Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

AdamB · 11 May 2018

Danishfurniturelover said:
I agree with you, but I wonder if the age of a manager staying at a club for 10 years or more is a thing of the past. I love Poch and would love him to stay for a 10 year period, it also sounds to me Poch is not just angling for a big raise in his contract with the club but also wanting an increased transfer budget.

His not playing youth players as much and wanting ready made stars is part of his desire to want to win things, this is of course no bad thing and something we all want. I think like the players, walker, rose and toby he wants to win stuff as well as get big wages.

The will come a time when it all comes to a head and Levy has to decide whether we can afford to up the transfer budget and wages, if we can not then Poch has to decide if he still wants to be part of the build.

It is quite the dilemma and I am not sure which way it will go.

Good post. I wonder whether Levy's experience with so many dud managers would make him give in to any demands which Poch has over transfers/budgets, if indeed he has any.

Agree that at some point Poch would want to be able to sign bigger name / more established players - he's an ambitious, driven guy. He's made comments in the last year about us being able to afford bigger transfer once the stadium was done; possible that he and Levy could have had a conversation on that over the last few weeks and it not been to poch's expectations

the dza · 11 May 2018

I said 4th is par for this squad and I stand by that. Poch has guided us very nicely this season, hopefully we finish 3rd which would make a very good achievement (top 3 for 3 years running).

*edit -- in the original prediction thread, I said we'd compete for the league and that nobody was really better than us. Too optimistic there, obviously Emirates Marketing Project have proven to be miles better. I think it's in the 4th place thread where I said that 4th is par.

So many people think 4th is an amazing achievement, citing net spend etc. For me, it's the players available to Poch. not what they cost. Harry was "free" but is worth £150m+. Vertonghen and Toby must be worth over £100m between them, Eriksen must be close to £100m in today's market. We have a top 4 squad of players and finishing outside of the top 4 would have been a failure, Wembley or no Wembley. Thankfully, Poch is a good coach and has been able to steer us to where we should be in the league, hopefully a Top 3 finish.

milo · 11 May 2018

AdamB said:
Good post. I wonder whether Levy's experience with so many dud managers would make him give in to any demands which Poch has over transfers/budgets, if indeed he has any.

Agree that at some point Poch would want to be able to sign bigger name / more established players - he's an ambitious, driven guy. He's made comments in the last year about us being able to afford bigger transfer once the stadium was done; possible that he and Levy could have had a conversation on that over the last few weeks and it not been to poch's expectations

I hope that Levy would not allow a manager to hold the club to ransom over transfers. It doesn't feel like the kind of thing that he'd do.

I'm not convinced that Poch wants to work with big name or finished article players or that this would suit his skillset or preferred style of play. I suspect that, given the choice, he would prefer to have the budget to sign less risky youngsters. Many clubs that are bigger than us do not have the patience for that approach.

harr1984 · 11 May 2018

Mikey10 said:
I’m not so sure - he seems to have said a lot of late that is either ‘lost in translation’ or, alternatively, deliberately ambiguous. He’s a very smart bloke and he definitely appears to be leaving his options open imo. I would not be surprised to see him walk away at the end of this season - not necessarily to another job immediately. He strikes me as the sort who might take a Pep-style year out to recharge, reset and learn.

With the futures of Toby, Rose and Dembele (and maybe others) up for debate, and the move to the new stadium, it does feel like the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. In many ways Poch might see it like that.

Anyhow, I hope that doesn’t happen. If it does, though, I’m confident we would attract the very highest calibre of candidate and we’d continue to progress at at least the same rate.

Agree, Whatever Poch says is deliberate - his English is fine, there are no language barrier issues With him at all....

milo · 12 May 2018

harr1984 said:
Agree, Whatever Poch says is deliberate - his English is fine, there are no language barrier issues With him at all....

I don't think that it is that cut and dried. He definitely uses it as a tactic sometimes but he also sometimes struggles to find the right words.

mudshark · 12 May 2018

I have to hold my hands up, with the Wembley factor and the way things had gone previously with the CL games and everything at the start of the season, I never dreamed we'd finish top 4, never mind still have a chance of third. And the last few weeks, with the drop-off in performance (which, by the way, every other top 6 club apart from Chelsea have seen as well, which is interesting in itself, with it being a WC year), I've been just as guilty as any of a touch of melting as well. Just have to say, WHAT A FúCKING ACHIEVEMENT it is for him and the club, really. Nearly incredible, when you really think about it. The guy is special.

BrainOfLevy · 12 May 2018

AdamB said:
Good post. I wonder whether Levy's experience with so many dud managers would make him give in to any demands which Poch has over transfers/budgets, if indeed he has any.

