My understanding is that he was just a neutral in the crowd who was cheering on the drama of our comeback.
A serious look at Mauricio Pochettino
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Yep read exactly that yesterday he managed to get into the posh seating and watched as a neutral.
Poch loses a key player to the Asian (?) competition for several weeks, he has major player injuries and his squad is thin. Plus he suffered two defeats by sides he was deep down expected to beat. He’s talking jibberish and the league has loads of points to be won or lost. It’s not difficult to see Poch has a difficult job ahead of him in the final run in. If he does make it his rep will be restored but, just now he’s just another manager who thinks he got robbed.
What I saw was Ole winning the first half on points, getting the tactics right to neutralize Spurs for the most part and set us up for several good attacks. I’d expect Spurs at this point to dominate the first half at home, but Pochs plan A didn’t succeed. 1-0 to Ole and the goal was a bonus of his feel-good effect on Pog and Rash.
This was also evident in how Poch changed formation and set up at half time, and very deftly so. Freeing up Erikson from United’s Lingard-pointed diamond and attacking with more width gave them imediate chances. Well done by Poch. Did Solskjær have an answer? I think so, to a degree. He switched to something more resembling 4-2-3-1 with Lingard on the right and Rash in the middle, and the tide changed for a while, with United again creating danger and Spurs flow was halted for a while. At around sixty mins, if the game had ended there, I would still say it was a well deserved victory and Solskjær as the winner of the chalk board battle. But then it showed that United’s legs were emptying: Lingard, Pogba, Martial and Rashford was running out of gas at the same time, and without the high pressure, Spurs showed that they are better at what they do best than we are at defending. It’s telling that tvey created a lot of chances while our back four and central two mids actually where doing a very decent job still. That’s just not good enough against an attacking Spurs at their own turf. Poch takea the credit for this in that he has built it, and where Mourinho probably would have avoided the last half hours barrage on most days, it’s a small slight on Solskjær that he couldn’t. I think he should have been just a bit quicker in making changes, and getting on Dalot and McTominay helped. Lukaku was also a reasonable move, too bad he was below par.
So in the end I wouldn’t say we were lucky to win, if De Gea is better than Kane it’s not luck. But I would say both managers deserve credit, and if I had to pick one as the tactical winner of the day I’d probably pick Poch.
This was also evident in how Poch changed formation and set up at half time, and very deftly so. Freeing up Erikson from United’s Lingard-pointed diamond and attacking with more width gave them imediate chances. Well done by Poch. Did Solskjær have an answer? I think so, to a degree. He switched to something more resembling 4-2-3-1 with Lingard on the right and Rash in the middle, and the tide changed for a while, with United again creating danger and Spurs flow was halted for a while. At around sixty mins, if the game had ended there, I would still say it was a well deserved victory and Solskjær as the winner of the chalk board battle. But then it showed that United’s legs were emptying: Lingard, Pogba, Martial and Rashford was running out of gas at the same time, and without the high pressure, Spurs showed that they are better at what they do best than we are at defending. It’s telling that tvey created a lot of chances while our back four and central two mids actually where doing a very decent job still. That’s just not good enough against an attacking Spurs at their own turf. Poch takea the credit for this in that he has built it, and where Mourinho probably would have avoided the last half hours barrage on most days, it’s a small slight on Solskjær that he couldn’t. I think he should have been just a bit quicker in making changes, and getting on Dalot and McTominay helped. Lukaku was also a reasonable move, too bad he was below par.
So in the end I wouldn’t say we were lucky to win, if De Gea is better than Kane it’s not luck. But I would say both managers deserve credit, and if I had to pick one as the tactical winner of the day I’d probably pick Poch.
Leaving his fullbacks bomb forward and get exposed as he’s done in the past against Liverpool, city etc (as @noodlehair pointed out) is either a tactical mistake or tactical naivety.
