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Jose Mourinho - SACKED

Robspur12 said:
And yet they still played well enough to get to the Champions League Final. For a squad of supposedly weak minded layabouts that was a pretty good achievement given that several of them are quite limited players at this level.

Complaining is part of life, Levy is far to shrewd to take account of complaining, lots of people fudging complain. Problems only arise when players don’t follow your instructions, not sure that we have evidence of players wilfully ignoring the coaches. From the article above it sounded more like Jose’s mind games were destabilising the squad and not in a positive”let’s shake them up” way. Imagine having a boss whose main motivational tactic is to wind you up in the hope of getting a reaction. I am sure there is some truth in those observation given the up and down form of so many players.

It is too easy to pile in on the players and blame them for the way our season has gone, when tbh the coaching staff looked bereft of ideas during games. We have some limited players for sure, but we also have some super talented ones and bar Harry Kane, no one was really giving a good account of themselves at the end. I think we just have to accept Jose was not up to the job and hopefully the next manager, with a few more additions can lift this team although I am sure some players will still complain.
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I’d probably be more willing to accept this explanation if they hadn’t played in pretty much the same way under Poch for the last 10 - 12 months of his tenure. The CL was a lovely distraction, but we were helped by a fair bit of luck, and it certainly put a gloss on a lot of lacklustre league play.
 
thfcsteff said:
What did Espen Baardsen say? As a caveat I should tell you he is a friend of mine and I know his time at the club very well.

IF, as I suspect you are referring to The Sun backpage, he was taken wildly out of context and stitched up.
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No problem with him being a friend of yours. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the source as, in the 90s, I had to buy whatever papers I could find with something about Spurs. Back in 1997/98, when we were fighting against relegation with the likes of Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday, he gave an interview in which he claimed that maybe being relegated would be a blessing in disguise. Again, I don't know if it came from the Sun.

You know me: I think everyone is entitled to their opinion (really!) and every idea is worth discussing.

However, this came (at least if I remember correctly) soon after Gross' sacking. Earlier, Les Ferdinand said in an interview about his former manager: 'it's a shame it didn't work out - I hope he learned something'.

I think everyone has a few 'red lines' they don't want to see crossed, when it comes to being a football fan. Mine is wishing the club to lose, no matter why. At the time, I thought it sent the wrong message: some of our players clearly felt they knew more about the game than their (former) manager and looked completely unmanageable, despite a questionable pedigree, and now we had our semi-back-up keeper saying that a little trip to the old First Division would be cool.

On the plus side, in the few articles I read about him, he looked like an interesting bloke, very different from your typical football player and much more open-minded. Don't know if he's like that 'in real life' though.

Seeing further than that, there's no such thing as 'player power gone mad'. Like (almost) everywhere in life, there are power struggles and everyone tries to get the best deal for themselves. I don't think asking the players whether you should sack the manager is the best way to keep some balance.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
No problem with him being a friend of yours. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the source as, in the 90s, I had to buy whatever papers I could find with something about Spurs. Back in 1997/98, when we were fighting against relegation with the likes of Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday, he gave an interview in which he claimed that maybe being relegated would be a blessing in disguise. Again, I don't know if it came from the Sun.

You know me: I think everyone is entitled to their opinion (really!) and every idea is worth discussing.

However, this came (at least if I remember correctly) soon after Gross' sacking. Earlier, Les Ferdinand said in an interview about his former manager: 'it's a shame it didn't work out - I hope he learned something'.

I think everyone has a few 'red lines' they don't want to see crossed, when it comes to being a football fan. Mine is wishing the club to lose, no matter why. At the time, I thought it sent the wrong message: some of our players clearly felt they knew more about the game than their (former) manager and looked completely unmanageable, despite a questionable pedigree, and now we had our semi-back-up keeper saying that a little trip to the old First Division would be cool.

On the plus side, in the few articles I read about him, he looked like an interesting bloke, very different from your typical football player and much more open-minded. Don't know if he's like that 'in real life' though.

Seeing further than that, there's no such thing as 'player power gone mad'. Like (almost) everywhere in life, there are power struggles and everyone tries to get the best deal for themselves. I don't think asking the players whether you should sack the manager is the best way to keep some balance.
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Without seeing the article it is impossible to know what was said and from where. One thing that happened to him a few times were Norwegian interviews translates and manipulated. I personally never ever heard, or saw, him say anything like that. So I think you have it wrong, or it was a slanderous misreporting. I didn't hear anything about anything like that. The season you're discussing? He was a big part of us being safe.
The one I know of was what I mentioned.

