What's troubling Poch?

How could you possibly suggest that Mourinho is the "cheap" option - that is utterly ridiculous!!!

 

Dier made a couple of post-match interview comments that mirror Pochettino's:
"We've been through periods like this before, with this group together, and we know what we need to do to get back on track."
"We need to be humble, be able to recognise what we need to do better - each and every one of us."
"And work even harder than we have been to get things going in the right direction."

Reading between the lines, it seems that some players aren't working hard or being humble.

 

Thought it was pretty obvious. He's a free agent and doesn't have an existing contract to buy out.

 

As I suggested in the match thread, one feeling I can't shake is that Poch is overcompensating for how the Winks/Sissoko pivot was unable to control midfield like the Dier/Dembele or Wanyama/Dembele pivots that came before, so he's throwing bodies at the issue and THE INFERNAL BASTARD DIAMOND taking precedent is the result - as is the knock-on effect of players who play elsewhere are getting shunted around to fit the system

As I also said, the real issue with THAT MOTHERFUCKING DIAMOND is that we're currently set up like this
Ndombele (box-to-box) Winks (deep-lying playmaker) Sissoko (water carrier)

However, all this serves to do is expose the obvious: Harry Winks isn't Andrea Pirlo

If we shifted Ndombele into the deep-lying playmaker spot and had Winks as the water carrier alongside either Sissoko as a box-to-box or Dier as a hatchet man, the balance would be better - and that's before taking Lo Celso or Skipp into consideration (but not Wanyama - hell, I'd put Armando Shashoua higher up the pecking order right now...)

 

Five and a half years is a long time to be manager of one club these days.
It's rare for managers to last longer unless they are serial winners.
If (as appears to be the case) there will be a period of rebuilding of the squad because a number of key players have left/are likely to be leaving soon, is he going to stay on to manage that? It may be two to three years before Spurs have a settled squad performing at the level of the one of the past few years - assuming all goes well.
Is he going to be given up to 10 years to win something?
Would he want that?
It does seem to me that he might have reached a crossroads.
Real Madrid and Utd in particular might not show too much patience with current managers unless there is a sharp upturn in fortunes (unlikely at Utd).
I'd take him without hesitation.

 

Going back to my point about midfield, there's something incredibly obvious that is overlooked: we lack a defensive midfielder

Look back two or three seasons ago and we had one, be it Dier or Wanyama, but the present options are as follows

Eric Dier
On the one hand our one dedicated DMF, but not only have injuries been a problem for the last year, the fundamental issue is that while he's a great hatchet man, his passing and control are lacking so while he can break up play he has to do a quick lay-off instead of start a move himself

Harry Winks
We're clearly trying to make him a DMF similar to Jorginho, whose job is to hang back and pick off loose passes created by his midfield screen pressing, but the results can vary wildly - against Palace he was brilliant in this role, but against Leicester his lack of tackling ability was exploited by James Maddison all match long

Tanguy Ndombele
Lyon's revolving pivot last season had him play the deeper role in games where Aouar started alongside him (while he was a box-to-box when Toussart was alongside him) so he can do the dirty work, but given how important the Dembele-like player is to our system, this could potentially nerf the entire midfield

Oliver Skipp
Plays a very similar role to Winks, playing behind a midfield screen to pick off loose balls and recycle possession, but while he's more positive with his passing his tackling is just as lacking

Moussa Sissoko
More of a DMF by process of elimination, he has the physicality and workrate to perform in the role, and his ability to babysit right backs shows he has the discipline and positioning as well, but the obvious issue is having him sit back eliminates his ability to bulldoze forward that has been important to us in the past year

George Marsh
Poch apparently rates him due to his tackling and workrate, and he seems to be establishing himself in the Orient team...but that also means he won't feature for us until January at the earliest

Jamie Bowden
...and now we're getting into U23 players with zero first team experience, which sort of underlines the problem

Victor Wanyama
I'll let r/coys handle this one...