Also people pointing out stats about their shots, saves etc and how they deserved to win and it shows they’re better, well yea they were chasing the game after we took the lead in the first half, they were lucky it was only 1-0 really. So obviously they would push forward and try and create more than us then, especially at home.
Yeah but all of our chances bar the Pogba blocked shot came outside of their period of dominance. All but one of their shots came outside of that period as well.
It wasn't an even game at all up to that point.
Let's remember that Pochettino was forced into that change, it wasn't some tactical masterstroke.
I have already decided I want Ole to be permanent Man Utd manager.
In fairness to Pochettino however he did respond to Ole's tactical trick at half time. That was something I haven't seen him do much. For example, he seemed powerless to respond to Jose's tactics in the F.A. Cup semi final or to Wolves' counter attacking set up a few weeks back. Maybe he is learning as a manager and is not as suspect a prospect as I have sometimes made out?
In fairness to Pochettino however he did respond to Ole's tactical trick at half time. That was something I haven't seen him do much. For example, he seemed powerless to respond to Jose's tactics in the F.A. Cup semi final or to Wolves' counter attacking set up a few weeks back. Maybe he is learning as a manager and is not as suspect a prospect as I have sometimes made out?
He didn't. He was forced into a substitution by injury. Credit to him for reshuffling the diamond but it wasn't by choice.
Very good analysis. I too remember a brief 10 minute period in the second half where we controlled the game again and Pogba was causing Spurs a lot of problems. It went south only after minute 60 when we ran out of gas.
It is also ignorant of the fact spurs had mostly played poorly this season up until the past month or so, and been lucky in more than a few games.
I doubt people would be happy with us doing that under Jose as it's basically what we did last season, and no one was particularly happy with it.
You get an easier ride as Spurs manager because the expectation is to fail, and the level needed to be deemed to succeeded is much lower than at United, City, Liverpool etc. Even at Arsenal fans wanted Wenger out because the aim every season was top 4 with minimal spending...the exact same thing Pochettino gets praised for.
I'm fine with the idea he's a good manager but if you're going to start thinking of him as a potential United manager, you have to judge him by those standards, not the lesser standards people currently apply to him.
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So I said this a few weeks ago and the Spurs fans in here had a strop because apparently I'm an elitist. Well Neville agrees with me:
Pochettino won't and shouldn't get to stamp his authority on the club, we already have a philosophy and we don't need to be 'more like Spurs'. We don't need a manager to come in and shape our club, we need someone like Ole to adhere to the philosophy. Pochettino will fail if he think's he's bigger than the club like the others did. I think we're making a big mistake in pursuing Pochettino and that's probably something Spurs fans agree with me on.
Finally, someone gets it. Been saying this for weeks but Spurs fans jump down your neck and some people have already drank the Pochettino cool-ade. Someone was saying earlier today that Solskjaer has to win a CL for them to consider him a worthy appointment, yet Pochettino doesn't have to win a thing.
Nobody threw a strop because you said that you don't think Pochettino should be able to decide your philosophy, people (including United fans) just called you out when you started acting like Spurs don't have an identity. All that was said was that if United don't think Pochettino's philosophy is compatible with their own, they shouldn't go ahead and hire him. He has a way of playing that he will want to stamp on a team, you can't hire a manager and then handicap him by not allowing him to apply his methods.
Pochettino's philosophy would ally quite comfortably with United's, so I don't get the issue here. He plays intense, attacking football, mostly on the front foot.
It's almost like Pochettino has had a far more impressive managerial career than Solskjaer, therefore the latter has much more to prove.Finally, someone gets it. Been saying this for weeks but Spurs fans jump down your neck and some people have already drank the Pochettino cool-ade. Someone was saying earlier today that Solskjaer has to win a CL for them to consider him a worthy appointment, yet Pochettino doesn't have to win a thing.
(incoming posts about how you can't be a success unless you win a trophy).
Please do tell me about the successful career Pochettino has had. I'm all ears.
What, compared to Ole who got Cardiff relegated and then was shit in the championship too, so fecked off to manage in Norway? I guess he's had six good results at United though now so he's the real deal.
