Which is utterly unrealistic and absolves him of any blame.
Top-flight teams don't sell 9 first team players in a transfer window and progress.
The whole defence, the holding players and the back-up in all of those areas basically, plus our playmaker? It's nonsense.
Our last three transfer windows have been poor. We haven't done enough business, if any.
That doesn't excuse the manager's performance for the last 9 months or so.
It does not, I agree.
But as i said above, I honestly don't think Poch would have stayed had we won the CL. He would have left on the highest high, knowing that he had taken us as far as our limited resources allow and then a thousand miles further. The red carpet would have been laid out at the entrance to the Bernabeu and he would have walked it with his head held high.
In fact, I don't think he himself had committed to Spurs and overseeing Chapter 2 until the final defeat pain had subsided. Which by his own admission was already 3 weeks into June. Before then I don't think he felt that he had it in him to pick us or himself up and carry on. I admire him for eventually doing so but once he did, the task in front of him was A) Huge, and B) His mess to deal with.
And I still don't think he'll walk away. His recent comments suggest that he has placed a marker on next September being the latest time for the rebuild to be complete. In other words, this season will be a mirror image of 13/14, next should be similar to 14/15 in trajectory and togetherness, but at a much higher level - simply because he and we are more experienced and are now able to attract and afford a higher caliber of player than the likes of GKN and Aurier.
Ultimately, our activity in Jan will reveal all. If we dither and do nothing, we will once again leave ourselves far too much to do next summer and Poch will likely either walk there and then or at the end of the season. But if we push on, shifting a minimum of 3 players (in all likelihood I can't see us selling Toby or Eriksen anymore when they can sign pre-contracts in Jan, so I'd imagine 3 of Wanyama, Rose, Aurier or Dier would need to be moved on) and bringing in 2 top quality players (CB and AM to my mind), it actually leaves us in a very healthy position approaching the summer. If, say, we can end the season with the following starting XI and bench, I can see a heck of a lot of promise and potentially a very bright new future:
Hugo
Foyth Dave Jan Davies
Sissoko Tanguy
Son Lo Celso Dybala
Kane
Subs: Gazza, New CB, KWP, Winks, Sess, Lamela, Lucas
Then in the summer, Toby and Eriksen both leave de facto, clear out another 2 or 3 senior players and we have had the best part of 3 month to bed in a new CB, assess how Foyth is doing at RB, assess how much more time the likes of Sess and Lo Celso need to adapt, and make decisions come June regarding incomings. Projecting that, I'd envision we'd need to bring in 3 more (FB, CM, CB).
So it really isn't impossible:
Winter = 3 out, 2 in (CB, AM).
Summer = 3(5) out, 3 in (FB, CM, CB).