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That's been a problem for a while...Dier himself was guilty of this when he want to go to united, Dele with his non football stuff taking centre stage, Trippier when blaming much younger players for HIS costly mistakes, Rose with THAT interview etc.

These players did as least as much wrong as Lennon, Townsend and Janssen refusing to go to Brighton yet they were all got rid of.

 

I can imagine Poch won’t be too thrilled about this, considering the disunity in the squad he eluded to...



Nothing worse than having your dirty laundry displayed in public!

 

Trippier was got rid of, while we were more than ready to sell Rose in the summer - only for him to learn that he may have overestimated his own value

That's the part about our transfer windows that's really aggravating: we have deadwood that a nuclear blast couldn't shift, with Wanyama currently occupying the role that Janssen, GKN and Fazio all held before him

 

Sounds like an even worse idea than Poch's to release a book on his career before he'd actually achieved anything. Come to think of it, it's been downhill since the fecking thing came out.

 

I think RCL was referring to Trippier's demeanour in games. One in particular springs to mind which was the game against Wolves where we almost conspired to throw away a 3-0 lead. Trippier really laid into Foyth after both of their goals. Foyth who was making one of his first PL starts for us, away from home against a solid team. Oh, and Trippier was completely to blame for both goals (one was a penalty). And after the match all the brainless pundits were droning on about Foyth being too young and not ready for the big stage, because obviously as we all know scoring a free kick for Ingerland in a world cup semi elevates you to the level of sainthood.

 

You read it?

Hes a bit a day dreamer

 

Some call it players having an agenda, I called it not playing as a team. To me it is the same. Certain players want out and aren't turning up. Injuries to players who want to be here, and trying to reintegrate those that don't isn't working.

Poch needs to decide who wants to be part of the team and play them. It's why in the past he got rid of players but this summer we couldn't shift them. And maybe he is being told they have to play to be in the shop window for January.

Quality teams that struggle often have a 'disruptive player'( see Pogba, under Mourinho supposedly ) , I think we have one in Eriksen, who is normally an important cog, but when they decide they want out they disrupt the whole dynamic of the team.
Sometimes they can be turned around or agree to play to the best of their ability till they leave (Eden Hazard).
We have enough quality who want to play for Spurs and they should be the team.
I think back to the bromance between Dier and Dele. Maybe Dele needs his mate on the pitch with him to 'enjoy' the game but Dier has not been around much due to injuries and illness.
We need Son to play with that smile, Lucas playing with 'belief', Sissoko being the GOAT, Kane to relax and find the corners.
And we need our Mojo or Mopo back!

 

The one incident that soured me on Trippier also happened against Wolves last season, albeit the game we lost: he passed the ball to Harry Winks in spite of the fact that Winks had two Wolves players bearing down on him, Winks attempted to make a pass and lost possession and Wolves launched a counter - but rather than track back, Trippier was stood there yelling at WInks for giving away the ball

I wouldn't be surprised if I heard that was the moment where Poch gave up on him too

 

One of few sensible talksport offerings.

 

Much of football is emperors new clothes with reputations gained on flimsy evidence. Trippier is a classic example. He did a few good things on the world stage and he becomes a 'great'. If you watched him week after week as Spurs fans did then you have a different opinion. All players make mistakes but a good defender makes very few, and he doesn't blame others when he does. Talking of great footballers how did David Beckham become soooooooooo good, how did so many football clubs pay millions and millions for Darren Bent. Spurs have specilised in paying millions for strikers who fail to score goals.

 

Martin Lipton, a Spurs man with plenty inside info reckons the problems are within the squad because Poch has made it clear to Eriksen, Toby, Jan, Rose, Wanyama, Trips, Aurier & Dier that he wants them gone. Of course we only shifted Trippier.

He wants them gone because he believes they have gone stale, on a downward spiral or just not good enough. This was the ‘painful rebuild’ he was alluding to...hasn’t gone to plan though...therefore mental stress for Poch.

