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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

Absolute state of this thread. The arguments against a Manager that has done literal wonders for us really are sad to read.

First of all, this idea that ‘we aren’t seeing the evidence he can turn it around’ just subscribes to a notion of football that I thought we had debunked when Poch first started getting success here. He is a great Manager, he has the skills, the characteristics, the qualities, but he is not the only reason we succeeded. We were able to overcome the disadvantage of less money by building a squad where everyone was bought in to the bigger picture, everyone wanted to be here, everyone had a relentless desire to improve, was suited to the system and everything that entailed. That created a unity, a spirit, a common cause and a team that could overcome structural disadvantages. And that wasn’t only down to Poch. He was a perfect fit for the situation, but it also required Levy reducing expectations on a new Manager for the first time in years. It requires him backing Poch’s moves to sell certain players, to get the ones he wanted, and it required players good enough to take responsibility and step up when they had the opportunity. The entire club was pointed in one direction and that was why we succeeded. Poch was a massive part of it, but Levy and the players did their part as well.

Now, Poch has been calling for a rebuild for two years. He’s wanted it to happen, for various reasons it hasn’t happened. So he’s left with a squad that partly doesn’t have as much of a financial disadvantage anymore, but has lost a bit of unity, the relentless desire to improve, the clear sightedness that Spurs is the best place for them. The issues are not just one of the Manager, it is that the players no longer want to be here in some cases, and in others we haven’t been able to find the buyers. Changing the Manager doesn’t change those issues - it doesn’t make players want to stay, and it doesn’t make it any easier for us to shift them than it has been. Changing Manager puts us on course for a new strategy, and all of the different pieces will have to be in place to make that work, just as before. In this instance, we need certain players out, otherwise no Manager will succeed.

All this talk of tactics or whether he drops this or that player are misnomers IMO. The structural issues need to align for us to really power forward again, like they did 5 years ago. That is how a club is successful.

Secondly, the question really should be answered by those that are claiming it is super simple to just drop the players as he did before...why isn’t he doing it? Please offer any explanation at all as to why, just to show that you have at least thought about the other side of the argument. There simply has to be reasons. It is no use saying he’s missing the obvious thing, as that is just rubbish debating. For what it’s worth, I think he will drop those players, as the season progresses, we will be seeing the new ones player bigger roles. But this isn’t a case of old players refusing to conform to new methods. This is current players simply not having the same relentless spark at this club that they had 5 years ago. It happens, simply because of the passage of time. And if they are part of the squad, we need them, if only to protect and save up the legs of the players we will need later in the year. Not to mention, taking this as an example, Eriksen. We couldn’t sell him, so we get no fee. The silver lining should be we still have a good player in our squad. But not if we bomb him we don’t. It’s not an easy, obvious decision, particularly if he is still working hard in training, just feeling slightly less inspired. How ridiculous would it be to keep him for that final year, not play him, and then lose him for nothing anyway? Is the benefit to the rest of the team so obvious by bombing him? It isnt. But he will he dropped as the season kicks into high gear, it will just be when we don’t need him as much and we’re properly phasing in the new crew.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Absolute state of this thread. The arguments against a Manager that has done literal wonders for us really are sad to read.

First of all, this idea that ‘we aren’t seeing the evidence he can turn it around’ just subscribes to a notion of football that I thought we had debunked when Poch first started getting success here. He is a great Manager, he has the skills, the characteristics, the qualities, but he is not the only reason we succeeded. We were able to overcome the disadvantage of less money by building a squad where everyone was bought in to the bigger picture, everyone wanted to be here, everyone had a relentless desire to improve, was suited to the system and everything that entailed. That created a unity, a spirit, a common cause and a team that could overcome structural disadvantages. And that wasn’t only down to Poch. He was a perfect fit for the situation, but it also required Levy reducing expectations on a new Manager for the first time in years. It requires him backing Poch’s moves to sell certain players, to get the ones he wanted, and it required players good enough to take responsibility and step up when they had the opportunity. The entire club was pointed in one direction and that was why we succeeded. Poch was a massive part of it, but Levy and the players did their part as well.

