceded 46 league goals. the same number of goals conceded in 2012-13 (when people where praising our defence). But overall our goals against has been between 41-46 until last season when everything went to pot (with the hammering's) but even then it was only 51 (against overall). King was an outstanding defender but we where never brilliant ( in defence) with him and we never turned awful (in defence) without him. Although if you want to suggest King was irreplaceable then Redknapp managed to get us to the Quarter final of the Champions league with King only playing 3 home champions league games and in the season we qualified for the champions league he played 20 league games. Bassong played 28 games that season and was our leading centre back that year (overall). Actually the more people go on about VDV, Modric, Bale & King, it makes our win against AC Milan more impressive as only VDV started the game although I'm sure some of you don't remember the game and imagine VDV scoring the winner instead of Crouch.
It occurs to me that we have exactly one position settled for next year: Walker at right back. It may be interesting to speculate what Poch's first team will be. My guess is: Lloris if we can keep him/tbd Walker Vertonghen Kaboul (though it may amount to a three player rotation with Chiriches) LB TBD/Rose Middle two the big mystery: deep lying playmaker tbd/Banega/Carroll/Bentaleb Paulinho/Dembele (Poch also may not believe in DMs) Lamela (may give him a run of games to see if sinks or swims)/Lennon Chadli (hey, Wilmots rates him)/Holtby/Paulinho (though I think a deeper lying role suits him better)/Lamela/Eriksen Eriksen/Chadli/Townsend Ade/tbd
I keep hearing Pochettino is from the Marcelo Bielsa's school of coaching, could we see his famous 3-3-1-3 formation? Probably not (as its better suited to the international game) but if Pochettino is as tactically astute (as we're told) then we may see him tweak the formation for certain games.
Gallas was very underated by a lot of our fans imo and like all of us say Caulker should never have been sold.
A point i've made previously but a players influence does not begin and end when they cross the white line for a match. You seem to have a very low opinion and condescending attitude towards your fellow Spurs posters.
As mentioned on another thread its time to knock all this on the head, lets get back to focusing on Pochettino and what he brings as i'm sure we're all bored of discussing previous managers and just accept we all have differing views but essentially none of it matters much now, especially as we just all keep going round in circles. But no I don't have a low opinion of fellow posters on here, apart from ones which suggest we sign Fletcher.....(jokes ).
I'd always heard it called 3-4-3, but it would certainly be interesting to see. In theory. In fact I'd probably say Poch had gone crazy. How would it go? Chiriches Kaboul Vertonghen Lennon/Walker Paulinho Dembele Chadli/Townsend Lamela Ade Eriksen
I've always thought Walker could be used as a right-midfielder/winger. A bit like Bale. I thought i was gonna get my wish vs Chelsea when Sherwood lined up with Naughton and Walker only to be disappointed as Walker spent most the time in the middle or behind the striker. To this day i still have no idea what the game plan was there.
3-3-1-3. Chile used it often and also Argentina, lots of info online about the formation as it was different! http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/08/marcelo-bielsa-chile-world-cup-2010-tactics/ please log in to view this image But depends how you look at it, can look 3-4-3 or 5-1-3-1 or a complete mess to most people!
Thanks for the information. I'll have to look into that. Some of the posts claiming Poch is Bielsa-ish came from me. I wanted to see the Bielsa system used by Spurs, and Poch certainly has been influenced by playing for him. How much I don't know enough to say, but they do seem to both value pressing and playing directly. EDIT Yes, very interesting. But what I like most about Bielsa's teams remains simple: when they don't have the ball, they try desperately hard to get the ball back, and when they have it, they try desperately hard to score. They "leave their soul on the pitch." I would suggest that attitude is as central as his tactical innovations.
