I hadn't voted before so just added mine, thus being able to see the poll results. Anyone of you 14 doubters like to confess?
We've been waiting for the wheels to fall off and, if we're honest, I think we stil are. But we keep getting surprised by this Spurs side and they keep getting better and better!
Happy with my original vote Poch just keeps on impressing - not just the results, but the way he conducts himself and his ability to connect with the players and the supporters. A rare breed, indeed!!
15 and they are mostly oppos. Only a few of our number had big doubts. We can probably all guess one of them, although even he has been coming round recently.
I always said judge him after 3 years, it generally takes any manager 3 years to build their own team. However, Poch didn't hang around at shipping out the dead-wood, and brought in more youngsters than many managers do in 10 years. Perhaps we can judge him after two years. He knows what he wants.
Saints fan in peace here. I'm probably one of only a few, but I've never held any of the ill-feeling towards Poch (or Toby come to that) from our camp, and although not ideal by any stretch, I can get my head around why he left us. I'm genuinely pleased to see an excellent young coach doing so well, and wth such a refreshing and positive style of using youth and English players to such good effect (even if that blueprint was forged at St Mary's!) If Leicester aren't going to manage it, I'd like to see your bunch stuff it to the moneyed likes of City and the stale Arsenal crew. Best of luck for the rest of the season (other than against us) - he's a great coach, and for me Toby is the best CB in the league. It's nice to see that being borne out (and to be able to say "told you so" as well, naturally!)
I don't think he's the same manager as he was in August 2015. He's improving. He could barely speak English when he joined Spurs from Southampton. Now he comes across as very much in control - calm and assured and clear about his ideas and work ethic. I'm not sure how he's managed it in each case, but he's got players who were peripheral (at best) playing as well as anyone in their position in the league. You can credit him with the incredible about turn in fortunes of Kane, Dier, Alli and Davies, in particular.
I agree, Toby is the best centre-back in the league, by a long chalk. He's also in the Hoddle/Huddlestone league with respect to long passes. I think if Cortesse had not fallen out with your owner, Poch and Toby would still be at Saints and you would probably been where we are now. Cheers for the good wishes but our last two matches are versus you then Newcastle. I have a feeling we will need all six points from those games to stand a chance. Expect to face a team of Lions.
He did the same with our players - just look at the fortunes of the likes of Lallana and Lovren since they left. It's one of his greatest talents, maximising the ability of the people that work under him. He could speak English, don't fall for that one. Yes of course it's improved, but I think he was told he had to speak it to the press when he joined you. He just avoided doing so when he was with us, and that was fine with our board (in fact it was used cleverly). All the training sessions and communications with the players were done in English. No doubt he's improving though - he's learning, and he's only very young in management terms. As I say, refreshing.
I think we can discount the votes from the following... Sa1nts ----HistoryRepeating---- Saint_rob Skylarker* SuckMyKlopp gooner4ever Wally Gog
Ha! Yeah, there was a touch of him about the goal for sure. Tiss would have flicked it over his head a couple more times though
He was quite impressed by it, judging by the noises that he was making in the background: http://www.skysports.com/football/n...er-saturday-reaction-to-dele-allis-wondergoal I thought the same thing at the time, too. Him and Ginola.
I'm not sure "about turn" is the correct phrase for any of those players. Yes they are all playing superbly now, but none of them were in a dead-end situation before Poch's influence: Kane - had begun to get first team exposure the season before Poch's arrival and scored a few fey goals in sub appearances towards the end of the season. Dier - Arrived from Portugal at the same time as Poch with a strong England U21 reputation which he has generally lived up to, though Poch can definitely be credited for the positional switch. Alli - Had numerous clubs fighting over his signature and was clearly one of the hottest prospects in English football. Has definitely lived up to that tag. Poch can be credited for the speed that he introduced him to the first team. Davies - Came to us on the back of two exceptional seasons at Swansea... Yes they've all done well under Poch, but they weren't exactly doing badly before!
I have decided that Pochettino is currently out of his depth. Way beyond tiptoe for winning the PL + Europa/FA Cups in the same season.
When I think about it, I believe the squad had seriously underachieved before Pochettino got here. AVB simply had the wrong approach for our team. Few rate Sherwood as a major talent, yet simply letting our players play the way he did got much better results. On the other hand, what the sheriff and the club have done defensively has been beyond deft. Getting Alderweireld to partner Vertonghen was a stroke of genius. Making Dier DM was another one. Getting Dembélé to perform at his (very hgh) talent level was a real achievement, considering most of us would have been happy to shift him over the summer. Early this year I was thinking our relative weaknesses were our fullbacks. Platooning them the way Pochettino has seems to have made them much better. So 5/6 defenders are greatly improved as a direct result of Pochettino’s intervention--and we’ve gone from the worst defense outside of the bottom five to the best defense, period, and by a fair margin. One part of a system coach’s success is how good he is at creating, improving and adjusting a system. Another is how well he gets the players to believe in it. Pochettino seems to have done very well on both counts, especially the latter, I would say. Our players are filled with belief.
