To be fair to the manager, he's not exactly spent big bucks (a bit more this season) and you are hardly miles away from the big boys this season (4 points hopefully soon to be 7) away even though you have barely been firing this season. The one thing about poch is he doesn't seem to have a plan B and his football is very rigid. Also in the time he's been in England, i've not been impressed with his buys who normally do not improve the first 11 (how much say does he have anyway, don't you guys have a DOF?)
He's had a higher net spend than any manager over the past decade of i recall correctly. The fact that most of that was pissed away on Sissoko is irrelevant- bottom line is money was sanctioned and spent. Levy clearly holds the man in very high esteem. Our recruitment under Poch has actually been refreshingly good. We've picked up absolute bargains like Alli, Toby, Dier and now Wanyama for relative peanuts in today's market. I dont think anyone banked on Janssen struggling so much, Nkoudou was clearly signed to be a squad player and Sissoko was a panicked result of Levy having one brandy too many at a dinner party. What we got wrong is exactly the same thing we got wrong last time we made the CL. Beyond VDV, we failed to sign anyone who would improve our starting 11 as you rightly say. This season, Wanyama is that player. He is a step up from Dier due to him being vastly more experienced. We needed to sign players who would seriously push what was already a solid 11 for their starting spots. Look at Eriksen; meandering through the season because he knows that he wont lose his place for any significant length of time. Same goes for Son.
I think you are overreacting CK. Our squad is hugely stronger that it was before MP and the potential is again huge. MP is a manager we need to hang on to so I find your talk of looking elsewhere a little bit ridiculous in the face of the long long wait for a manager with such an eye for all aspects of the job. He is young to and not the finished article. We are getting CL football and up there fighting for the PL have some patience young man.
Think you are raising valid concerns but I am very confident to entrust the next 5 years to Pochettino. We have made big strides forwards and he is still learning his trade so will only get better imho.
Our problem has been chopping and changing our manager. We should have stayed with Jol, we should have stayed with Redknapp but we keep starting again. I've seen enough from Pochettino to be happy to keep him for at least a few more seasons and see what continuity can do for us.
The most obvious issue with our squad this season is there's still some obvious gaps in it, and those gaps become magnified by certain players getting injured or going off the boil. Last season we were lucky that Kane never got injured as we had nobody to cover him, while the lack of someone who could come in and play Dembele's role did hurt us a few times when he got injured. This season the same problems remain in different areas of the pitch, and the problem is we haven't been lucky with injuries: Eriksen's nosedive in performances has been highly problematic as we don't have anyone else who performs in his role (which is a damn good reason to meet Dinamo's £15m asking price for Coric in January), and similar can be said for Lamela being out of the side because while Son can be an asset going forward, he rarely presses and never covers his full back - two things which Poch's system requires.
Sorry LDL but think you are wrong there. Firstly, United had a winning team at the time they first got into the CL. They had won the FA Cup in 1990, The Cup Winners Cup in 1991 and the title in 1993. This made United more capable than spurs are today. Ferguson had also win another European trophy with Aberdeen plus various other trophies. Our team and management have none of that experience so are further behind than United were imo
I usually find myself nodding in agreement with many of your posts, CK, but in this instance I think I disagree with pretty much everything you've said Not finishing in the top 4 isn't a failure in my opinion. On paper I'd say we're the 6th biggest club in the country, so 4th and above is where we aspire to be but it means beating 2 of the 6 bigger teams than us to get there over the course of 38 games, which is extremely difficult. If we fail to finish top 4 this season I completely trust Poch to be the man to walk us out at Wembley next season and I'll trust him to do the same at the new WHL the season after. We were a shower of **** before he joined, I'd never been so disappointed and disillusioned under AVB & Tim, especially after great times under Harry. We had overpaid primadonnas who gave zero ****s about this club apart from the money they received in their accounts from us. We've now got a young group in which the majority are happy to commit their long term futures and best years too, having helped really raise our game and solidify us as one of the most feared sides in the Prem - evidenced by the fact most sides, whether home or away, try and shut up shop against us. This is massively down to Poch's tactics, ethos and recruitment/ selection. As for poor squad management, I think that's a bit of myth, whenever we lose a game we can often say X or Y should have played or not but more often than not, when reading through people's predicted line ups on match day threads, Poch often picks a side extremely similar to us all - suggesting to me he generally picks what the fans want, I'm very rarely disappointed in his squad selections, from memory the only one I was appalled with was his Dortmund one last season. This campaign he's had to deal with injuries to near enough every key player in our team from last season and we don't if others have been carrying minor ones when they've had to play or been left out, so things have had to be chopped and changed in some untimely situations. Our POTS and top scorer have missed chunks, while Rose, Alli, Dier, Lamela and Dembele have also been out for spells, yet we still sit just four points off Chelsea. If Chelsea were without Costa, Hazard, Matic and co for spells, or Pool without Coutinho, Firmino and Lallana etc would they be where they are now? Highly doubtful and I feel Poch deserves immense credit for keeping us competitive, even if it's not been pretty. The mentality I'd say is down to the players more so than Poch, he can try and guide them as much as he can but as most are young or inexperienced, this is all learning curves for them - as it also is for Poch - and it should make them all better for it in the long run. That's one of the downsides to having a young squad though, it wasn't always going to be peachy, we knew we'd hit patches where inexperience showed but I have every faith that we'll improve performances and form, especially once we get guys back to full fitness. You claim **** has now got real and I get the impression you suggest the big clubs are looking to bounce back from last season and thus test Poch's capabilities, so far we've faced three of these big clubs and have yet to lose to any of them, including a dominant performance over the champions elect. Let's also not forget we haven't had the luxury to field our strongest XI at any point this season so far, teams should essentially be keeping an eye on us for if we do get everyone back and firing. Keep the faith mate, we've got a very special young manager here
Exactly!. Ranieri won the title without the experience of being a multiple winner, something you suggested was needed? You've now made the same point as NSIS which contradicts the point you were making.
