Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

[stinkfoot]

Few articles coming out with a negative vibe on Poch today, from Neil Ashton (spit) and the BBC. Well I say negative, but maybe they simply raise a few causes for concern.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...nham-Spurs-finally-break-sulky-Argentine.html - supposedly 'every' person we called doing our due dilligence on Poch said the job was too soon for him, but Levy pressed ahead.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27599165 - Story here making the point that not all players liked him, that he had his favourites and squad players could feel cast out as a result.

Too soon for him? Pah!

I was listening to a Spanish journo/expert on TalkSport last night who claimed that in 2008, Barcelona had three candidates for the job that was given to Guardiola.

Guardiola, Mourinho and our boy.

 

[Cochise]

Neil Ashton never has a positive thing to say about Spurs and he leads quite a few sports writers who are just as anti Spurs. If people can cast their minds back to the LVG courtship, nearly every story released had such a negative undertone, almost a case of the journalist's hinting that because he was due to join Spurs he wasn't that good a coach. Now the guy has signed on for Man UTD, every one of those negative stories has been re-written and cast in a more jovial light. LVG for Spurs was an authoritarian who would decimate the dressing room spirit and cause a meltdown. LVG for UTD is a world class coach who will work his players hard to get the best out of them.

I sense that if Poch had gone to any other club, we wouldn't be hearing these stories. Right now the media want to paint him in a bad light because he is the Spurs manager, it might sound paranoid of me, but it has always seemed pretty obvious. Believe me, had we appointed Mancini, FDB or even Benitez, these journalists would be smearing their rep too.

 

[NWND]

There are a lot of goons and west ham fans in the media for better or for worse, we always get painted as the clowns or villans.

I hate the fact that West Ham got painted as 'poor West Ham doing nothing wrong' over the Olympic Stadium row and Spurs got cast as the arch villans for going to court. None of these journalists have been able to answer:

*How West Ham were chosen as preferred bidders, when over £40m worth of public money was needed just to finance their initial case while the Spurs bid was entirely privately financed by Spurs and our own investors.
*Why following the review completed following our challenge that the authories have backed-down SIGNIFICANTLY and now West Ham will not be given the stadium, but it will remain in public ownership with West Ham invited to bid as preferred tennants.
*Why would that last point have happened if nothing dodgy had gone on with the initial decision?

What ever you think of Levy's decision to go for Stratford option, it doesn't stop the fact that we were royally stitched up as a club and that the media just brushed it all under the carpet despite West Ham's bid requiring millions of £s worth of public money to happen.

 

[milo]

I know, I agree even. I'm massively on board the MoPo train, I just think it's interesting that some negatives are appearing in the press after a flurry of 'Spurs have signed a great coach in the making' type articles we got the day before. Certainly seems like Southampton are maybe briefing here in order to lessen the blow of losing their top guy.

But it's interesting to see how these methods will translate to the current squad. Are some players going to be put out that they didn't get invited for one of MoPo's chats? AVB apparently made a point of making sure he involved and spoke to everyone on an equal level. The whole 'wanting everyone's entire commitment' doesn't worry me, as that's what I think you need if you are going to get a team performing beyond the sum of its parts.

We shouldn't get paranoid, the newspapers always follow on with articles like this after an appointment has been made. I read similar articles on LvG last month.

I am also not too worried what fringe players at Poch's previous clubs think of him. Footballers who are not playing are normally unhappy. It is to be expected and that is why clubs normally seek to move them on.

 

[indianspur]

Hahaha this really is either going to be a roaring success or the whole thing is going to blow up in levy's face. Ben Smith's article contains some interesting info on Poch and how he operates. Certainly some aspects that weren't so obvious before Poch signed on the dotted line.

 

[milo]

Hahaha this really is either going to be a roaring success or the whole thing is going to blow up in levy's face. Ben Smith's article contains some interesting info on Poch and how he operates. Certainly some aspects that weren't so obvious before Poch signed on the dotted line.

You could say that for any of the leading candidates. All of them had elements of risk attached, if there wasn't they would be joining one of the giants and not us.

 

[Jordinho]

Hahaha this really is either going to be a roaring success or the whole thing is going to blow up in levy's face. Ben Smith's article contains some interesting info on Poch and how he operates. Certainly some aspects that weren't so obvious before Poch signed on the dotted line.

Classic journalist behavior. Build them up, then tear them down. Just watch the England WC hype machine.

