Toss saints, Spurs is a far higher profile club than Saints and always has been so there's no grandeur visions, we need a top man to coach a high profile team. Poch imo is your level and not ours.
In October. We finished above Man Utd last season. Their manager's job is clearly a bigger one than ours.
This team reminds me of the Juande Ramos team, decent footballers but nobody willing to get stuck in. First thing Harry said when he joined was the fact nobody wanted to put a tackle in or put their head on the ball in a crowded box. He went out and bought Palacios and then parker. This team has nobody like that. Losing at home to West Brom and Newcastle (2 teams supposedly in crisis when they played us) is nothing short of embarassing
Quite apart from the leadership issues too many of the players don't seem to want to put a shift in when things go against them. Perhaps having leaders on the pitch can go some way to fixing that. What is really odd to me though is the lack of the pressing we associated with Pochettino before he came here. The last time I remember a concerted effort to do it throughout a game was against Southampton, which either means that Pochettino is trying to do things differently and failing, or that the players simply aren't doing what he wants them to. I find it unlikely that he would abandon his principles, particularly as we are playing in his style in almost every way apart from the constant pressing. Therefore I can understand his comments about needing more work and a different mentality on the training ground. I get the sense now that I have had since Harry left - that too many of the players can't be arsed, and this only becomes a bigger factor when Pochettino is asking them to run themselves into the ground every week. Redknapp isn't a truly great manager but when he gets the right group of players around him, as he had with us, then he can produce good results because he gets players who want to play for him. Right now I wouldn't back too many players to have the desire to do what Pochettino wants when then chips are down - I'm struggling to think past the likes of Walker, Kane, Mason, Lennon, maybe Kaboul, Townsend and Dier too (I also think Lloris is a fighter but he won't be doing too much running as a keeper) as players who I would back to give 100% for the team every game. I think Holtby would too but I don't think we'll see him in a Spurs shirt again. Its quite interesting that the vast majority of the players I listed are the Englishmen and Kaboul, who has had a long association with the club. Without trying to sound to stereotypical, do some of the foreigners really care if its not going well when we can't throw City-esque wages at them? Its a huge week now, both in terms of our season progressing and in terms of how Pocchettino will be perceived going forward as a manager by both fans and players. Does he have the will and the flexibility to drop players who he feels aren't working hard enough/working in the right ways, even if that means changing the way his team plays? I just feel that if the likes of Ade smell weakness in a manager then they will never perform as he wants them to, and I feel like the sharks are circling in the dressing room already. Sherwood got Ade playing because Sherwood wouldn't take bollocks from players - he dropped big names like Sandro and Soldado - whereas people like Ade and BAE clearly thought that AVB wouldn't do that, so they never had respect for the manager and he could never control them. Pochettino needs to display willingness and flexibility to drop players and change the system too if need be, even if those players are big-money signings on big wages who are considered to be some of our brightest prospects and best players. If he doesn't then he will slowly lose control, as AVB did once things began to go South for him, and Pochettino will just be another addition to a list of young managers with great potential sacked before their time by the board, because a man who loses the dressing room (as both AVB and Sherwood did in their own ways, as did Moyes at Utd.) will never last at a club.
This is going to be a difficult and long winter. There can be no disguising this is a disappointing start to the PL season. I struggle to see where goals and clean sheets are going to come from on a consistent basis. There is a continued unbalance to the team set up and Pochettino was completely outwitted by Alan Pardew today. The club has lost its' way at all levels in my opinion.
What I am about to write I have written several times before. But, here goes... Any talk of finishing in this place or that place in the Prem, this season, is utterly pointless. Anyone who believes that we had any hope of finishing in the top 4 this season, after all the changes we have suffered over the past three seasons, is an imbecile. Unfortunately, I believe that Levy thinks we ought to have stood a chance, and my worry, therefore, is that Poch will get the boot when, inevitably, we fail. A lot needs to happen at Spurs before any manager - Poch or whoever else - gets a team that is capable of competing with the likes of 'Pool and United, let alone Arsenal, £ity, or Chavs, and it's not just about "being given the time for it all to work" (because I have serious doubts that no amount of time is going to be enough for this sorry bunch).
completely agree, getting rid of poch would be a waste of time as I don't believe any manager in football could do anything with that lot. AVB, Sherwood and now Poch have had a try and nothing changed. Its going to take one hell of a clearout before we can even think about top 4
First half we were so comfortable, maybe too comfortable but we had a deserved lead (should have had one or two more) and things seemed fine. Second half we just capitulated, royally ****ing capitulated. I was really peeved at Kane not starting, Ade may have scored but he done **** all else and his goal was put on a plate for him. How Lamela lasted 75 mins is also beyond me, I lost count how many misplaced passes he made. Make no mistake though, the whole team ****ed up in the second half. No Spurs player left the pitch today deserving to be on a winning side. To concede a goal 7 seconds after half time is awful by any teams' standards, whether it's Sunday League or Premier League, the players should be ashamed. On a day where a we remembered the greatest man this club has ever had, we let him down immensely. Poch needs to sort it out and also needs to ease on the stubbornness with subs, he makes changes far too late in a game. Pardew made two early subs and it changed the game in their favour immediately.
