Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

[Jurgen the German]

So 'not winning it for 30 years and only ever getting to the quarters' wasn't supposed to mean that we never look like winning it, so we shouldn't bother? Because that is how i understood it, sorry if that's not what you meant.

I'm saying we should prioritise other competitions unless we get to the quarter finals or beyond. If we get to the quarters/semis, great then let's really go for it. Plenty of teams do it in other competitions, Arsenal for example used to play weaker starting 11's in the early stages of the league cup, then played a full strength team for the final. We will play Lloris on Sunday for example despite not starting him in the earlier rounds.

 

[billyiddo]

Do you not think we've done exactly that this season? EL has been a rotated side all season iirc - up to and including the knockout stages

 

[braineclipse]

at this stage every game is important imo.....i never see Real resting Ronaldo, Barca resting Messi, these guys play an immense number of games every season, compete in all comps, and are vital to their teams. Kane right now is is just as vital to us, is young, in red hot form, very fit, coming off the back of 9 day break he and all of our best players could have coped with Fiorentina, West Ham, Fiorentina and Chelsea in an 11 day period.

and remember, the majority of our current preferred best players havent even been starters for the whole season. Plenty of miles left in their little legs

They do rest Ronaldo and Messi, but only rather rarely.

More importantly Real and Barca are in completely different situations to us. They fairly regularly win games comfortably where they can take their foot off the gas for the last 30 minutes of games. They're both exceptionally good at keeping possession and resting with the ball when they feel like it. And unlike Kane and Eriksen for us Messi and Ronaldo are given a lot of freedom to just stand around and not defend. Other players (that are rotated more) make up the work rate in games, because those two (Messi and Ronaldo) are so extremely rare as talents that it makes sense for those clubs. I just don't think our situation is very similar.

How do you know that "all of our best players could have coped with Fiorentina, West Ham, Fiorentina and Chelsea in an 11 day period"? I'm sorry, but that's just an empty claim. Pochettino and the coaches work with the players on the training ground every day. The European hangover effect is well documented and we've seen many examples for ourselves this very season. You can't just claim the opposite and expect people to believe you.

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

I want to see him given time, we simply have to. But I'm just saying I've not been impressed with barely anything ive seen. Part of that is personnel. But k seriously doubt far too many of his decisions, and we have been really bad this season in 90% of games. It's worrying. Let's see what happens in the summer when he can form his own team, see then. I'm not confident. I'm very hopeful...

The fact, out of all of our players, he rested mason, makes me sick in my mouth...

I keep seeing you say this.

We've played 44 games so far (I think?) so what you are seriously trying to say is that we have been really bad in 40 out of 44 games. There's only 4 games out of every single game we've played that you would see as not really bad??

You're definition of really bad must be vastly different to mine.

 

[indianspur]

They do rest Ronaldo and Messi, but only rather rarely.

More importantly Real and Barca are in completely different situations to us. They fairly regularly win games comfortably where they can take their foot off the gas for the last 30 minutes of games. They're both exceptionally good at keeping possession and resting with the ball when they feel like it. And unlike Kane and Eriksen for us Messi and Ronaldo are given a lot of freedom to just stand around and not defend. Other players (that are rotated more) make up the work rate in games, because those two (Messi and Ronaldo) are so extremely rare as talents that it makes sense for those clubs. I just don't think our situation is very similar.

How do you know that "all of our best players could have coped with Fiorentina, West Ham, Fiorentina and Chelsea in an 11 day period"? I'm sorry, but that's just an empty claim. Pochettino and the coaches work with the players on the training ground every day. The European hangover effect is well documented and we've seen many examples for ourselves this very season. You can't just claim the opposite and expect people to believe you.

well these mish mash team selections so far have seen us go out of the EL and drop two points at home to West Spam....trying to rotate, not starting with our best players hasnt worked.

you will not see many teams not starting their important matchwinners at these stages and beyond of the EL or CL.

 

[braineclipse]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

In the last couple of weeks I think I've seen people claim that Poch should do just about every possible thing in terms of team selection and rotation (including a lack of rotation) in the 3 games leading up to the League Cup final. The differences in what people have wanted have been as big as I can remember seeing them on here.

I think that highlights how difficult Poch's decisions have been. And for me at least I think it's worth pointing out that there were no obvious "this is right" solutions that could be agreed upon. Pochettino has a lot more information about team fitness levels and form, and he's taking into account a lot of factors that we can simply ignore or just aren't aware of.

