Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

[Raziel]

Poch is interesting, my view so far

- He has a very all or nothing system, it requires complete buy in, when it works, it allows us to take on much better sides and dominate
- Our biggest challenge right now is he has maybe 14 players for the system, we need bench options that fit (very dependent on 3 players)
- Our players have gotten over the physical fitness challenge, some days I think they are mentally tired, don't know if experience/time can help that.

People talk about Poch moving on, he will take two years to get his side the way he wants, I'd be surprised if he left right after (assuming he's successful)

 

[braineclipse]

its not just this game. i think we have had enough time to start our strongest eleven, and even though eriksen hasn't been pulling out trees lately, it was a big gamble to leave him out considering that he'd been one of the most - if not - the most regular starter for us.

i enjoy poch's work with his high pressure quick passing game, but as with any system, there are limitation. add to that that we are a young-ish team, so players aren't familiar with each other yet. so it often looks like we're playing with each other for the first time. we're too logical, too predictable and when the odd moment of inspiration comes its an inch too short or a yard too wide.

if the need to rotate is due to the intensity demanded from poch's football style, and if we don't have the squad to play it, why not revert to a more relaxed brand of football. we've won by sitting back deep and playing on the counter so perhaps a Plan B is required for us to stay fresh within a very tight schedule.

in short, i'd rather we keep starting our strongest eleven and adapt our game and manage the intensity to keep our players fresh and effective.

Playing Eriksen every game would also be a big gamble and we would risk burning out one of our key players. A young player with a huge future ahead of him at that, someone that's showed a real willingness to work super hard. Doesn't seem fair to me.

Instilling a system of play is not done over night. Pochettino has been fairly patient and instilled his system gradually this season. I don't see how you can expect him to just use a completely different system of play for the rest of this season and then start working on something different come the summer and actually succeed. He's trying to build something that makes our team a bit more than the sum of its parts. He's made several changes, introduces many young players, had reasonable success with limited funds in the transfer market doing all these things.

Why not just let him do this thing and then see what the end product is when the process has come further down the line? Most of the players seem to be buying into his style, they're committed and working hard and improving in many aspects. Switching style now could set us back very far and seems entirely short sighted to me.

 

[SUIYHA]

My minimum requirements for a new manager this season were the following:

1. Play good football - hasn't always been good but it's been so much more easier on the eye than last season, particularly in the past few months. Crisp, one touch passing football and genuine chances created as opposed to long range pot shots for 90 minutes.

2. Better in the big games - Only in two big games (Liverpool at home, Besiktas away) would I say we were well and deservedly beaten. We have spanked Chelsea and Arsenal, beaten Southampton, drawn with Man Utd and taken the game to Liverpool, Chelsea and Emirates Marketing Project away from home and been unlucky to lose. Much much better

3. Improving the young players - Kane, Eriksen, Bentaleb and Mason have come on leaps and bounds. Lamela and Townsend have been disappointments, but some players just never make it, even under the best coaches.

Nice to haves:

1. Run in the cups - Check, even if slightly lucky
2. In the running for a top 4 spot - Check, but unlikely to finish there


GIven the lack of transfer budget available in the summer, this appointment has been a big success so far IMO. Next season will have new criteria but for now he's doign a fantastic job.

 

[LCLC]

Big fan - although he has mismanaged our last two gamers with selection and approach. Hopefully it pays off this Thursday and Sunday!

 

[thfcsteff]

I disagree because I think Stambouli is a competent replacement for Bentaleb. We really didn't miss NB as much during the ACN as I expected because Stambouli stepped up.

Whereas there is no-one in our squad that can do what Mason does - no one with his drive, assertiveness and quick transitioning. Paulinho, Dembele and Capoue have all failed miserably in his position. We are limp, turgid and directionless without Mason. The last hour against Fiorentina being a prime example.

