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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

glorygloryeze said:
Yeah, the double pivot, high intensity press, Kane etc indeed works well. But players have a physical shelf-life: the physical demands of such a system man the system itself has a shelf life - unless you buy to replenish the options for the system at the right time.

That time was summer 2018:(
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This idea that the players have been knackered just doesnt jive, IMHO. I think its a convenient excuse to explain things.

Our press intensity actually dropped over the seasons, and became more strategic. We went into spells of swarming for the ball as opposed to trying to sustain it. Just as we enjoyed more and more possession as teams got scared of us and showed some respect.

We have it in us now to play not unlike City, pushing on, territorial advantage, lots of moving parts and a couple of players sitting deep to recycle the ball into the other third.

What we were lacking, and I was hoping would be the next step in our evolution, was the ability to do all that and then actually pick apart the buses that were parked. Make it count.

Instead of working on that aspect, Poch seems intent on literally creating a blank slate and starting again, for some unknown reason with a diamond formation.

Look at us last night, Ive not seen us so run out of steam in a 4231 classic Poch set up as I did at HALF TIME with that diamond.

Hoenstly dont think the problem is physical/fatigue.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
This idea that the players have been knackered just doesnt jive, IMHO. I think its a convenient excuse to explain things.

Our press intensity actually dropped over the seasons, and became more strategic. We went into spells of swarming for the ball as opposed to trying to sustain it. Just as we enjoyed more and more possession as teams got scared of us and showed some respect.

We have it in us now to play not unlike City, pushing on, territorial advantage, lots of moving parts and a couple of players sitting deep to recycle the ball into the other third.

What we were lacking, and I was hoping would be the next step in our evolution, was the ability to do all that and then actually pick apart the buses that were parked. Make it count.

Instead of working on that aspect, Poch seems intent on literally creating a blank slate and starting again, for some unknown reason with a diamond formation.

Look at us last night, Ive not seen us so run out of steam in a 4231 classic Poch set up as I did at HALF TIME with that diamond.

Hoenstly dont think the problem is physical/fatigue.
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I think the physical ability HAS dropped significantly; look at how we are now when it comes to tackling cleanly and effectively? We simply don't look capable most of the time now. Even in the Palace game, the number of yellow cards we picked up because we couldn't tackle and had to bring players down cynically. ANY team that actually attacks us can drive a bus right up to our penalty area these days.
Sometimes it can look like we want to draw them in a bit before hitting the spaces they've vacated, but honestly i now think most of the times we simply can't help doing that because we haven'tb the physical abilities to tackle anymore in the midfield...

I honestly can't remember when we last looked secure in terms of shots faced, even in a 4-2-3-1...
 
glorygloryeze said:
I think the physical ability HAS dropped significantly; look at how we are now when it comes to tackling cleanly and effectively? We simply don't look capable most of the time now. Even in the Palace game, the number of yellow cards we picked up because we couldn't tackle and had to bring players down cynically. ANY team that actually attacks us can drive a bus right up to our penalty area these days.
Sometimes it can look like we want to draw them in a bit before hitting the spaces they've vacated, but honestly i now think most of the times we simply can't help doing that because we haven'tb the physical abilities to tackle anymore in the midfield...

I honestly can't remember when we last looked secure in terms of shots faced, even in a 4-2-3-1...
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And is that because players are ready for the knackers yard? or because they arent being drilled on it in training? Or perhaps because the system they are being asked to play leaves them all woefully exposed and/or out of position?

Do you think it is a literal physical limitation (regression?) on the players part? And not possibly more to do with how they are being managed?

For me its almost certainly the latter.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
And is that because players are ready for the knackers yard? or because they arent being drilled on it in training? Or perhaps because the system they are being asked to play leaves them all woefully exposed and/or out of position?

Do you think it is a literal physical limitation (regression?) on the players part? And not possibly more to do with how they are being managed?

For me its almost certainly the latter.
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I think it's definitely the former; I've seen the physical issues since April 2018.
I think in Poch's aim to mitigate it (somewhat) it's being exacerbated by the systems being used, though as i say i can't remember when we last looked secure even in the 4-2-3-1..

The mental side in terms of motivation certainly hasn't been helped by some of Poch's public utterances imo so that part's certainly on him
 
glorygloryeze said:
I think it's definitely the former; I've seen the physical issues since April 2018.
I think in Poch's aim to mitigate it (somewhat) it's being exacerbated by the systems being used, though as i say i can't remember when we last looked secure even in the 4-2-3-1..