Now, Poch has been calling for a rebuild for two years. He’s wanted it to happen, for various reasons it hasn’t happened. So he’s left with a squad that partly doesn’t have as much of a financial disadvantage anymore, but has lost a bit of unity, the relentless desire to improve, the clear sightedness that Spurs is the best place for them. The issues are not just one of the Manager, it is that the players no longer want to be here in some cases, and in others we haven’t been able to find the buyers. Changing the Manager doesn’t change those issues - it doesn’t make players want to stay, and it doesn’t make it any easier for us to shift them than it has been. Changing Manager puts us on course for a new strategy, and all of the different pieces will have to be in place to make that work, just as before. In this instance, we need certain players out, otherwise no Manager will succeed.

All this talk of tactics or whether he drops this or that player are misnomers IMO. The structural issues need to align for us to really power forward again, like they did 5 years ago. That is how a club is successful.

Secondly, the question really should be answered by those that are claiming it is super simple to just drop the players as he did before...why isn’t he doing it? Please offer any explanation at all as to why, just to show that you have at least thought about the other side of the argument. There simply has to be reasons. It is no use saying he’s missing the obvious thing, as that is just rubbish debating. For what it’s worth, I think he will drop those players, as the season progresses, we will be seeing the new ones player bigger roles. But this isn’t a case of old players refusing to conform to new methods. This is current players simply not having the same relentless spark at this club that they had 5 years ago. It happens, simply because of the passage of time. And if they are part of the squad, we need them, if only to protect and save up the legs of the players we will need later in the year. Not to mention, taking this as an example, Eriksen. We couldn’t sell him, so we get no fee. The silver lining should be we still have a good player in our squad. But not if we bomb him we don’t. It’s not an easy, obvious decision, particularly if he is still working hard in training, just feeling slightly less inspired. How ridiculous would it be to keep him for that final year, not play him, and then lose him for nothing anyway? Is the benefit to the rest of the team so obvious by bombing him? It isnt. But he will he dropped as the season kicks into high gear, it will just be when we don’t need him as much and we’re properly phasing in the new crew.
Click to expand...

I need not even register my total agreement, but find myself compelled to do so. So, for the record, I am in total agreement.

Of course we both know that if he WASN'T playing those players, he'd be pilloried.
 
folks say he is a great manager, where?
he got the players fit so they could press the ball, worked fantasic, but the players got older so not able to press
Levy told him there is limited money to buy until the NWHL comes in, so they Levy & Poch got cheap transfer targets that never made the grade (wasted the limited money)
has Poch changed his team style to cover for the players being unable to press ?
look at the results since Feb 2018 they are bad, he's had summer to change that, has it changed ?
look at the players, Eriksen was great at free kicks a few years ago, but not for last 2 or 3yrs, what has Poch done to get him back to that level ?
Hugo has always been poor at kicking the ball, what has Poch done to improve him
has Winks improved since his first season ?
yes the player needs to want to improve, but the manager has to push the player as well
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Absolute state of this thread. The arguments against a Manager that has done literal wonders for us really are sad to read.

First of all, this idea that ‘we aren’t seeing the evidence he can turn it around’ just subscribes to a notion of football that I thought we had debunked when Poch first started getting success here. He is a great Manager, he has the skills, the characteristics, the qualities, but he is not the only reason we succeeded. We were able to overcome the disadvantage of less money by building a squad where everyone was bought in to the bigger picture, everyone wanted to be here, everyone had a relentless desire to improve, was suited to the system and everything that entailed. That created a unity, a spirit, a common cause and a team that could overcome structural disadvantages. And that wasn’t only down to Poch. He was a perfect fit for the situation, but it also required Levy reducing expectations on a new Manager for the first time in years. It requires him backing Poch’s moves to sell certain players, to get the ones he wanted, and it required players good enough to take responsibility and step up when they had the opportunity. The entire club was pointed in one direction and that was why we succeeded. Poch was a massive part of it, but Levy and the players did their part as well.