 

[indianspur]

You could say that for any of the leading candidates. All of them had elements of risk attached, if there wasn't they would be joining one of the giants and not us.

I don't think I've ever heard any negativity about Martinez. A fiercely ambitious man but a true gent at the same time.

 

[milo]

I don't think I've ever heard any negativity about Martinez. A fiercely ambitious man but a true gent at the same time.

I don't recall exact examples at the time but I would be surprised if there were not a couple of articles that mentioned him getting Wigan relegated and that he could only get them to play half a season in his time there before that.

Everton are also a lower profile club than us and do not have a massive following outside the NE. Which means that writing about them will not sell as many papers as writing about us.

 

[NWND]

I don't think I've ever heard any negativity about Martinez. A fiercely ambitious man but a true gent at the same time.

I heard plenty of negativity about Martinez, particularly since Wigan got relegated. A lot of it was unjustified due to the resources he had to work with, much like Pochettino, but basically Martinez was criticised extensively for Wigan's notoriously slow starts to seasons, extremely leaky defence and the amount of poor quality foreign players that were signed.

 

[braineclipse]

We shouldn't get paranoid, the newspapers always follow on with articles like this after an appointment has been made. I read similar articles on LvG last month.

I am also not too worried what fringe players at Poch's previous clubs think of him. Footballers who are not playing are normally unhappy. It is to be expected and that is why clubs normally seek to move them on.

Spot on.

I don't think I've ever heard any negativity about Martinez. A fiercely ambitious man but a true gent at the same time.

You talking only about how he deals with players or also other stuff?

There were certainly concerns when he took over at Everton, some of them remain. I agree though that he seems like a true gent, but that's far from the only road to success as a football manager I think.

 

[indianspur]

I don't recall exact examples at the time but I would be surprised if there were not a couple of articles that mentioned him getting Wigan relegated and that he could only get them to play half a season in his time there before that.

Everton are also a lower profile club than us and do not have a massive following outside the NE. Which means that writing about them will not sell as many papers as writing about us.

Ben Smith is a BBC journalist. His job does not depend on being sensationalist, finding scandal by digging for dirt. His articles do not have to attract advertising revenue for the website.

When I mentioned Martinez it was more because of his character and not neccesarily what Wigan, or Everton, or Swansea did on the pitch. Everyone is impressed by his human qualities, how he treats people. Very very few have a bad word to say about him. Actually imnot surprised he has had 3 gentleman chairman to work for. Jenkins, Whelen and Kenwright have the same temperament as Martinez.

 

[Icelander]

Not only is he a brilliant manager, he's also a well established Hollywood actor!

 

[braineclipse]

Ben Smith is a BBC journalist. His job does not depend on being sensationalist, finding scandal by digging for dirt. His articles do not have to attract advertising revenue for the website.

When I mentioned Martinez it was more because of his character and not neccesarily what Wigan, or Everton, or Swansea did on the pitch. Everyone is impressed by his human qualities, how he treats people. Very very few have a bad word to say about him. Actually imnot surprised he has had 3 gentleman chairman to work for. Jenkins, Whelen and Kenwright have the same temperament as Martinez.

His article was also by far the least critical of the two I thought.

I also think which players he's talking about makes a big difference. Southampton didn't have the biggest of squads. If the players that felt left out were squad players getting somewhat regular playing time it might be a problem. If it was players that Poch had no intention of keeping around past the summer anyway it's less of an issue.

I'm not too worried either way, similar things have been said about some of the best managers around as others have pointed out.

 

[milo]

Ben Smith is a BBC journalist. His job does not depend on being sensationalist, finding scandal by digging for dirt. His articles do not have to attract advertising revenue for the website.

When I mentioned Martinez it was more because of his character and not neccesarily what Wigan, or Everton, or Swansea did on the pitch. Everyone is impressed by his human qualities, how he treats people. Very very few have a bad word to say about him. Actually imnot surprised he has had 3 gentleman chairman to work for. Jenkins, Whelen and Kenwright have the same temperament as Martinez.

Ben Smith doesn't dig any dirt on Poch, it is a pretty balanced article. He just mentiins that some fringe players felt excluded under Poch at Southampton, you could go to any club in the country and find fringe players who would say the same thing.

 

[braineclipse]

Somewhat interesting stat popped out at me looking at whoscored.com, Gaston Ramirez only started 3 games this season and was used as a sub 15 times.

