This is what winds me up about the people that say stuff like this.
Southampton were the 8th best team in HINDSIGHT - at the start of the season who was predicting they would finish 8th? Oh, that's right, hardly anyone. Who would ahve wanted us to sign Lallana, Rodriguez, Lambert, Schneiderlin, Ward-Prowse etc last summer? Absolutely nobody on here I bet. Its absolutely ridiculous that people keep reciting this stupid line about how quality southampton were and that basically i could have rocked up with that amazing squad of young internationals and got them 8th without even trying.
Total rubbish. Lallana is 26, Rodriguez is 24, Lambert 32, Schneiderlin is no spring chicken, Fonte neither. Clyne has been around for a good few years in the lower leagues. Where have they all been hiding? Under a rock? Southampton were in league 1 about 4 seasons ago. They have the 18th highest wage bill in the country. These players were lower league players for a good many seasons before being transformed into this 'quality squad of internationals', THIS season BY Pochettino.
I would put my house on these players going nowhere if Adkins were still in charge. Southampton might have finished around 15th (which is where they were when Adkins left) and that would have been classed as a good season for them having just got promotion, but they'd have plodded along in all likelihood at that level. Shaw would have left as he is an amazing talent who was talked about at youth level before he even broke into the Saints team. All of the rest of them, they'd not have got near the England or French squads I'd bet.
Incredible hindsight by some people. Saudi Sportswashing Machine on paper, have a FAR FAR FAR MASSIVELY superior squad to Southampton. At the start of this season there would not have been any comparison. Cabaye, Collocini, Santon, Debuchy, Sissoko, Ben Arfa, Cisse, Remy, I mean these are all massive reputation player that play for Italy, Argentina, France and you are saying Southampton should have finished 8th because they had a better squad than Saudi Sportswashing Machine on paper? Absolute rubbish. Can't believe i am constantly hearing this rubbish along with "well he doesn't even speak English does he?" rubbish. Its like its an 'in joke' to just constantly wind me up.
Also this idea that you can say "well what has Pochettino done, he just got Southampton to finish 8th, what about De Boer, i mean he got Ajax to win the dutch league 4 times in a row." Well its not as if Ajax have had an established system of constant youth development for decades and constantly churn out quality young players and constantly play 4-3-3 at every youth level and constantly are one of the biggest, richest clubs in Holland and that if you had to speak to any football fan in the street and said "name the team that is going to win the Dutch title this season", about 99.9% of football fans would say "Ajax" and would have done at any poitn they'd been asked this question in the last 40 years (that is unless you are like Gutterboy and spend your entire spare time watching British Eurosport and analysis form and performances of every player in teh world ever.
What has De Boer REALLY achieved that is actually worth anything to what we want him to do at Spurs? He's basically been in an 'ajax family' nursery environment where basically he rocks up says, "i'm frank de boer, i want to play 4-3-3 and bring through all the youth players and play possession football and win the league" and everyone says "great, that's what every Ajax manager since Cruyff has said and done". Yes, they went 7 years without winning the league or whatever anyone said, but they were always going to arrest that cycle, they are Ajax, they had an amazing crop of young players coming through and still do.
I'm not taking anything away from De Boer, but its ridiculous to brand him less of a gamble than Pochettino who knows what is required to manage in England, has transformed a style of play at a club in England and successfully implemented ideas in England with English players, under the scrutiny of the English media, and this after also successfully doing this in Spain with Espanyol, where he is still popular to this day.
What winds me up isn't that people point out potential downfalls in Pochettino, or point out why they'd preferred other candidates, its that they constantly peddle the same tired rubbish that does not have any basis in any fact whatsoever and its just really sad.
