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Mauricio Pochettino

SteveAWOL said:
https://www.football.london/tottenh...eric-dier-pochettino-conte-champions-22386371

"I have a sense of lot of similarities between that time [the Pochettino years] and what I’m feeling now, in terms of the work ethic, intensity, the discipline," he admitted.

"Looking back, getting to the Champions League final probably painted over a lot of the cracks from that season itself and getting to the Champions League final and then losing it, it was a lot for all of us to take.

"That group had been together, pretty much everyone, for four or five years and it was something we’d been working towards.

"But football doesn’t stop, it doesn’t give us a breather. So after the final, before you know it, you’re going into the new season and it’s pre-season again. I don’t think everyone had got over it by then," Dier added.

"I don’t think emotionally that everyone was back. And you saw that going into that season [2019-20]. We felt it in the building that the comedown from that was still happening. Which is completely normal."

However, Dier did look back on the time and reminisce on the fond memories he had with the former Spurs boss and the players around him at the time.

"I don’t know how you fight it but we had five-and-a-half years incredible years, we didn’t win a trophy and that’s going to haunt us all forever," the defender explained. "But it was still a great, great time at the club and I look back on it with amazing memories. They were a special group."
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To me that attitude sums up why we never won anything with that group of players. Disappointment is natural in football. A lot of teams get to finals and/or finish runners up in a title race and then bounce back and win a trophy the following season. They learn from heartache. Chelsea lost the FA cup final last season only to beat Emirates Marketing Project in the CL final just a few weeks later despite not being the favourites. Liverpool lost to Real Madrid and then won the CL the following seasons. They finished with the highest points total for a 2nd place team ever and then bounced back by winning the title the following year. Bayern won the CL and the treble the year after they lost on penalties in their own stadium to Chelsea. Strong clubs learn from defeats but we never seemed to.
 
Jurgen the German said:
To me that attitude sums up why we never won anything with that group of players. Disappointment is natural in football. A lot of teams get to finals and/or finish runners up in a title race and then bounce back and win a trophy the following season. They learn from heartache. Chelsea lost the FA cup final last season only to beat Emirates Marketing Project in the CL final just a few weeks later despite not being the favourites. Liverpool lost to Real Madrid and then won the CL the following seasons. They finished with the highest points total for a 2nd place team ever and then bounced back by winning the title the following year. Bayern won the CL and the treble the year after they lost on penalties in their own stadium to Chelsea. Strong clubs learn from defeats but we never seemed to.
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I think it's less about mental strength and more about general quality. All of those teams and examples you gave were teams who almost reached the pinnacle confidently with some degree of swagger. In Bayern and Liverpool case's they really were the better sides the years they lost.

The same could not be said about us at the time. That team was already on its downward slide having wrung the very last bits of energy from all of those players and given that we just about managed to scrape through the various rounds. It was very much the performance of the plucky underdog, not a swagging behemoth as the examples you chose were. The fortunate underdog rarely repeats, they have win that one time they get their chance. Maybe that win can even be the platform for further development of the club but you have win it that one time.

We were unable to repeat because it was a serious fortunate events that led us to the final not some unquestionable quality. Giving the side was already worn thin and hadn't had regular infusions of new blood over the years it in hindsight is not surprising that the level of the side has dropped. The players who are still here from that era were the squad players and non starters and they haven't become starters due the natural process of overtaking their peers.
 
Bishop said:
I think it's less about mental strength and more about general quality. All of those teams and examples you gave were teams who almost reached the pinnacle confidently with some degree of swagger. In Bayern and Liverpool case's they really were the better sides the years they lost.

The same could not be said about us at the time. That team was already on its downward slide having wrung the very last bits of energy from all of those players and given that we just about managed to scrape through the various rounds. It was very much the performance of the plucky underdog, not a swagging behemoth as the examples you chose were. The fortunate underdog rarely repeats, they have win that one time they get their chance. Maybe that win can even be the platform for further development of the club but you have win it that one time.

We were unable to repeat because it was a serious fortunate events that led us to the final not some unquestionable quality. Giving the side was already worn thin and hadn't had regular infusions of new blood over the years it in hindsight is not surprising that the level of the side has dropped. The players who are still here from that era were the squad players and non starters and they haven't become starters due the natural process of overtaking their peers.
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I get that and I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. I was questioning the mentality more than the ability. I remember Eriksen saying something similar around 2019/2020 ie the players hadn’t gotten over the final and were demoralised. I understand from a point of being exhausted and feeling that the club didn’t back the manager to refresh the squad but come on guys, get over it. Yes we as fans were gutted as well but pick yourself and get on with it. Feeling sorry for ourselves is partly I feel what got us into the mess we did where we had to sack Poch because results were so poor. Yes the squad needed a refresh as well but mentally I just always felt we were weak and still are.
 
Bishop said:
I think it's less about mental strength and more about general quality. All of those teams and examples you gave were teams who almost reached the pinnacle confidently with some degree of swagger. In Bayern and Liverpool case's they really were the better sides the years they lost.

