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Mauricio Pochettino

spurspinter1 said:
Quite.

Not trying to justify PSG fans booing the manager who has led them to a “title” but it did cross my mind that a fair amount of those fans would have probably walked the league with that squad themselves..

Would be a weird ass appointment, not sure what we would have expected Poch to learn at PSG that would help us to become truly competitive within our league and constraints. A poster mentioned Dortmund, would be a great move for him if he and Paris part ways.
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Don't think he's learned much at PSG other than to do what Messi says, never trust Marquinhos and be flexible with his tactics and relentless fitness training.

But then again, I doubt it's the learning bit Poch really needed. He didn't need to learn much about football management, he did that with us first-time around.

He did need to get the monkey off his back of never having won anything as a coach - he finally did, with a league title.

I suspect it will give him some mental calm and peace of mind to have that under his belt now, no matter how much of a cakewalk people call it.

And combined with the flexibility he's had to develop managing Neymar, Messi, Mbappe, Ramos et al (players who would have told him to sod off if he had asked them to press harder), I think it will stand him in good stead.

And conversely, it would stand us in good stead if he came back, imo. Flexibility will help with getting players onside compared to his last stint here, which when combined with him probably having younger and less ego-driven players at Spurs, would be perfect for him, I think.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Don't think he's learned much at PSG other than to do what Messi says, never trust Marquinhos and be flexible with his tactics and relentless fitness training.

But then again, I doubt it's the learning bit Poch really needed. He didn't need to learn much about football management, he did that with us first-time around.

He did need to get the monkey off his back of never having won anything as a coach - he finally did, with a league title.

I suspect it will give him some mental calm and peace of mind to have that under his belt now, no matter how much of a cakewalk people call it.

And combined with the flexibility he's had to develop managing Neymar, Messi, Mbappe, Ramos et al (players who would have told him to sod off if he had asked them to press harder), I think it will stand him in good stead.

And conversely, it would stand us in good stead if he came back, imo. Flexibility will help with getting players onside compared to his last stint here, which when combined with him probably having younger and less ego-driven players at Spurs, would be perfect for him, I think.
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Interesting. I’d worry if Poch was that insecure that a League Un title would get the monkey of his back as you put it. Would you have the same argument if he’d won a title in Turkey or Greece?

You mentioned learning to deal with Messi, Mbappe, Neymar et al like it’s a transferable and useful skill but don’t see how that is really going to help in terms of our players and the experience.

Not meaning to be disrespectful of the French league as a whole, but more the dynamic within the league: For clarity I lived in Bordeaux for a while and watched them play live, it sadly seemed irrelevant who was managing the club as when you have one financial superpower dominating then man management becomes less important if your competitor has 4/5 superstars and a stacked squad to accommodate those superior players.

In those circumstances tactical flexibility / fitness training aren’t at the forefront unless I’m mistaken?
 
spurspinter1 said:
Interesting. I’d worry if Poch was that insecure that a League Un title would get the monkey of his back as you put it. Would you have the same argument if he’d won a title in Turkey or Greece?
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No, but then, there are unique circumstances to PSG despite the financial overmatch with everyone else. Managing a club as dysfunctional as that, constantly high-profile and in the public eye, affords you a) a certain level of sympathy in the football world, and b) more status than a title in those other nations. Put bluntly, while it's a walkover, it's a more high-profile one, and that I think will help getting that useless bugbear off his back.

It's not like it means he's won against the odds or whatever - I happen to think finishing with 86 points with us was leagues more of an achievement than winning the title with PSG. But it does mean he isn't trophyless anymore.

spurspinter1 said:
You mentioned learning to deal with Messi, Mbappe, Neymar et al like it’s a transferable and useful skill but don’t see how that is really going to help in terms of our players and the experience.

Not meaning to be disrespectful of the French league as a whole, but more the dynamic within the league: For clarity I lived in Bordeaux for a while and watched them play live, it sadly seemed irrelevant who was managing the club as when you have one financial superpower dominating then man management becomes less important if your competitor has 4/5 superstars and a stacked squad to accommodate those superior players.

In those circumstances tactical flexibility / fitness training aren’t at the forefront unless I’m mistaken?
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True, but that isn't the whole story. Managing gigantic egos like that means you have to compromise, yield to your players, adapt your tactics and training sessions away from being fitness-oriented, Bielsa-derived gegenpressing to something more sedate that suits all those divas. You also have to manage the not-inconsiderable task of keeping that train going smoothly all the way to a title.

For a coach like Poch, that must have been harder than it looked - he used to thrive on uniformity, a sense of common purpose, a set of players who would walk on coals, walk into arrows and run through walls for him while going through his infamous 'three-lung' training sessions.

To go from that to being told to defer to Messi, Neymar, Mbappe and Ramos to the extent of giving up on pressing itself - that must have been hard, and must have taught him a good deal of flexibility and game management.

Which will help in situations like we faced in 2019, when our whiny crybabies were moaning about his training sessions being too hard (while lolling around lazily playing rondos on the eve of a CL final while Liverpool ran around like tigers against Benfica in a practice game, just for that match).

