OK Finney, enough moaning on and on, what would YOU do right now? December 8th 2014. You are the Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur FC. What are your moves?
Look I take your point that it would be difficult/stupid/suicidal to sack another manager at this stage.... That doesn't mean we should just accept the fact that we are having a bad season and that a squad of by and large the same players (plus/minus the ones Pochettino wanted to add/get rid of) look worse than we did last year.
The chairman is obviously at an advantage over me as (I assume) he is completely aware of our manager's vision in terms of what he wants to achieve, how he wants to achieve it and the roadmap that is in place to enable him to achieve it.
The things I would want to know however would be:
1. Why are we already tired after less than half a season has gone?
2. Will the manager always play i.n.v.e.r.t.e.d w.i.n.g.e.r.s no matter what?.... even if we don't have full backs available who can provide our width?
3. Is the manager prepared to change his gameplan during the game if his preferred gameplan isn't working?
4. Why did Capoue play for over a quarter of the season when he is clearly absolute dogsh!t?
5. Why is he persisting with Lamela, despite the fact that he isn't showing signs of improving his play?
6. Why did he drop the only player who gives us width when attacking and go back to i.n.v.e.r.t.e.d w.i.n.g.e.r.s in our next home game after our best performance of the season in our previous home game?
7. Why are teams with much lower value players and wage bills able to come to WHL, look so comfortable defensively against us and outplay us in terms of chances created?
8. Why was our last manager able to achieve more with the same bunch of players? Is it a communication thing was he tactically better or did he worry less about the opponent and concentrate more on our own strengths?
9. How long does he think it will take for the squad to learn his methods and look like a cohesive team?
10. What players are/aren't buying into the 'philosophy' which players should I sell (even for a big loss) and which should I push the boat out for (within reason - I don't mean AVB pie in the sky targets).
Look I get that Pochettino has a 'philosophy' and I get that a certain type of player and a certain type of mentality is required in order to implement that philosophy - however all managers are judged on performances and results. I have gone to work in many failing businesses/departments with the task of turning them round. There is obviously always a long term goal to work towards. However I also accept that I cannot change things instantly so have to find a way of achieving some short term wins along the way.
I was pleased with our performance against Everton - I thought that finally Pochettino had realised that having some pace and width would help to open up the centre of pitch, but straight away he goes back to the same formation that Stoke, WBA, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, etc had all found so easy to defend against.... Then after watching 45 minutes of us taking the ball inside where Palace had numbers he takes off Lamela (hooray!) and puts on Chadli to do exactly the same thing that Lamela was (or should I say wasn't) doing.