Pretty much everything we post here is conjecture and/or conspiracy. But I'm relatively confident that Pochettino would not have allowed Kaboul and Adebayor to be nominated and selected as club captain and vice-captain and then - less than two months later - effectively banished them from the first team setup for most of the rest of the season UNLESS there were significant disciplinary problems. When you add that fact (which isn't conjecture, just a matter of record) to the rumours and leaks which emerged at the time, I honestly do not think it's unfair to assume that there is some merit in the notion that a small clique of "senior players" did in fact attempt to undermine the manager.
If I am wrong about that - then (shock! horror!) I would actually keep Adebayor ahead of Soldado... assuming we *had* to keep hold of one of them. But that's the assumption I'm working on, and based on that I want to see the back of those three players.
Regarding Pochettino's denials... I would expect no less. He should not be airing the internal dirty laundry of the club in the media (aside from anything else it would instantly make it harder to sell any of the players involved).
This is interesting. Firstly let me point out (cause I'm all about "removing the stigma") that I was diagnosed with clinical depression about 13 years ago. I lost the best part of two years of my life to that damn illness, though I'm happy to say that - with plenty of help - I have managed the condition pretty well over the past decade or so. I lost my job of course (try keeping a high pressure job in industrial consultancy involving travelling all over the world, when you can't even get out of bed in the morning!) and once I'd gotten over the worst of it I - as a direct result - went back to uni and qualified as a psychoanalyst.
gree with
Sorry if all of this falls into the "too much information" category, but I just want to make it clear that I completely agree with you that we should not lambast anyone (football player or anyone else) for mental health issues and should support them completely. Though I would be careful about diagnosing someone with clinical depression from afar (in my professional opinion, it's unlikely he's suffering from clinical depression specifically, though there are quite a few signs that he may have a depressive illness of some kind). So that's not what this is about for me... for me it's all about his attempting to undermine the manager (which as I say, I believe happened, though I don't know for sure). That's not acceptable - whatever you're suffering from. And I'm not saying we should "fire" Ade because of his problems. I'm saying we should either sell him or pay him off.
Because I think he's a liability for the club (as was I for my company back when the quality of my work started to slip badly). I guess the main difference is that my boss just fired me (his sympathetic demeanour wasn't exactly much of a consolation) and didn't pay me a massive wedge to get rid.