The mental side in terms of motivation certainly hasn't been helped by some of Poch's public utterances imo so that part's certainly on him
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Fair enough, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Time will tell. If a new man comes in and has the press back and us looking on form, or doesnt, we'll have more of an idea what the causes were.
 
glorygloryeze said:
I think it's definitely the former; I've seen the physical issues since April 2018.
I think in Poch's aim to mitigate it (somewhat) it's being exacerbated by the systems being used, though as i say i can't remember when we last looked secure even in the 4-2-3-1..

The mental side in terms of motivation certainly hasn't been helped by some of Poch's public utterances imo so that part's certainly on him
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Palace at home
4 goals and a clean sheet
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Palace at home
4 goals and a clean sheet
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Palace at home was meaningless, we were playing a team that looked like this:

images


If we didnt put 4 past them and keep a clean sheet it would have been an absolute shocker, any half competent team should expect to have done so considering how Palace simply didnt show up.
 
glorygloryeze said:
Yeah, but were we really that good though? I'm sure they had more shots than us plus on target.
Don't get me wrong, i think we did play well in that game, but i never felt we were solid defensively, just very VERY clinical up front and early on too
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According to the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49617988

64% possession vs 36%
13 Shots vs 11
5 on target vs 6
4 corners vs 3
19 fouls (committed, I assume) vs 11

And Palace werent even trying...
 
glorygloryeze said:
Yeah, but were we really that good though? I'm sure they had more shots than us plus on target.
Don't get me wrong, i think we did play well in that game, but i never felt we were solid defensively, just very VERY clinical up front and early on too
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We were rampant and stepped off the gas

And being clinical is important as we saw last night

Hugo didn’t make a save of note vs palace
 
Bedfordspurs said:
We were rampant and stepped off the gas

And being clinical is important as we saw last night

Hugo didn’t make a save of note vs palace
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I'm pretty sure he did from a header, plus Benteke should really have scored, but we know all about him.

We restored to cynical fouls and collected yellow card like they were football stickers.
We played well going forward i'd agree, but let's not use that game as some sort of template to show automatically when we go 4-2-3-1 we are awesome, because we really weren't, just better than Palace an very clinical
 
glorygloryeze said:
I'm pretty sure he did from a header, plus Benteke should really have scored, but we know all about him.

We restored to cynical fouls and collected yellow card like they were football stickers.
We played well going forward i'd agree, but let's not use that game as some sort of template to show automatically when we go 4-2-3-1 we are awesome, because we really weren't, just better than Palace an very clinical
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Palace won at old Trafford
In fact they have a better away record vs the top 6 than anyone
We can’t say that when we batter a team it’s because they were poor and when we lose it’s because we were poor just to suit a narrative
I don’t remember palace threatening at all
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Palace won at old Trafford
In fact they have a better away record vs the top 6 than anyone
We can’t say that when we batter a team it’s because they were poor and when we lose it’s because we were poor just to suit a narrative
I don’t remember palace threatening at all
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Palace won at Old Trafford...so did we last year..and?

I'm not sure if Palace really do have such a GHod away record vs the top 6; what period does that cover?

I agree about twisting narratives but to be fair people are looking beyond one or two games here with regards to our form AND how we are performing; eventually results have caught up with our performances...
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Palace won at old Trafford
In fact they have a better away record vs the top 6 than anyone
We can’t say that when we batter a team it’s because they were poor and when we lose it’s because we were poor just to suit a narrative
I don’t remember palace threatening at all
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We can say when a team was really poor though, and we beat them - like Palace.

Just as we can say when we lost and were an utter shambles, like last night.

Theres no narrative to either statement.

Palace literally didnt turn up, didnt close us down, didnt get stuck in and didnt have any real intent. They were there to be played around, and anything less than comfortable victory would have been shocking. They were just that poor. Which puts into context the idea we played well. Impossible to say, IMO, because you need actual opposition to test you...

Last night? We were all over the place, it speaks for itself.
 
glorygloryeze said:
Palace won at Old Trafford...so did we last year..and?

I'm not sure if Palace really do have such a GHod away record vs the top 6; what period does that cover?

I agree about twisting narratives but to be fair people are looking beyond one or two games here with regards to our form AND how we are performing; eventually results have caught up with our performances...
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Last season they beat pool and city away
 
glorygloryeze said:
Ok, i'm going to play devil's advocate a bit. So let's look into the team and how they are playing. Can you name more than 3 players who are playing considerably worse than they 'can'? If you do, can you name the last time they played at their 'peak'?

My contention is that physically and footballing ability-wise most have reached a wall, hence Poch trying out new formations etc to mitigate...
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I can't name any player who I think is playing anywhere near their level. Maybe Sissoko? The rest are below par yes.
 
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