Now, Poch has been calling for a rebuild for two years. He’s wanted it to happen, for various reasons it hasn’t happened. So he’s left with a squad that partly doesn’t have as much of a financial disadvantage anymore, but has lost a bit of unity, the relentless desire to improve, the clear sightedness that Spurs is the best place for them. The issues are not just one of the Manager, it is that the players no longer want to be here in some cases, and in others we haven’t been able to find the buyers. Changing the Manager doesn’t change those issues - it doesn’t make players want to stay, and it doesn’t make it any easier for us to shift them than it has been. Changing Manager puts us on course for a new strategy, and all of the different pieces will have to be in place to make that work, just as before. In this instance, we need certain players out, otherwise no Manager will succeed.

All this talk of tactics or whether he drops this or that player are misnomers IMO. The structural issues need to align for us to really power forward again, like they did 5 years ago. That is how a club is successful.

Secondly, the question really should be answered by those that are claiming it is super simple to just drop the players as he did before...why isn’t he doing it? Please offer any explanation at all as to why, just to show that you have at least thought about the other side of the argument. There simply has to be reasons. It is no use saying he’s missing the obvious thing, as that is just rubbish debating. For what it’s worth, I think he will drop those players, as the season progresses, we will be seeing the new ones player bigger roles. But this isn’t a case of old players refusing to conform to new methods. This is current players simply not having the same relentless spark at this club that they had 5 years ago. It happens, simply because of the passage of time. And if they are part of the squad, we need them, if only to protect and save up the legs of the players we will need later in the year. Not to mention, taking this as an example, Eriksen. We couldn’t sell him, so we get no fee. The silver lining should be we still have a good player in our squad. But not if we bomb him we don’t. It’s not an easy, obvious decision, particularly if he is still working hard in training, just feeling slightly less inspired. How ridiculous would it be to keep him for that final year, not play him, and then lose him for nothing anyway? Is the benefit to the rest of the team so obvious by bombing him? It isnt. But he will he dropped as the season kicks into high gear, it will just be when we don’t need him as much and we’re properly phasing in the new crew.
Click to expand...


Generally, I don't consider them wonders, I consider the progress in his first 3 seasons as a logical next step in our inevitable improvement due to the work done by Levy.
 
the goat said:
folks say he is a great manager, where?
he got the players fit so they could press the ball, worked fantasic, but the players got older so not able to press
Levy told him there is limited money to buy until the NWHL comes in, so they Levy & Poch got cheap transfer targets that never made the grade (wasted the limited money)
has Poch changed his team style to cover for the players being unable to press ?
look at the results since Feb 2018 they are bad, he's had summer to change that, has it changed ?
look at the players, Eriksen was great at free kicks a few years ago, but not for last 2 or 3yrs, what has Poch done to get him back to that level ?
Hugo has always been poor at kicking the ball, what has Poch done to improve him
has Winks improved since his first season ?
yes the player needs to want to improve, but the manager has to push the player as well
Click to expand...

fair points, although I don't think any of them, with the exception of Toby, are old enough for age to be a factor
 
thfcsteff said:
If it was as easy as "dispense with the under-performing stars on the pitch and replace them with younger fresher faces" then don't you suspect that Pochettino, a man who sees far more of the squad than we ever do or will, would not have done that already?

Why do you suppose he is not doing so?
Click to expand...

That really is the question, isnt it? Because it is so bloody obvious even a numpty like me can see it, why isnt the manager making those changes?

