He wouldn't have had that write-up under previous regimes, after throwing a party after the Cup Final in '67 that all the players preferred to the 'official do'. A Spur to his core. RIP.
There's an article on Sky Sports about the next chapter for the team and Mauricio Pochettino's relish for the challenge... https://www.skysports.com/football/...no-interview-refreshing-the-tottenham-project "It is going to be difficult because last season we were in the top four and the final of the Champions League but we want to be better every season and in every area. That is our objective. Our vision to achieve it is that we can improve the same players who are here but also add to the quality with the young players who are coming in. "We love that challenge. We love to try to be better every season and we are working hard on that. We are settling the team, trying to find the best dynamic in the group. It is a natural evolution and we are looking to find that balance. This season looks like it will be the one where we will start the regeneration of the squad. This is a new cycle." We've all sensed his frustrationover the last couple of years. The timing of the Wembley move and the financial issues have been frustrating for everyone but this is the sign that it hasn't dimmed his enthusiasm for the club and going again with us. I firmly believe that he'll be with us for a good few years yet.
Carabao Cup draw ball numbers for 3rd round 1. Arsenal 2. Chelsea 3. Liverpool 4. Manchester City 5. Manchester United 6. Tottenham 7. Wolves 8. Reading 9. Crawley 10. West Ham 11. Oxford 12. Watford 13. Swansea City / Cambridge United 14. Luton 15. Brighton 16. Colchester
Colchester knocked out Palace, whose form has been very respectable going back to last season. We need to take the game a lot more seriously than our FA Cup game at Selhurst Park, for a start.
For sure, though I do hope we give a few of the inexperienced lads a go, like Skipp, Parrott, Vertonghen, Dier and Eriksen
This high number that City display shows that this isn’t a problem if you retain possession ‘with intent’ (moving the ball fairly quickly so as to make gaps in the opposition defence) then speed up the play and play forwards when the gaps open up. The problem is that we just seem to keep it...and keep it...and keep it... This has been an issue the last few years, pretty much after Poch’s first season teams realised they could just sit in and give us the ball, then we can’t press them if we have possession, and the pressing was what made us so dangerous. City (and Liverpool) show that teams can dominate possession and still make use of a press when it’s appropriate out of possession, but they’ve also managed to find ways to break down teams when they dominate the play. By and large we’ve relied on great players rather than great coaching to do this under Poch and the cracks are beginning to show. The fact that no progress has been made on this has always been one of then major points of concern with me re. Poch.
I'd probably say the issues began at the end of the third season. We finished 2nd that year, Dembele then began to fade, we sold Walker, Rose got injured, Wanyama fell to pot, Kane's injuries became more frequent, Dier sturggled for form and then got injuries and things just never picked back up to that level. The lack of central midfield dominance these days coupled with no flying FBs (the latter isn't necessarily essential but it definitely helped) has left us basically trying to get the ball from defence to attack without but without punting it long. This is where hopefully Tanguy and maybe Gio (if played deeper) can get us back to where we were and beyond. We need players with a positive and progressive attitude who can get the ball and make some killer and key passes. Perhaps hoping for a new Modric is a bit much but just someone in that mould would be fantastic.
I agree to a certain extent but I think it’s as much about how we’ve been setting up as to who has been playing. We saw in the Villa game for example that it wasn’t just bringing Eriksen on and the fact that Villa got tired that changed the game, it was arguably more significant that we stuck players who had previously been playing quite centrally (Sissoko, Moura) out wide to stretch the game, and bought on GKN to do the same in due course, rather than playing through the middle in a very pedestrian manner as we did for much of the first half. We really struggle with too many players wanting to operate in the same area and Poch needs to get more decisive in either not playing them all together or ensuring they follow instructions to not constrict space in the middle of the park. We can have great midfielders, indeed we do when the DESK plays and it can work as it did against Everton last Christmas, but too often we end up shooting ourselves in the foot by playing too passively and persisting with a group of players on the pitch that sometimes work wonders together but too often negate each others’ effectiveness. We could have a midfield of NDombele, GLC and Eriksen and 80% possession but if the players ahead of them are sitting in the width of the 18 yard box with no movement, nothing will change. It’s up to Poch to pick the players who will stretch the game, and to coach it into the players who currently won’t, and deploy them in due course.
