I would probably put Dyche firmly at the top of the list, as he's done wonders for the comparable budget. Strictly speak, Poch isn't one - if he is (we'll get to that), then Klopp, more so.
The 'shoe-shrine'
(is that something Woogie would have in There's Something About Mary'?) budget is a myth anyway. People would think he had actually not had big money players, but he did - he just didn't get a tune out of barely any of them (Sissoko, Davinson, Ndombele, Lo Celso, Sessegnon, Moura, Aurier, Janssen.. must be £250-300m there). Son is the only exception, really.
The problem with Spurs fans and Poch fans is that they put all of the good ones as 'Poch signings' and all of the bad ones as 'Levy signings', when in reality there's a paradox there because the same people also say that the cheap ones are Levy ones and Poch should have more money, even though the evidence shows that the cheaper ones have been the better signings and the expensive ones have flopped. The key thing that reduces the 'spend' issue is that we've sold most of the expensive players that Poch couldn't get a tune out of, meaning low net spend.
Surely Utd fans would see that more than anyone else - a small fortune has been spent on players that have been utterly ineffective.
There's also a lot of context that needs to be taken on board here. Note that prior to MP, the record with Redknapp was 4th, 5th, 4th, then AVB 5th. Here's the league finishes including the season before Poch, which was the AVB/Sherwood disaster.
and the Poch era that followed:
| 2014–15 | 38 | 19 | 7 | 12 | 58 | 53 | 64 | 5th |
| 2015–16 | 38 | 19 | 13 | 6 | 69 | 35 | 70 | 3rd |
| 2016–17 | 38 | 26 | 8 | 4 | 86 | 26 | 86 | 2nd |
| 2017–18 | 38 | 23 | 8 | 7 | 74 | 36 | 77 | 3rd |
| 2018–19 | 38 | 23 | 2 | 13 | 67 | 39 | 71 | 4th |
| 2019–20 | 38 | 16 | 11 | 11 | 61 | 47 | 59 | 6th |
(You could note that he didn't complete 2019/20, but bear in mind that 6th is flattering because Mourinho was, I recall, comfortably top-4 based on the table since he started.)
What you see is two key things:
- 2016-17 was the peak. It would graph almost like a perfect Bell Curve.
- Defence is probably the key statistic, and ties very closely to performance more than goals for.
What the above figures don't show is the "surrounding peers" that are the basis of this:
Note - I'm going to point out some selective stats of teams we didn't take all the points off in these seasons. This is just to indicate a 'theme'
2014-15
- First season. One thing I'd like to point out is that he inherited a squad full of a lot of very good players in bad form. This could be the type of team he inherits next.
- Games were lost to WBA, Newcastle, Stoke, Palace, Villa. Teams we drew with included Sunderland, Palace, West Ham, Burnley.
2015-16
- Leicester won the league (with a very small budget, fyi)
- Arsenal finished 2nd after Spurs disintegrated late on (hence the '3rd in a 2 horse race' jibes).
- Liverpool were 8th, City 4th, United 5th, Chelsea 10th.
- Spurs 'took advantage' of poor seasons for the other big-hitters, but still left a lot to be desired in the final rounds - we won none of our final 4 games and got thumped 5-1 by relegated newcastle.
- Losses that stopped a title charge? They included Newcastle (both games...they were relegated!), West Ham and Southampton. We failed to beat Swansea, Stoke, WBA (both game)
2016-17
- A better example and without doubt of course our best season in the league. Peak in all forms.
- The main problem with that season, considering the above, was that we lost points in ridiculous areas: Lost to West Ham, Drew with Sunderland, Bournemouth and West Brom. The lack of killer instinct in 'easy games' was a big factor and was going to become a theme
2017-18
- By no means a bad season - not hugely dissimilar to the one before, but look where most of the points were lost again: Lost and Drew with WBA, Drew with Brighton, Southampton, West Ham, Watford, Swansea, Burnley.
2018-19
- Put simply, it's indicative of how utterly terrible Arsenal and Utd were that season. We shouldn't have finished anywhere near the top 6. I don't know if anyone will actually recall, but Spurs won only 3 of the final 12 games or so. It just so happened that United and Arsenal seemed to be just as shocking. The biggest difference was that for the first time in a while, we started losing the bigger games too. Still lost to Bournemouth, Burnley, Wolves, Watford, West Ham, Southampton.
So, about those teams above:
At no point in his tenure was Pochettino able to cope with the type of teams who played traditional defensive or 'suppressive' football. The teams that took more points off us during his whole term were the lower table types - not top 4 rivals. In 2018/19 he got an FA ban for going mental at Mike Dean on the field because we couldn't break down Burnley.
Look at the common theme of his time with us and you'll see a team that was, at times, beautiful, excellent, entertaining... but inevitably trophy-less. You simply cannot win things if you aren't beating those teams. It's just not how success is found these days. Anyone who points towards the CL final would do well to pick out a single game with a convincing win in it, too. It was a miracle on all fronts, but the result in the final was inevitable.
Fans of other clubs can put their fingers in their ears and "la la la" as much as they want, but Spurs fans saw it in context week-in, week-out. United fans are simply looking through a filter and hoping that he's a magic fix for the problem, but I really don't think that would be the case. For a start, you'd need the patience that Liverpool had with Klopp, and there's seldom evidence for it (if a club legend like Ole can't get it, who can?)
What an absolute strawman.