For all your defence of him, Im yet to actually see any reason to justify what appears to be poor management.


thfcsteff said:
As for your "absolute", nah. Poch can do better (and I am sure has spent a lot of time working out what he needs to do) AND there are several very, VERY compelling mitigating factors which have contributed to the situation and are beyond his control.
Your notion that it is a "one or the other" scenario is -IMO- simply wrong.
Click to expand...


Most of the VERY compelling factors are within the managers remit to fix/change/deal with. Thats the truth.
 
Why Mauricio Pochettino only has two options left for his future

The Tottenham manager faces a very simple choice about the next step in his career – but no one else can make it for him

bySeb Stafford-Bloor

In the end, Mauricio Pochettino will decide his own future at Tottenham. Daniel Levy may have the final say over his employment, but Pochettino’s situation will be determined by whether he actually wants to remain in north London.

It’s the general theme, actually, with Spurs continuing to be drained by their muddled focus. There are other problems at work, clearly, and general fatigue and shortages in key positions are hardly irrelevant, but nothing is as obstructive as the creeping apathy.

It is apathy, too. The shared trait among all the players who have expressed a desire to leave – or who are refusing the opportunity to extend their stay – is the tendency now to play as if their reputations no longer really matters to them.

To give this scenario a real-world context, these are players effectively serving a notice period. They’re turning up to work at 10am in the morning, taking an extra 20 minutes for lunch every day, and spending office hours aimlessly rolling around social media. It’s not egregious behaviour, but neither is it productive. In football, just as in any normal enterprise, the sooner the workforce is all focused on the same aims again, the better.

So that’s not a complicated project, but it will be a challenging one. In the beginning, exchanging old parts for new will involve a downgrade at Tottenham. While it’s possible to find replacements for some of those incumbent players – Lo Celso for Eriksen, Sessegnon for Rose, Anyone for Aurier – the result likely wouldn’t be immediately reassuring.

In fact, it would probably resemble Pochettino’s first few months at the club. The team’s base level would be higher – there’s far more talent at Spurs these days – but it would involve defaulting back to the beginning of the process. A new defence, a new midfield; that’s a lot of new combinations to develop. A lot of hours needed on the training pitches and in the video analysis rooms, probably some trial and error on the pitch too.

It would also be some time before that reinvention produced the kind of results or consistent form that the club’s supporters have got used to over the last five years. There are no quick fixes here; the road back will involve a lot of frustrating afternoons and irritating defeats.

And that’s fine, because Tottenham have been there before and understand that long-term projects can bring wonderful results.

But this is also a process which requires energy, commitment, an almost obsessional dedication. It also demands political resilience, given the size of the personalities being challenged – and because all successful modern sides are slightly cultish, it requires charisma and magnetism from the person in charge.

Pochettino has all those qualities. He’s passed all of these tests before. He’s purged egos, taken on powerful players and won, and he’s also convinced a group of footballers to run faster and harder for longer and further over many years.

But does he want to do that again? At the moment, that’s the only question which really matters and the one which needs answering before anything else happens. Tottenham will have to grind their way back to what they were, and it’s impossible for them to do that if they’re being led by someone who has lost faith in their ability to reach a meaningful destination.

If Pochettino isn’t willing or able to indoctrinate another group and commit himself in the same way, his value as a coach shrinks dramatically. He is not Europe’s best tactician and his in-game management remains strangely inadequate. Strip away his intangible qualities, then, or allow his enthusiasm to drop, and this current situation – characterised by an almost grudging loyalty – seems like a pointless compromise.

He has earned the club’s faith. Absolutely. Over the next week, Spurs might just about beat a fragile Watford before taking what looks likely to be a hiding at Anfield. Neither result should affect his future. But in the background, these conversations need to be taking place for the benefit of everyone involved.

Pochettino cannot be half in and half out. As much loyalty as he’s owed, if his intention now is to manage a chequebook team – a Manchester United or a Real Madrid – then he must leave. If not, if he does believe in this different way of doing things, then he can pick up his axe and get to work.

But there is no third way; those are the only two options.


Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/feature...nager-man-utd-real-madrid#oZrJZQzOdMmEVxxW.99


I agree with most of this. I think the only thing there that I really dont is the idea its a whole from the ground up rebuild like it was before. When you have players like Sanchez, with the club a while now, ready to come in its more like having a head start on that operation.
 
galeforce said:
Generally, I don't consider them wonders, I consider the progress in his first 3 seasons as a logical next step in our inevitable improvement due to the work done by Levy.
Click to expand...

Come on man, consistent Top 4 finishes was not the inevitable improvement of the work done by Levy. He is the best Chairman in the League, and we got a great Manager, but nothing was inevitable on its own.

This is my point...we succeeded because the whole club just got better strategically. We always had some good players, but we had real alignment, from boardroom, to coaching room, to changing room. Other clubs either didn’t have the same alignment, didn’t have a strategy at all, or were on the end of a cycle and on a downswing before regenerating. But if we never got that strategic alignment, we never would have gotten anywhere near to achieving what we’ve done.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Come on man, consistent Top 4 finishes was not the inevitable improvement of the work done by Levy. He is the best Chairman in the League, and we got a great Manager, but nothing was inevitable on its own.

This is my point...we succeeded because the whole club just got better strategically. We always had some good players, but we had real alignment, from boardroom, to coaching room, to changing room. Other clubs either didn’t have the same alignment, didn’t have a strategy at all, or were on the end of a cycle and on a downswing before regenerating. But if we never got that strategic alignment, we never would have gotten anywhere near to achieving what we’ve done.
Click to expand...

I think you are agreeing with me, Poch is (was?) just another aligned cog, at some point he will be replaced and the machine will roll on.
 
galeforce said:
I think you are agreeing with me, Poch is (was?) just another aligned cog, at some point he will be replaced and the machine will roll on.
Click to expand...

I think more that Poch is excellent, Levy is excellent, and together they got the right players to be aligned, which put near excellence on the field too.

And the point is that Levy has been here for years, I don’t think the plan, or he ever thought we would be a consistent top 4 team 4 years before getting into the stadium. I think we would have been taking the next step once the stadium was built and we were leveraging the revenues, not this much before and not with this consistency. Poch was a unique fit that did a uniquely fantastic job.

The question is whether this club is in a new phase, with more money, is Poch still the right guy. At the very least, Poch has earned the opportunity to show that he is. We haven’t been able to do a lot of the things he has wanted to go to get back aligned, and I think the problems he is facing right now, with certain players feeling like they are ‘serving their notice’ (an excellent metaphor in the article above) would be a problem faced by any new Manager. I say at the very least Poch has earned the right to show he is the right guy, but speaking more fairly I think he’s an exceptional managerial talent and we’d be nuts to let him go.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
I think more that Poch is excellent, Levy is excellent, and together they got the right players to be aligned, which put near excellence on the field too.

And the point is that Levy has been here for years, I don’t think the plan, or he ever thought we would be a consistent top 4 team 4 years before getting into the stadium. I think we would have been taking the next step once the stadium was built and we were leveraging the revenues, not this much before and not with this consistency. Poch was a unique fit that did a uniquely fantastic job.

The question is whether this club is in a new phase, with more money, is Poch still the right guy. At the very least, Poch has earned the opportunity to show that he is. We haven’t been able to do a lot of the things he has wanted to go to get back aligned, and I think the problems he is facing right now, with certain players feeling like they are ‘serving their notice’ (an excellent metaphor in the article above) would be a problem faced by any new Manager. I say at the very least Poch has earned the right to show he is the right guy, but speaking more fairly I think he’s an exceptional managerial talent and we’d be nuts to let him go.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of that, but I think he's had the opportunity and he's been Spursing it up since Christmas, I think it's time to move on whilst we can still rescue a CL place.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Why Mauricio Pochettino only has two options left for his future

The Tottenham manager faces a very simple choice about the next step in his career – but no one else can make it for him

bySeb Stafford-Bloor

In the end, Mauricio Pochettino will decide his own future at Tottenham. Daniel Levy may have the final say over his employment, but Pochettino’s situation will be determined by whether he actually wants to remain in north London.

