Mauricio Pochettino

[Hootnow]

The issue is nett spend is being used to argue he wasn’t backed
I’d argue he spent £400m on players in his time here so he was backed
The issue is or was that a lot of those players volume wise flopped and propel then say that’s not his fault... but of course he is culpable at least in part as he was in the decision tree to buy those players
And as I highlighted the other night we actually have 14 players here’s out of the 27 bought under Poch so he did mould his squad significantly
And the other flip side to net spend is how many of the players we sold under Poch were Poch players vs how many were here already or we’re youth team ones we made a big profit on... most is the answer

Well over a quarter of that was in his very last window, where the players were unavailable to use for him.

And my point is that these nuances on net spend were conspicuously absent previously when Spurs fans were talking about how we compared to other clubs and we're now suddenly looking at the minutiae of what we spent, when we spent it etc.

I've got my own issues with Poch, which I articulated on here against the prevailing wind of opinion usually but this net spend argument just screams of people who, until 7-8 months ago were defending every single thing Poch did and have suddenly turned, using whatever they can to justify their new stance.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Well over a quarter of that was in his very last window, where the players were unavailable to use for him.

And my point is that these nuances on net spend were conspicuously absent previously when Spurs fans were talking about how we compared to other clubs and we're now suddenly looking at the minutiae of what we spent, when we spent it etc.

I've got my own issues with Poch, which I articulated on here against the prevailing wind of opinion usually but this net spend argument just screams of people who, until 7-8 months ago were defending every single thing Poch did and have suddenly turned, using whatever they can to justify their new stance.

Hey I love Poch
But the guy was fallible and in particular when it come to signing off accepting players that in retrospect he wasn’t happy with (all depends who people choose to believe).
I think he will have come away from here with so much more knowledge and experience to help him next time
People forget he was a young manager

 

[uksb]

For me it's generating the kind of elite performances from a team Poch could until the pressure started.

A great coach is one that can do that when the pressure's on too.

Elite performances like the ones Liverpool have produced in the last two seasons under Klopp. Not sure how anyone could make the argument that he isn't an excellent coach, let alone a good one.

Does a team losing a final automatically mean the coach bottled it? Or are there any other factors?

 

[Pirate55]

Spent £408m on signings under his leadership
His signings bought in £69m
Made a £31m profit on his signings
Lost £64m in his signings (including Vorm) and Llorente)

Well done @Bedfordspurs - an excellent and thorough forensic analysis. Wow - I find it incredulous that Poch spent over £400m on players and yet there are those who still claim he wasn't backed!!! Especially given the base of quality players we already had here when he arrived (Lloris, Walker, Rose, Verts, Eriksen, Kane).In addition, I think one of his biggest mistakes was to let Siggurdson go for an estimated £17m in exchange for Vorm and Davies). He would have been ideal to enable Eriksen to have a rest and keep him on his toes. His subsequent mega-transfer to Everton shows just how much we missed out on.

Finally, to those who say these weren't Poch's first choices. If the players themselves choose other clubs over us there is very little we can do about it. Mane chose Liverpool to get more money. Barkley chose Chelsea for the same reason. Ditto Wan-Bassaka to United. Others wanted guaranteed game time, which at the time we rightly couldn't promise them. However, as Leicester has shown, there were plenty of opportunities to secure players in our price range and within our wage structure. Grealish was (probably) the only one we can put squarely at Levy's door. As a club, we were just not shrewd enough to secure them.

 

[scaramanga]

Elite performances like the ones Liverpool have produced in the last two seasons under Klopp. Not sure how anyone could make the argument that he isn't an excellent coach, let alone a good one.

Does a team losing a final automatically mean the coach bottled it? Or are there any other factors?

I think when the entire team underperforms in a final and plays to a fraction of their individual and collective ability, it's on the coach.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Well done @Bedfordspurs - an excellent and thorough forensic analysis. Wow - I find it incredulous that Poch spent over £400m on players and yet there are those who still claim he wasn't backed!!! Especially given the base of quality players we already had here when he arrived (Lloris, Walker, Rose, Verts, Eriksen, Kane).In addition, I think one of his biggest mistakes was to let Siggurdson go for an estimated £17m in exchange for Vorm and Davies). He would have been ideal to enable Eriksen to have a rest and keep him on his toes. His subsequent mega-transfer to Everton shows just how much we missed out on.

