Pochettino's biggest question is whether we can stop giving up the best chances almost every game. There are many reasonable ways to break down a season and a team's shortcomings. I would focus with us on the fact that our leaky defense and our tendency to give up most of the best chances most games were closely related. The system Pochettino brought in needs refining, at the least. It seems that a good thing, which is playing open, attractive, aggressive football, was pushed too far. I hope the last two games are a sign of things to come. No doubt we fell away very disappointingly after the Arsenal game. If you ask me, the players lost faith in Pochettino's system a bit at the same moment that tired legs caught up with them. But the real surprise was not a mostly disappointing last third of the season, it was reaching the heights we reached versus Chelsea and Arsenal. We did a bit better than most predicted in the end, and ended up with far better young players than anyone dreamed. The real verdict on this year will only be clear a year or three from now.
Yeah. At the start of the season who would have thought that we would have ended up with, in Kane, Mason and Dier, three really solid first-teamers along with a continuing-to-improve Bentaleb? I actually think that we have a lot more to see from Bentaleb. Don't get me wrong - his progress has been good but I always get the impression with him that he could be a real top-drawer player and we've not *quite* seen him consistently boss games in the way I suspect he can. For a start I think he's got more in his locker going forward but there's just a bit of class and composure about him that I really like. And having said that I also think, whilst it'll be a tough second season for Kane blah-blah-blah, we've got, in him, a real player. Not just good enough for the first team - potentially one of the best strikers in the league. I mean seriously - there was not a single suspicion in my mind that I would be saying that back at the start of the season. Rose, though not a youngster any more, has also been one of the successes of the season - a player I basically wrote off a year or two ago. I still don't think that we have anyone in the class of a VDV or Bale or Modric in the team but who knows what will happen when we toss the transfer dice this summer? You never know - prolific Spanish strikers can come for big money and do very little whilst English kids you've never heard of who play for Portugese sides can come in at the last minute for 4m and prove essential team members. It's for that reason that I don't really know or mind who we sign - probably the best deals are players I've never heard of or know next to nothing about. (I don't think we'll be making any blindingly obvious PL transfer like a Scott Parker any time soon). Lloris might go but basically we're not gonna have a change of manager or be forced to sell our best outfield players this summer so there is good reason to think that this team, which is *so* young, is going to improve. I just hope (and there's little evidence that there is grounds for this hope) that Pochettino works out when and how to shuffle his hand a bit more. The rest of the squad simply can't be so bad that, with the incentive of getting a rare start, they couldn't do better than some of the tired performances we saw from all our youngsters in the last third of this season. For example Dembele is a frustrating pain in the backside but surely any manager worth their salt can get something useful out of him when the likes of Mason and Bentaleb are looking jaded.
I'm not saying it would've been 70 for 4th, just that that's around the figure we usually get so we shouldn't have been as far off as we were, with us having been effectively out of the race for 4th with about 6 games still to go. You can cut up our form how you like but there were 2 periods that cost us, one where 5 points in 7 games at ther beginning of the season and 8 points from 8 at the end. All sides can go through rough patches here and there but we had 2 abysmal patches of form, that total nearly half a season and you can't do that when you're trying to get into the top 4.
That is the other big issue I have with Pochettino (besides getting the team to run themselves out of position too often, and not simply clearing balls enough). It’s a bit strange because he wisely, unlike AVB, played a virtual second team for most of the Europa league. Resting his starters, especially Kane and Erikson, periodically seems like a good idea. We did better in the period when there was a surprise starter or two most games. It seemed it kept the whole squad on its toes. Or could giving starters days off from training as the season goes on be part of the solution (assuming he doesn’t do that already)?
