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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

El Guepardo said:
We did last ditch defending and good saves from Lloris. But what the fudge happened yesterday? Dreadful defending in the second half. Our keeper has had to make 95 saves this season. That’s twice the number that City’s keeper has had to make. City with the lowest number of saves this season. After them are Liverpool and Chelsea. We are midtable as far as the ‘saves’ statistic. That shows to me that we are conceding far too many chances.

Now, a big part of that is our central midfield as it’s been weaker this season than most with injuries, and players having moved on. But Pochettino and Levy have had two windows to address that and ended up with zero incomings. So that doesn’t bode well to be able to identify weaknesses and stand by almost as if with arms crossed behind back.

Our defending as a team isn’t good enough on a consistent basis. In previous seasons we have had an excellent defensive record, with amongst fewest goals conceded. So what happened this season?!
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Toby came back into the fold and screwed our thinking, switching between 4 & 5 caused issues and may be clarified by Toby Leaving
Trippier's form has fallen off a cliff (or returned to normal) , Aurier has been accident waiting to happen (Sissoko has been trying to cover right of midfield 3)
Eriksen has been dragged to Left of a Midfield 3, which has broken him

Wanyama's non return from Injury and Dembele's body finally going alongside Dier's Appendix and Tonsils left Winks as the only midfielder in middle and that has broken him.

If we had just got rid of Dembele and Wanyama earlier and brought in fit players i think we would have been far better off
 
StephenH said:
Really want them to do well but Sanchez and Foyth, are they a problem?
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Sanchez isn’t playing as well as he did last season. Last season his biggest weakness was his aerial presence. This year he seems to be wanting to share other areas of his game as weaknesses too.
 
I like Sanchez and he’s still young. However I’d say he hasn’t improved this season and could argue he’s gone backwards. Certainly wouldn’t feel confident with him in a back four without Toby and/or Verts. He’s still way behind those two IMO.
 
El Guepardo said:
And as always, the buck falls with the manager. Why are we making those errors? Why are we not in position of control and not able to defend a lead? If the manager can’t answer those questions then is he the right manager for us? I greatly admire the work Pochettino has done for us but right now there are questions that he, and the team, must find answers to.
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I do think the players have to take more responsibility

The very best managers cannot account for trippiers OG, every player leaving the ball yesterday, Toby standing still when Pedro ran at him... the list is endless

If we think there’s a bettee manager out there who could fix the players making those mistakes I’d love to know who?

Pep hasn’t stopped Walker making brain farts has he
 
Jurgen the German said:
I like Sanchez and he’s still young. However I’d say he hasn’t improved this season and could argue he’s gone backwards. Certainly wouldn’t feel confident with him in a back four without Toby and/or Verts. He’s still way behind those two IMO.
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Sanchez needs regular games and he won’t get them in a defence that’s constantly changing
 
Bedfordspurs said:
I do think the players have to take more responsibility

The very best managers cannot account for trippiers OG, every player leaving the ball yesterday, Toby standing still when Pedro ran at him... the list is endless

If we think there’s a bettee manager out there who could fix the players making those mistakes I’d love to know who?

Pep hasn’t stopped Walker making brain farts has he
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It’s true that the players do need to take responsibility. But perhaps we could start with a fixed defence. Don’t change the team every match. We have limited matches left so let’s just get the defence set and keep it as barring injuries or suspensions.

Play Aurier - Vertonghen - Alderweireld - Rose

Those are our best 4 as it stands. Tell the team that we are in the crucial stages of the season and encourage them to fight as if their lives depend upon it as this period of the season is when they will truly be judged. We have great opportunities ahead of us, we are at a time in the players careers where we can still achieve so much and do these players want to look back in future when their short careers are over at what they achieved, or instead at how they let their determining moments pass them by.
 
elltrev said:
Not sure they're a problem as such - they're only 21 and 22 - but maybe it is a problem (or at least not ideal) that both of our backup CBs are so young?