Pochettino has had us in the top four season after season, on a ridiculously low budget compared to our competitors. Nobody would have predicted when he took charge that we would be finishing second or third every season and battling with Juventus, Barcelona and Madrid in the champions league, nobody. We were getting beat by Basel on penalties before Pochettino came in and sorted the mess that was our squad out. He's come in, transformed the way we play football and had us as one of the most consistent sides in the division, with almost no money. Do you honestly believe that he hasn't been a success at Spurs?
It's taken world class managers like Guardiola and Klopp hundreds of millions of pounds to start winning trophies, in Klopp's case they haven't even done it yet. If they have an issue they can bring in a record signing, Pochettino has never had that flexibility and should not be judged on equal footing as a result. What other managers do you think could have taken over the mess AVB left behind and led us to where we are now, with the resources Poch has been given? He wasn't able to sign a single player this season, before that we've only been able to sign when the likes of Walker have been sold.
He's exceeded all expectations at Spurs, the most any of ours fans could have expected was to challenge for top four, maybe getting in once every couple of seasons. Instead we've been comfortably in it season after season. That's a successful managerial stint, the lack of a trophy is a failure but not enough of one to ignore all the fantastic work he's done at the club. Anybody who ignores that is completely ignoring all logic and context, if he does get a top job at a club with genuine backing, then you can begin to expect trophies.
I mean for god sake, yesterday when Sissoko went off we were left with two youth products as the only actual centre mids in the squad. Do you genuinely believe that he's not been successful at Tottenham? If so, fair enough you're entitled to your opinion .. but man, open your eyes and look at where we were before he took over, huge improvements have been made and it's down to him. There are still genuine question marks over him and he's far from the perfect manager,
I have never understood why people think we could get Levy to agree to let Poch go for only £40 million. That seems incredibly unlikely to me, and yesterday I heard a rumor that, if true, confirms my suspicions.
I watched yesterday's game with a friend who is a well-connected Spurs fan, sufficiently so that last week he got a tour of the new stadium (which he raves about incidentally. It's a big pitch but with very little setback to the stands and with steep banking - he thinks the atmospherics are going to be great).
His inside info from a club employee - and give this as much or as little credibility as you wish - is that Levy's opening ask for Poch is £140 million. The rationalization is that Man Utd would need not only to buy out the contracts of Poch but also all his assistants, and then also pay Tottenham for the inconvenience and risk they would have to take on if they agreed to the deal. Plus, of course, he know there aren't many alternatives out there so he has Utd over a barrel unless they take a punt on Ole or Zidane.
From a business perspective that seems like the right approach and absolutely one that Levy would take.
The corollary is that Woodward would be insane to pay that, but what if they negotiated it down to $75 million? Would Poch's supporters still think that was worthwhile? Maybe so, for true believers. I mean, if we had paid £5 million for Fergie back in 1986 would that have been too much in retrospect?
I watched yesterday's game with a friend who is a well-connected Spurs fan, sufficiently so that last week he got a tour of the new stadium (which he raves about incidentally. It's a big pitch but with very little setback to the stands and with steep banking - he thinks the atmospherics are going to be great).
His inside info from a club employee - and give this as much or as little credibility as you wish - is that Levy's opening ask for Poch is £140 million. The rationalization is that Man Utd would need not only to buy out the contracts of Poch but also all his assistants, and then also pay Tottenham for the inconvenience and risk they would have to take on if they agreed to the deal. Plus, of course, he know there aren't many alternatives out there so he has Utd over a barrel unless they take a punt on Ole or Zidane.
From a business perspective that seems like the right approach and absolutely one that Levy would take.
The corollary is that Woodward would be insane to pay that, but what if they negotiated it down to $75 million? Would Poch's supporters still think that was worthwhile? Maybe so, for true believers. I mean, if we had paid £5 million for Fergie back in 1986 would that have been too much in retrospect?