So, I'd say that in the event he comes back this summer, winning the title with PSG will have taught him a few things, definitely - and he's a better manager for it, imo.
 
I've always been in favour of continuity, and I think it's more likely that Poch would stay 4-5 years (maybe more) than Conte. I don't think Conte will stick around more than a couple more seasons, regardless of how well we might be doing. For that reason, I'd swap Conte for Poch. Give Poch some players that he wants, and we'd get a lot of joy.
 
Well, the whole Poch-to-Spurs, Conte-to-PSG scenario is getting properly fluffed by the Paris media who are horny for a proper replacement for Pochettino. There's no doubt that Pochettino is out at PSG. What remains a question is whether Conte wants to leave Spurs.

Yes, he'll make buckets of money at PSG but is this the only consideration for him? I think he has a huge ego that requires fulfillment from competing at the highest levels and I have no doubt he'll be wondering if managing PSG to walkover titles in Ligue 1 is enough. Sure, there's CL football guaranteed there, but to make Spurs into a title winner would be, by far, the biggest achievement of his illustrious career. He has spoken often about his appetite for victory and the PL is the top of the football food chain. In many ways, this is a superior title to winning the European Cup.

Bringing success to Spurs would mark him out as an elite manager, ranging into Klopp and Pep territory. Winning Ligue 1 would not mark him out as special. More like the man who walks the rich owner's pet dog. Sure, they'll have a shot in CL knockout rounds, but with all the turmoil this year and the likely departures of Mbappe and Messi, maybe even Neymar too, there'll be some challenges there to rebuild in the near future. At Spurs he also has the comfort of working with Paratici and they have made a good start, bringing in useful additions and preparing to move out unsuitable players, while Conte has visibly improved players like Dier, Davies or Doherty and nicely settled in Romero. Build from the back, they say.

In a perfect world, Conte would stay another year to see how things develop while Pochettino takes a year off to get his head showered. Then we see where things lie and maybe that's the time for change. But then we're into another managerial change and will Pochettino want the players Conte buys?

We don't know what's happening behind the scenes but trash media claim - or parrot claims - that Levy has spoken to Poch in recent months and Poch's camp have denied any sort of contact with Spurs. Maybe that's being prudent on Poch's part - to avoid being sacked for negotiating with another club while under contract to PSG, thus voiding his lucrative payoff when he's fired.

It's a curious turnaround from the end of last summer when no one capable looked available to manage Spurs. We're probably OK whatever way it works out.
 
DubaiSpur said:
No, but then, there are unique circumstances to PSG despite the financial overmatch with everyone else. Managing a club as dysfunctional as that, constantly high-profile and in the public eye, affords you a) a certain level of sympathy in the football world, and b) more status than a title in those other nations. Put bluntly, while it's a walkover, it's a more high-profile one, and that I think will help getting that useless bugbear off his back.

It's not like it means he's won against the odds or whatever - I happen to think finishing with 86 points with us was leagues more of an achievement than winning the title with PSG. But it does mean he isn't trophyless anymore.



True, but that isn't the whole story. Managing gigantic egos like that means you have to compromise, yield to your players, adapt your tactics and training sessions away from being fitness-oriented, Bielsa-derived gegenpressing to something more sedate that suits all those divas. You also have to manage the not-inconsiderable task of keeping that train going smoothly all the way to a title.

For a coach like Poch, that must have been harder than it looked - he used to thrive on uniformity, a sense of common purpose, a set of players who would walk on coals, walk into arrows and run through walls for him while going through his infamous 'three-lung' training sessions.

To go from that to being told to defer to Messi, Neymar, Mbappe and Ramos to the extent of giving up on pressing itself - that must have been hard, and must have taught him a good deal of flexibility and game management.

Which will help in situations like we faced in 2019, when our whiny crybabies were moaning about his training sessions being too hard (while lolling around lazily playing rondos on the eve of a CL final while Liverpool ran around like tigers against Benfica in a practice game, just for that match).

So, I'd say that in the event he comes back this summer, winning the title with PSG will have taught him a few things, definitely - and he's a better manager for it, imo.
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Fair play for expanding upon your opinion, not going to lie though I remain unconvinced.

If (and there’s a lot of ifs that would be needed) it does happen then I’m sure that there’ll be a positive vibe restored initially, I don’t like the idea of it going horribly wrong, it’s just how I feel it would go.

Maybe it’s an ignorant view point to hold on to but I fail to see how winning that league with that squad is helpful for anything Spurs-wise, even from an ego sense in terms of Poch it’s the most basic requirement on the second attempt, if he’s had to move away from his style of pressing / fitness to just achieve the minimum target then I fail to see how that experience would benefit us.
 