Agree that at some point Poch would want to be able to sign bigger name / more established players - he's an ambitious, driven guy. He's made comments in the last year about us being able to afford bigger transfer once the stadium was done; possible that he and Levy could have had a conversation on that over the last few weeks and it not been to poch's expectations

Literally haven’t got a fudging clue why anyone is worried at all about his quotes.

We are about to move into a new stadium, with CL football. We will finally be able to pay comparable wages to our rivals. He’s not going anywhere and doesn’t want to. He isn’t going to leave us now when he’s gone through the hardest yards to get us where we are, Jesus Christ.

BrainOfLevy · 12 May 2018

mudshark said:
I have to hold my hands up, with the Wembley factor and the way things had gone previously with the CL games and everything at the start of the season, I never dreamed we'd finish top 4, never mind still have a chance of third. And the last few weeks, with the drop-off in performance (which, by the way, every other top 6 club apart from Chelsea have seen as well, which is interesting in itself, with it being a WC year), I've been just as guilty as any of a touch of melting as well. Just have to say, WHAT A FúCKING ACHIEVEMENT it is for him and the club, really. Nearly incredible, when you really think about it. The guy is special.

Agreed. I must admit, that period back when we lost to Leceister away this season, I was starting to come to terms with the fact that Wembley may see us finish outside of Europe, but that it was a necessary year to get us into our stadium and we needed to stay behind the club.

But to come through that, through this season at Wembley and still likely finish 3rd? That is hilariously great work. Utterly amazing.

harr1984 · 12 May 2018

milo said:
I don't think that it is that cut and dried. He definitely uses it as a tactic sometimes but he also sometimes struggles to find the right words.

When do you think he has struggled to find the words? I just think it’s an easy get out for people who don’t like something he has said so dismiss it as his poor use of English...

milo · 12 May 2018

harr1984 said:
When do you think he has struggled to find the words? I just think it’s an easy get out for people who don’t like something he has said so dismiss it as his poor use of English...

I can't think of a time off the top of my head but I am not using this to dismiss something he has said. I think that whilst his English is good sometimes his vocabulary lets him down and he struggles to find the right word. I think that he mainly used not understanding a question as a tactic.

harr1984 · 12 May 2018

milo said:
I can't think of a time off the top of my head but I am not using this to dismiss something he has said. I think that whilst his English is good sometimes his vocabulary lets him down and he struggles to find the right word. I think that he mainly used not understanding a question as a tactic.

He does yes I agree with that. But his consistent sound bites about alluding to not being here long term has nothing to do with lost in translation or anything like that...

DeanoAustin · 12 May 2018

BrainOfLevy said:
Literally haven’t got a fudging clue why anyone is worried at all about his quotes.

We are about to move into a new stadium, with CL football. We will finally be able to pay comparable wages to our rivals. He’s not going anywhere and doesn’t want to. He isn’t going to leave us now when he’s gone through the hardest yards to get us where we are, Jesus Christ.

I hope you’re right but you can never say things like that with certainty and Poch has made some ambiguous noises over the last few weeks. You don’t know whats going on behind the scenes.

He did say around Christmas that we were going to be competing with the big boys on wages and transfers whereas recently he’s been saying little much will change. Has Levy moved the goalposts?

People also look at the job he’s done purely in terms of results and the players he has. It’s not that simple. He has had to deal with the Toby situation this year and Rose’s big mouth. If those two are unhappy with the wages situation, you can bet others are too but are dealing with it behind closed doors. For Poch to be able to navigate through that and through the Wembley factor is a quite incredible achievement and I’m surprised to see some people play it down.

I really hope you’re right and he stays. He ain’t perfect but he’s far and away the closest to perfect that we’ve had in my 35 years supporting Tottenham.

harr1984 · 12 May 2018

DeanoAustin said:
I hope you’re right but you can never say things like that with certainty and Poch has made some ambiguous noises over the last few weeks. You don’t know whats going on behind the scenes.

He did say around Christmas that we were going to be competing with the big boys on wages and transfers whereas recently he’s been saying little much will change. Has Levy moved the goalposts?

People also look at the job he’s done purely in terms of results and the players he has. It’s not that simple. He has had to deal with the Toby situation this year and Rose’s big mouth. If those two are unhappy with the wages situation, you can bet others are too but are dealing with it behind closed doors. For Poch to be able to navigate through that and through the Wembley factor is a quite incredible achievement and I’m surprised to see some people play it down.

I really hope you’re right and he stays. He ain’t perfect but he’s far and away the closest to perfect that we’ve had in my 35 years supporting Tottenham.