We missed him massively. Palace away would've been a win for starters...Benji is a replacement for Bentaleb, but absolutely not at his level mate.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

My minimum requirements for a new manager this season were the following:

1. Play good football - hasn't always been good but it's been so much more easier on the eye than last season, particularly in the past few months. Crisp, one touch passing football and genuine chances created as opposed to long range pot shots for 90 minutes.

2. Better in the big games - Only in two big games (Liverpool at home, Besiktas away) would I say we were well and deservedly beaten. We have spanked Chelsea and Arsenal, beaten Southampton, drawn with Man Utd and taken the game to Liverpool, Chelsea and Emirates Marketing Project away from home and been unlucky to lose. Much much better

3. Improving the young players - Kane, Eriksen, Bentaleb and Mason have come on leaps and bounds. Lamela and Townsend have been disappointments, but some players just never make it, even under the best coaches.

Nice to haves:

1. Run in the cups - Check, even if slightly lucky
2. In the running for a top 4 spot - Check, but unlikely to finish there


GIven the lack of transfer budget available in the summer, this appointment has been a big success so far IMO. Next season will have new criteria but for now he's doign a fantastic job.

Absolutely bang on IMO

I do think. Pochs has made some mistakes and I do think he still learning but to me it seems that were currently at our most positive position for some time

We don't have a one man team like we had in they recent past and we don't have hit and run philosophy which seems to knackered the players out like we did under Harry

Every player seems to have had a chance and as much as I think the like of Poorlinho have been toss Poch still trusts him and vice versa so I'm even happy with that

Can't really fault him as he has exceeded my expectations

 

[metalgear]

The expectations that we had in the summer, i think, are being met - BUILD A TEAM.

I don't think anyone had top 4 as a minimum requirement, the focus from top down has been to take this squad of players and make a team of them - which as far as i am concerned is being met

ex

Playing Eriksen every game would also be a big gamble and we would risk burning out one of our key players. A young player with a huge future ahead of him at that, someone that's showed a real willingness to work super hard. Doesn't seem fair to me.

Instilling a system of play is not done over night. Pochettino has been fairly patient and instilled his system gradually this season. I don't see how you can expect him to just use a completely different system of play for the rest of this season and then start working on something different come the summer and actually succeed. He's trying to build something that makes our team a bit more than the sum of its parts. He's made several changes, introduces many young players, had reasonable success with limited funds in the transfer market doing all these things.

Why not just let him do this thing and then see what the end product is when the process has come further down the line? Most of the players seem to be buying into his style, they're committed and working hard and improving in many aspects. Switching style now could set us back very far and seems entirely short sighted to me.

eriksen doesn't have to play the full 90 every game, but he has to start the important ones, just to set the tone and rhythm. call me old fashioned, but i think risk to eriksen is less taking him off at the 60th minute while we are even compared to bringing him on at the same point of the match, when we are 1-nil down.

agree that instilling a system of play takes time, and I think Poch has been too impatient in trying to instill his system of play . i feel he could have been smarter as he showed in the game where we sat back defended and won, with the same set of players. our defence looked solid that day, probably due to the fact that our defenders are more suited to it. nevertheless going at a frantic 110% for 95 minutes every game isn't my idea of classy football especially if we need to sacrifice our starting line up.

at the start of the season i agreed that it would take more than a year (3 transfer windows) for poch to get the player composition right, and up to 24 months before the players fully settle down. Yet I can't but sense its a bit of a missed opportunity this season liverpool arsenal and man U unusually poor for long parts of the season. we can and will get better next season, but it will get much tougher too. liverpool look the business and arsenal and man u have loads to spend.

tldr: i like poch and his footballing philosophy, however feel that we could have been smarter this season playing more than one system, less intensity overall, and still be able to get more points to challenge for top 4.

 

[metalgear]

The expectations that we had in the summer, i think, are being met - BUILD A TEAM.