Then again, think a bigger problem is our first choice right-back and defensive quality and depth in central midfield.
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"The problem" was the wrong word, I think we may be we are being a little too "brave" choosing two relatively young and experienced defenders especially when it comes to Foyth at the level, we supposedly are at.

Pochettino may well have gone to the 'be brave' well too often this season?
 
metalgear said:
Poch needs to rotate players better. His subs aren't always inspiring too. Understand the need for control but sometimes it looks like he has his favourites. Maybe something in the aura-sphere that I cannot see.

Sent from my SM-N960F using

Tapatalk
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It was a criticism at Southampton, he had a core of players that always started regardless.
He's been very fortunate here that players not getting game time haven't kicked off.
Moura, lamela and aurier have all been messed about imo.
Trippier and Eriksen have been off form, being kind, and yet getting runs in the team.
While at least one of those three don't make the bench.
If poch now starts picking one of them could you blame them if they took a while to get up to speed? Or even if they dialed it in, Eriksen has shown that that's the level you need to keep your place. If it's good enough for him it's good enough for me, they may well think.
Or why try to hard I know Eriksen will walk back into the team when poch wants him to.

This needs sorting and now.

And other thing, maybe DL is looking at it and thinking why should I buy players, who says you will play them? Both Moura and aurier struggling for game time, no one can say atm aurier isn't in better form than Trippier.
 
StephenH said:
"The problem" was the wrong word, I think we may be we are being a little too "brave" choosing two relatively young and experienced defenders especially when it comes to Foyth at the level, we supposedly are at.

Pochettino may well have gone to the 'be brave' well too often this season?
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When we bought Sanchez had we not verbally agreed a deal with Toby only for him to go back on it?
Foyth and Sanchez were the future with Toby and Jan there to guide them as they progress.
 
glasgowspur said:
When we bought Sanchez had we not verbally agreed a deal with Toby only for him to go back on it?
Foyth and Sanchez were the future with Toby and Jan there to guide them as they progress.
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Let’s hope we are now wiser with hindsight over the Toby type scenarios.
Don’t trust verbal anything!
 
@El Guepardo agree rotation has not always helped us. Players perform best when they get a consistent run of games. It often takes a few games for them to hit form.

So a different type of rotation is possible where players only get rotated out the team after a decent run, when they look like they are going off the boil. Didn't Ferguson do this? Different players become 'key players' for period of the season.

Poch has applied this approach in attack, but not in defense and his hand has been forced in midfield to be fair. If you look at our best defensive periods it was with a stable back line and midfield.
 
SpurMeUp said:
@El Guepardo agree rotation has not always helped us. Players perform best when they get a consistent run of games. It often takes a few games for them to hit form.

So a different type of rotation could be possible where players only get rotated after a decent run, when they look like they are going off the boil. Didn't Ferguson do this quite regularly? Different players would become 'key players' for period of the season.

Poch has applied this approach in attack, but not in defense and his hand has been forced in midfield to be fair. If you look at our best defensive periods it was with a stable back line and midfield.
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Defences work best when they play regular that’s for sure
 
imcallingbullsh*t said:
Toby came back into the fold and screwed our thinking, switching between 4 & 5 caused issues and may be clarified by Toby Leaving
Trippier's form has fallen off a cliff (or returned to normal) , Aurier has been accident waiting to happen (Sissoko has been trying to cover right of midfield 3)
Eriksen has been dragged to Left of a Midfield 3, which has broken him

Wanyama's non return from Injury and Dembele's body finally going alongside Dier's Appendix and Tonsils left Winks as the only midfielder in middle and that has broken him.

If we had just got rid of Dembele and Wanyama earlier and bought in fit players i think we would have been far better off
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I think this is an excellent appraisal of just what he has had to deal with, among other things. In fact, when you strip it down, this season has been nothing short of a miracle. Let's hope he can keep the smoke & mirrors through May. I believe he can.
 
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