The one opinion I really dislike in a situation like this is "This is what Poch should have done" or "Poch got it wrong" or "he should have just". It seems to me anyone claiming to know with certainty what from the outside really cannot be known are at once showed to be wrong when making such claims.

 

[braineclipse]

well these mish mash team selections so far have seen us go out of the EL and drop two points at home to West Spam....trying to rotate, not starting with our best players hasnt worked.

you will not see many teams not starting their important matchwinners at these stages and beyond of the EL or CL.

And you will not see many teams with a League Cup final coming up 3 days after the second leg of their EL or CL game...

 

[Eriktheviking]

Do you agree that it is easy to say these things in retrospect though?

If our weakened team had made their first half dominance pay in the first leg, we could have easily won it 4-1 and we would have seen a different selection in the second leg.

Alternatively, it is not unknown for our first eleven to struggle and we could have played a strong team in the first leg and still come away needing something in Florence.

The concern for me at the moment is that in both the first leg and against West Ham we have dominated, then conceded against the run of play and then lost our way a bit. Hopefully, it is just one of those things and we get over it soon because fighting back has been one of our strengths this season.

Oh absolutely i can sit here and say this and that. I appreciate that Poch is the manager for a reason and i wouldnt expect him to walk into my office and tell me about the planning system.

I just find it interesting as an outsider who has 15 big projects on at once and relating that back to fixture congestion. If we all had the same opinion, life would be boring and if i was any good as a football manager id be in the dugout, not Poch.

 

[indianspur]

And you will not see many teams with a League Cup final coming up 3 days after the second leg of their EL or CL game...

i want to take you back to christmas/new year

we played Burnley, Leicester, Man Utd and Chelski from Dec 20th to Jan 1st, whats that 4 games in 12 days? Kane started in all 4, scored 4 goals in 3 of those games, we won 3 and drew 1, the Chelski game came at the end of that little run and as we all remember we won 5-3 and completely went toe to toe with Chelski and Kane ran them ragged. Poch played the majority of our best players in all 4 games, very little rotation and definitely didnt leave out key players in all 4

all im saying is that i dont think we would have done any worse if we had adopted the same approach to this period of games. just my opinion

 

[Gutter Boy]

Dare I say it but I think that we really missed Mason yesterday.

Definitely. He's our one player that is indispensable. We have passable replacements for everyone else, but not him. Without him we don't have drive and we don't transition the ball quickly enough to the AMs.

at this stage every game is important imo.....i never see Real resting Ronaldo, Barca resting Messi, these guys play an immense number of games every season, compete in all comps, and are vital to their teams. Kane right now is is just as vital to us, is young, in red hot form, very fit, coming off the back of 9 day break he and all of our best players could have coped with Fiorentina, West Ham, Fiorentina and Chelsea in an 11 day period.

and remember, the majority of our current preferred best players havent even been starters for the whole season. Plenty of miles left in their little legs

The top teams don't need to rest players because they don't have to compete as hard. The cruise through a lot of games at 70%. We have to battle in almost every single one, which takes a great toll

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

In the last couple of weeks I think I've seen people claim that Poch should do just about every possible thing in terms of team selection and rotation (including a lack of rotation) in the 3 games leading up to the League Cup final. The differences in what people have wanted have been as big as I can remember seeing them on here.

I think that highlights how difficult Poch's decisions have been. And for me at least I think it's worth pointing out that there were no obvious "this is right" solutions that could be agreed upon. Pochettino has a lot more information about team fitness levels and form, and he's taking into account a lot of factors that we can simply ignore or just aren't aware of.

The one opinion I really dislike in a situation like this is "This is what Poch should have done" or "Poch got it wrong" or "he should have just". It seems to me anyone claiming to know with certainty what from the outside really cannot be known are at once showed to be wrong when making such claims.

Agreed. This sort of thing happens everytime there is a bad result though. Poch mentioned it in one of his interviews in the week. No-matter what he does, the success of it will be measured on nothing other than the results by fans and by the media.

Had he played Kane, Eriksen etc in both games and we perform awfully but scrape a win in them both, he'll be hailed a genius. If he had played Kane, Eriksen etc in both games, we'd played fantastically but got beaten he would have been criticised because the players 'must have been tired'

If we lose Sunday, the 'should have prioritised the EL, its our best chance of CL' will come out. If Bentaleb (or any of the other players who played 90mins Thursday) make somekind of error that costs us the 'he shouldn't have played in Italy, he made that mistake because he was tired' will come out.