I also have to say, what did you mean when you said you had "no problem with him being my friend"? Strange mate. Why would it be a problem?
 
thfcsteff said:
Without seeing the article it is impossible to know what was said and from where. One thing that happened to him a few times were Norwegian interviews translates and manipulated. I personally never ever heard, or saw, him say anything like that. So I think you have it wrong, or it was a slanderous misreporting. I didn't hear anything about anything like that. The season you're discussing? He was a big part of us being safe.
The one I know of was what I mentioned.

I also have to say, what did you mean when you said you had "no problem with him being my friend"? Strange mate. Why would it be a problem?
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Yes, sorry, I realise my wording was a bit strange: I meant that I'd speak my mind, regardless of whether you know him or not. That's what happens when you try to do too many things at the same time, I guess...

I think my memory serves me well in this case because it made me pretty angry at the time but, like you said, you could print practically anything back then. Maybe it got lost in translation or something, who knows? Or maybe I missed his point completely. Also, I have to admit that I didn't really rate him that highly but since all I had to go by was TV highlights and a single game at the Lane (against Crystal Palace and I think Walker was playing that day), I bow to your superior knowledge (at least on this matter!).
 
Mr Gogolak said:
Yes, sorry, I realise my wording was a bit strange: I meant that I'd speak my mind, regardless of whether you know him or not. That's what happens when you try to do too many things at the same time, I guess...

I think my memory serves me well in this case because it made me pretty angry at the time but, like you said, you could print practically anything back then. Maybe it got lost in translation or something, who knows? Or maybe I missed his point completely. Also, I have to admit that I didn't really rate him that highly but since all I had to go by was TV highlights and a single game at the Lane (against Crystal Palace and I think Walker was playing that day), I bow to your superior knowledge (at least on this matter!).
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:D

Gotcha.
Yes, I'd have been furious with him. That's why it doesn't ring right in my memory at all. He was a really good keeper but lacked the "bastard" instinct if you know what I mean. He had several big games for us, with one 0-0 at scumbury being a highlight. I think his footwork probably didn't help, but the biggest problem with us was when GGG shat on him.
 
Mikey10 said:
I’d probably be more willing to accept this explanation if they hadn’t played in pretty much the same way under Poch for the last 10 - 12 months of his tenure. The CL was a lovely distraction, but we were helped by a fair bit of luck, and it certainly put a gloss on a lot of lacklustre league play.
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The downturn in form under both managers could have happened for different reasons.

Poch pushed his players to their physical and emotional limits. It broke some players physically ( Dembele Wanyama) and others emotionally ( possibly Eriksen and Dele). So key parts of his system were not performing as they had done previously. Added to this we were not refreshing the squad and over using the already wrecked players while relying on more limited members of the squad.

Under Mourinho, we had a squad refresh, started well then suffered a massive downturn. We still had limited players but also several very talented ones brought in. Mourinho starts calling out his players publicly. It cannot be good for confidence and team morale to see your boss calling you or your team mates out or having sly digs at you in the changing rooms. Confidence dips, mistakes creep in and this affects the whole team eventually like a virus. Hence a downturn but for very different reasons to the one under Poch.
 
Mikey10 said:
I’d probably be more willing to accept this explanation if they hadn’t played in pretty much the same way under Poch for the last 10 - 12 months of his tenure. The CL was a lovely distraction, but we were helped by a fair bit of luck, and it certainly put a gloss on a lot of lacklustre league play.
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I don't know how to use the like button, i can not believe there are fans who do not believe that some players threw the towel in during Pochs last season, and its the same players mostly who have carried that on under Jose.
 
parklane1 said:
I don't know how to use the like button, i can not believe there are fans who do not believe that some players threw the towel in during Pochs last season, and its the same players mostly who have carried that on under Jose.
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Yep, but that is management 101 when taking over a new team/group of people

- Either get rid of them and bring in your own people
- Or make them your people (get them to buy in)
- The in-between always fails

One of Jose's mistakes was not trusting his instincts all the way
- when he came in (see Amazon thing), he knew Sanchez, Sissoko and probably a few others weren't good enough, he also knew Dele was an issue.
- He also failed to see past Dier & Doherty's flaws, who knows why.

