WTF happened to Pochettino?

I dont know why but winning trophies isnt a negative thing in football.

How about not be utterly **** and win a trophy...every other club in the top 6 have managed it...we haven’t been utterly **** but still can’t deliver the silverware

Don’t quite understand why Spurs fans think if we win trophies it means something else must be amiss. Seems to me like we all know that ENIC have no real interest in chasing glory. 1 poor trophy in their tenure suggests I have an argument and unfortunately 20 years of it has started to slowly change our mindsets into thinking trophies are not important.

The Fanbase seems to be morphing into Daniel Levy...it seems as though it’s the only way to come to terms with the philosophy that silverware isnt important.

 

I remember when the 5 year plan started under Poch...it was to get to a stage where we can deliver.

Everything is in place

only thing lacking is true backing from the owners for the Manager.

We’re here now...post 5 year plan, stadium up....money coming out of our arses. Every top 10 best this n that list includes us...mixing it with teams that are serial winners when it comes to the club value...but we don’t mix it in any other way.

Instead it’s excuse after excuse

 

I’m not saying I disagree with all your points but I’ve also long maintained that things went far better on the pitch than we initially planned under Poch for the first 5 years. I think the aim was to establish ourselves as a CL club (which we managed ahead of schedule, I believe) and to have a tilt at some trophies - we made 2 finals and got close to making a couple more. And of course in that time, to build the stadium. But the main aim I think was to have that CL money as regulars once the stadium was built, there was probably a tacit acceptance behind the scenes (and I believe amongst some of the fanbase too) that the league placement would be the priority - let’s not forget we had an outside chance at the title once or twice as well - and that the serious focus on trophies, particularly the domestic cups, would come in phase 2.

The trouble was that by the end of Poch’s time with us, the CL final run (and previous league performances, though we never put a complete season together) completely distorted expectations of where the squad was at after years of underinvestment. Poch undoubtedly also let things go stale behind the scenes and if our resident in-club source is to be believed, let things go to his head. All that combined to a poisonous atmosphere that meant Poch couldn’t be the man to lead us into the next 5 years as we’d probably planned.

Whether we think this attitude and plan as I’ve described it is a) accurate and b) acceptable is up for debate but it’s just my reading of it. It was derailed, ultimately, by a combination of factors, and we find ourselves where we are now. While losing Poch and having to deal with the rebuild is a distraction the time is now to expect us to win trophies - that’s what Mou is here to do. If the expectations aren’t now trophies and consistent CL football, and if the financial backing isn’t there to complete the reshuffle, then there is something seriously wrong.

 

If things go better than planned...surely it means we are moving faster than estimated...that does not mean we should slow down and take our foot off the pedal.

otherwise things like Pool overtaking us after we were finishing above them for 8 out of 10 years would not happen in such dramatic fashion.

 

No one is saying that winning trophies is negative, but it is also not the be all and end all. I would love to see Hugo with silverware in his hands and don't know any fan who would say any different.

The cups used to be won regularly by 'smaller' teams but since the year 2000, the 5 teams with the biggest budgets have dominated the cups like never before, winning 33/40 competitions, the other winners are Portsmouth, Wigan, Birmingham, Blackburn, Swansea and us (twice). Winning that trophy has hardly been the beginning of a 'dynasty' for any of them, we are only 1 still playing in the premier league and 3 of the other 5 have been in league 1 at some point in the last 10 seasons.

The club (and all clubs) now prioritise league over cups, even teams in the championship put out weakened teams in the FA cup. I don't dispute that we could have a better record and we have reached quite a few semi finals and a few finals without getting over the line and I agree that this has hugely frustrating as a fan.

 

I agree. But we did take our foot off the pedal. There may have been financial reasons for that, because there can’t be justifiable footballing reasons.

