Think people are reading between CBK's lines and filling in what's not there. Have to put my hand up and plead guilty because I was just the same...had to steel myself to open the thread as I wasn't sure I needed depressing further. He's just stating facts. Good midtable performance, though I think our style adds extra enjoyment. But is it good enough for Cortese and the Leihberrs. I think it depends on next few months...decent 8-9th place finish might warrant further investment. Does rather depend what Nicola promised Katerina!
I'll give him as long as Cortese gives him. I would imagine his demands on results are rather stronger than my own. Not calling for a change, just surprised me when I looked at the stats that its such an even record of wins, draws & losses. It feels like we've won more than we have, perhaps because we've been unlucky in some games. It's a good platform for the next year in charge when I fully expect the chairman will want a higher ratio of wins.
Well put. I personally hope the "we don't need anymore players" is a smokescreen for this transfer window. I think we do need a couple of players to add to the squad, because if we have more injuries, we could be buggered.
I think it's probably a good sign that it feels like we have won more. You can take most of our losses or draws and say that on another day we would have had a better result, so we're not a millions miles away from turning some of those poor results into wins. Bring in two or three better players to give us those extra few percent and we'll be pushing for the top six.
And having had to play Chelsea, Tottenham, Man City, Everton and Chelsea in the space of four weeks doesn't help, either. We got beaten by a Chelsea team that on their day can beat anyone, and have the depth to rotate without losing any quality on the pitch. Do you think that Liverpool fans last week were calling for Brendan Rogers head when they lost to Chelsea? No. Think some people need to realise that we have come through tough fixtures, have 18 games to go, and are getting our starting 11 fit and back together. Relax.
No one is calling for his head! It should be possible to have a discussion about his record in his first year in charge. As the title of the thread suggests, do facts lie compared to fans feeling of how we are doing? It would appear that everyone thus far is happy and feel we've done better than the results say. I'm happy, but still some doubts about his ability to deviate from "Plan A". I'm sure Poch himself wants more and is pushing to improve. Time, as they say, will tell.
Like you I feel Mauricio has done even better than his pretty good stats. He is handicapped by the players he has available...with all our injuries it must have been like moving deckchairs on the Titanic. They are coming back, but they must have lost all their conditioning. Players have been saying that our preseason gave us an advantage when the league started...hence our early success...injuries must set them back a few weeks even when fit to play. The absence of Boruc must have cost us a few points...never mind Wanyama.
Today's defeat was the first time I feel we've ever been outplayed under Poch - and that was only in the last half an hour. Pochettino's at least made us competitive in every game, we haven't had a proper humping for a while.
I'd imagine that we'll be in the market. Not expecting a massive outlay, but a couple additions -- perhaps including a loan or two -- to get us through this year, and give us a sense of what we'll need to buy in the summer.
In all honesty, I can kind of see where CBK is coming from. The fact is, we've only won once in the past 9 games, which is not a nice run of form at all. Yeah Poch's overall record looks solid, but right now we seem to have stalled, and we've lost a lot of the positivity we had when we were sitting in the Top 4 prior to the barren spell. Just got to make sure we don't do a Hull/Blackpool and begin to freefall towards the bottom.
I'll judge his actual record at the end of the season, at this stage I think you cannot analyse his time in charge by the W/L/T record. Looking at his actual reign in charge, I think he is much like our team and several of our players in that he is young, talented but not without flaws but he has a good chance to go on to have a fantastic career. He has a lot of work to do however, the main two things I think that are required is for him to really shape the squad into 'his' squad as there are still players who do not fit his system or who are just no longer good enough and to add more strings to his tactical bow (i.e. primarily the fabled 'Plan B').
Fair enough. I think you were just a little silly with your timing for this thread. A lot of hungover grumpy Saints today, so you were bound to get a narky reaction. Soz.
Looking ahead I think this thread may be a couple of months premature as the next 10 games could be the defining run of fixtures in Poche's reign, in that stretch we only play 3 teams in the top half and one of them is Hull. 20+ points and everything is wonderful again, 14-19 and the ship is steadied, 13 or under and he might start to feel the heat from Nicola.
Good point. I kind of felt the same. The last 30 mins were a little dispiriting, but that hasn't happened often like you said.
Fair point. Perhaps because my expectations have been risen, that I'm disappointed when cold hard reality takes hold in games like today. Plus, always been in my blood to feel that Saints at home give the "big boys" a really tough game & make them fight for a win, no matter who our players or manager are.
I totally agree. But having said that, I don't think the players were helped at all by the crowd today who effectively gave up after Willian's goal. The game was fairly even up until that point - it must be seriously demotivating to see half the stadium streaming out. As you said earlier in the thread: this next batch of fixtures will give us a better indication of where we really are under Pochettino. I could see us staying 9th for the rest of the season, which would actually be pretty good in the scheme of things.
We are torn between adding too many more players and bringing through youth players who will take time to develop. If this season gives them that chance then we may be far better off next year. My main concern is that some of our marquee signings like Ramirez and Osvaldo have really been bit players and for the sum of investment we need them to have a big impact - I am not saying that they are poor but we want quality signings to carry us in difficult games.