I think the issue is we've gone for the most high profile trophy winning manager available at the time for our last 2 appointments, with both Mourinho and Van Gaal turning out to be quite shit. We've also gone for the over-achieving mid-table manager type in Moyes and he was shit too.
Pochettino is seen as a somewhat happy medium between the two, he's shown he can improve teams through his coaching, promote youth, and play high pressing attacking football. He's also consistently managed at the top end of the table and in the champions league (that is opposed to someone like Moyes or any of the current midtable overachievers that could be in the running, Howe etc.)
I assume you think the next external appoitnment needs to have a history of attractive football and winning major trophies... Who are your suggestions out of interest? I'm tempted to think the 2 obvious names are already employed by our 2 biggest rivals, and if they weren't I'd be curious to see if you'd find a reason to make out Pep and Klopp to be overrated too.
People push the "tactically outdone" line when it suits them and supports a narrative they want to push. I've never heard anyone talking about Steve Kean outsmarting Fergie because he won a game against him. It's doubly weird when his team created far more and more clear-cut chances in the game and his players decided to shoot them all right at our goalkeeper.
He was several wins over the likes of Klopp, Pep, Mourinho, Van Gaal, Conte, Sarri, Zidane... All of these games I'm sure were just good performances from his players, and all the ones he lost are tactical naivety?
To say the difference between Poch and Ole is he's just managed in the league for longer is just weird. It's the fact he's managed to improve a team significantly over a number of years that is the achievement - how many other managers would have taken over from Sherwood and created a team as good as this Spurs one with barely spending any money? How many managers come in and completely stagnate a team, or take them backwards? Ole knows about that from his limited time in English football.. If Ole had followed the exact career path as Poch and was the manager of Spurs right now you'd all be begging to hire him in the summer.
For what it's worth if Ole gets top 4 then I'd struggle to oppose giving him the job because there's no obvious outstanding candidates available. I don't think we've had a harmonious dressing room in any season since Fergie left which has really hindered us - there's always stories in the papers how the players don't like the manager - having a manager who actually has a good relationship with the players is probably the most important asset we can have right now given the shambles we've seen under Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho.
Pochettino is much more established than Ole, he went above expectations for Spurs by making them into a top 4 side. However, if Ole does make the top 4 after inheriting such a horrible situation then itll be closer, he'd basically have to have Utd be in title winning form for 5 months to finish in the top 4. If he does the unthinkable and we win the CL and finish top 4 then he'll be above Poch, but aside from that rare situation Poch will still be in higher standing.
Nope, I distinctly asked to hear about how successful Pochettino's managerial career has been, I'm not interested in hearing about comparison's to make Pochettino look like he's 'not as bad as Solskjaer'.
You keep talking about this low budget but Leicester won the league on a smaller budget and Spurs and their huge budget (in comparison) could only muster a second place finish, which incidentally is the only year you've actually challenged for the league. The other years you've been a comfortable top 4 side because other teams have been too shit to get their shit together, you've also been well and truly out of every title race by February. CSKA beat Madrid last month, United beat Juventus away, first time in a stupid amount of time, these thing happen.
Let me be clear, I've never said Pochettino is a bad manager, I think he's done a good job with Tottenham and I personally think he should stay and see out the project. Leaving anytime soon will result in his career taking a nose dive because he will almost certainly get sacked from United or Madrid before the season is out, or at most the end of the following season, my opinion of course.
My alternate opinion is that Levy has very much forced his hand in who he plays and who he buys. Feel free to disagree with me here but I'm sure if Pochettino had his way he would very much prefer to spend the amount of money Pep, Klopp and Mourinho have been afforded and have a very different looking Spurs team. I think that he's been incredibly lucky by being handed possibly the best striker in England, same way Solskjaer has been lucky to land Rashford or Pogba. So yes, he's done well but there's also an element of right place, right time.