Thing like that happens once in 5000 years. Just 4999 years to go. Poch hasn't shown anything remote to that. So be patient rather than pile on him. He can only bend so much.
I agree with much of this SOS, especially your point about injuries. Even in his first season, there were very few long-term injuries to players who actually mattered. We just didn't notice because we were so desperate to get rid of so many of the squad players! This is the first season Poch has had to navigate his way through multiple injuries while juggling multiple tournaments, and for that i am happy - as I said previously - for us to crash out of all 3 cups as long as that loss is outweighed by a gain in the league. Which, to my mind, is finishing in the top 4. Simple as. Where is disagree with you is the '6th biggest club' line. Harry wheeled that out every fortnight in his last season and it drove me insane. Over the past 3-4 years with TV money and revenue increasing exponentially, the PL has become less about 'biggest' and more about 'best'. Leicester drove the final nail in the Sky 4 coffin last season, but there are still pundits and fans who rely too heavily on the 'punching above our weight' argument. How many more hundreds of millions do the likes of United need to piss up a wall before we abandon that argument? The reality is that, on paper, our strongest XI is good enough to beat anyone out there. We showed that against City and almost against Arsenal without having anything close to our strongest XI available. So why is 5th or 6th place suddenly good enough? Beating 2 of the 5 'bigger' teams than us across 38 games is very much doable simply because 2 of the 5 'bigger' teams than us aren't actually better than us - United look clueless, Liverpool and Arsenal have glaring deficiencies that haven't been addressed in years. If we did it in 2010 with a vastly inferior squad and the Sky 4 cliche still very much relevant, surely we can do it again this season? I'm quietly confident that our league form will redeem the abysmal showing so far in the cups. We've somehow stayed unbeaten despite being badly understaffed throughout and have kept up with the early pace setters. A win or even a draw at the weekend will be a massive reassurance for me, but I do worry that our confidence and self-belief look so fragile at the moment that a heavy defeat could trigger a downward spiral much like we saw under AVB.
Anyone know why he didn't play Walker or Vertonghen? To go away to a side that scored 28 goals in their last 8 games without 3 (okay Toby was injured) of your first choice back 4 was just bizarre.
Because he's prioritising the league and needs them for the Chelsea game. Jan needs to play left back. But having seen Dier and Wimmer and their comedy of errors last night, I'd vastly prefer it if we played 3 at the back with Jan in the middle and used Walker and <insert player here> as wing backs, like we did against Arsenal.
This time two seasons ago you were writing : I don't know how I coped with being a Chelsea fan before I found this forum
One Black Swan (Leicester) definitely doesn't undermine the argument that money talks. The fact that our strongest XI is good enough to beat anyone is also irrelevant as we have not had our strongest XI available at any point this season and also because even mid-table sides will sometimes beat the champions. Levy has a long-term project to overcome the lack of resources. Half of it is related to closing the gap in Finance to the big 5 and the other half is related to trying to run the Club better so that we get more bang for our buck. Both halves seem to be working to me but progress is gradual and we should expect some steps forward and some steps back. Regarding the manager: we could punch above our weight for a few different reasons: 1) Buying better players per £ than others 2) Training them better than others 3) Developing youth better than others 4) Having better tactics than others 5) Keeping players fit better than others I think Poch can clearly do 2 and 3 and is no worse than anyone else at the others. There is no way we should be even thinking of replacing him at this stage
Are we the first CL challengers to play all their games "away"? If,and that's a bloody big "if",we play in the CL next season,will we be playing at "home'? Those 80,000 crowds at Wembley were nice but we didn't do them any justice. I couldn't believe we should have been a goal up in the first couple of minutes in Monaco.How did Son manage to take the ball almost to the corner flag when he only had the goalie to beat?....... and then Dier,playing in wellington books,managed to miskick a player into the air? I thought "Oh God"! it's going to be one of those games and it was. I can remember when we played in Europe teams were scared of us. This and the last few seasons we have turned into a joke.
hilarious. That is karma. Your luck evening out eventually. On that rate you shouldn't take any points from your next 4 or 5 league games.
