Brave New World - Pochettino's Book

Erm.... I'm a big fan of Pochettino, but I'm not sure that I appreciate or understand what he's trying to achieve in releasing this kind of book at this stage of the 'project'.

Can anyone enlighten me as to how this kind of thing will help?

Anyone had a read?

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/po...er-compromising-position-amid-united-interest

 

The headlines don't mirror the actual text - unsurprisingly.
Storm in a teacup and pretty much explained, even if there was an ulterior motive from Moanarino.

My bigger concern is that Poch considers the Fail to be a suitable vehicle for serialisation.........

 

It is slightly worrying and the first sign of an ego getting in the way of a sensible decision from Pochettino.

I can understand that possibly he feels it necessary to explain an issue with Dier and put a fence around the player, but I would have thought the book is premature and the medium, as you say Spur of the Moment, is terrible. Having said that I have not read the book so perhaps should reserve my judgement. On the face of it though it might be the first wrong move Pochettino has made since his arrival at Spurs.

 

Is he a Maiden fan?

 

It's definitely questionable, risky, and far from necessary. I just hope it doesn't backfire and destabilize the squad in any way.

I too shall reserve major judgement until more comes to light.

 

His comments on Walker are pretty damning and explain quite a bit:
"Walker came to my office after the Watford game.

"'Gaffer, I've been at Tottenham for nine years. I've thought about it and my heart isn't here any more. Nor is my head. I've given all I have to give. I wanted to tell you before I tell my agent that I want to leave this summer.'

"'Kyle, you have to stay professional. There's a month and a half to go. We're battling for the Premier League and FA Cup. We have to be focused and finish the campaign strongly.'

"'Okay, gaffer. But it's already decided.'

"'Well, that doesn't just depend on you or me. It depends on the club, above all. You've disappointed me because you've decided to tell me that you want to leave when there is a month and bit left in the competition.

"'You could've sucked it up, kept quiet, trained, played and helped the team when not picked, and at the end of the season you could have come and told me.'

"Miguel [D'Agostino, first-team coach] was present. I always try to ensure there are witnesses during private conversations. I considered it to be an alarming lack of respect for his team-mates and a slap in the face for the club. None of that could be explained to the public at the time.

"I had to bite my tongue. From that point, the rumours started to proliferate."

The Watford game was on April 8th and prior to his omission from key games and dogshit performance against West Ham.
Very questionable to be talking about it now, though. Could be quite disruptive, though I'm sure the players already know about it.
Pretty obvious that he was tapped up, too.

 

Also clearly unhappy with the other Manchester club's tapping up tactics:
“I’ve told Eric he has what it takes to be the best English centre-back but he has to be convinced of that himself. We’ve put the conditions in place for him to improve. But he broke into the national team thanks to his displays in the [midfield] holding role and ended up scoring a couple of big goals.”

“After we signed [Victor] Wanyama, Eric, who now sees himself as a midfielder, felt that we had treated him badly because Wanyama’s arrival would halt his development. His performances have started to suffer this season(last season). We’ve spoken a lot recently but I’ve felt he hasn’t been telling me everything. Later on, I once again tried to understand why he couldn’t shake off the shackles and I offered to help him with whatever it was.

“Then I found out that United have made an approach and the player is being destabilised. His people have been putting pressure on him, although United are not promising anything.

“Mourinho and I had finished our interviews at Old Trafford and the players were doing their warm-down on the pitch. When Jose was done with the press, he stood by the entrance to the tunnel and regarded the returning players.

“He greeted Moussa Sissoko and hugged Dier. They passed by me en route to the dressing rooms, laughing, speaking in Portuguese. Maybe it is a common Mourinho tactic, but he put Eric in a compromising position. You cannot do that after a defeat.”

Pochettino says that he then confronted the 23-year-old about the conversation, and is convinced that the issue is now behind Dier.

“‘Are you friends with Mourinho?’ I asked him. ‘No, but I’ve known him a long time, from my time in Portugal … one of his godsons coached me. He always says hello.’

“I sat down with Eric after lunch on Monday and we chatted for four hours about the whole shebang: his agent, family, confusion.

“As for the Mourinho incident, ‘What could I have done?’ Eric asked me. He told me about United’s interest since last summer [2016] and I explained the situation to him clearly.
“‘Look, you aren’t leaving because you signed a five-year deal with us in August. You’re among the highest-paid players at Tottenham at the age of 22. You’re important to us and you could become the best centre-back in the Premier League.’

“Ever since that conversation, Eric admits that he could have waited for Mourinho to be out of sight before heading to the dressing room.”

Really not the time for this crap. Very poor decision by Pochettino.

 

The book is done by Ballague though isn't it? It's not Poch's book per se, even if it's likely focused a lot on him/ Spurs with quotes.

I found the Dier stuff interesting, his form did take a dip last season for a period but then picked back up. It sounds like Poch wanted to do anything to get him back firing on all cylinders and I really admire that. For me, and I've said this for a while now, but I think Eric is a future captain in the making. Always gives 100% and can play well in a number of roles. He's a major, major asset to have and has as much potential in him than anyone else in the squad, one of the best buys this club as made in the modern era.

There were quotes in another article about the Walker fiasco. All I can say is that the more and more I read about Walker the more I detest the prick. Saying he wanted out 6 weeks before the season finished, at which point we were in the title and FA Cup race is just beyond a joke and outright disrespectful to Poch, his team mates and most importantly us the fans. Absolute snake. I hope when we face City, Alli/ Eriksen/ Son/ Sissoko/ whoever tears the prick to pieces.

 

Given the Walker and Dier situations, I wonder what could possibly have got into Rose earlier in the season?
It's a real conundrum, isn't it? A true puzzler.

