Mauricio Pochettino

[glorygloryeze]

You're right. No way was May of 2019 the peak of Poch's Tottenham. At that point, it was the last sting of a dying wasp. We had Sissoko and Winks in CM FFS. No disrespect to either, they are decent players, but compared to Dembele, 2015/16 Dier and Wanyama - they paled in comparison.

Many people point to the 1-2 v Burnley that season as the turning point. I think it came long before that personally because, while we picked up a lot of points early in 2018/19, I didn't think we were playing particularly well. I thought something broke the previous season after we beat Chelsea 3-1 at their place. That was probably the last really great Poch performance I remember. The results and performances for the remainder of that season even were a bit patchy.

You're absolutely right - performances tailed off, at whatever point, because the players couldn't sustain what he wanted and he needed a refresh.

You could see physically we were declining from around the FA Cup semi-final vs Man Utd. I think they gave one ;ast 'heave' to get over the line re top 4 so we could start the next season back at the new WHL. After the last game vs Eriksen in his interview you could see he was sighing relief that the last push had done it and was looking forward to getting back 'home' the next season.

When we were a) delayed in getting back to WHL so staying again at Wembley and then b) we didn't bring in new blood to be able to ease some of those guts physically into the new season (which was just after a world cup btw) we started the season running purely on fumes and 'muscle memory' and it was slowly going to catch up with us. Sigh..

I would love to know what happened in that Burnley game to get Poch so wound up and shouting at mike Dean at the end. That wasn't the turning point in the decline but was the nail in getting us to mentally push once more to be in a title challenge by the latter part of that season. We'd just had a ten day break as well...so you'd think some of the fatigue we'd been managing wouldn't have been as much of a factor plus notably Kane had returned from injury for that match

 

[Muttley]

You could see physically we were declining from around the FA Cup semi-final vs Man Utd. I think they gave one ;ast 'heave' to get over the line re top 4 so we could start the next season back at the new WHL. After the last game vs Eriksen in his interview you could see he was sighing relief that the last push had done it and was looking forward to getting back 'home' the next season.

When we were a) delayed in getting back to WHL so staying again at Wembley and then b) we didn't bring in new blood to be able to ease some of those guts physically into the new season (which was just after a world cup btw) we started the season running purely on fumes and 'muscle memory' and it was slowly going to catch up with us. Sigh..

I would love to know what happened in that Burnley game to get Poch so wound up and shouting at mike Dean at the end. That wasn't the turning point in the decline but was the nail in getting us to mentally push once more to be in a title challenge by the latter part of that season. We'd just had a ten day break as well...so you'd think some of the fatigue we'd been managing wouldn't have been as much of a factor plus notably Kane had returned from injury for that match

I think the Mike Dean cover up by PGMOL was one of the lowest points for that organisation. It was obvious the arrogant prick spoke out of turn to our management team. Under Mike Riley, they thought they were untouchable and it bred a horrible culture that still exists today. The net has circled on PGMOL though with Riley losing that role to Webb, who we don't yet really know is any better. PGMOL had a series of managers complaining, and more recently 2 of the big 6 made public statement of no confidence on the PGMOL team. I just wish Levy had done the same after the Dean incident. As as club, we had every right to go hard on Antony Taylor as well for the Antonio Valencia incident in the first half of that FA Cup semi. Taylor changed the course of our history that day for us. Poch would have gone into that final as favourites with a great team had it not been for Taylor's ineptitiude. Whether he would have got us over the line, we'll never know.