I think Pochettino is a good manager for Spurs, he's made Spurs relevant which is all you can ask for, I think you could do a lot worse and not a lot better but I don't think it would work for him at United for reasons I've said before. I agree with you that he's been a success at Spurs but thats your world that he's affected, I don't see it from your perspective. As I've said before also, I'll hold my hands up if he wins a trophy and I mean any trophy baring the Charity Shield, and I'll go back on everything I've said. And also, for what it's worth, I would much rather Spurs win the league this year over Liverpool or City.
Leicester winning the league was a once in a generation achievement. Like, it was a genuine football miracle and you can't judge other managers by that standard because that would be utter insanity. We didn't even finish second that year, we finished third .. it was the season after we were runners up, behind an expensively assembled Chelsea squad. Also the whole 'other teams have been shit' cop out is total crap and not even worth engaging with. All that shows is how fecking hard it is for a manager/team to succeed in this league, even with financial backing! What the hell two one off CL results has to do with a team being consistent over the course of a season I have no fecking clue, especially since CSKA won AFTER Madrid had already secured first.
Sure Pochettino would like to spend money, which manager wouldn't? He hasn't been able to so he's made do with what he has. The idea that a ready made world class striker just landed on his lap doesn't wash, because Kane has developed brilliantly under his management. Other managers would probably have wanted to bring in a big name striker rather than giving an opportunity to the youth product with multiple failed loans. Right place right time? Because the squad he took over had some potential? It was also languishing well behind the top four with a whole host of toxic players dragging it down.
You can think Pochettino would be a failure at United all you like, that doesn't bother me, all I'm saying is that he's clearly been a very successful manager at Spurs. He's exceeded pretty much all of our fans expectations and nobody would have predicted that we'd be consistently finishing top four when he took over, that is a successful stint. It's not a case of him 'not being a bad as Solskjaer', it's a case of he's proven capable of being very successful with limited resources in the league.
I 100% agree with Neville (Why did he support Mourinho?). But the reason Pochettino is favourite for the job is because the club rightly thinks Pochettino espouses the philosophies we hold dear as a club.
If he gets the club into the top 4 from where we were, then he has to be given a chance, besides the fact there isnt a credible manager out there who put themselves forward for the job who believed THEY could it or even wanted it.
feck them all, if he gets us top four give him a stupid contract and give him a chance, nobody else wanted to come, so they can fecking whistle.
I dont get it the way some people make excuses for Poch.People keep on talking about their chances later in the game.
First half we cleared outplayed Spurs.If we were clinical enough we would have been 2/3 nil up at half time.The Lingard shooting the he should have teed Martial, Martial shot straight at the goalkeeper.Spurs did not have any shot on target first half.They had only one notable chance.
In the second half Poch made changes by playing Erikksen deeper, Ole responded by playing Lingard at the 'tip'.before the 60 minutes mark Pogba had three chances to put the game to bed.
After 60 minutes we sure a resurgent Spurs, this could be as a result of many factors.Which may include that our players got tired, lack of squad depth to reshuffle the midfield(yes Fred and Perreira were too big a risk after their display against reading), Lukaku failing to put in a shift, Spurs chasing the game, we dropping deeper.
Yes Poch is a good coach, but when results go south some caf members should stop making excuses for him.If he took credit for the good results, he should also take the blames for the poor ones.
You guys are making it look like the result was down to Spurs' poor finishing rather than Ole's tactical inputs.
First half we cleared outplayed Spurs.If we were clinical enough we would have been 2/3 nil up at half time.The Lingard shooting the he should have teed Martial, Martial shot straight at the goalkeeper.Spurs did not have any shot on target first half.They had only one notable chance.
In the second half Poch made changes by playing Erikksen deeper, Ole responded by playing Lingard at the 'tip'.before the 60 minutes mark Pogba had three chances to put the game to bed.
After 60 minutes we sure a resurgent Spurs, this could be as a result of many factors.Which may include that our players got tired, lack of squad depth to reshuffle the midfield(yes Fred and Perreira were too big a risk after their display against reading), Lukaku failing to put in a shift, Spurs chasing the game, we dropping deeper.