Finally, to those who say these weren't Poch's first choices. If the players themselves choose other clubs over us there is very little we can do about it. Mane chose Liverpool to get more money. Barkley chose Chelsea for the same reason. Ditto Wan-Bassaka to United. Others wanted guaranteed game time, which at the time we rightly couldn't promise them. However, as Leicester has shown, there were plenty of opportunities to secure players in our price range and within our wage structure. Grealish was (probably) the only one we can put squarely at Levy's door. As a club, we were just not shrewd enough to secure them.

Well Maguire chose Leicester for game time too which was the year we lost Toby for a chunk of it so was a bad move by him which worked out well for him in the end

 

[elltrev]

Until the pressure started.

What makes you think that our performances started to drop due to pressure rather than the factors I mention above? Surely at the very least you’d agree those factors were huge, and would inevitably lead to some dropoff in performance under any manager?

 

[Hootnow]

Hey I love Poch
But the guy was fallible and in particular when it come to signing off accepting players that in retrospect he wasn’t happy with (all depends who people choose to believe).
I think he will have come away from here with so much more knowledge and experience to help him next time
People forget he was a young manager

The guy was very fallible. I pointed out many of his flaws on here, often to some unhappiness. For example, I did genuinely believe that, regardless of money, at one point, we had one of the top 2-3 teams in the country. A huge part of that was down to him. However, the failure of the team to get over the finishing line....is also at least in part down to him. Despite what some people want to argue, most of the times we got near to actually doing something, we....didn't.

I also don't actually think Poch is that young either. He's 48 now. For reference, all of Ferguson, Ancelotti, Mourinho, Benitez, Wenger, Conte etc had all won at least their first trophies by 48.

As for the signings, this is an interesting new stick to beat him with. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. He can either accept the bricking N's and gets blamed for that or accepts no signings and gets blamed for that.

Apparently, pretty much nothing is ever Levy's fault in this world.

 

[scaramanga]

What makes you think that our performances started to drop due to pressure rather than the factors I mention above? Surely at the very least you’d agree those factors were huge, and would inevitably lead to some dropoff in performance under any manager?

Mainly because senior management is the same everywhere and I've seen it happen to a lot of.people before.

 

[Raziel]

The guy was very fallible. I pointed out many of his flaws on here, often to some unhappiness. For example, I did genuinely believe that, regardless of money, at one point, we had one of the top 2-3 teams in the country. A huge part of that was down to him. However, the failure of the team to get over the finishing line....is also at least in part down to him. Despite what some people want to argue, most of the times we got near to actually doing something, we....didn't.

I also don't actually think Poch is that young either. He's 48 now. For reference, all of Ferguson, Ancelotti, Mourinho, Benitez, Wenger, Conte etc had all won at least their first trophies by 48.

As for the signings, this is an interesting new stick to beat him with. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. He can either accept the bricking N's and gets blamed for that or accepts no signings and gets blamed for that.

Apparently, pretty much nothing is ever Levy's fault in this world.

Levy has accountability mate, the question is why don't people accept

e.g. our implosion at the bridge when we had that PL opportunity, our failure to turn up against Pool in CL final, our numerous failure at SF or final level have very little to do with spending.

Poch was very good with getting us close (top 2-3 to your point) consistently but seemed to completely bust when it came to those "moments" those one or two chances to make us the best (I believe on the day for two years we were the best team in PL, just seemingly never the "right" day)

 

[Raziel]

What makes you think that our performances started to drop due to pressure rather than the factors I mention above? Surely at the very least you’d agree those factors were huge, and would inevitably lead to some dropoff in performance under any manager?

Because it's when it matters, we tripped .. somehow the squad issues, lack of investment, refresh didn't kill us when we were "challenging" or in early cup rounds, but when it came to the one game that mattered, we fell on our face.

Btw, as @scaramanga points out, Klopp for a long time had the same issue.

 

[Hootnow]

Levy has accountability mate, the question is why don't people accept

e.g. our implosion at the bridge when we had that PL opportunity, our failure to turn up against Pool in CL final, our numerous failure at SF or final level have very little to do with spending.