 

Here's what I think ultimately undid Poch: the expectation was in his second season we'd be qualifying for the CL, instead we were in a title fight a couple of years ahead of schedule, which was ultimately reflected in our shambolic CL campaign the following season

More than anything else, though, I think that if we didn't challenge for the league that season it's not unreasonable to think we might have pipped Chelsea to the league the following season: if we were lurking around 3rd/4th for most of the season and a late rally saw us finish ahead of the Nomads we would have had a momentum boost going into the next season, instead we saw our title challenge fail (c/o Mark Twattenberg) and we ultimately slumped into third place while also having Dembele suspended for the first few games of the following season

If, on the other hand, we were hovering around third the previous season our following season would have started very differently: we wouldn't have had the spectre of a failed title challenge hanging around our necks and we wouldn't have had Dembele suspended for the opening few games, and while Chelsea ultimately finished seven points ahead of us what ultimately hurt us that season was drawing two of our first three games and a run of four draws in weeks 8-11, and at the very least having Dembele in the side from the off would've turned the opening day draw against Everton into a win and those extra two points would have had us topping the table after we beat The Sheikh Mansour Team in the seventh game, and with that in mind the consecutive draws against West Brom, Bournemouth, Leicester and Arsenal that followed that game likely wouldn't have all been draws, as the Bournemouth and Leicester games were both games where we had numerous shots but only managed to convert one apiece and being top of the table would've been a motivator to make sure we bury any chances, and that takes us up to game 13 where we lost at Stamford Bridge - and if we went into that game without the psychological scars of the previous season it's more likely that one would have been a draw

That alone would have made up the seven points while also removing two from Chelsea's points total, and if the season unfolded like that we'd have potentially won the league

 

Yoy can’t really believe all that? And if you do then wow.

Challenging for the title in 2015/16 messed Spurs up in 2016/17? I’m sorry but that is ridiculous and absolutely grasping at straws.

 

Any specific what if is not very likely, but the difference between the plays necessary to win trophies and the plays that don't win them is often very small.

You've often made an implicit assumption that if only we had signed another player then things would have been better and you have no evidence for that either.

 

Why not psychology in football is massive - look at Leicester they got momentum at the end of one season and carried that on in to the next, and then got on a run and won the league.

It's not really clutching at any more straws than people who suggest that just spending more will guarantee success.

 

Yes I do

First of all, Dembele's suspension at the start of 2016/17 did mess us up, as we had to start our first few games with the Dier/Wanyama pivot which was about as useful for getting the ball forward as filling the ball with concrete and asking Lloris to lump it long. Just two extra points from either the Everton or Saltypool would have seen us top of the table after beating The Sheikh Mansour Team going into an international break, and trying to deny that would have been the case is a little difficult considering that going into the international break we were in second place, a point behind then-leaders...The Sheikh Mansour Team

Don't believe me? Fine, here's something called "evidence"
https://www.worldfootball.net/schedule/eng-premier-league-2016-2017-spieltag/7/

Go ahead, say that having two more points wouldn't have mattered at that point in the season. You'll only make yourself look foolish

And that's why 2015/16, or to be even more specific The Battle of Stamford Bridge, ****ed up our 2016-17
1.) It led to Dembele's suspension for the early games, which saw us dropping four points out of a potential nine
2.) It led to our late season collapse in 2015-16, which eventually saw us plummet into third and **** up our momentum
3.) It led to plenty of think pieces about the club's mentality, which wouldn't have been written if we didn't "bottle it"
4.) It added a ton more pressure to our visit to Stamford Bridge in 2016-17, which was the catalyst for Chelsea winning the league

The thing is, though, that The Battle of Stamford Bridge wouldn't have unfolded that way if we were sitting in third, as we wouldn't have had days of needle in the press with their players saying they wanted to cost us the league, nor would Twattenberg have gone into the match looking to be the man who won Leicester the league

And that's the other part: even though Chelsea were top of the league going into that game, if we won that match we'd have had 27 points while they would have dropped into third with 28 - and, yes, I have the data to support that one too
https://www.worldfootball.net/schedule/eng-premier-league-2016-2017-spieltag/13/

If we won that game we'd have had three more points at the end of the season and they'd have had three less - in other words, their final total would have been just a point more than ours, and that could have been negated by having Dembele available in our opening games - and we didn't because of how 2015-16 panned out for us

If you can't understand that, just blame Levy for it...