 

If you don't act like a twat you can not be shown to be a twat...I have no sympathy for Walker. I have been of this opinion since his hissy fit after the semi final and that awful performance against West Ham.
Dier has also behaved poorly imo (a mates daughter met him at a sponsorship event and while players like Kane, Lloris, Dembele, Wanyama etc were friendly he behaved like an arrogant twat) and nothing needs saying about our DoF. These players have decided that playing for a club who is challenging and paying them around £ 60-70, 000 per week excluding image rights, bonuses (not to mention their sponsorship deals) was not good enough.
Maybe Pochettino is sending out a message of **** with us we will **** you back. Risky strategy for sure but like I said I have no sympathy with players who messed us around last season by whoring themselves around.

 

Let's see if we've got this straight...

Here's the ten matches that took place before the Watford game
Liverpool (A)
Gent (A)
Fulham (A)
Gent (H)
Stoke (H)
Everton (H)
Millwall (H)
Southampton (H)
Burnley (A)
Swansea (A)

Trippier started against Fulham, Millwall and Burnley, meaning Walker was poorly mistreated by starting a mere seven of them.

 

Angry about this stuff.

When you are Fergie N PL titles down the line, then
write this stuff showing how and why you have achieved
what you have. And not until then.

 

It's said that Guillem Ballbag's one biggest regret is missing out on being Fraudiola's biographer at Barca, only getting to write the book he wanted when Pep had left the club and was doing little more than drastically increasing Bayern's annual wage bill.

This would certainly explain being so eager to write a book about Poch now, as it gets him in on the ground floor - or to put it another way, he doesn;t care about whether or not the timing is right, he only cares about being first.

On the subject of ballbags, here's Poch in his pants

please log in to view this image

 

Surprised nobody mentioned this bit...

In November 2016, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy invited Pochettino and his coaching staff, including assistant manager Jesus Perez, goalkeeping coach Toni Jimenez and first-team coach D'Agostino, to the estate of Joe Lewis, Tottenham's major shareholder, at Lago Escondido in rural Argentina for a week of hiking, adventure sports and meetings...

We went rafting around the lower River Manso, eight of us plus the guide. 'You'll fall off at some point,' they warned us, 'but don't worry, we won't leave you behind.' The first to take a tumble was Jesus, at the very first rapid, and the guide grabbed his leg and pulled him back in.

No sooner was the next rapid upon us than Jesus once more plunged in head first. We were all laughing, but then it started getting rougher. Still, everything was going more or less fine until the last rapid. Suddenly, the boat flipped and several members of the group were flung out. Jesus went flying, joined by Daniel [Levy], Nicolas [the caretaker of the estate], Toni and Miki, scattered in different directions. I'd promised the chairman that I'd fish him out if he fell in.

I saw Daniel in the water, looking at me, a picture of seriousness. [...] 'Daniel, either you double our salary or you're not getting into the boat.'

There's also a passage where it's mentioned that one player taunted Jesus Perez with a Jose Moronho chant after we lost the 2015 Season Killer Cup final - with most people speculating it was Kaboul based on the well-known reports of his falling out with Poch, as well as being one of the players shipped out soon afterwards.

 

I missed the closed parentheses and thought these were Poch's words!!

 

Agreed that this is not a good time for this book. Many/most of the players he's talking about are still at the club. I hope Dier knows what was going to be in this before it got published/serialised.

Beyond that, you don't see much evidence of correct approaches re transfers do you? Shouldn't there be more reporting to the FA regarding illegal approaches?

 

As Liverpool proved this summer...the FA wouldn't do FA anyway!
Liverpool were caught bang to rights...regardless of any deal with Southampton the FA should have done something like impose a summer transfer ban. That would stop the bollocks

 

I don't know who this was, but what a ****ing bellend.

 

The correct timing for such a book is - as others have said - when you have a major trophy or ten waving a massive middle finger at anyone who dares to contradict the claims made therein.

However, as with every other aspect of his managerial style, it wouldn't surprise me if this was a calculated decision by Poch after a summer that by all accounts caught him - and us - completely by surprise and left him reeling. Is it ego? Probably, but a healthy kind of ego whereby the best manager in the world in terms of ROI (not sure anyone will argue with this. Give Poch Fraudiola's budget and he'd be winning the quadruple every season with his eyes closed) is striving to reassert an image of confidence and authority that was so badly rocked over the summer. Poch is by all accounts an Alpha Male - this book is simply him pissing all over his territory once again to remind the world and its collection of bellend players & hacks that despite an empty trophy cabinet and despite not being able to pay people £200k per week, his achievements are remarkable and rarely receive the plaudits they deserve.

As for Walker, I have lost all sympathy for him. I had initially assumed that he had fallen out due to being omitted from the Semi final, but it is now clear that the headless chicken came before the egg. @O.Spurcat mate I rarely call anyone out on here publicly, but it sounds like your assessment of this situation was totally backwards. Also Kyle luv, stop banging on about the 'nine seasons' you spent at the club as if you did us some sort of favour. When you deduct the seasons you were too young to play and the ones where you were doing a fantastic impression of Stan Laurel, it turns out that you only produced 3.5 seasons that were worth watching. So thanks for that. I'm glad Poch has hung him out to dry.

The Dier situation worries me but he seems to be back to his best this season - albeit the timing of this book, especially with another meeting with the Portuguese Pillock just around the corner, could upset the apple cart once again. Either way, I do have a degree of sympathy for Eric as it is exceptionally difficult to keep changing position and be expected to master both.

 

he's a thick bastard isn't he!



On a sidenote....the book is on my Xmas list I've handed over to Santa.