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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

Let's wait til we've had a run of games where we've had Fazio n Vert at centre-half, Mason n Bentaleb in the middle, and Kane + one other upfront. I think we'll see more positive results like the Everton game. Some 'winnable' ones coming up in the league and we are 6 points from 3rd place. Now would be a good time to get some momentum, and we can start with Palace at home.
 
Some good signs, but I do worry that this 'Bielsa, constant-press method' that people keep saying that Poch employs will always leave us vulnerable to late-game (and esp late season) collapses.
I also fear that we will constantly play into the hands of coaches like Jose, Van Gaal and even Wenger (at times) who will employ tactics to allow us have the ball and tire ourselves out before picking us off at key moments.

Oh well..

Chelsea let us have the ball today, they knew we couldnt do much with it. We look dangerous when counter attacking or winning the ball high up... thats where our threat is... problem is its easily negated...
 
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino: "We're very disappointed because we created some chances to score and after we conceded in Chelsea's first action, the game changed. After two or three minutes we made a mistake and they scored again.

"But I want to congratulate my players because they were brave in the second half. Today you could see that we have a very young squad who need games.

"It's not because of that we lost. Chelsea were just very clinical in front of goal."

Personally can't argue too much with that.

As for fearing for Pochettino's likeness to Biesla pressing style, of course it'll happen, no manager is perfect, also as he has proved he isn't stubborn. Away to Arsenal and at home to Everton he let them play and have the possession whilst we hit them on the counter.
 
Let's wait til we've had a run of games where we've had Fazio n Vert at centre-half, Mason n Bentaleb in the middle, and Kane + one other upfront. I think we'll see more positive results like the Everton game. Some 'winnable' ones coming up in the league and we are 6 points from 3rd place. Now would be a good time to get some momentum, and we can start with Palace at home.

Very true. I want to judge on our best team against the best. Tonight was a weakened side for me as we played our least effective attacker in Lamella and were missing our best full back in walker

I'm a bit old school in that you play your best available side whenever possible to maximise your chances to win. I want the position to think about my team first and foremost. Changing the system yet again to 4-2-3-1 negated anything we learned vs everton and I think our performance was made more ripest able yet again because of effort from the likes of Bentelab and Kane rather than the system, which just highlights weak players like Lamella.

By the way I'm actually keen to give Lamella a chance but you don't do that against the best team in the league off the back of our best performance of the season.
 
Very true. I want to judge on our best team against the best. Tonight was a weakened side for me as we played our least effective attacker in Lamella and were missing our best full back in walker

I'm a bit old school in that you play your best available side whenever possible to maximise your chances to win. I want the position to think about my team first and foremost. Changing the system yet again to 4-2-3-1 negated anything we learned vs everton and I think our performance was made more ripest able yet again because of effort from the likes of Bentelab and Kane rather than the system, which just highlights weak players like Lamella.

By the way I'm actually keen to give Lamella a chance but you don't do that against the best team in the league off the back of our best performance of the season.


what makes you think todays line up was anymore 4231 than it was v Everton?

for me it was essentially the same, except tonight we had a recognized midfielder in behind the forward as opposed to Kane behind Soldado on Sunday, ultimately they both had the same role. the wide players...Lennon pitched in defensively and Eriksen still came central, same as v Everton.
 
what makes you think todays line up was anymore 4231 than it was v Everton?

for me it was essentially the same, except tonight we had a recognized midfielder in behind the forward as opposed to Kane behind Soldado on Sunday, ultimately they both had the same role. the wide players...Lennon pitched in defensively and Eriksen still came central, same as v Everton.

Simply because in Kane and Soldado we had two strikers who alternated the lead role a lot. Today we had pedestrians behind the hard working Kane offering pretty much nothing. Kane and Soldado have proven that they work. I know you like Lamella and have defended him a lot on his post but he really offers us nothing so far to merit a place other than the fact he is so expensive we have to persevere with him.

And if were playing the same system why did we have no width at all today???? Again because of the players chosen we switched Lennon to accommodate others and he became non existent too

The best teams don't necessarily have the best players, they have players that work as part of the whole. Our front 4 apart form Kane didn't do that today and yet again our defence were strangers to each other
 
i thought we did have width tonight, at least as much as we did v Everton - both full backs getting on the ball in advanced positions and getting crosses in - Lennon and Eriksen too. but just as we did v Everton we also played centrally at times.
 
Fair enough, that's your view. From what I saw the only we had was occasional at best until they basically let us have the ball. Eriksen was non existent yet again when Lamella is playing and offered nothing on his side or central (when he played in either place)

Lennon stays on his appointed side but in the left he next to useless and today moved the to keep ivanovich company
 
Just because you disagree with a decision doesn't make it a bizarre decision.