It’s the general theme, actually, with Spurs continuing to be drained by their muddled focus. There are other problems at work, clearly, and general fatigue and shortages in key positions are hardly irrelevant, but nothing is as obstructive as the creeping apathy.

It is apathy, too. The shared trait among all the players who have expressed a desire to leave – or who are refusing the opportunity to extend their stay – is the tendency now to play as if their reputations no longer really matters to them.

To give this scenario a real-world context, these are players effectively serving a notice period. They’re turning up to work at 10am in the morning, taking an extra 20 minutes for lunch every day, and spending office hours aimlessly rolling around social media. It’s not egregious behaviour, but neither is it productive. In football, just as in any normal enterprise, the sooner the workforce is all focused on the same aims again, the better.

So that’s not a complicated project, but it will be a challenging one. In the beginning, exchanging old parts for new will involve a downgrade at Tottenham. While it’s possible to find replacements for some of those incumbent players – Lo Celso for Eriksen, Sessegnon for Rose, Anyone for Aurier – the result likely wouldn’t be immediately reassuring.

In fact, it would probably resemble Pochettino’s first few months at the club. The team’s base level would be higher – there’s far more talent at Spurs these days – but it would involve defaulting back to the beginning of the process. A new defence, a new midfield; that’s a lot of new combinations to develop. A lot of hours needed on the training pitches and in the video analysis rooms, probably some trial and error on the pitch too.

It would also be some time before that reinvention produced the kind of results or consistent form that the club’s supporters have got used to over the last five years. There are no quick fixes here; the road back will involve a lot of frustrating afternoons and irritating defeats.

And that’s fine, because Tottenham have been there before and understand that long-term projects can bring wonderful results.

But this is also a process which requires energy, commitment, an almost obsessional dedication. It also demands political resilience, given the size of the personalities being challenged – and because all successful modern sides are slightly cultish, it requires charisma and magnetism from the person in charge.

Pochettino has all those qualities. He’s passed all of these tests before. He’s purged egos, taken on powerful players and won, and he’s also convinced a group of footballers to run faster and harder for longer and further over many years.

But does he want to do that again? At the moment, that’s the only question which really matters and the one which needs answering before anything else happens. Tottenham will have to grind their way back to what they were, and it’s impossible for them to do that if they’re being led by someone who has lost faith in their ability to reach a meaningful destination.

If Pochettino isn’t willing or able to indoctrinate another group and commit himself in the same way, his value as a coach shrinks dramatically. He is not Europe’s best tactician and his in-game management remains strangely inadequate. Strip away his intangible qualities, then, or allow his enthusiasm to drop, and this current situation – characterised by an almost grudging loyalty – seems like a pointless compromise.

He has earned the club’s faith. Absolutely. Over the next week, Spurs might just about beat a fragile Watford before taking what looks likely to be a hiding at Anfield. Neither result should affect his future. But in the background, these conversations need to be taking place for the benefit of everyone involved.

Pochettino cannot be half in and half out. As much loyalty as he’s owed, if his intention now is to manage a chequebook team – a Manchester United or a Real Madrid – then he must leave. If not, if he does believe in this different way of doing things, then he can pick up his axe and get to work.

But there is no third way; those are the only two options.


Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/feature...nager-man-utd-real-madrid#oZrJZQzOdMmEVxxW.99


I agree with most of this. I think the only thing there that I really dont is the idea its a whole from the ground up rebuild like it was before. When you have players like Sanchez, with the club a while now, ready to come in its more like having a head start on that operation.
Click to expand...