Really solid performance yesterday. Thought we were superb in the first half and deserved to have more than a 1-0 lead. Bentaleb done great coming in at LB and I thought Mason was really good, too. Nice way to end the season with a clean sheet and a win at a good side, also made better at the fact the win took us 5th after Pool's horror show. I think it's very impressive what Mauricio has achieved this season; 5th place, a cup final, superb wins over Arsenal and Chelsea, integrating academy players perfectly into the first team while weeding out the underachievers, improving the standard of football, getting Rose to transform from one of the worst to one of the best LB's in the league and also seems to have the respect of the players which is harder than it seems nowadays. I'm very excited for the future under him with this young squad, I hope he gets the backing from Levy on any targets he feels are necessary to help us improve because I think something special could be waiting around the corner.
I applaud your optimism SoS. I am satisfied with 5th place because that is decent enough for now, but it is the performances which have left me so disillusioned. There has been so many games this season where either Eriksen or Kane have bailed us out at the last minute, that I am convinced about us going backwards as you are about as going forwards. Frankly, Spurs have destroyed me this season. I am tired of watching this boring stuff under Poch, he is only marginally better than AVB. This 5th place just flatters to deceive and covers over so many cràcks, particularly in defence. He is probably untouchable at the moment and in an ideal world, probably rightly so. I hope levy knows what he is doing with Poch, because he has done very little to convince me he is the right man for the job.
I have growing faith in Poch. He is building a team / squad that will not be over reliant on individuals by drilling them all in a system. Those who can't produce appear to be left out and improved or, eventually, replaced. In my humble opinion, we only need reliable cover for our best players, i.e. Kane and Eriksen, so that when they do 'bail out on us' due to fatigue to injury, we are not stuck for ideas. This window is crucial. It looks good with the likes of Pritchard becoming options. I would have thought that beside some relatively reasonably priced additions in defence and midfield positions, we only need an alternative to Kane to hush the 'What would Spurs do without Kane?' brigade. What Levy and Poch do regarding strikers will be the real test of how much they expect to challenge for the top four. I see no reason why we shouldn't go for one or two of Benteke, Austin, Ings, Berinho, to accompany Kane in the squad. My hunch says Benteke will go to Chelsea. I would have thought the other three will be up for grabs and fair game between any of the top 6 teams all considered. Who could Liverpool sign now that we couldn't?
The problem for Spurs is that the top four will all be recruiting players and should all start the season stronger. It's hard to see how the gap can be closed unless the club are prepared to spend big too. The teams behind are unlikely to challenge. Liverpool are in disarray and the rest of the top ten overachieved.
We can't, not by using the mighty dollar alone. The only chance we have is some astute buys in the market coupled with continued improvement from the new lads who came through this year and continued successful promotions up from the youth/loanees (eg, Pritch, Alli etc)
Agree. Spending a fortune is not a guarantee of anything, as Liverpool and, to a slightly lesser degree, Utd proved. If we'd performed to our potential, we'd have caught Utd easily. They were very poor this year despite the spending.
You two took the words out of my mouth and made them more concise. It will be difficult to break into the top four with a plan relying on better youth development, better team management in all senses of the word, and strategic buying of young players. But it can be done. It could have been done this year. And if it's not done, it also degrades gracefully into the best plan for paying for a new stadium. Degrade gracefully...always a worthy goal...
I feel we could use the best "bullshit bingo" term i've ever heard in this situation - "sympathetically embed" Something like "our plan to break into the top 4 sympathetically embeds into our overall goal of paying for the new stadium"
The more highly placed people are in any organizaton, it seems, the less they do other than recycle vogue phrases. The tendency to do anything useful is the sure sign of an underling. But I'm showing my age...
Yes because Falcao (I know he was on loan but on a **** load of cash) set the Premier League alight didn't he! Manchester City bought every other striker under the sun they hadn't yet tried and romped to the title. Chelsea stuffed all available trophies into their swag bag and brushed aside every team they played *cough* Bradford *cough*. Brendan Rogders didn't make himself look like a prat and spent his £100million wisely. As one very wise rubber puppet once said, "Football. It's a funny old game." (Basically it's the law of diminishing returns. The more money you spend the less likely it is to improve you by the same proportional amount. Money will only do so much before the world realises you are in fact Brendan Rodgers and a complete bellend.)
