Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

[DTA]

Any way my take on pouch is this:

There was a point in the season when we seemed to click, the system and the players seemed to be in sync and we were effective.

However Jose (a proper tactician) put together a plan to nullify our system, and everybody else has used and adapted it since, to great affect

That's why we see the downturn in results,now we need to be able to adapt ourselves..... In fact it would have been good if we were able to adapt in the final..... But hey ho.

 

[Gutter Boy]

I was pleasantly surprised. As soon as he has been able to he has dropped those consistently under-performing. I think he's done a fine job this season. Why, you may legitimately ask. It isn't immediately obvious to many that we have improved, or even been 'as good' this season as last. What I would say is that the squad, from being a 'where do you even start?' situation as one poster put it, a real mish-mash of similar looking players, is starting to take shape into a core of players we can see are suitable for the philosophy and style of the manager, who train hard, are hungry and have been involved in some very promising performances.

We've also highlighted a group of players that are definately for the chop. From this situation, we can work with building on this to improve the squad in the areas Poch think it falls down in terms of his philosophy. He's mentioned mentality and attitude numerous times this season as the key weakness for him in the squad. I'm very interested in what happens this summer. I'm quietly excited about next season.

The problem is that they won't be easy to get rid of. The whole narrative of the summer will be trying to get rid of that dozen or so (Kaboul, Chiriches, Khumalo, Paulinho, Dembele, Capoue, Holtby, Carroll, Lennon, Soldado, Ade, Friedel etc.), to enable us to bring in 1 or 2 choice players (to add to Alli and Wimmer).

If we don't get rid of a big chunk of them early doors, we'll end up fishing in the deadline day bargain bin yet again

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

Sherwood Sherwood Sherwood

don't you lot ever get bored of repeating the same cobblers over and over again

It keeps getting brought up because some of the anti Sherwood folks had such a clearly, obvious and transparent agenda against him that they would come off with the most ridiculous comments to try and make him look bad. So when similar things happen and they don't beat Poch with the same stick it blatently shows up their agenda and gets brought up again by those who found their original comments so laughable.

If they'd just called a spade a spade and said, Sherwood is doing an alright job, but he's a bit of a dingdong and I don't think he's the right guy for the club going forward, then I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be too much Sherwood chat anymore.

 

[indianspur]

The problem is that they won't be easy to get rid of. The whole narrative of the summer will be trying to get rid of that dozen or so (Kaboul, Chiriches, Khumalo, Paulinho, Dembele, Capoue, Holtby, Carroll, Lennon, Soldado, Ade, Friedel etc.), to enable us to bring in 1 or 2 choice players (to add to Alli and Wimmer).

If we don't get rid of a big chunk of them early doors, we'll end up fishing in the deadline day bargain bin yet again

well as you say, Alli is done, Wimmer almost done, i see today we are linked with Basle's Schar on completing a summer free, Ayew seems quite close according to reports............there you have 4 players who if we wanted we could have all ready for pre season

 

[Baleforce]

could the same apply to Poch and Kane this season?.........without Kane's brilliance GHod knows where we would be

possibly, but MP's face fits for me so I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt for now

 

[Baleforce]

How do you know that for sure? And how did 'captain bellend' manage to get hat trick of wins over pouch?

magic? alien interference? russian spies?

I can't think of a single reasonable explanation

 

[braineclipse]

By crap I probably mean overrated and nothing special in Koeman's case. Laudrup was crap though and called it from day one, even before people starting fawning over him. Just like Southampton now he benefitted massively from the work put in by others. Just like Martinez is nothing special, but since he's at another club the glaring flaws get overlooked.

Poch may not be anything special either, but he's perfect for us right now. I doubt there are many out there who could have done better than him this season, making us competitive (while inconsistent) and also putting in work that we will benefit from long term. The whole team is fitter, we've had a proper look at everyone in the squad to determine who stays and who needs to go and we're bringing through academy products.

Fair enough on Koeman, like I say I definitely think you know more about him than me. Appreciate your opinion mate.

On Poch I agree completely.

The ' problems' people had with Sherwood were because of an agenda they had with with the individual, based on the fact that he was not the type (pie and mash) of manager they wanted. He absolutely didn't help himself with some of the things he did or said, but didn't deserve the sh#t he got/gets either. I'm convinced he will be a good manager but you are right this is not the place to discuss it.

So you agree that the problems people had with Sherwood wasn't the results. And that this isn't the place to discuss Sherwood. Yet what you bring up is Sherwood - and his results. Probably just what we need to have an informed and adult conversation about Pochettino... Or not.