This is what it all comes down to, and why his interviews, press releases, articles by drinking buddies matter. Does he want it or not? When you think of Poch MkI the stuff the MkII version comes out with is so foreign it's bordering on the unbelievable. As a fan I'm looking for signs that he has reset his mind to task, and the only indicator of that I have is by what comes out of his mouth.

I've seen a few articles now highlighting what we know about his in game management and his tactics. It's known what his main ability is and that requires him to be committed cause you can't fake emotion and dedication. That's why that Ballague article is so disappointing, it's all PR and brand protection, if he done his job to the peak of his abilities like he used to his mates wouldn't need to write them, the work would talk for itself. Even this rebuild with the quality of our squad will not see us fall far off, we'll still be fighting for top 4.
 
Mauricio Pochettino does not agree with the view that Spurs need to change the squad in January.

"I don't believe. I believe in the players we have that are in Tottenham today. I respect the opinion of people who say we need to change," Pochettino added.

"But if it is my decision, I am going to stick with the players because they have quality."


There goes some fan theories...
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Mauricio Pochettino does not agree with the view that Spurs need to change the squad in January.

"I don't believe. I believe in the players we have that are in Tottenham today. I respect the opinion of people who say we need to change," Pochettino added.

"But if it is my decision, I am going to stick with the players because they have quality."


There goes some fan theories...
Click to expand...
Man asked in October...'are some of your players brick?'

Man says ...'No I believe in the squad I have here today'

ie there's diddly squat I can do about it until January, so what mileage is in alienating anyone. I'll still pick and choose whom I want.....and come January I'll stick by what I've just said...Yeah of course I will:rolleyes:
 
“In this type of situation the most important thing is to be all together and show a strong face to the problems. Face the problems and talk a lot because the most important thing is that players feel support and trust from the manager. That belief is important. I trust 200 per cent in them and believe that they have the capacity and potential to win the games and turn this situation around. This type of situation happens at all clubs sooner or later. We have confidence that we have the quality. Only a matter of time to make things clear. We need to help them perform because they are the principal actors on the pitch who will provide the victories.”
 
“I am going to act naturally. I am the first who is interested in winning games, but we look at what we need to do. We try to find a way to help them. It’s not about selection, not about the names, it’s about collective behaviour and performance. It’s not about changing this chair for a sofa and move the table to another place because in the end we are the same. Most important now is to help them.

“What happened happened. The most important thing to provide calm. They are calm, they feel our support, from the coaching staff and the club and the fans, that they’re going to be there. Now is the moment to stay together and trust, of course trust in my decision. I will try to take the best decisions to win.”
 
“We had an offer a few months ago to go to Aspire, I was talking there for one and a half hours, in front of 100 people, 50 clubs, all the big clubs in the world were there, ex-team-mates like Solari, Hernan Crespo, people I met like Tim Cahill - now I have a very good view of him it was amazing to spend time with him.

“It was like a medicine. We flew at 8am on Sunday and I was dead. Jesus too. We arrived and it was difficult to find the energy and then to talk about Tottenham and our ideas and philosophy and football. It was most difficult thing but we found the energy. It was a football drama, not a life drama. We lose a few games. Most important is to not go away, most important is to face the problems and find a solution.

“We came back Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday we were here. We started to have meetings, only a few players. We tried to lift people because it is important to have the energy to face another tough period.”
 
Poch on Watford
“It’s going to be tough. We will fight against us, play against us. We are our own worst enemy. Then after the opponent. I am so happy, after today we expect arrive Sonny from North Korea this afternoon and the players react in a very good mood. We have talked a lot, individuals and collective.

“I was talking with the staff in a very honest conversation as always in these situations, trying to find the best way. In the end our interest is Tottenham. Our objective is to put Tottenham in the place that Tottenham deserve to be. In the last five years and a half it has been all about praise for Tottenham, our stadium and facilities as well. It was nice to hear about us. When that turns a bit negative you have to listen and work hard to turn things to positive again. We work for a club and our fans want to be happy, they want to enjoy the team winning.”
 
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