I don't think anyone had top 4 as a minimum requirement, the focus from top down has been to take this squad of players and make a team of them - which as far as i am concerned is being met

ex

Poch is interesting, my view so far

- He has a very all or nothing system, it requires complete buy in, when it works, it allows us to take on much better sides and dominate
- Our biggest challenge right now is he has maybe 14 players for the system, we need bench options that fit (very dependent on 3 players)
- Our players have gotten over the physical fitness challenge, some days I think they are mentally tired, don't know if experience/time can help that.

People talk about Poch moving on, he will take two years to get his side the way he wants, I'd be surprised if he left right after (assuming he's successful)

good summary about poch, really hope that he grows out of the "all or nothing system" thing especially if we're intending to compete on multiple fronts.

no expectation for top 4 this season of course, but for a while it like it was there for the taking. we will get better next season, but so will the opposition.

 

[thfcsteff]

Poch is interesting, my view so far

- He has a very all or nothing system, it requires complete buy in, when it works, it allows us to take on much better sides and dominate
- Our biggest challenge right now is he has maybe 14 players for the system, we need bench options that fit (very dependent on 3 players)
- Our players have gotten over the physical fitness challenge, some days I think they are mentally tired, don't know if experience/time can help that.

People talk about Poch moving on, he will take two years to get his side the way he wants, I'd be surprised if he left right after (assuming he's successful)

Agreed.

 

[braineclipse]

eriksen doesn't have to play the full 90 every game, but he has to start the important ones, just to set the tone and rhythm. call me old fashioned, but i think risk to eriksen is less taking him off at the 60th minute while we are even compared to bringing him on at the same point of the match, when we are 1-nil down.

agree that instilling a system of play takes time, and I think Poch has been too impatient in trying to instill his system of play . i feel he could have been smarter as he showed in the game where we sat back defended and won, with the same set of players. our defence looked solid that day, probably due to the fact that our defenders are more suited to it. nevertheless going at a frantic 110% for 95 minutes every game isn't my idea of classy football especially if we need to sacrifice our starting line up.

at the start of the season i agreed that it would take more than a year (3 transfer windows) for poch to get the player composition right, and up to 24 months before the players fully settle down. Yet I can't but sense its a bit of a missed opportunity this season liverpool arsenal and man U unusually poor for long parts of the season. we can and will get better next season, but it will get much tougher too. liverpool look the business and arsenal and man u have loads to spend.

tldr: i like poch and his footballing philosophy, however feel that we could have been smarter this season playing more than one system, less intensity overall, and still be able to get more points to challenge for top 4.

How playing 60 minutes is more of a risk than playing 30 I don't understand. I tend to think that space opens up more towards the end of games and that players like Eriksen are more dangerous in that period of the game than in the early stages.

Poch has been fairly patient I think. There's only a rather limited number of games where we can expect to sit back and defend and be successful. Or would you advocate us sitting back and defending from the outset at home to teams like West Ham and Southampton?

We don't go at a frantic 110% for 95 minutes every game.

Hindsight seemingly rather clear? No expectations for top 4 this season. Poch gets us in contention for 4, and we still are there at this point. And your response is that he should have done things differently?

 

[metalgear]

i'd rather our full strength team wrest the initiative from the other team for the first 60 mins - especially at home - then make the subs.

i hope you're right - that poch and the boys are ready for the cup final and the return game away with fiorentina.

 

[Gutter Boy]

i'd rather our full strength team wrest the initiative from the other team for the first 60 mins - especially at home - then make the subs.

i hope you're right - that poch and the boys are ready for the cup final and the return game away with fiorentina.

I'd imagine Poch is quite into his sports science. If so, it's very likely the whole team is being geared to peak on Sunday. To enable that they would have been tapering for a while, perhaps since the Arsenal match.

The usual practice is to get your squad unsynchronised in their cycle, so at any time some are up, some are down and some are coming up/down. When you have a big match though, you can get the entire team synchronised to be up. The trade-off though is that they will all be down together before and afterwards. An extreme example of this was our 2008 LC win where we peaked intensely, and then had a whole team comedown after that.