It's on him .. next manager will have similar challenge
 
parklane1 said:
I don't know how to use the like button, i can not believe there are fans who do not believe that some players threw the towel in during Pochs last season, and its the same players mostly who have carried that on under Jose.
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Not sure I'd agree. The one who most threw the towel in under Poch was actually Eriksen who you always defend on here.

I don't think Hugo, Sanchez, Dier, Davies, Lamela, Lucas, Winks, Dele, Kane, Sonny threw in the towel under either manager. Toby had problems with both it seemed but I never questioned his effort. Sissoko looked like he threw in the towel under Jose but definitely not under Poch. There's probably a case for Aurier and maybe Ndombele.

Who do you believe has consistently thrown the towel in?
 
DeanoAustin said:
Not sure I'd agree. The one who most threw the towel in under Poch was actually Eriksen who you always defend on here.

I don't think Hugo, Sanchez, Dier, Davies, Lamela, Lucas, Winks, Dele, Kane, Sonny threw in the towel under either manager. Toby had problems with both it seemed but I never questioned his effort. Sissoko looked like he threw in the towel under Jose but definitely not under Poch. There's probably a case for Aurier and maybe Ndombele.

Who do you believe has consistently thrown the towel in?
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Good managers come in to a new club and stamp their authority/personality on the squad - it can be argued that it's a harder job to turn around a staleness that has crept in on your watch as per Poch in his final year or so, so no need to revisit the way that ended but there was a similar malaise when he took over from the AVB/Sherwood debacle, when Redknapp took over from Ramos and when Jol took over from Santini - but each of them had the personality and ability to bring stop the rot and get the team playing together and then following a summer's investment pushing on - Mourinho wasn't able to do that and if Jol/Redknapp and Poch weren't able to do it either then they would have been let go and maybe we would have sat on GG at the time and blamed the players then as they had gotten their previous managers sacked too...
 
DeanoAustin said:
Not sure I'd agree. The one who most threw the towel in under Poch was actually Eriksen who you always defend on here.

I don't think Hugo, Sanchez, Dier, Davies, Lamela, Lucas, Winks, Dele, Kane, Sonny threw in the towel under either manager. Toby had problems with both it seemed but I never questioned his effort. Sissoko looked like he threw in the towel under Jose but definitely not under Poch. There's probably a case for Aurier and maybe Ndombele.

Who do you believe has consistently thrown the towel in?
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We went from being in the CL final to a team who at the end looked a shambles, do you really think/believe that ALL those players who performed like brick ( mostly) did so because they were over the hill all of a sudden? As we say its all about o pinions but it was unusual to say the least. And some of those players have been crap under Jose as well.
 
parklane1 said:
We went from being in the CL final to a team who at the end looked a shambles, do you really think/believe that ALL those players who performed like brick ( mostly) did so because they were over the hill all of a sudden? As we say its all about o pinions but it was unusual to say the least. And some of those players have been crap under Jose as well.
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What players?
 
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parklane1 said:
I have been over this before and the names are in previous posts and i see no point in rehasing all that once again, time to move on Jose has gone and now we can hope that we start to progress again.
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Mourinho 'lost the dressing room' in his 3 previous jobs - if you're just saying it happened under Poch so it must be the same reason it's happened now, then you'd have to use that same logic when looking at Jose and his track record, wouldn't you? Real, Chelsea, United and now us? Was he just unlucky 4 times on the spin and was put in charge of teams that downed tools and there was nothing anyone could have done about it? Or do you think there might be a common denominator there...
 
billyiddo said:
Mourinho 'lost the dressing room' in his 3 previous jobs - if you're just saying it happened under Poch so it must be the same reason it's happened now, then you'd have to use that same logic when looking at Jose and his track record, wouldn't you? Real, Chelsea, United and now us? Was he just unlucky 4 times on the spin and was put in charge of teams that downed tools and there was nothing anyone could have done about it? Or do you think there might be a common denominator there...
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The difference being he actually won things with his/the previous teams that had downed tools, would you say that is a fair comment.:)
 
parklane1 said:
The difference being he actually won things with his/the previous teams that had downed tools, would you say that is a fair comment.:)
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Not sure what the relevance of that is, we all know what his past achievements were, what's being discussed is the way things finished up at his last few jobs and how that has continued here.
 
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