The problem is that they won't be easy to get rid of. The whole narrative of the summer will be trying to get rid of that dozen or so (Kaboul, Chiriches, Khumalo, Paulinho, Dembele, Capoue, Holtby, Carroll, Lennon, Soldado, Ade, Friedel etc.), to enable us to bring in 1 or 2 choice players (to add to Alli and Wimmer).

If we don't get rid of a big chunk of them early doors, we'll end up fishing in the deadline day bargain bin yet again

Yeah. We'll definitely have some drawn out transfer business this summer. But let's not get frustrated before it even starts.

Kaboul, Khumalo, Holtby, Carroll and Friedel will not impact who we sign. They will be easy enough to loan out if we can't sell them (or they retire), not on huge wages and won't bring in big fees (though Holtby might bring in a pretty penny).

Chirches and Lennon should be fairly sought after going by media speculation at least. We should be able to get most of our money back on Vlad, and Lennon will have plenty of PL clubs after him. I think Capoue could fit in here too.

Soldado, Ade, Paulinho and Dembele - assuming we want to get rid of all might be longer term things. We'll struggle to get our money back for most, on solid or big wages, and might need to make deals happen before buying someone.

 

[billyiddo]

It keeps getting brought up because some of the anti Sherwood folks had such a clearly, obvious and transparent agenda against him that they would come off with the most ridiculous comments to try and make him look bad. So when similar things happen and they don't beat Poch with the same stick it blatently shows up their agenda and gets brought up again by those who found their original comments so laughable.

If they'd just called a spade a spade and said, Sherwood is doing an alright job, but he's a bit of a dingdong and I don't think he's the right guy for the club going forward, then I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be too much Sherwood chat anymore.

I can only really think of Gutterboy, Scara and Jord that could possibly fit in to that description - which leads me to think you are letting a vocal minority cloud your judgement on others - generally feeling was he done alright iirc - the debate was how much of a taco he had been.

Anyway i fail to see the relevance 99% of the time he is brought up outside of the thread in Random these days

 

[LutonSpurs]

One of the patterns we have seen is when teams play 3 in the middle against us and sit deep we struggle. This really needs addressing. Mason and Bentaleb are just not dominant enough to handle the 3 players and with our full backs pushed up at all attacks and the 2 wider players in the attacking 3 not always able to track it leaves us wide open to good attacks from the opposition. We had lots of success when Dembele was played in the hole because he is naturally more defensively minded. I want Poch to address this at is glaringly obvious and other teams seem to have picked up on it and are exploiting it.

 

[NWND]

I believe that not to be the case, form under AVB extrapolated over the whole season would have seen us finish with 1 more point

I don't believe it would have done, however, as the performances often did not match the results. In particular I remember poor performances that resulted in wins against Palace, Swansea and Hull (I think) where a highly debatable penalty was awarded for us that allowed us to win a game in which we were not the better team. I also remember a 94th minute winner by Paulinho against Cardiff? I think results would have caught up with performances and there'd have been a lot more defeats and draws as the season went on, performances were getting worse throughout the season. At no point under AVB that season did we look anything above average and I think a performance of that level over the whole season would have resulted in an 'average' league position - 8th-13th probably.

 

[NWND]

One of the patterns we have seen is when teams play 3 in the middle against us and sit deep we struggle. This really needs addressing. Mason and Bentaleb are just not dominant enough to handle the 3 players and with our full backs pushed up at all attacks and the 2 wider players in the attacking 3 not always able to track it leaves us wide open to good attacks from the opposition. We had lots of success when Dembele was played in the hole because he is naturally more defensively minded. I want Poch to address this at is glaringly obvious and other teams seem to have picked up on it and are exploiting it.

What teams are exploiting it? I don't think teams are tactically nullifying us whatsoever. I think our performance levels have dipped, in particular, our pressing as a team has stopped. The players look tired physically and mentally and there is a lack of squad options, which means Mason, Bentaleb, Kane etc can't really be rested/dropped. Other teams have taken advantage of the dip in performances. Anyway, arguably, defeat away vs Liverpool, defeat away vs Man Utd, draw away vs Burnley, defeat at home to Aston Villa. Even taking lower performance levels into account, the defeat home vs Villa is the only real shocker in there in my view, result-wise. We were probably due a poor home defeat as we haven't had one in absolutely ages (i'm talking law of averages here). Southampton lost recently to Swansea and Everton. Yet some on here are hailing Koeman as the messiah when comparing him to Poch. I'd say our current 'dissapointing' league position owes more to the poor form shown at the beginning of the season with SEVERAL poor results in a row, when we were around 14th-15th in the table and the old guard were still in the team, rather than the current dip in form. All teams have dips in form and its the first dip in form the current team (the "academy" team I will call it, given it centres around Mason, Bentaleb and Kane) has actually suffered.