 

[Mosquito_Coasting]

Think being in a Wembley final might be distracting the team at present, not only with the rotation but also with maybe watching for injuries, worrying about pecking order, just generally thinking about it, etc, etc. Really if you want to get top four it's best to have a season like Liverpool's last year with absolutely no distractions.

 

[braineclipse]

Think being in a Wembley final might be distracting the team at present, not only with the rotation but also with maybe watching for injuries, worrying about pecking order, just generally thinking about it, etc, etc. Really if you want to get top four it's best to have a season like Liverpool's last year with absolutely no distractions.

Was mentioned somewhere that only ourselves and Emirates Marketing Project have managed to break into the top 4 whilst being in the EL in "some amount of years", can't quite remember.

Definitely a difficult task. But I also think that being in the EL can help prepare a team for the CL campaign the next year if you do get there.

 

[SteveAWOL]

Think being in a Wembley final might be distracting the team at present, not only with the rotation but also with maybe watching for injuries, worrying about pecking order, just generally thinking about it, etc, etc. Really if you want to get top four it's best to have a season like Liverpool's last year with absolutely no distractions.

Hopefully the League Cup managerial curse doesn't strike should we win it, as it has afflicted every club not based in Manchester for the past 8 seasons

2007 - Chelsea: Mourinho sacked that autumn.
2008 - Spurs: Ramos sacked after 2pts from 8 games.
2009 - Manchester Utd
2010 - Manchester Utd
2011 - Birmingham: McLeish leaves after getting them relegated.
2012 - Liverpool: Dalglish sacked after their lowest league placing in 18 years.
2013 - Swansea: Laudrup sacked after only 9 wins in next 38 games.
2014 - Emirates Marketing Project

 

[Joesh]

Any read this article on Dortmund this season, it is interesting how a couple of points cross over to us.

"As a result, possession becomes less important than the moment the opposition loses possession"
I know that in some games we are good in possession but in others we literally give the ball away so cheaply. Eg Loris kicks the ball straight to their keeper. Silly passes down the field. Lamela seems a one man army in giving the ball away and then creating something by quickly trying to win the ball back where the opposition lose the ball in a dangerous area. In terms of CL though, imagine we were playing Barca yesterday, they punished City heavily for each misplaced pass and with better players mostly brushed off their attempts at pressing them.

"Opponents are now ceding possession in the knowledge that allowing the counter-attack is the thing to really avoid where Dortmund are concerned."
We have seen this too, we are allowed easy possession but when our main threat is pressing high and countering fast it seems like a no brainer for opposition teams to employ this tactic. Especially as we don't have a plan B or C like against West Ham.

It has been said on other posts but could our system be flawed and more importantly in terms of getting to the next level, will it allow us to succeed in CL football?

 

[glorygloryeze]

Any read this article on Dortmund this season, it is interesting how a couple of points cross over to us.

"As a result, possession becomes less important than the moment the opposition loses possession"
I know that in some games we are good in possession but in others we literally give the ball away so cheaply. Eg Loris kicks the ball straight to their keeper. Silly passes down the field. Lamela seems a one man army in giving the ball away and then creating something by quickly trying to win the ball back where the opposition lose the ball in a dangerous area. In terms of CL though, imagine we were playing Barca yesterday, they punished City heavily for each misplaced pass and with better players mostly brushed off their attempts at pressing them.

"Opponents are now ceding possession in the knowledge that allowing the counter-attack is the thing to really avoid where Dortmund are concerned."
We have seen this too, we are allowed easy possession but when our main threat is pressing high and countering fast it seems like a no brainer for opposition teams to employ this tactic. Especially as we don't have a plan B or C like against West Ham.

It has been said on other posts but could our system be flawed and more importantly in terms of getting to the next level, will it allow us to succeed in CL football?

I've often wondered bout this and how we develop a plan B or C.
However, the game away at Arsenal for me showed that MoPo does have that in his locker: we purposely ceded possession to them and i think used the counter-attack to get into much more dangerous positions in behind their defence compared to what they did to us. Imo if we were a bit more attuned to MoPo's training regime we would have got the three points.