Agree with this, it baffles me how Poch says something and there’s always those piling on here with such certainty saying ‘he didn’t mean it like that’ as if they personally know him or something. I’d like to think he’s staying but his curious quotes have become a little more regular of late, I have no idea the intention of his quotes but no one else does on here so why posters state as a matter of fact they know what he is thinking is beyond me....

MKSpur · 12 May 2018

I think he’s got a little bored of the media narratives of unless he wins a trophy he and this team are a failure, so maybe he’s trying to downplay the expectation that the new stadium will suddenly give us a 200m transfer budget and double our wage ceiling and becoming a little prickly with the media in the process.

This season has been another successful one because of the many handicaps we’ve had - Wembley for one. Although we actually had some great performances and results something definitely happened over the last couple of games where perhaps the novelty wore off or the pressure situation of potentially losing 4th transcended to the fans. Notwithstanding another settling in period I hope the new WHL both by design and more ST holders sitting together in their favoured part of the ground will give us the opportunity to create an atmosphere again.

In terms of ours squad, taking net spend aside for a second our first x1 does remain a match for any team in the league. This year our first x1 has taken a bit of a a hammering with two key experienced defenders injured and then not used for most of the season and a third not replaced from last season with the same quality. The loss of Wanyama for most of the season, Dembele’s making his least total appearances ever and the loss of Winks who was on an upward trajectory severely weakened what I thought was our strongest area in depth at the beginning of the season.

We actually replaced Kane well when he was injured (despite Llorente not working out) but he’s been noticeably a level below his incredibly high standard for the run in.

So when all is said and done, since last season we added one 21 year old first team quality signing and arguably were without 5 for most of it from last year. I remain optimistic about Moura despite questioning his lack of inclusion but depending on who we retain over the summer we are probably still a couple of ‘£40m quality’ players short for the depth of squad we need to rotate / sub in / cover for injuries to be truly competitive with the clubs that finish above us who do have over and above that volume of players. I still feel it’s a travesty that a player of Agueros ability is on the bench at City!

Sometimes you need to take a little step back to take a bigger step forward. I’m looking forward to saying goodbye to Wembley (league ) games forever, whilst enjoying a pressure free final game with CL and top London club assured and given the squad and home ground situation I feel that it’s only the ridiculously high expectations that Poch and this team has set themselves that can lead anyone to think this has not been another excellent season.

milo · 12 May 2018

harr1984 said:
He does yes I agree with that. But his consistent sound bites about alluding to not being here long term has nothing to do with lost in translation or anything like that...

I was thinking earlier that it might be worth going back and looking at what he said in his last half season at Southampton and see if there any similarities.

I think that he is just being evasive and that is his normal interview style. He doesn't like to be drawn on and answer.

milo · 12 May 2018

MKSpur said:
I think he’s got a little bored of the media narratives of unless he wins a trophy or he and this team are a failure, so maybe he’s trying to downplay the expectation that the new stadium will suddenly give us a 200m transfer budget and double our wage ceiling and becoming a little prickly with the media in the process.

This season has been another successful one because of the many handicaps we’ve had - Wembley for one. Although we actually had some great performances and results something definitely happened over the last couple of games where perhaps the novelty wore off or the pressure situation of potentially losing 4th transcended to the fans. Notwithstanding another settling in period I hope the new WHL both by design and more ST holders sitting together in their favoured part of the ground will give us the opportunity to create an atmosphere again.

In terms of ours squad, taking net spend aside for a second our first x1 does remain a match for any team in the league. This year our first x1 has taken a bit of a a hammering with two key experienced defenders injured and then not used for most of the season and a third not replaced from last season with the same quality. The loss of Wanyama for most of the season, Dembele’s making his least total appearances ever and the loss of Winks who was on an upward trajectory severely weakened what I thought was our strongest area in depth at the beginning of the season.

We actually replaced Kane well when he was injured (despite Llorente not working out) but he’s been noticeably a level below his incredibly high standard for the run in.

So when all is said and done, since last season we added one 21 year old first team quality signing and arguably were without 5 for most of it from last year. I remain optimistic about Moura despite questioning his lack of inclusion but depending on who we retain over the summer we are probably still a couple of ‘£40m quality’ players short for the depth of squad we need to rotate / sub in / cover for injuries to be truly competitive with the clubs that finish above us who do have over and above that volume of players. I still feel it’s a travesty that a player of Agueros ability is on the bench at City!

Sometimes you need to take a little step back to take a bigger step forward. I’m looking forward to saying goodbye to Wembley (league ) games forever, whilst enjoying a pressure free final game with CL and top London club assured and given the squad and home ground situation I feel that it’s only the ridiculously high expectations that Poch and this team has set themselves that can lead anyone to think this has not been another excellent season.

Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

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