We played on Sunday and put a massive effort in. We were playing away to the runaway leaders and best team this season. Dropping one striker for an attacking midfielder both bringing on fresh legs and possibly giving us a bit more cover defensively is not a bizarre decision. You might weight giving Soldado another game more heavily, but surely you can see the validity of the opposing argument here?

Why isn't Kane a lone striker? Based on what? He's 21, he essentially has a handful of PL starts behind him. Who knows what he's capable of. For someone who supposedly isn't a lone striker he sure played well as a lone striker today.

Chiriches started because others have been unimpressive. Dier has been distinctly average. Naughton is alright, but not much more. Vlad did well against Everton and up against Hazard I thought he did alright again today. But please, if it's so obviously that he shouldn't start. If this is all bizarre. Tell me who it is we could have started that would have done so much better up against Hazard?

Mason and Bentaleb... Well, I disagree. They did well against Everton and they did well against Chelsea today. If they're average, how would you describe our other central midfield options? Please. Describe the performances this season from Dembele, Capoue, Paulinho and Stamboulil, judged on the same standard that makes Bentaleb and Mason average.

I wuldnt mind if they were different decisions and we played amazingly, but it doesn't happen. And to me they are bizarre decisions. Kaboul captain. Bizarre and plain wrong. Ade vice captain, bizarre. Playing them both every week when they're awful, bizarre. We played well against city when soldado played, drops him.

I can see some logic in dropping soldado, with a loser mentality. We're going to lose anyway, rest him for palace. But he's just scored, the relief and joy from him and the fans was huge. For me you should play him. But once having made the decision, you ****ing don't bring him on 3-0 down with literally nothing he can do about it, to me, this is terrible man management.

Kane, I've seen nothing that says he's a lone striker. number 10 he plays better, he has more space, more opporutnity to run at defenders.

Mason and bentaleb. I'm obviously missing something with these two.

I really hope January tranfer window is dramatic. Really dramatic - sell kaboul, Naughton, chiriches, Capoue, paulinho, townsend, ade. Buy a cb, cm, striker and get Yedlin in! Trim. Better squad. A new core.
 
I wuldnt mind if they were different decisions and we played amazingly, but it doesn't happen. And to me they are bizarre decisions. Kaboul captain. Bizarre and plain wrong. Ade vice captain, bizarre. Playing them both every week when they're awful, bizarre. We played well against city when soldado played, drops him.

I can see some logic in dropping soldado, with a loser mentality. We're going to lose anyway, rest him for palace. But he's just scored, the relief and joy from him and the fans was huge. For me you should play him. But once having made the decision, you ****ing don't bring him on 3-0 down with literally nothing he can do about it, to me, this is terrible man management.

Kane, I've seen nothing that says he's a lone striker. number 10 he plays better, he has more space, more opporutnity to run at defenders.

Mason and bentaleb. I'm obviously missing something with these two.

I really hope January tranfer window is dramatic. Really dramatic - sell kaboul, Naughton, chiriches, Capoue, paulinho, townsend, ade. Buy a cb, cm, striker and get Yedlin in! Trim. Better squad. A new core.

In Poch's defense, Soldado was ready to come on at 2-0, still could've done some damage at that point. I personally thought it was the right decision to play with more men in the midfield away to Chelsea, and I'm sure Soldado will get the decision as well.

I thought Mason looked a bit tired today, but still worked his socks off. Bentaleb was good yet again, I thought. Fought like a lion in midfield.

I agree with the Chiriches part though. What a liability that guy is, he keeps ****ing dribbling in defense (and losing the ball), there's just no excuse for keeping on doing that.
 
I really wish he would stop picking Chiriches, he is such a crop defender it makes me so angry every time I see his name in the starting lineup for a league game. He does something stupid every ****ing game! I'm not blaming him for last night, I'm just ranting lol
 
I really wish he would stop picking Chiriches, he is such a crop defender it makes me so angry every time I see his name in the starting lineup for a league game. He does something stupid every ****ing game! I'm not blaming him for last night, I'm just ranting lol

Our two best RBs are either recovering from injury (Walker) or yet to arrive (!) (Yedlin) so as a third choice RB he's not too shabby!
 
Our two best RBs are either recovering from injury (Walker) or yet to arrive (!) (Yedlin) so as a third choice RB he's not too shabby!

Agreed; but a fair question to ask was why wasn't Naughton played when he was available? He would surely have been a more steady player in a game when the onus wasn't on us to attack
 
I wuldnt mind if they were different decisions and we played amazingly, but it doesn't happen. And to me they are bizarre decisions. Kaboul captain. Bizarre and plain wrong. Ade vice captain, bizarre. Playing them both every week when they're awful, bizarre. We played well against city when soldado played, drops him.