He was their record signing when Poch took over, and looked like a good player, but Poch seems to have preferred a lot of other players. Along with shipping out Osvaldo on loan I think it shows that he's not afraid of benching or upsetting the big name, big cost, players.

Goes some way towards showing that he chooses players that fit his system rather than just picking "good players" too? If someone had said last summer that both Rickie Lambert and Jay Rodriguez would start 30+ games this season and Ramirez would only start 3 I think that would have raised some eyebrows.

So who do you guys think is most likely to be the Gaston Ramirez of the Spurs squad? Ade is the obvious candidate I suppose, anyone else? Eriksen has been mentioned as someone that's not the most willing defensive runner? A lot has been said of Lamela and how Poch will look to revive his Spurs career, but how will he fit Poch's system? Any other potential candidates?

 

[Yiddo]

Somewhat interesting stat popped out at me looking at whoscored.com, Gaston Ramirez only started 3 games this season and was used as a sub 15 times.

He was their record signing when Poch took over, and looked like a good player, but Poch seems to have preferred a lot of other players. Along with shipping out Osvaldo on loan I think it shows that he's not afraid of benching or upsetting the big name, big cost, players.

Goes some way towards showing that he chooses players that fit his system rather than just picking "good players" too? If someone had said last summer that both Rickie Lambert and Jay Rodriguez would start 30+ games this season and Ramirez would only start 3 I think that would have raised some eyebrows.

So who do you guys think is most likely to be the Gaston Ramirez of the Spurs squad? Ade is the obvious candidate I suppose, anyone else? Eriksen has been mentioned as someone that's not the most willing defensive runner? A lot has been said of Lamela and how Poch will look to revive his Spurs career, but how will he fit Poch's system? Any other potential candidates?

Not sure who the next Ramirez will be but i have a sneaky suspicion who could become the Lallana at Spurs.

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

Not only is he a brilliant manager, he's also a well established Hollywood actor!

View attachment 1977

Yep I clocked that as well, probably a better likeness would be him in 24, season 4 was it?

 

[sc25]

I do not think that it will be possible for Poch to successfully guide the team to the latter stages of all the cups and maintain acceptable league results in his first season. In reality, a decent run in one of the cups and a top five finish would be a very reasonable return on his first season in charge. We have a squad packed with potential but very little of that has materialised in a Spurs shirt.

Well, with a clueless idiot last season, young and in his first gig as a manager, no pre-season, thrown in mid season, and with an entire squad he had to inherit and had no say in its make up...we finished 6th and lost to very good Benfica side in the EL. (So, given the parameters that you have set out, a case could now be made then that, in reality as you put it, it was 'a very reasonable return on his first season in charge'?)

And now we now have a manager we poached. of much repute, more experienced, more likeable, given a big long term deal, will have full pre-season, a better system, a squad he will have a say in its make-up, and those players will be a year further on experience wise, etc.

Yet your expectations don't seem all that lofty? If the managers and their situations are night and day and poles apart, where exactly do you expect the improvement to manifest?

 

[braineclipse]

Not sure who the next Ramirez will be but i have a sneaky suspicion who could become the Lallana at Spurs.

Well, then you have to tell us what you think... At least if it's somewhat controversial

Well, with a clueless idiot last season, in his first gig as a manager, no pre-season, thrown in mid season, and with an entire squad he had to inherit and had no say in its make up...we finished 6th and lost to very good Benfica side in the EL. (A case could now be made then that, in reality as you put it, it was 'a very reasonable return on his first season in charge'.)

We now have a manager we poached of much repute, more experienced, more likeable, given a big long term deal, will have full pre-season, a better system, a squad he will have a say in its make-up, and those players will be a year further on experience wise, etc.

Yet your expectations don't seem all that lofty? If the managers and their situations are night and day and poles apart, where exactly do you expect the improvement to manifest?

First year in charge, I will be happy with improved performances and us being in or around the battle for 4th personally.

Just because people rate Poch doesn't mean that expectations for the short term must be increased massively. I was impressed with how quickly he implemented his ideas at Southampton, but if it takes half a season at Spurs and the results in that time are a bit unstable that's fine with me. A lot of Southampton players have come out and praised what he does on the training ground very highly. Talked about movement patterns, getting the team to function as a unit, developing attacking play. These thing can take some time and training ground work with individuals will most of the time pay off after a while, not immediately.