Ade's attitude, the player many love to hate. I am not convinced his attitude is that wrong, from where I am sitting I have more reason to consider that AVB was the attitude problem. I am quite impressed with a man who uses some of his millions to provide hospitals and schools for his village. That's not a man with a bad attitude! Play him in a role he's not comfortable with, restrict the team an stifle their creativity and you will begin to see attitudes all over the pitch. THis is perhaps another reason for England failures if you only pick yes men you risk leaving your creative force at home.
Your logic is fine for the Ade/AVB relationship but the guy has form with other managers too. I'm completely comfortable with the manager's job being to get the best out of his squad and having to interact with the players accordingly but this doesn't quite extend to having to pander to individual's whims. Soldado did his best for the team under AVB but got no chance at all under Sherwood. Kevin Prince Boateng is an interesting case. On playing ability it was clearly a mistake to sell him, but on attitude the arguments are in the other direction.
"I am not convinced his attitude is that wrong" <Once is a coincidence. Twice is a crime> Too many managers have failed to get the "best" out of him.
If he was an average footballer then fair enough but he is not, he is a potential match winner. Like many of the greater talents in all walks of life there is a price to pay. In a football there are a number of these 'flawed' talents. To name a few of the top of my head: George Best, Gazza, Maradonna, Zidane, all had personal issues beyond the norm perhaps because they themselves were beyong the norm. OK these are some of the greatest players in the game and I am not suggesting that Adebayor is in their league but for us he is our best striker. Unless we can find better then our manager, whoever he is, should be making an effort to get the best out of him. Afterall Sherwood managed it.
The season before last, Ade's body language stunk of someone not wanting to be on the pitch, I mentioned that many times throughout that season and I'd attribute that to an attitude problem, however this bad attitude spell was under the leadership of AVB - whom we all know didn't seem to get on too well with Ade. Under Harry and Tim, I've not seen any problems with Ade's attitude, yes he had some bad games but so does every player, he didn't look like someone that didn't want to be on the pitch like he was in the 12-13 season. If Poch puts faith in and trusts Ade, like Harry and Tim did, I see no reason why we won't see the "good" side of the player for the most part. He seems to be building what looks like a promising partnership with Eriksen and I think given more game time, it could replicate something similar to the Ade-VDV partnership which was pretty successful.
I feel we signed the wrong man as coach which is a normal DL blunder. We missed out on some good footballers and in my opinion on Frank de Boer who would have been better for us. As for the coming season we play last season's bogey team first and when that one is out of the way I think as we had a good ending last season we'll have a bright start before falling back a little. We need the strikers to perform as we lack a little there and a forceful captain to put some steel into the team which we lack a lot. Too many times last season we just buckled under pressure. Pocettino is immature in my opinion and will reflect on the team.
de Boer was my initial first choice too but I wasn't disappointed or anything with Poch's appointment. Having read more on him once we brought him in, I've become more and more optimistic that we may just have a good season under him. He's been given a 5 year deal too which I think must be a record for us, so Levy maybe willing to have a bit of patience in the lad providing the signs are looking good.
Nit picking there TMT, I meant a good season under him due to a lot of people writing it off before a ball has been kicked. I think Poch will surprise a few. The squad we have is very good, it's just not had the right manager, I honestly believe Poch could be that guy.
De Boer would have been an even bigger risk as he has no premier league experience and any relative success he had in Holland (which is a weak league) is boosted by the fact he was a great player and out of Pochettino and De Boer, Pochettino made more sense (on paper), if it was straight choice between these two. Although That doesn't change the view that I believe Pochettino is the wrong man, but it does highlight how difficult it was to bring in a manager as there weren't any outstanding contenders.
Haha........No spurmy, no change in view, just if a straight choice between them two then I could understand why Levy went for Pochettino.
Just over a month left until the season starts, its sneaking up on us and Pochettino will soon start to show if he has the makings of a top manager or if he is out of his depth. I expect you to be fully behind him Thor.
We can speculate on this but until the season begins we won't know. Speculating, I have to say he went into a hostile enviroment at Southampton and turned it round very quickly. This high pressing style is the one that has caused us the most problems in recent seasons when opposition teams have closed us down. I can believe this could work for Spurs because we do have skillful players like Paulinho, Eriksen, Soldado, and potentially Lamela who I could see taking advantage of a chaos formed by our pressing tactic. If Poch can be successful at Saints then there is no reason why he cannot repeat the feat at Spurs with a stronger squad. I'm naturally optimistic I just hope I don't have to watch an AVB like performance for a half a season again.
And I still have hopes for Holtby. I like the way he passes the ball quickly (in the German fashion) creating the risk of something happening. I think he has great potential as a playmaker.