Don’t think this Conte to PSG thing is anything more than French rumours. Just can’t see Conte going there. Look at the passion he shows week in week out on the touch line, can you really picture him being that motivated in the French League? And PSG want the CL more than anything else, Conte’s CV doesn’t exactly make stellar reading for that tournament….
 
harr1984 said:
Don’t think this Conte to PSG thing is anything more than French rumours. Just can’t see Conte going there. Look at the passion he shows week in week out on the touch line, can you really picture him being that motivated in the French League? And PSG want the CL more than anything else, Conte’s CV doesn’t exactly make stellar reading for that tournament….
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PSG want zidane. He's their first choice, but he wants the france job. Problem is even deschamps doesn't seem to know if he'll quit after the world cup.

My suspicion is this is a bit of bs leaked by psg to la parisian in order to give zidane a kick up the arse. Make your mind up as conte is waiting in the wings sort of thing.
 
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Legohamster said:
So if Mopo comes backs and fails and leaves again, will some people move on or will they be calling for him to be brought back after a couple of years? stuck in a never ending Mopo loop.
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His success was with young unproven players who would run through walls for you.

Not sure if he wants to go back down that path.
 
Legohamster said:
So if Mopo/bale/Eriksen comes backs and fails and leaves again, will some people move on or will they be calling for him to be brought back after a couple of years? stuck in a never ending Mopo/bale/Eriksen loop.
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Ftfy
We do love our nostalgia.
If it didn't work the work first time, why will work the next time.
 
Gutter Boy said:
How did it not work? We had our highest run of league finishes in our entire history. And arguably our most successful ever European campaign
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We have won three European trophies, how does coming second even come close to that? Best sporting memory of my life was winning the eufa cup in 84, worst was CL final.
Sport is about winning, its why we can't keep the bale's, the Modrics, the carricks, no one ever said i want to stay here to finish third.
We need to move on.
I love poch and my heart would love to have him back, but my head says its a bad move.
The expectation will be way too high and he is bound to fail. Keep the memories and move on.
 
glasgowspur said:
We have won three European trophies, how does coming second even come close to that? Best sporting memory of my life was winning the eufa cup in 84, worst was CL final.
Sport is about winning, its why we can't keep the bale's, the Modrics, the carricks, no one ever said i want to stay here to finish third.
We need to move on.
I love poch and my heart would love to have him back, but my head says its a bad move.
The expectation will be way too high and he is bound to fail. Keep the memories and move on.
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As much as I love Poch, I'd rather keep Conte for a few years. Now doesn't feel like the right time for a return although if Conte did go, he'd probably be the obvious choice.

Have to disagree with the bit in bold though. If that was an absolute rule, we'd all support City or Liverpool. I got far more from Poch's reign than I did from the 1999 and 2008 League Cups or even the 1991 FA Cup. It was my proudest time supporting this club.
 
DeanoAustin said:
As much as I love Poch, I'd rather keep Conte for a few years. Now doesn't feel like the right time for a return although if Conte did go, he'd probably be the obvious choice.

Have to disagree with the bit in bold though. If that was an absolute rule, we'd all support City or Liverpool. I got far more from Poch's reign than I did from the 1999 and 2008 League Cups or even the 1991 FA Cup. It was my proudest time supporting this club.
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We all have a different outlook and take different pleasures from things.
I would rather have poch with the feel good and sense of belonging that he brought back to the club and being a decent to good team, than have what jose brought if it brought an odd cup win.

In this cynical, click bait headline hysteria world that we live in now i feel poch returning would lead to a media frenzy and at the first sign of strife it would be hugely inflated causing a lot of misery and trouble for the club.

I think we as a club have an identity issue.
All the things we want, everything we want to be on and off the pitch, and how we want to achieve them just aren't realistic.
They are all laudable, but its a big bad world out there and we aren't going to get anywhere.
 
Legohamster said:
So if Mopo comes backs and fails and leaves again, will some people move on or will they be calling for him to be brought back after a couple of years? stuck in a never ending Mopo loop.
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If he comes back it will be Levy’s decision nothing to do with the fans. I’ve never understood your dislike of Poch, he was the one manager who looked like he could buck the trend of the last 20 years and bring us success. I don’t see Conte coming close to emulating what Poch achieved at Spurs and Conte arguably has a better squad at his disposal than the squad Poch took to the.Champions League final and 4th place. That said I agree with @DeanoAustin, we need to stick by the manager we have for now.
 
Robspur12 said:
If he comes back it will be Levy’s decision nothing to do with the fans. I’ve never understood your dislike of Poch, he was the one manager who looked like he could buck the trend of the last 20 years and bring us success. I don’t see Conte coming close to emulating what Poch achieved at Spurs and Conte arguably has a better squad at his disposal than the squad Poch took to the.Champions League final and 4th place. That said I agree with @DeanoAustin, we need to stick by the manager we have for now.
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Aye, but some fans are not exactly 100 percent behind Conte if there is a sniff of mopo coming back, when does that end?

I don’t dislike him, I just don’t think it was wrong to sack him, or it’s right to replace Conte with him and he’s not the only manager out there, which some fans are convinced on and are obsessed about bringing him back over keeping the manager.

I’m not sure winning the French league proves much and reports say he hasn’t improved his weaknesses.

I also think he should have won something with the squad and chances he had

Given we started the season with 3/4 back ups to the the CL starting 11 in the starting 11 I’m not sure it is better.
 
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