He took over without a pre season or summer window. He had to cope with the aftermath of the losses of Burn, Cucurella, Bissouma and then Trossard in quick succession plus the mess with Caceido in January. He has fixed the one area Potter struggled with - scoring goals - and has figured out a way to do it without actually signing a striker. If anything, the evidence suggests that he is continuing the same track record he established at Benevento, Sassuolo and Shaktar. It was at Sassuolo in particular where he had a team punching massively above their weight while playing incredible football. Personally I think if they win the FA cup and quality for Europe, we should move heaven and earth to appoint him and whichever scout keeps unearthing gems.
The main problems are... He's got a contract with Brighton. Potter had a walloping great release clause, that we were said to be unwilling to pay off...and Potter (rightly) didn't want to stick it to Brighton by just walking out. I'd wager that the situation will be much the same if we decided to pursue Brighton's current manager and Levy would baulk at the cost. Why would he want to come here? - We've become mired in a cycle of failing to adequately refresh the squad...meet the owners' targets...and retain managers/coaches. The last Brighton manager didn't want to leave there for us...and we've not become any more appealing since. Whoever takes over from Conte has to deal with the fact that Hugo, Sonny and most importantly, Harry Kane, are coming to the end of their time with us/best years of their careers..and we're still employing Rodon, Sanchez, Lo Celso, Ndombele, Reguillon Winks, etc.....and there are no takers for them. If, as seems increasingly likely, Conte doesn't make it to the end of the season, is it just coincidence that our last 3 managers were unemployed before we boosted their bank balances by paying them not to work for us? Chuck in that Paratici's likely to have gone as well as Emerging Talent Manager, Chris Perkins (who has ****ed off to Arsenal)....and the place is going to have more holes than a Swiss cheese.
It pains me to say it, but your forecast is probably correct. In all likelihood this points to Poch or Tuchel. Neither fills me with much confidence.
I can’t see any other manager than Poch in the summer. It’s the ‘easy’ option for the club for many reasons. If it convinces Kane to sign a new deal then that is a plus but overall I feel it’s a mistake for both Poch and Spurs to reunite.
Me too. Up until the return to N17, I was pro-Levy and ENIC...but always knew that the stadium would mean that the club had to change the way that it had operated for the previous 18 years. Whatever sporting changes there have been have been since have been underwhelming and when we lose Kane and Son, we're going to learn quite how much they have hidden the paucity of the majority of the squad. So poor has been the response of the club to Poch's "painful rebuild" comment that I have no faith in the current management and their modus operandi to sort it out. If we're going to appoint a previously successful, short-stay manager, like Tuchel, the owners had best find some more cash. If we're going to go 'back to basis' and start again with young talent, we need to accept that CL qualification won't happen for a bit... ...I just don't see either happening under Daniel Levy.
I'd be open to Poch returning, IF it meant an end to the insanity of the quick fix cycles we've got stuck in and IF Paratici or the like had total control over transfer policy. Poch showed total ineptitude in the market and cannot be trusted in that area. As for Kane, it's long past the point where I genuinely feel sorry for the guy. My brain wants him to sign a new contract and commit the rest of his career to Spurs, but in my heart I want him to leave and win the major trophies he so richly deserves. Realistically it's one or the other. We are at least 3-4 years away from being able to compete for the big prizes again (i.e. exactly where we were 3-4 years ago ironically), which more or less means he either gambles what's left of his career on us embarking on a period of sustained common sense, or he leaves to start hauling in the silverware immediately. If I were him, I know which choice I'd make.
We are unfortunately that poisoned chalice club at the moment and that's hard to accept, so to dream/ hope of De Zerbi sacking off a Brighton side that's in a huge upward trajectory (and could well finish above us this season) to join us is just extremely unlikely. We're a club with a discontent fanbase, shocking football from the current manager which is destroying morale, key players in decline and the star player more likely to leave than stay - in which if we do sell we won't even get his full market value due to his contract situation. Add in that funding may or may not be limited due to Kulusevski's deal needing to be finalised and the club no doubt conscious of the fact we yet again spunked on a disaster last summer in Richarlison to add to Ndombele and Lo Celso amongst others, you have to wonder just who would see us as an appealing outfit right about now? Poch probably would return I suppose, as that's a sentimental decision on both the club's and his part. Outside of that? It's hard to pick a name who I think would find us truly appealing. It may be a case of trying to find a De Zerbi or a Frank or a Potter before they've become established but then does anyone think the club would be able to do as much considering we spent months trying to find a manager and appointed Nuno at the end of it? Very doubtful.
The thing with bringing Poch back is it feels like a sideways move, designed as much to placate players and fans as it is fix our issues - which ironically would put him in the same bracket as Conte or the ubermensch There's also the irony that the way Poch set up PSG was regularly criticised as football terrorism, albeit a large chunk of that does seem to be by Messi fanboys - although if we criticise Conte for playing Son as an inverted winger this season, then it is fair to criticise Poch's system at PSG having Messi play as a touchline-hugging winger What we need to look for is a manager who doesn't view fluidity as the work of Satan, which has broadly been the outlook of every manager we've hired since Poch. Now, rigidity can work alongside flowing football in the right systems, for example look at Norbert's system and how the rigidity allows the vertical press to operate - but it can just as equally become a noose to hang ourselves with, case in point opponents know they have to press our two CMs and they pass the ball backwards and therefore our attacking lines are cut off due to the WBs being the main attacking outlet, something which may not happen if we allowed Bissouma to take on his man occasionally
Watching the Forest V Everton game , both these teams would have taken our pants down due to their fight and desire
We beat both of them 2-0, but it's about how we approach the games. We've got Forest on Saturday and our set-up will decide the result, in my opinion.
Pool v ManU underway. Spare a thought for the officials though. They don't know who to be biased toward.
A lot of teams could do with a Weghorst. Not him specifically, but an experienced targetman who's an aerial threat and holds the ball up. A Giroud. A Dzeko. A Llorente. An Ibrahimovich. They shouldn't necessarily be starting, especially for some sides, but they're a useful option. It gives you an opportunity to adjust your style and cause chaos or keep the ball and win fouls.
Robertson holding his face when it wasn't touched, resulting in a yellow for Antony. That's going to result in a ban for misleading a match official, isn't it? They set a precedent with the Spurs Birds v Utd...