 

[NWND]

It made me laugh as well that someone above suggested Jose had managed to magically find a formula to stop Poch's tactics in the cup-final, as though Chelsea were the minows up against Poch's team of world-class invincibles who are completely unplayable, rather than a team of academy players and low-value signings were beaten 2-0 by one of the most experienced, high-quality and expensively assembled squads in world football. I mean, LOL!!! I'll tell you what Jose's magic formula was, it was making sure his team didn't underperform on the day and take us fore granted.

 

[DTA]

I can only really think of Gutterboy, Scara and Jord that could possibly fit in to that description - which leads me to think you are letting a vocal minority cloud your judgement on others - generally feeling was he done alright iirc - the debate was how much of a lady garden he had been.

Anyway i fail to see the relevance 99% of the time he is brought up outside of the thread in Random these days

Well actually there was a lot more galeforce, gloryglory, thfcsteff, the list was substantial.

 

[Baleforce]

I don't believe it would have done, however, as the performances often did not match the results. In particular I remember poor performances that resulted in wins against Palace, Swansea and Hull (I think) where a highly debatable penalty was awarded for us that allowed us to win a game in which we were not the better team. I also remember a 94th minute winner by Paulinho against Cardiff? I think results would have caught up with performances and there'd have been a lot more defeats and draws as the season went on, performances were getting worse throughout the season. At no point under AVB that season did we look anything above average and I think a performance of that level over the whole season would have resulted in an 'average' league position - 8th-13th probably.

I have no argument with any of that, however I will say that I believed results could have improved, Liverpool had a worse start this season but the new signings eventually got up to speed and they turned a corner.

 

[Jordinho]

And next we'll see people admitting that AVB isn't a clueless charlatan just because they don't like his style of play.

 

[DTA]

It made me laugh as well that someone above suggested Jose had managed to magically find a formula to stop Poch's tactics in the cup-final, as though Chelsea were the minows up against Poch's team of world-class invincibles who are completely unplayable, rather than a team of academy players and low-value signings were beaten 2-0 by one of the most experienced, high-quality and expensively assembled squads in world football. I mean, LOL!!! I'll tell you what Jose's magic formula was, it was making sure his team didn't underperform on the day and take us fore granted.

I was me that said it, look at the cup final again and the games following it. See the resemblance in the other teams structure.

Does that mean Chelsea are minnows, hell no.. it means that their excellent manager set them out tactically with the best opportunity for them to win, by taking advantage of the weaknesses in our system, something that LVG built on and exploited further, other managers have noticed and replicated.

 

[NWND]

The problem is that they won't be easy to get rid of. The whole narrative of the summer will be trying to get rid of that dozen or so (Kaboul, Chiriches, Khumalo, Paulinho, Dembele, Capoue, Holtby, Carroll, Lennon, Soldado, Ade, Friedel etc.), to enable us to bring in 1 or 2 choice players (to add to Alli and Wimmer).

If we don't get rid of a big chunk of them early doors, we'll end up fishing in the deadline day bargain bin yet again

I agree. Levy has got to be prepared to take a massive hit on some (I'm thinking Paulinho, Capoue and Soldado) as their form has been so terrible, we will pretty much have to give them away.

 

[NWND]

I was me that said it, look at the cup final again and the games following it. See the resemblance in the other teams structure.

Does that mean Chelsea are minnows, hell no.. it means that their excellent manager set them out tactically with the best opportunity for them to win, by taking advantage of the weaknesses in our system, something that LVG built on and exploited further, other managers have noticed and replicated.

We struggled against Man Utd at home prior to that game. I don't think he copied Jose. Man Utd have been very direct this season, pumping long-balls to their wing-backs and Fellaini. That negates our pressing game by default and it is always likely we will struggle against teams that play that style of play. We also struggled against West Ham for the same reason.

 

[billyiddo]

Well actually there was a lot more galeforce, gloryglory, thfcsteff, the list was substantial.

I haven't seen those posters claim we didn't do well in terms of on the field results under Sherwood.

Anyway it has no relevance to this thread and it's quite annoying to be met with 'What about Sherwood?!?' Everytime someone attempts to discuss our actual manager in this thread. You've got a thread over in random if you want to waste your time talking about him

 

[NWND]

Ultimately, my point still stands in that defeats against Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool do not represent poor performances or management by Poch, or our tactics 'getting found out', they represent the balance of probabilities results given the relative abilities of the two teams playing.