The same could not be said about us at the time. That team was already on its downward slide having wrung the very last bits of energy from all of those players and given that we just about managed to scrape through the various rounds. It was very much the performance of the plucky underdog, not a swagging behemoth as the examples you chose were. The fortunate underdog rarely repeats, they have win that one time they get their chance. Maybe that win can even be the platform for further development of the club but you have win it that one time.

We were unable to repeat because it was a serious fortunate events that led us to the final not some unquestionable quality. Giving the side was already worn thin and hadn't had regular infusions of new blood over the years it in hindsight is not surprising that the level of the side has dropped. The players who are still here from that era were the squad players and non starters and they haven't become starters due the natural process of overtaking their peers.
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That lack of quality theory absolutely holds up for the CL final, we were really poor for a good 6-9 months before the final itself, so expecting a change after that would be silly.

However the lack of quality argument doesn’t really stack up for the few years before that when we lost semi finals and missed out on the league title a couple of times despite being widely regarded as the best side in the league both years.

I get the squad depth argument as well, but to not get one of those cups, or a league over the line in that period screams of mentality issues, to me at least.
 
Gazza Dazzla said:
That lack of quality theory absolutely holds up for the CL final, we were really poor for a good 6-9 months before the final itself, so expecting a change after that would be silly.

However the lack of quality argument doesn’t really stack up for the few years before that when we lost semi finals and missed out on the league title a couple of times despite being widely regarded as the best side in the league both years.

I get the squad depth argument as well, but to not get one of those cups, or a league over the line in that period screams of mentality issues, to me at least.
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I hear you. I think there are various reasons, sometimes we should have done better other times it was never ours to win like the Chelsea title win. They were better than us and never dropped the points for us to catch them. I really do feel though that you can largely lay the blame at a lack of squad depth specifically regarding creativity as to why we often fell short. If Eriksen was not on song we had nothing going forward, so it was an easy enough plan to crowd him out. That's why I think we often lost those tough tactical battles, we just didn't have the tools our rivals had to change things or go with an alternate approach.

Of course there are a few times when that wasn't the case, we maybe lost to a lesser team. Again that was probably just a bad day that every team has them every now and then. I suppose our problem is we weren't able to capitalise on those bad days when our rivals had then (Leicester PL win).
 
Bishop said:
I hear you. I think there are various reasons, sometimes we should have done better other times it was never ours to win like the Chelsea title win. They were better than us and never dropped the points for us to catch them. I really do feel though that you can largely lay the blame at a lack of squad depth specifically regarding creativity as to why we often fell short. If Eriksen was not on song we had nothing going forward, so it was an easy enough plan to crowd him out. That's why I think we often lost those tough tactical battles, we just didn't have the tools our rivals had to change things or go with an alternate approach.

Of course there are a few times when that wasn't the case, we maybe lost to a lesser team. Again that was probably just a bad day that every team has them every now and then. I suppose our problem is we weren't able to capitalise on those bad days when our rivals had then (Leicester PL win).
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The Leicester season we were never in that either. We were hyped by the media. The squad depth was just not there, we were overly reliant on Dembele in midfield. We couldn't buy a win without him. The 16/17 team should have won the League and probably would have if we had not had the extra European games.
 
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Robspur12 said:
The Leicester season we were never in that either. We were hyped by the media. The squad depth was just not there, we were overly reliant on Dembele in midfield. We couldn't buy a win without him. The 16/17 should have won the League and probably would have if we had not had the extra European games.
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The truly annoying and despicable thing about the Leicester year is that if it had been utd, Liverpool, Chelsea or city in our position Leicester would never have gotten away with their blatant fouling
Refs would have put a stop to it quick time.
 
glasgowspur said:
The truly annoying and despicable thing about the Leicester year is that if it had been utd, Liverpool, Chelsea or city in our position Leicester would never have gotten away with their blatant fouling
Refs would have put a stop to it quick time.
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This is so on point. In fact, I believe they used the ghost of us being in a race with them. Everyone went pelters against us, their 'romance' story was far sexier.
 
Robspur12 said:
Your money would still be on Madrid to win the second leg though. Even compared to PSG their squad depth is incredible. Bale and Hazard on the bench! Seems Ancelotti had a game plan to cede possession and frustrate PSG.
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It was a strange match. I had Real favourites going in but PSG were impressive. Madrid did sit back and try and keep it tight but when they won the ball back they were pressed so much and had to work really hard to try and get out. Was a proper Poch team performance. Will be really interesting to see if they can do that again away from home in the second leg.
 
dingdongo said:
It was a strange match. I had Real favourites going in but PSG were impressive. Madrid did sit back and try and keep it tight but when they won the ball back they were pressed so much and had to work really hard to try and get out. Was a proper Poch team performance. Will be really interesting to see if they can do that again away from home in the second leg.
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I really hope Poch does it.
 
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