 

But who is to say we wouldn’t have dropped points even with Dembele?

The club’s mentality has been questioned long before ‘the battle of the bridge’

Added pressure is something that winners can deal with, the fact our squad couldn’t and the failure to win any trophy shows they weren’t winners.


As for ‘if you can’t understand that then blame Levy’ that just makes you sound petty. You can’t just call everyone who disagrees with you ‘lunatic fringe’ or say they don’t understand the bigger picture. Granted you probably spent a lot more of your time reading articles about Spurs than I probably do (hunting out the links above for example) but just because others don’t have the same opinion doesn’t mean it’s less valid.

 

Spending does not guarantee success but no matter how we try to look at it...you can’t escape from the fact that spending is everything in football.

Spend right or spend wrong....that’s down to the infrastructure.

To not be serious about spending whilst having serious finances as have been proven with the various sources putting us in rich lists etc etc is the problem because what happens is what is happening with us now. Blow our Golden periods due to the hierarchy standing still...then the fans will brush it under the carpet for the sake of Levy

No one is saying let’s just spend spend spend

 

The whole point of what Levy has done is to create the ability for sustained spending in the future.

 

The problem is that we're not capable of spending as much as at least five other clubs in this country.
City, Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal have higher revenues than us and some are backed by dodgy owners, too.
We have to do things differently in order to compete and we've largely done that, barring the last couple of seasons.

I think that Levy took his eye off the ball because of the stadium, as I've said before, but we need to return to what we were doing well.
We're not Real Madrid, Barca, Bayern or Juventus and we shouldn't be trying to emulate them, as we're not capable of it.
Ajax and Dortmund have showed how to do things when you're financially outmuscled.
They've both had plenty of success, even if it's overshadowed by some other clubs.

 

Which is fine...but to me it looks like we are still doing the whole sell to buy thing. There’s no ambition in that it’s number crunching which is also fine but then don’t tell me Levy is a footballing man. We can spend more than that formula allows us to due to our increased revenue so why still this attitude?

When will the ‘future’ become the ‘present’?

 

The fact there was a clear difference in our play between when he was out of the team to when he was in it is a good reason to say results could have changed: when he was in the team he'd smash through teams and create space for Alli to make a late run into the area or Eriksen to play a defence-splitting pass, when he was out of the team we kept playing in front of teams and never actually breaking through - and we didn't have another player capable of playing like that until we signed Sissoko, and he arrived after we'd played our first three games

There's a difference between questioning our mentality and saying we have a bad mentality, and that game meant there was something those writing the think pieces could point to the match and not question our mentality but actually say we have a weak mentality. There's a reason why pundits started using the word "Spursy" after that season

Were you actually following the club at any point between 2015-17? At no point were we under any pressure to maintain our position at the top of the table, we were under pressure to chase, and those are two very different things, especially in 2015-16 when Leicester had a period where they consistently had a 24 hour head start over us, meaning the team couldn't simply focus on their game as they had results elsewhere hanging over their heads before a ball was kicked

Also, and I'm going to make this quite clear to you, if you're not going to make so much as a token effort to try and disagree with what I have said - because you know damn well that you can't - you're in no position to throw the word "petty" around

But go ahead, feel free to explain how ending a season with our momentum in the toilet, missing key personnel at the beginning of the following season, and allowing plenty of Narratives to be written about us which came into play the following season obviously had no effect whatsoever on us. I'd love to read that - and then pick it apart like a vulture picks apart a carcass

 

Still waiting for you to attempt to even debunk a single point I made...