Played 39 Won 13 Drawn 13 Lost 13 Feels like it should be better than that, but facts speak for themselves. I guess that sort of record is good enough for mid table premiership, which has to be better than mulling around in the bottom half of the table. However, we've seen the investment made in the squad on and off the pitch. You can only blame injuries so much and Cortese's ambitions would probably expect a better record than the one printed above. Think after this run of tough fixtures, it will be a big test of his management to ensure the club doesn't go off the boil in the second half of the season. Team has on the whole, looked a bit "slow" recently and nothing tactically is winning us points either.
He had his pants yanked down by The Special One today Hope he learns quick and doesn't keep making the same mistakes as it would be a shame to loose him after such a decent start but NC will not put up with this level of result as we know from our past
That's 50+ point pace, which is fringe top-half stuff. That's not exactly a poor record considering that spans the second half of our first season in the Prem, and the first half of our second. Does it match our ambitions? No. But to match our ambitions, we need to have a larger squad...we've aimed to buy quality (jury out on whether we've succeeded in that aim), but we could do with a bit more quantity, as well. The teams that compete for Europe generally have the depth to rotate players and avoid the pitfalls of injuries, fatigue and loss of form; either our kids need to step up in an awful hurry, or we need to supplement the current squad.
This is so tedious. How arrogant are saints fans now that we see losing to EUFA cup winning Chelsea as some kind of disgrace?
I wasn't talking about Adkins, why do you keep bringing him up? Poch has been lauded by many Saints fans & media, but do the really important things like FOOTBALL RESULTS back up the high praise he generally gets? Just putting the question out there.
That works out at 52 points. Across the last ten years, on average, 51.80 points has been enough to secure 9th.
When have I ever brought Adkins up before?? The results have been significantly better since Pochettino took over the club. Comparing his performance to the previous manager (with a slightly worse squad, granted) is perfectly logical isn't it? How else are we to judge him?
Indeed. But I suspect that the club's ambitions involve a timeline of more than twelve months, as well.
I agree, thought your use of scare quotes here is risible. Our next 8 or so games are undeniably easier than the ones we have had recently.
It is, but is there anyone here who -- on the date that Poch was hired -- would have been pissed off if told that we'd take 52 points from his first 39 games in charge?
Yes, and the results, as have been stated, are good enough for 9th position. Which means he's doing a good job. What's your point exactly CBK?
Very true, its not a poor record by any stretch of the imagination, just don't think its as good a record as it feels. How we finished the end of last season does play on my mind. 1 win in 9 games, probably puts us bottom of the form table. Really need to turn that around, so big test of his motivational skills as well as tactical.
There's no doubt that we've been inconsistent; started very well under Poch, closed the year somewhat uneven. Started this year extremely well, have been poor over the past month. The question, ultimately, is why. I don't think that it's a matter of being found out or any such thing, because Poch's tactics have been carried over from last season...if they had found us out in March and April, it stands to reason that teams wouldn't have forgotten how we play over the summer, and thus would have been prepared for our approach in the first three months of the year, when we were running teams ragged. Beyond that, we're looking at elements that aren't necessarily within Pochettino's control: health, squad size, lack of options. One of the strongest complaints has been that we don't have a Plan B when teams pinch in and make it difficult to play through the middle, but I'd argue that it is matter of personnel...our lineup and substitutes have effectively been determined by the players available. We know that the team was a late injury away from getting a wide player in the summer window, so it's likely that the braintrust is equally aware that we'll need a little more flexibility in the squad if we're to present different looks. Assuming that things don't go wrong in a massive way, next season is the real test. Presumably, Cortese and Pochettino will have had time to shape the squad to their liking, and we'll see whether he and the players have what it takes to push higher than mid-table. Or, he'll be sacked and replaced by a blind faith healer from Lesotho who is the next big thing in football management, and furthermore Cortese out.