This is also why he is struggling to get any cohesion out of the team. There’s those who’s hearts are not in it playing with those who’s hearts are in it....result? The mish mash we have been witnessing.

Levy really needs to pull his finger out of his arse and back Poch because the more I think about it the more I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s the players and the owner that are hindering Poch. A few will say he did back Poch...maybe this summer he has but we wouldn’t be needing to shift 7 players all at once if Levy was helping Poch build in the 2 barren windows.

As for those players Poch wants shifting...I agree with him actually. Not sure about Jan though...love the bloke and never really forseen any issues but I understand if Poch thinks the level he is aspiring to is not the level he can get out of Jan.


If this is true and I don’t see why it wouldn’t be as Martin Lipton has got a lot to lose if he’s making up stories about Spurs...then I am behind Poch and if he does leave it will quite simply be because the ambitions of our owners couldn’t quite live up to Poch’s ambitions and that’s fair enough...Poch has standards.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah! All these they should have done this they should have done that. Why do you need to find a single person to blame it all on? It's not credible, like most things involving humans it's the nature of the beast. You have an agenda against Levy Spurlock because you perceive he won't spend money on players as you would like. The difference is he has to run a cllub that is in reality a multi million pound business. You have pundits on the radio proclaiming that we should have sold Wanyama. We did actually but the player didn't want to go. Same with Rose, you can't force players to move to where you want them because they now have power over their own destiny. Gone are the days when players were poorly paid and 'owned' by the club. Read about Greaves or Gilzean and what response they got when they wanted more than £20 per week. To buy or sell a player is a difficult transaction dependent on his current club, his agent, the buying club and of course the player himself. I wish I could just decide on my own future says Eriksen! To glibly blame one person for the lack of success in any given transfer is just naive. The current malaise at Spurs is because of many many factors from the scouts, to the players, to the manager and the board of directors not forgetting the pressure that can be exerted by fans who have none of these responsibilities they just want silverware. It's a human trait to want simple answers to complicated situations that's what Boris is doing at the moment and sadly people swallow this ****e.

 

So Poch wanted 9 gone in 1 window? That would have been a painful rebuild.

But why not walk away in the summer as soon as he realised he wasn’t going to get rid of the players he didn’t want? All this negativity from the manager isn’t doing anyone any good.

 

Well Martin Lipton must be reading my posts as I have been singling out the Magnificent Eight for weeks now. Although in reality they fall into two groups: 6 we know were definitely meant to be gone (Trippier, Toby, Eriksen, Rose, Aurier, Wanyama), and 2 who were maybes (Jan, Dier) .

But I agree with Spurf - we have no idea why none of them aside from Trippier moved on. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying. We agreed a deal for Wanyama to move to Brugge but the player himself pulled out. We left Rose at home to make it easier for him to move but no-one bid for him until Watford woke up with 3 hours to go before the window closed. Similar actions for Aurier. No-one bid for Eriksen and the only bid we received for Toby was frankly an insult to football and further proof if any more was needed that Baldini was probably taking a dump when God handed out brains.

If anything, the fact that we sold Trippier for significantly less than his market value and bought Sessegnon for significantly more than his market value suggests that Levy was actually stretching much farther than usual in trying to help Poch.

The situation can't be addressed again until January. My concern is that after the relative failure of the summer, now looming on the horizon is the distinct likelihood that we could get rid of 5-6 players in the next two windows and make back barely £50m for the lot of them (Toby, Eriksen & Jan = FREE, Aurier = £15m, Wanyama = £7m, Rose £20m). This, I think, is what is weighing on Poch's mind more than anything. He knows that with regards to having the funds to rebuild, the boat has now sailed. Which is why elsewhere on this forum I have called for us to sell a big name player who has fallen well short of the standard for ages now, in order to generate proper funds. That player is Dele Alli.