Yes Poch is a good coach, but when results go south some caf members should stop making excuses for him.If he took credit for the good results, he should also take the blames for the poor ones.
You guys are making it look like the result was down to Spurs' poor finishing rather than Ole's tactical inputs.
Some people are saying that they are turned off, from Poch after yesterday. After all, he did get beaten by the other guy who is competing for the (permanent) role of MUFC manager.
I am the opposite. I was so impressed by Spurs yesterday. They attacked relentlessly. This is exactly what Fergie teams did, when they needed a goal. The Spurs players were passing balls through us like we were a lower league side. We couldn't hold onto the ball for more than a few seconds.
The style of football which I saw Spurs play yesterday was so impressive, that I am now sold on Poch. It was beautiful to watch a team lay siege to an opponent's goal, where the opponent had no chance of holding on to the ball. Fortunately for us, we had DDG.
And hopefully, Poch will sort out our ridiculously poor defence, which was on display yesterday, resulting in DDG requiring to make save after save and picking up the MOTM award.
On a side note, DDG excepted, our defence is absolutely wretched. Decent opponents can simply skip through our defence and shoot at our goal. A top side should never have a defence like this.
I am the opposite. I was so impressed by Spurs yesterday. They attacked relentlessly. This is exactly what Fergie teams did, when they needed a goal. The Spurs players were passing balls through us like we were a lower league side. We couldn't hold onto the ball for more than a few seconds.
The style of football which I saw Spurs play yesterday was so impressive, that I am now sold on Poch. It was beautiful to watch a team lay siege to an opponent's goal, where the opponent had no chance of holding on to the ball. Fortunately for us, we had DDG.
And hopefully, Poch will sort out our ridiculously poor defence, which was on display yesterday, resulting in DDG requiring to make save after save and picking up the MOTM award.
On a side note, DDG excepted, our defence is absolutely wretched. Decent opponents can simply skip through our defence and shoot at our goal. A top side should never have a defence like this.
I agree, Give Ole a 3 year contract like a normal manager if he gets us into the top 4. Bear in mind that Phelan, Carrick and Mckenna are also very important here. I find no reason to hire a hot prospect like Poch if Ole turns into a hot prospect himself.
You were slightly better than us first half. Winks should score and Kane gets a goal from an offside position, we also have a number of decent positions in the box that we waste. For you to be '2/3 nil up' you would have to have been incredibly clinical, Martial shot straight at the keeper from a seriously difficult angle which you can't expect any player to score from. You were very good first half, played it well tactically on the counter and 1 nil was relatively fair, it was an even contest. Neither side were creating at will, you scored from the first 'clear cut' chance of the match.
What are these three Pogba chances he had to put the game to bed? I remember one from just inside the box, and another which prompted a good Lloris save. Pogba had a fantastic game and we didn't have the midfielders to contain him, particularly with Sissoko going off it's a simple fact that Winks wasn't able to handle him. That isn't down to Pochettino it's down to a personnel problem, nor is it Pochettino's fault that Trippier made a silly error to give Pogba the ball for your opening goal. Who else is he meant to play? A youth player or Serge Aurier?
He should take the blame when the blame is his. Yesterday the blame lay primarily with our players, that much is clear to see. Your goal came from an error from Trippier inside our own half, our lack of goals came not because we were tactically outdone but because we consistently missed easy chances to find a way back in to the match. Pochettino can't stick on a pair of boots and finish for Alli or Kane when 1 on 1 with the keeper. Ole wasn't great tactically in the second half, his team were pinned back and had no answer to our intensity, he fell back on a world class keeper and our own poor finishing.
On another day, in the second half of that game we score 3 or 4 and everybody praises Pochettino for a tactical shift and motivating a team despite Sissoko's injury. We were through on goal twice, both Llorente and Alli are in great positions in the middle of the box to score, both Kane and Alli have easy headers they should put away, Kane has space in the box for a shot etc etc. There's nothing Pochettino can do as a manager when we waste all of these opportunities, these days happen in football.