It's the nature of being a manager these days. Win, and all is well, lose and every little thing that you do comes under scrutiny. Worse than that, scrutiny with the benifit of hindsight and criticism of things that were not highlighted until the games have finished.

 

[metalgear]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

In the last couple of weeks I think I've seen people claim that Poch should do just about every possible thing in terms of team selection and rotation (including a lack of rotation) in the 3 games leading up to the League Cup final. The differences in what people have wanted have been as big as I can remember seeing them on here.

I think that highlights how difficult Poch's decisions have been. And for me at least I think it's worth pointing out that there were no obvious "this is right" solutions that could be agreed upon. Pochettino has a lot more information about team fitness levels and form, and he's taking into account a lot of factors that we can simply ignore or just aren't aware of.

The one opinion I really dislike in a situation like this is "This is what Poch should have done" or "Poch got it wrong" or "he should have just". It seems to me anyone claiming to know with certainty what from the outside really cannot be known are at once showed to be wrong when making such claims.

same could be said about Sherwood, AVB and all the other coaches eh?

 

[braineclipse]

i want to take you back to christmas/new year

we played Burnley, Leicester, Man Utd and Chelski from Dec 20th to Jan 1st, whats that 4 games in 12 days? Kane started in all 4, scored 4 goals in 3 of those games, we won 3 and drew 1, the Chelski game came at the end of that little run and as we all remember we won 5-3 and completely went toe to toe with Chelski and Kane ran them ragged. Poch played the majority of our best players in all 4 games, very little rotation and definitely didnt leave out key players in all 4

all im saying is that i dont think we would have done any worse if we had adopted the same approach to this period of games. just my opinion

Yes. Then we had 4 games in 12 or however many days. In that same period Chelsea had 4 games in 12 or however many days...

Now... We have 4 games in 11 days. How many games have Chelsea been playing in that same period?

The difference really isn't hard to see...

same could be said about Sherwood, AVB and all the other coaches eh?

To an extent, yes. But I think if you re-read my post you may notice that I think this particular situation is a bit different, and I gave some reasons why I think that. And you may also notice that I haven't claimed that this argumentation is valid in all cases for Poch.

 

[indianspur]

Yes. Then we had 4 games in 12 or however many days. In that same period Chelsea had 4 games in 12 or however many days...

Now... We have 4 games in 11 days. How many games have Chelsea been playing in that same period?

The difference really isn't hard to see...

i was talking about our fitness levels, our team selections, our results in that period. We coped, and we coped very well imo by playing our best players in all those games over a short period of time. By the 4th game we were exceptional, confidence was high, players were in form and firing on all cylinders.

 

[Ade's folks are ok really]

Definitely. He's our one player that is indispensable. We have passable replacements for everyone else, but not him. Without him we don't have drive and we don't transition the ball quickly enough to the AMs.

Wow. I'm a fan of Mason and to a degree don't disagree with your post. But wow, are we really now a team that feels our whole game is based around Mason of all people being on the pitch??

We play our best football when we don't spend too long on the ball. Some of our one-touch football has been the reason we've opened up opponents and created chances.
Just before xmas, against Burnley in particular. We were taking sooooo much time on the ball that it gave teams a chance to get their shape. I saw nothing of the high-tempo quick play that Poch was so recognised for!
At least lastnight, in the first half we strung some decent moves together by one-touch football, and dare i say it, even Soldado helps us in that respect. I like his neat flicks and the main beneficiary is usually Eriksen. I think he brings a better game when we are fast-flowing. It was def how we beat Chelsea and Arsenal.
If Mason enables us to play that way, then great. But it needs to be a combined effort. Just one player on that pitch taking too many touches slows the emphasis down entirely, and against Chelsea we can't afford to let them be organised!

 

[ringo]

What I don't understand is why, if you are setting up with a comparatively slow back four, you play with such a high line. It was obvious that with their pace they would rip us apart every time they caught us flat -which was quite a lot. We were lucky not to have conceded more.