Poch was very good with getting us close (top 2-3 to your point) consistently but seemed to completely bust when it came to those "moments" those one or two chances to make us the best (I believe on the day for two years we were the best team in PL, just seemingly never the "right" day)

No, they have some elements to do with spending. Hence why Klopp went from no trophies to a Champions league and, barring a one in a generation pandemic, a PL title after he was backed further. The more you spend, the more you increase your chances of success.

Of course this does not mean that money guarantees success. It 100% doesn't. And to be frank, our club's record with 'record signings' (Bent, Bentley, Soldado, Lamela, Sanchez, N'Dombele so far, Sissoko, Moura, Janssen, Aurier, Paulinho, Rebrov. Pav and Keane (2nd time) if you're being slightly harsh as well. That is 12 (or 14) of our biggest ever 20 transfers. And they range from total disaster to....really quite meh.

And I agree with that point and as I said, I made it multiple times when people on here were tossing themselves silly over us being top of the '3 year PL table' or 'most points gained per £ spent table' or other such crap that Spurs and Liverpool fans especially seem to turn to when their club isn't actually winning.

I couldn't care less about the 3 year PL table the consistency that shows. I want a trophy out of that period. More often than that during this period, we didn't step up. That was always my biggest criticism of Poch. That and his 'opaque interviews'.

My problem is that people who were defending against such accusations just one season ago are now falling over themselves to pronounce Poch a bottler or rewrite what they thought at that time. Not at all fair imo.

 

[elltrev]

Mainly because senior management is the same everywhere and I've seen it happen to a lot of.people before.

Maybe so, but I don’t understand how you can discount the other factors.

Let me ask you two other questions: a) by your previous definition, which current managers do you class as great? And b) how certain do you feel that each of them would have won the league or champions league with Spurs by summer of 2019, if they’d joined when Poch did and had the exact same experience in terms of transfers in and out, injuries, and stadium move?

 

[MKSpur]

Are we saying that despite qualifying for CLs every season despite being hamstrung by a stadium build Ramos should be held in higher esteem because he won a cup?

Poch was a victim of his own success imo - both in terms of our expectations but also how his last season planned out. He’s not the first manager to have had a successful blueprint and think they need to make changes.

The two biggest mistakes I think were the sale of Walker, worsened by it being domestically. Not only have we still not replaced him but I think it was the wrong player to try and make a point about his authority with. When Fergie did it he’s sell the player abroad and have the means to replace them with similar quality.
That and his book, I’m sure both these things contributed to the players eventually losing their blind faith in him.
The system at it’s peak relied on the collective, which gradually grew older, injured, tired and less faithful to the message. We had a great first x1 but we never managed to refresh it or add depth to it, which isn’t a great surprise given our budget constraints.
I still think we could have shopped in the championship, could have taken a few punts on young players already acclimatised to the pace and physicality of British football and likely to be on message given the opportunity and influence of our England contingent.
However it ended up it was still a period I will remember fondly where the bar was raised for us to be considered a top club - the CL income might have expedited our ability to compete on transfer and wages going forwards.
Will be interested to see what his next job is and how his transfer dealings and squad building differs from his time here. His legacy will also be linked to our current performance, as if we don’t continue to be in the CL we will pine for the good old days, GHod forbid we actually win something it will be Poch who??!

 

[Raziel]

I couldn't care less about the 3 year PL table the consistency that shows. I want a trophy out of that period. More often than that during this period, we didn't step up. That was always my biggest criticism of Poch. That and his 'opaque interviews'.

My problem is that people who were defending against such accusations just one season ago are now falling over themselves to pronounce Poch a bottler or rewrite what they thought at that time. Not at all fair imo.

That's fair mate, but people (I did) were often giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he would learn, he would adjust, he would take one of those chances (Klopp lost 6 finals in a row).

Even in last February when the side went into a pit of death spiral in the league, I felt he had earned some "credit in the bank" and I gave that until the beginning of this season. In hindsight some people saw it earlier, realized his motivation, his weird interviews, his insistence on playing the same under-performing players were all signs ..

Again for me, good manager, great manager in a specific moment for us as a club but not the messiah and not someone I'm truly worried we made a huge mistake letting go.

 

[uksb]

I think when the entire team underperforms in a final and plays to a fraction of their individual and collective ability, it's on the coach.

Well having seen most of the finals that Klopp has been involved in (Dortmund are somewhat of a second team of mine), that wasn't really the case.