I can see some logic in dropping soldado, with a loser mentality. We're going to lose anyway, rest him for palace. But he's just scored, the relief and joy from him and the fans was huge. For me you should play him. But once having made the decision, you ****ing don't bring him on 3-0 down with literally nothing he can do about it, to me, this is terrible man management.

Kane, I've seen nothing that says he's a lone striker. number 10 he plays better, he has more space, more opporutnity to run at defenders.

Mason and bentaleb. I'm obviously missing something with these two.

I really hope January tranfer window is dramatic. Really dramatic - sell kaboul, Naughton, chiriches, Capoue, paulinho, townsend, ade. Buy a cb, cm, striker and get Yedlin in! Trim. Better squad. A new core.

Too much stuff to get into without making this an unreadable long post. I tried to focus on the stuff that happened in the Chelsea game in my post.

We played really well in the opening 20 minutes against Chelsea. Harry Kane, somehow incapable of playing as a lone striker got into two massive scoring positions that could have changed the flow of the game completely. Mason and Bentaleb were at the centre of that.

Seriously. If you cannot see the logic in dropping one of Kane and Soldado for our toughest away game of the season that came 3 days after a massive effort against Everton without calling it a loser mentality I don't think you're capable of seeing the validity of other viewpoints than your own on this and I give up. Enjoy....
 
I really wish he would stop picking Chiriches, he is such a crop defender it makes me so angry every time I see his name in the starting lineup for a league game. He does something stupid every ****ing game! I'm not blaming him for last night, I'm just ranting lol

He did some reasonable things but then it's all un done by moments of sheer stupidity. That thing in the corner, the outrageous skill attempt which just gave the ball to Oscar or Willian was just unreal. Don't know what goes on in his head sometimes.
 
We played the best team in the country and got beat which in all honesty most of us thought would happen, I know there are some fans who will disagree but we are a work in progress under Poch and we have to give him time to get on with it. One of the reasons we never push on is we keep replacing managers and thinking that the top four is the Holy Grail, lets build something that will enable us to challenge for longer then a season or two and the only way we will be able to do that is to be patient.

There are good signs that we are improving and losing to Chelsea does not mean we should all panic ( again), lets see how much progress we have made by the end of the season and review the situation then.
 
We played the best team in the country and got beat which in all honesty most of us thought would happen, I know there are some fans who will disagree but we are a work in progress under Poch and we have to give him time to get on with it. One of the reasons we never push on is we keep replacing managers and thinking that the top four is the Holy Grail, lets build something that will enable us to challenge for longer then a season or two and the only way we will be able to do that is to be patient.

There are good signs that we are improving and losing to Chelsea does not mean we should all panic ( again), lets see how much progress we have made by the end of the season and review the situation then.

Agreed. And let's remember just how young that team was.

Front 6:

Bentaleb - 20
Mason - 23
Lennon - 27
Lamela - 22
Eriksen - 22
Kane - 21

Average age of that front six: 22.5 years

Full team included:

Lloris - 27
Chiriches - 25
Fazio - 27
Vertonghen - 27
Davies - 21

Average age of the full starting eleven: 23.8 years

With the oldest players being 27, meaning that they probably have 4-5 years left at the highest level at least. Just a tremendous amount of potential for improvement in that team and in our squad.
 
Agreed. And let's remember just how young that team was.

Front 6:

Bentaleb - 20
Mason - 23
Lennon - 27
Lamela - 22
Eriksen - 22
Kane - 21

Average age of that front six: 22.5 years

Full team included:

Lloris - 27
Chiriches - 25
Fazio - 27
Vertonghen - 27
Davies - 21

Average age of the full starting eleven: 23.8 years

With the oldest players being 27, meaning that they probably have 4-5 years left at the highest level at least. Just a tremendous amount of potential for improvement in that team and in our squad.

Indeed, someone at the game last night said that was the youngest team we have fielded for several years ( not sure if it was or not). A lot of those players will improve with age and getting used to the system Poch wants to play, they just need time which unfortunately some fans are not good at giving.
 
He did some reasonable things but then it's all un done by moments of sheer stupidity. That thing in the corner, the outrageous skill attempt which just gave the ball to Oscar or Willian was just unreal. Don't know what goes on in his head sometimes.

Benni was like that for about 18 months before he got good, it can take time with some players.
 
Indeed, someone at the game last night said that was the youngest team we have fielded for several years ( not sure if it was or not). A lot of those players will improve with age and getting used to the system Poch wants to play, they just need time which unfortunately some fans are not good at giving.

problem with that is we seem to flip them so regularly will we be the team that gets the benefit?
 
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