I'm not sure Poch is very flexible on tactics. He is well studied in the high pressing game, but that tactic has its drawbacks and isn't necessarily the best set up in all games. When Walker, Dier or Rose plays, at least it offers some cover. Last night, with a Fazio/Verts pairing and no real pace in the full backs, we should have defended more deeply. At Wembley we will have to be very aware of the same risk - I can see Costa getting in over the top against Fazio/Verts.

In the same way inverted wingers and a preference for wide players coming inside makes it difficult to break down teams that get everyone behind the ball and pack out the box. Then you need width -getting to the byeline, stretching defences to create small pockets of space. Pulling the two lines of four around. We go down sides a bit, turn back inside and end up in front of the two banks of four again.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Wow. I'm a fan of Mason and to a degree don't disagree with your post. But wow, are we really now a team that feels our whole game is based around Mason of all people being on the pitch??

We play our best football when we don't spend too long on the ball. Some of our one-touch football has been the reason we've opened up opponents and created chances.

Just before xmas, against Burnley in particular. We were taking sooooo much time on the ball that it gave teams a chance to get their shape. I saw nothing of the high-tempo quick play that Poch was so recognised for!

At least lastnight, in the first half we strung some decent moves together by one-touch football, and dare i say it, even Soldado helps us in that respect. I like his neat flicks and the main beneficiary is usually Eriksen. I think he brings a better game when we are fast-flowing. It was def how we beat Chelsea and Arsenal.

If Mason enables us to play that way, then great. But it needs to be a combined effort. Just one player on that pitch taking too many touches slows the emphasis down entirely, and against Chelsea we can't afford to let them be organised!

It's not that Mason is our best player, just that we don't have anyone else that does his job. Stambouli is competent cover for Bentaleb, but we don't have an equivalent for Mason.

Mason has single-handedly solved the turgidness that plagued us for the past few seasons.

What I don't understand is why, if you are setting up with a comparatively slow back four, you play with such a high line. It was obvious that with their pace they would rip us apart every time they caught us flat -which was quite a lot. We were lucky not to have conceded more.

I'm not sure Poch is very flexible on tactics. He is well studied in the high pressing game, but that tactic has its drawbacks and isn't necessarily the best set up in all games. When Walker, Dier or Rose plays, at least it offers some cover. Last night, with a Fazio/Verts pairing and no real pace in the full backs, we should have defended more deeply. At Wembley we will have to be very aware of the same risk - I can see Costa getting in over the top against Fazio/Verts.

In the same way inverted wingers and a preference for wide players coming inside makes it difficult to break down teams that get everyone behind the ball and pack out the box. Then you need width -getting to the byeline, stretching defences to create small pockets of space. Pulling the two lines of four around. We go down sides a bit, turn back inside and end up in front of the two banks of four again.

We had to score last week. Italian teams are notorious for parking the bus and grinding out bore draws. The high line was a calculated risk, which nearly came off (if Soldado and Fazio hadn't made individual errors)

 

[braineclipse]

i was talking about our fitness levels, our team selections, our results in that period. We coped, and we coped very well imo by playing our best players in all those games over a short period of time. By the 4th game we were exceptional, confidence was high, players were in form and firing on all cylinders.

And you don't think how we looked in that 4th game was influenced by the fitness levels of our opposition?

 

[indianspur]

look at chelski back in season 2012-13.....they had to play

And you don't think how we looked in that 4th game was influenced by the fitness levels of our opposition?

not really. Chelski played well in that game too, they themselves could easily have won 5-3, instead we were more clinical and took our chances and they didnt.

we have a young team, average age 23-24, they are fit, confident, most havent even played all our games since the start of the season. There is no reason to even consider tiredness at this stage of the season. we are not in April/May, we are still in February. i simply think a bit of fear has taken over the coaching staff and they have rested certain players like Kane, Mason and Eriksen for the fear that they might get injured ahead of the cup final. The coaching staff have decided that the cup final is more important than the Europa League and that competition has been sacrificed. Its their choice and as Poch said he will be judged either as a genius or foolish by the end of Sunday night.

 

[Spurmac1974]

Walker needed a rest and chiriches did ok
Fazio won this last year and so experienced in winning away in europe (Push to star DIer 3 games in a week)
Davies less attacking than Rose who nobody seems to rate anyway

Sorry dont agree, the one area of the pitch you cant mess about with is the back 4, played in one long enough to know that it messes the whole dyamic up with 1 change never mind 2! In fact including Davies 3, really niave decision by Poch! Centre halfs dont need rotating its a total nonsense to think they do!