Hate to worry you hiag after a **** performance by the team but I agree with all you've written there. My only addition is that poch needs time and players of his choice...however certain players will need to be moved on to make way for poch's players.
Kane should've started, Lamela was his usual awful self, sick of all the media talking him up saying he's been much improved this season, he has improved from f***** awful to just plain awful. Your right, conceding after 7 seconds is bad but lets be honest its not the first time, its been happening for years
That"s a fair summary. I was appalled at our amateurish start to the 2nd half. If you noticed, the Newcastle fitness guy had the cones set out in front of their dug out, as soon as the whistle ended the first half. After the break, Newcastle had come out, done their routines through the cones and were ready before we even appeared. Eight seconds later, a clear tactical move has worked and it's "game on". Then when driving home from the game, I hear Pochettino confess he missed the goal because he was still in the dressing room. How ****ing poor is that ??
Lamela started the season well with a few assists but he's gone back to being somewhat of a headless chicken (Rabona goal aside), which is worrying. We do need to start expecting more from him though, the first season was understandably hard for him, what with selection issues, arriving in a new country at a young age and then the injuries but he's had enough time now to settle in the country/ league now and for £30m, we require and expect some sort of game-changer which we're not getting at the moment. It's frustrating because the talent is there yet his decision making and execution is awful at times.
Dead right he was flattered.....we had talented players who had just got to grips with playing PL football after being promoted, Adkins was sacked after a credible draw at Chelsea and a string of good results. We finished 8th in his one season with us, respectable for us but to be honest he could of got us higher with more nous, we had the players. Confirmed in the summer when the likes of Liverpool, Man U and Arsenal took their pick of our players. And Tottenham got in on the act by hiring the manager who was taking all the plaudits for players who had improved through our ranks year after year. Poch was lucky in that he had a talented and committed group who wanted to improve. His style of play was great on the eye but I knew we would never sustain that intensity of play over a season. He couldn't change games tactically and his substitutions were always like for like. Poch is gone and will fail at Spurs, not too bothered about as we've ended up getting a manager with a lot more nous and who I have a lot more affinity with.
I hadn't heard that about Poch, though did see NUFC working on the fitness routines, they were on the pitch a good two minutes before our players came out, a sign to me that they were ready for a fight where as we were just too relaxed and somewhat thought the game was already won. Poor mentality from us, I'd like to hope the loss gives us a kick up the arse but we've experienced 3 poor results at WHL this season and we're only 9 games in. A bit worrying.
He's just an expensive Taarabt, loads of talent but wants all day to do his flicks and tricks, sorry but this is the premier league you don't get that time, he constantly runs into poor areas and doesn't release the ball quick enough, I wouldn't mind if he was a young kid coming through the ranks but we paid £30 million for gods sake
With all respect, I don't buy this whole Poch got lucky with you guys sentiment. You lot have a had a great start under Koeman but prior to the season starting most of your fans were deeply upset at the loss of Poch, arguably more so than the sales of your key players. Now all of a sudden a poor start for Spurs and a good start for Soton and it's all "Poch wasn't that great actually, he got lucky"... Sorry mate, don't buy it. Under Adkins, all your key players looked good but at the time, none of them were being tracked by a big club. Poch came in and all of a sudden, Soton looked a real good team and the likes of Lallana, Lambert, Lovren (who was a Poch signing I believe?) and Shaw (plus others) all came on leaps and bounds under him. Admittedly some of the players will have improved through natural progression via experience in the league but they also require a manager to guide them on the right path and Poch done that to a tee while also creating a brand of football that was enviable throughout the league. Koeman's had a superb start but to suddenly somewhat discredit Poch's work by declaring he was lucky is inaccurate and unfair, in my opinion.
I think Lamela is a huge talent, who with the right coaching and guidance, could be a real star of the PL. Thankfully he has a far better attitude than Taarabt has ever shown.
Perhaps they could sign Pulis if he's available just to sort our defence out and put some iron into it.If you don't let in goals you can't lose.......but then again,who do we get to get our attack going? Our manager seems to be lost at the moment!How do you think Chelsea are consistent?Defence. There must be a player with heart,desire and a loud mouth somewhere waiting for us......maybe he's in a lower league.These foreigners don't seem to be the answer for us. I wonder what would have happened midweek if the other team had equalised.........?