Tactically, the only thing Pochettino got wrong in my view was not starting Sanchez to counter the speed of your front 3, but even then it's debatable if this would have changed much, and I can understand why for a big game he would go with experience. You can also blame him for pushing up the fullbacks, but they're a crucial part of our attacking play and if they stayed deep the likelihood is our attacking moves break down and United are able to take control of the game and hem us in. He's made mistakes in the past but here? I struggle to see how the blame lies with him, he was very limited with the Sissoko injury and no Lucas to bring in .. the tactical moves he made mostly paid off, Llorente laid it off for Kane to shoot in the box for example. He did pretty much everything that was in his power as a football manager, the rest was up to the players and yesterday the forwards let us down.
I agree. Spurs was ruthless in the way they attacked us. Anyone that is turned of by Poch because of that game must be a big fan of Mourinho.
The choice should be simple for United, if Poch says no, then we keep Ole if he continues to do well. Ole has done a good job so far to make managers like Zidane, Jardim, and Allegri become questionable choices.
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Are you sure you guys want him to be our manager ? He is using Spanish Fellaini in the last 10-15 minutes, i thought we agreed that it was never a United way ?
Wait are we actually counting offsides as chances now? Because then Spurs actually managed to score when Kane was offside...
Shots on target means very little for expected goals. Getting through on goal against the keeper and missing the goal is just as much a chance as shooting it straight at him. The same with Rashford shooting it out of the stadium, compared to Kane getting his shot blocked in the box.
We were better than Spurs in the first half, but it’s laughable to say that we could easily have been up 2-3 goals before Spurs could have scored and then mention Pogbas chances, when they came after 3 of Spurs biggest chances. It makes no sense at all...
Yeah, both Ole and Poch would be good options. I would be happy with both. I really can’t understand United fans who thinks that Poch would be a bad hire. No manager is a 100% guarantee for success, but not wanting Poch after all he has shown with Southampton and now Spurs seems weird.
I can understand prefering Ole over Poch, i think i do too, but completely saying no to Poch seems a bit weird. Expectially when looking at what managers are actually obtainable. It’s not like we can get Klopp or Guardiola...
I’m not going to dissect your entire post at the moment but putting all the blame on your players is a bit far.
Where was your left back when trippier gave the ball away? Who had told him to go that far forward? Players obviously followed tactics that although created them chances it also left them exposed against our pace
I never envisioned wanting OGS to be our permanent manager when he first took over but it's impossible not to want it at the moment. Team playing better and saying all of the right things. I was always on the Potch bandwagon and still wouldn't be disappointed with him being hired as he's proven it for longer and needs the horses and backing for trophies in this era.
My worry is us continuing to perform well all year round - being forced to hire OGS and then he gets found out in year 2. Would very typical of the last 5 years but that's just paranoia surely!
Got to be a sticky patch upcoming for Ole. Plenty of talking points and rumours over the next few months.
My worry is us continuing to perform well all year round - being forced to hire OGS and then he gets found out in year 2. Would very typical of the last 5 years but that's just paranoia surely!
Got to be a sticky patch upcoming for Ole. Plenty of talking points and rumours over the next few months.
We were in possession and on the attack, our fullbacks pressing up high is a very key part of our game in order to provide width to our attack. Trippier in particular was causing you plenty of issues and offering an option out wide, we have no natural wide players so we absolutely need that, our fullbacks playing deep would have led to us being very easy to defend against. Yes, they can get caught out but that's the risk you take as a side, most top teams will take risks in order to get the reward.
We tried to play on the front foot rather than fearing your counter attacking threat, and in the second half were able to pin you back. I think that was the right move and anything else would have been unnatural for us, the problem was we weren't able to be clinical at the other end. Our only other option was to let you have the majority of the ball, but we were never going to do that at home.