I'd been away for a week on business, got to the Lane just a few hours after returning back in the UK - wish I hadn't bothered.
Any optimism I had has been completely flushed these last few weeks. I said when we got him that I didn't think Pochettino was a good hiring and I stick by that. I must admit I nearly changed my mind after the QPR game but turns out that was more down to them being awful as they have in most of their games. Poch did reasonably well at Southampton, but if you look at it logically they had the eighth best team in the league so it made sense that was where they finished. The teams below them last year were dog****, Stoke and Saudi Sportswashing Machine finished 9th and 10th FFS. Southampton were beginning to resemble a very good team under Nigel Adkins IIRC, roughly halfway through the season, then he got the chop and replaced by Poch to the bemusement of many fans and pundits. All Pochettino did was carry on in the same vein.
We saw yesterday, just as we did at Sunderland and at home to Liverpool, that Pochettino's team only has one way of playing. Press, win the ball back if possible then pass it sideways for as long as possible so we win the possession.
I'm sick of watching half of our team trudge about and play **** every other week. Adebayor continues to turn up only when it suits him. Eriksen is hideously overrated by our fans. Lamela I wanted to kick on this season but he runs into traffic more than Jack Wheelchair. Our lack of pace among the front four is criminal, no wonder we're so easy to defend against. Our defence is tragic. We spent nearly £20m on a centre back and left back and neither can even get in our team FFS.
It's going to be a long season again. I'd be astonished if we finished in the top 6 even, at least the other teams near the top who lost have players coming back from injury or are bedding new players in to their team, they'll improve. We have the same players out there as last season and the same problems. Crap in attack, crap in midfield, crap in defence. Don't create many chances, concede plenty. As bad as we were last season we still somehow grinded out 1-0 wins lots of the time, we won't be able to keep doing that now.
Just about every Spurs fan I know is in agreement.