That is what gives me hope that we will develop a plan B/C

 

[Joesh]

IMO, I feel its more when we are losing and teams sit back. When teams are just sitting back, how do we break them down. 2 things for me are, as others have said, set pieces. We don't look effective at indirect frees or corners almost to the point we seem to take short ones now. Poor delivery from full backs along with lack of runners in the box. Utds best teams seemed to overload opposition defences and created havock with good delivery from the wings.

In fairness, we have recovered a lot from losing positions this season, but a few were a bit lucky.

 

[metalgear]

that arsenal gameplan could've been re-used but hasn't; only poch knows why. its definitely less ground to cover camping out in our own half, if fatigue is a concern. plus we have the depth to play counter attacking football.

 

[braineclipse]

Any read this article on Dortmund this season, it is interesting how a couple of points cross over to us.

"As a result, possession becomes less important than the moment the opposition loses possession"
I know that in some games we are good in possession but in others we literally give the ball away so cheaply. Eg Loris kicks the ball straight to their keeper. Silly passes down the field. Lamela seems a one man army in giving the ball away and then creating something by quickly trying to win the ball back where the opposition lose the ball in a dangerous area. In terms of CL though, imagine we were playing Barca yesterday, they punished City heavily for each misplaced pass and with better players mostly brushed off their attempts at pressing them.

"Opponents are now ceding possession in the knowledge that allowing the counter-attack is the thing to really avoid where Dortmund are concerned."
We have seen this too, we are allowed easy possession but when our main threat is pressing high and countering fast it seems like a no brainer for opposition teams to employ this tactic. Especially as we don't have a plan B or C like against West Ham.

It has been said on other posts but could our system be flawed and more importantly in terms of getting to the next level, will it allow us to succeed in CL football?

I don't think it's an inherent flaw in our system. It's simply other teams adapting and making it more difficult. The same adaptations would work against most good or very good teams in the world. Barca and Dortmund are high pressing machines, whereas someone like Arsenal currently are not. Working hard to prevent turnovers is going to be a good idea for smaller teams facing all those teams though. And a pretty standard tactic for a smaller team is to hoof it long whilst keeping the back 4 and 2-3 midfield players well balanced if the ball is lost.

It's true that we struggle against teams that adapt in this way. Just like Dortmund have (I think). This is hardly news though. Even Pep's Barca struggled with the same when Mourinho adapted in a similar fashion when defending super deep and not giving away space or turnovers with both Chelsea and Inter. You mention Barca against City, and City in that first half were way too naive in my opinion and despite the current Barca team not being at the level they were a couple of years ago you simply can't play like that.

For me at least being the dominant team and consistently breaking down hard working well organized reasonably good teams is a very hard thing to do. One of the hardest things in football.

I've often wondered bout this and how we develop a plan B or C.
However, the game away at Arsenal for me showed that MoPo does have that in his locker: we purposely ceded possession to them and i think used the counter-attack to get into much more dangerous positions in behind their defence compared to what they did to us. Imo if we were a bit more attuned to MoPo's training regime we would have got the three points.

That is what gives me hope that we will develop a plan B/C

I wouldn't call what Joesh highlighted as a problem a need for a plan B or C. The Arsenal game was very different from that. In the majority of our games our opponents will be happy with a draw and if we go out defensively (plan B?) and ourselves looking to be solid first and happy with the draw that simply won't do.

Breaking down well organized, hard working teams has to be part of our plan A. I think Poch is working towards that, but it's very difficult. Part of his approach seems to be making sure you have varied options. We have people we can cross at, we have players that can hold the ball up, we have decent crossers, we're a threat from range, we can play intricate football, we can play through balls etc. It's just getting that to snap together consistently that's the problem. It requires a lot of work on the training ground I think. Working on movement patterns, decision making, interplay etc.