In fact I would argue that relative to his team's talent, the final against us was one of his side's worst final performances. As we were pretty average but actually performed closer to our ability.

 

[milo]

 

[Raziel]

Are we saying that despite qualifying for CLs every season despite being hamstrung by a stadium build Ramos should be held in higher esteem because he won a cup?

Poch was a victim of his own success imo - both in terms of our expectations but also how his last season planned out. He’s not the first manager to have had a successful blueprint and think they need to make changes.

The two biggest mistakes I think were the sale of Walker, worsened by it being domestically. Not only have we still not replaced him but I think it was the wrong player to try and make a point about his authority with. When Fergie did it he’s sell the player abroad and have the means to replace them with similar quality.
That and his book, I’m sure both these things contributed to the players eventually losing their blind faith in him.
The system at it’s peak relied on the collective, which gradually grew older, injured, tired and less faithful to the message. We had a great first x1 but we never managed to refresh it or add depth to it, which isn’t a great surprise given our budget constraints.
I still think we could have shopped in the championship, could have taken a few punts on young players already acclimatised to the pace and physicality of British football and likely to be on message given the opportunity and influence of our England contingent.
However it ended up it was still a period I will remember fondly where the bar was raised for us to be considered a top club - the CL income might have expedited our ability to compete on transfer and wages going forwards.
Will be interested to see what his next job is and how his transfer dealings and squad building differs from his time here. His legacy will also be linked to our current performance, as if we don’t continue to be in the CL we will pine for the good old days, GHod forbid we actually win something it will be Poch who??!

We are all victims of our own success eventually, i.e. the Peter principle, but to take a few of your points

- The issue wasn't the sale of Walker, it was 1. How he handled the situation when Walker made it clear, 2. Not adapting to a player that wasn't Walker (or adapting to Rose not being the same player he was either)

- You hit on what's Poch's biggest flaw, he relies on young, hungry players that blindly believe in him and will run themselves into the ground mentally and physically, Him not being able to manage Dembele like other managers at Spurs managed King is a horrible statement, Dembele has literally come out and said he could have played the games, his body just couldn't take Poch's training. The failure to help the team win anything broke the belief, and the older players broke first ..

- To me, the blueprint for Poch's success was there, transition to a team that has young +a few key experienced players, focus on getting the best out of Dele, Son and Eriksen (Kane is a given), manage Dembele, change the system from a FB overcommit model to a higher reliance on AMs (we have a lot of depth there), find a way to incorporate newer players faster into system (a year+ is too long to make an impact), work more on tactics than outrunning the opponents (again I see Eriksen as example, under Poch he consistently ran more mileage than all but top 2 or 3 midfielders in the league, is that what we really wanted from fudging Eriksen?)

Said it before, hindsight makes it easy and maybe it makes hypocrites out of us all .. but success was there for him .. he wasn't good enough

 

[parklane1]

Apparently, pretty much nothing is ever Levy's fault in this world.

Sorry for cutting your post down to the above, i can agree with some of what you said in the parts i have not quoted.

However the bit i have quoted is just not true, you only have to read some of the posts on here to see that and on other forums/media he is always being slagged of by some. Thankfully most of that has/had stopped over the last few years because even those who never liked what he does had to see the progress we have made under him.

Sadly a few of them have stuck their heads up again and blaming him for not doing what THEY want. As i have said many times before he is not without faults/mistakes ( no one is) but the way some slate him is embarassing to most fans i know.

 

[Pirate55]

- You hit on what's Poch's biggest flaw, he relies on young, hungry players that blindly believe in him and will run themselves into the ground mentally and physically, Him not being able to manage Dembele like other managers at Spurs managed King is a horrible statement, Dembele has literally come out and said he could have played the games, his body just couldn't take Poch's training. The failure to help the team win anything broke the belief, and the older players broke first ..

- To me, the blueprint for Poch's success was there, transition to a team that has young +a few key experienced players, focus on getting the best out of Dele, Son and Eriksen (Kane is a given), manage Dembele, change the system from a FB overcommit model to a higher reliance on AMs (we have a lot of depth there), find a way to incorporate newer players faster into system (a year+ is too long to make an impact), work more on tactics than outrunning the opponents

Nail on head. Poch was the perfect manager for us at that point in time. However his failure to adapt to changing circumstances was his Achilles heel.