As a fan I want us to win trophies to enjoy a day out and see these players doing a lap of Wembley waving silverware at the adoring masses, but league cup wins and Europa league do not generate the same levels of revenue and interest as top 4 and champions league so I also understand that the business of football is more interested in the latter.
Have you forgotten that your league season nosedived a couple of seasons ago because you prioritised the Europa League? Of course you have, that doesn't fit the Narrative...
That’s pretty much my view too. This squad has got to two finals but both times just come up short. I think winning one trophy would have broken such a mental barrier and they could have gone on to win 3-4 cups if they had won the 2015 league cup
I said months ago that I felt that something had gone badly wrong and I've seen little to dissuade me of that notion. I suspect that Pochettino gave up after our January transfer window absence and our results since then reflect that. His whole "I might leave if we win the Champions League" bit hinted at a genuine desire to go, I think. His attitude during this time has range from the bizarre to the appalling.
Why hasn’t he quit then? If he’s the great genuine man that people say he is then why wouldn’t he leave instead of working in an ‘untenable’ position?
Well as usual..the fans knew that this was going to bite us on the arse but our leader didn’t really give a ****...as expected.
I disagree. I think it is clear that the CL defeat hurt him, a lot. It probably left him very disillusioned with the club and the way it is run, with a number of the players, and he made these opinions pretty clear in the days after the final. This would explain the tension Trippier referred to as going on behind the scenes earlier in the summer. But then I think a 2 week break did him the world of good and he came back with a renewed determination to build Chapter 2. He demanded that Levy back him and, relatively speaking, Levy did, underselling on Trippier, overspending on Sessegnon and almost securing Dybala to boot. But Poch knew that Chapter 2 depended on shifting far more players than we managed to. I don't think it is possible to blame Levy here as we saw zero evidence that he was pricing players out of a move. So now we are stuck with a group of soon-to-be nearly worthless players. And Poch knows that without the funding they would have generated a month ago, he won't be able to rebuild without one of two things happening: Either we sell a big name player, or Levy coughs up a net spend of well over £100m. Both are extremely unlikely. And that's what's weighing down on his mind.
Which is utterly unrealistic and absolves him of any blame. Top-flight teams don't sell 9 first team players in a transfer window and progress. The whole defence, the holding players and the back-up in all of those areas basically, plus our playmaker? It's nonsense. Our last three transfer windows have been poor. We haven't done enough business, if any. That doesn't excuse the manager's performance for the last 9 months or so.
Five and a half years is a long tenure in modern football. He's no doubt frustrated that he hasn't won anything and now faces some degree of rebuilding to get the team back to the level required. Key players are running down their contracts and won't be easy to replace. Is he up for staying on through a period of transition?
It does not, I agree. But as i said above, I honestly don't think Poch would have stayed had we won the CL. He would have left on the highest high, knowing that he had taken us as far as our limited resources allow and then a thousand miles further. The red carpet would have been laid out at the entrance to the Bernabeu and he would have walked it with his head held high. In fact, I don't think he himself had committed to Spurs and overseeing Chapter 2 until the final defeat pain had subsided. Which by his own admission was already 3 weeks into June. Before then I don't think he felt that he had it in him to pick us or himself up and carry on. I admire him for eventually doing so but once he did, the task in front of him was A) Huge, and B) His mess to deal with. And I still don't think he'll walk away. His recent comments suggest that he has placed a marker on next September being the latest time for the rebuild to be complete. In other words, this season will be a mirror image of 13/14, next should be similar to 14/15 in trajectory and togetherness, but at a much higher level - simply because he and we are more experienced and are now able to attract and afford a higher caliber of player than the likes of GKN and Aurier. Ultimately, our activity in Jan will reveal all. If we dither and do nothing, we will once again leave ourselves far too much to do next summer and Poch will likely either walk there and then or at the end of the season. But if we push on, shifting a minimum of 3 players (in all likelihood I can't see us selling Toby or Eriksen anymore when they can sign pre-contracts in Jan, so I'd imagine 3 of Wanyama, Rose, Aurier or Dier would need to be moved on) and bringing in 2 top quality players (CB and AM to my mind), it actually leaves us in a very healthy position approaching the summer. If, say, we can end the season with the following starting XI and bench, I can see a heck of a lot of promise and potentially a very bright new future: Hugo Foyth Dave Jan Davies Sissoko Tanguy Son Lo Celso Dybala Kane Subs: Gazza, New CB, KWP, Winks, Sess, Lamela, Lucas Then in the summer, Toby and Eriksen both leave de facto, clear out another 2 or 3 senior players and we have had the best part of 3 month to bed in a new CB, assess how Foyth is doing at RB, assess how much more time the likes of Sess and Lo Celso need to adapt, and make decisions come June regarding incomings. Projecting that, I'd envision we'd need to bring in 3 more (FB, CM, CB). So it really isn't impossible: Winter = 3 out, 2 in (CB, AM). Summer = 3(5) out, 3 in (FB, CM, CB).
"It would not surprise me if Tottenham manager Pochettino leaves the club in the near future. Since the summer, some of the things he has said - like when he talked about how he is 'only the coach' and has no say in transfers - makes it feel to me like he is in the process of a long break-up. I have thought for a while that Pochettino looks tired and how it looks like being Spurs manager has become a chore for him - but maybe he does not need time out of football, just out of Tottenham." Extract from Lawro's prediction for Brighton v Spurs
One thing that's troubling...basically all of us at this point is Poch dropping The Press last season in favour of the Air Raid, which is commonly believed to be due to Dembele's decline and departure Last season those tactics worked more often than they didn't, as they were lethal against the likes of Dortmund, Everton and Bournemouth - although were found lacking against Wolves and basically any Premier League opponent from March onwards - but the hope/assumption was that once Ndombele was in place we'd return to The Press, albeit it's not like you can snap your fingers and have players physically able to throttle games for 90 minutes after most of a season playing the counter blitz And this is where it becomes troubling: the likes of Lamela, Sissoko and Winks are doing The Press and Ndombele seems willing but not up to fitness, but there's gaps in the team who aren't doing it - with the best example being Wanyama's lackadaisical effort against Colchester where he looked like someone in the last six months of Pension Mode playing for some middling MLS franchise
Dembele's loss has been huge for us. Sissoko works his socks off but cannot dominate a game like Dembele could at his peak. Sissoko is at his best IMO when we are fighting a rearguard action but not so effective when we attack. What is clear now is how much Eriksen is missing Dembele and I do wonder if half of his desire to move is because of the lack of protection he now experiences.
https://www.skysports.com/football/...tottenham-an-ageing-team-that-is-not-pressing This may very well sum up the problem. Pochettino works best with young squads, The Spurs squad ain't young any more!! We need new blood. Pochettino has been saying it.
Pressing requires fitness, a lot of energy and hard work. Players looking to move on (Eriksen) etc and players not fit enough (Wanyama, Ndombele) are far less likely to either want to press or be able to for 90 minutes. That season we went undefeated at WHL we had prime Dembele and Wanyama bossing every midfield they came up against, sadly the current midfield is no where near those levels.
I find it a bit odd that all of a sudden we are ageing when in reality we are supposed to be at our peak..barring a few 30 somethings. So once a player reaches his peak...Poch can’t work with him? Lamest thing I’ve heard, if true Poch really needs to grow a set of balls ffs.