Yes, because he would have actually proved that he had the mentality to win trophies.
A serious look at Mauricio Pochettino
- Thread starter NotBrendanRodgers honest
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Always amused me how Klopp's ability to get to finals was used as a stick to beat him with. Seemed it'd been better for his image within some fan bases if he kept getting knocked out in quarter and semi finals! To take that Dortmund team who cost so little to assemble, to the CL final remains one of his greatest ever feats, but because he lost the final, it was used as a negative, same with Liverpool getting to the final in 2018, no one expected it, yet when they lose it - it's a negative. Anyway, just makes me laugh, I was so happy he finally won a CL final last season!
But yes, off on a tangent, back to Poch.
Sarri seriously? That's a weird take. He's 60 years old, he's won precisely a EL in his entire career, and drove half the Chelsea support apart with his weird selections. Even Lampard has got them playing a lot better.
Simeone has stalled terribly - he's been on a downward trajectory for a few years now.
Conte has a claim, he's an astute manager.
Tuchel, I would say he's on the same level. Winning with PSG domestically is not that remarkable, and in Europe he's not done anything.
Allegri is Mourinho lite, if you like that kind of football.
Ancelotti is a great coach, but on the way down.
Mourinho is a longer discussion.
Ten Hag, Rodgers, Nagelsmann and Rose are prospects.
So they only realized what he did at Spurs after five years? Not really experts then are they?
He has done that with limited resources without coaching a top club. The trophy argument is a non starter. Spurs, are not expected to win a trophy. That expectation only came after a few season after Poch took over and created such a foundation.
it was long overdue. The champions league finals won experts over.
Already talked about Sarri in posts further up, you need to read the whole thread before quoting
Doesnt matter how much of a downward trajectory Simeone may be on, he's still above Pochettino right now in any 'best coach' list.
By the way - how is Rodgers a 'prospect'? He's been a manager for about 12 years, and coached for a number of years before then at youth/reserve level. If Rogers is a prespect, so is Pochettino, and he certainly isn't one either.
For Simeone case I think he needs to move. He stayed at Atletico for way too long and it's weird he doesn't want to move to a new challenge. That's the reason he has stalled I believe.
Yeah, I read you earlier point about Sarri and my point still stands. He's 60 years old, he's had a much longer career and he's only won once in his career, so if winning is what matters than he's certainly not top echelon. I mean Emery has won countless more including 3x in a row the EL which Sarri won, but no one considers "Mr Gud Ebening" a great manager.Already talked about Sarri in posts further up, you need to read the whole thread before quoting
Doesnt matter how much of a downward trajectory Simeone may be on, he's still above Pochettino right now in any 'best coach' list.
By the way - how is Rodgers a 'prospect'? He's been a manager for about 12 years, and coached for a number of years before then at youth/reserve level. If Rogers is a prespect, so is Pochettino, and he certainly isn't one either.
Rodgers hasn't proven anything at the top level - if he gets CL for Leicester City this year, he'd have achieved precisely what Poch did for Spurs 4 times out 5.
Simeone is an accomplished coach - my personal dislike for his football should not detract from his past achievements - though I get the distinct feeling that he's past it.
Fair enough for that season he deserved some form of recognition, but that award only means he is the flavour of the month (year). I know you are probably not serious but it doesn't mean the Fifa guys suddenly realized he's better than conte or ancelloti or simeone.
"I know for a fact that he thought he had the job at Man United, and he never got it.”
Harry Redknapp on what happened to Poch. Reckons he never recovered from it.
Harry Redknapp on what happened to Poch. Reckons he never recovered from it.
Fair enough if you think of Rodgers and Pochettino as prospects then, I guess we see it as something different. A prospect for me is an up and coming coach, Rodgers is not that, he's an experienced coach. Same as Pochettino.
I hate Simeone's football too, as I do Mourinho's, but both still are in any coaches list above Pochettino right now.
To be honest, not even sure what we're discussing at this point, my point was that Pochettino is not in the top 3 coaches in Europe, if you think he is, then fine, that is your opinion, if you don't think he is, then we agree!
Right now he's got no claim, in fact right his only claim is to unemployment insurance
I suspect Levy knows Poch is a great coach at building the foundations of a club and developing the academy players.
But after a number of close but no cigars situations, Levy probably came to the conclusion that Poch just cant close the deal ie silverware after a number of attempts. He knows he needs to start filling up the new stadium/investment's cabinet with some silverware or its a failed investment from one aspect. Just doesnt think Poch can bring in silverware and thus you solve the problem with Jose, at any costs.
Whether you think that's the way Spurs should judge their managers is another issue. For some clubs like ours, its the primary KPI but it wasnt at Spurs historically.
Clearly, by his reaction and appointing Jose, silverware has become a requirement -- and Poch isnt perceived to be one who can do that.
I said as such in my post so I'm not sure what you're taking issue with. Also pointed out that it coincided with two of the traditional top really declining which I see you chose to ignore. Its definitely laudable but lets not pretend its like winning the league with Leicester.
He'll do a Clough to Leeds and go to Arsenal in the summer.
You are talking as if the big clubs have sound judgement and make carefully planned appointments. Many big clubs make random appointments depending on who is available.
Maybe so but i think those clubs look for managers with a winning pedigree or alternatively they give a chance to young managers coming from "within".
I think it would also be best for him to take a job with less pressure of wining at this point. At elite clubs anything less then the title or CL would be seen as failure. Mourinho was smart i think to go to Spurs after his monumental failure in his last 2 jobs, as long as he can win some minor trophy or get a CL spot he it would be regarded as success.
Last edited:
Poch wasn't sacked because he came close and didn't win some trophy, he was sacked as their form in 2019 is relegation form. Nothing to do with lack of trophies.
I wonder if last season when mourinho was sacked and Ole was still in Moles, how many would be saying Ole is better suited to us than Poch to take over.
I'd imagine if Moyes was in charge today he'd have his fanboys try and rationalize keeping him on the basis that we owe him a sense of Loyalty to finish the season while marginalizing Poch's achievements because SAF once said in his final interview as manager that vwe should back our manager
We're going to look very stupid next season fighting 6th if we pass on Poch in favour of a rookie who has been getting schooled on how two to play cohesive coordinated football on a regular basis by relegation level managers at bottom feeder clubs
There's a reason why opposition supporters love Ole and it ain't because he's a nice guy.
I asked yesterday if Ole would have been able to do the job Poch did at Southampton or Tottenham and there was no answers just snide remarks and deflection.
Truth is he'd have fallen flat on his face and drowned those clubs into a sea of pure mediocrity and his fan cult would say he didn't receive any backing and they were teams on the slide anyway.
The same shite excuse used for his stint at Cardiff as if he wasn't hired to improve their results but to just be a passenger watching them sink.
Southampton were heading towards relegation when Poch took over. In terrible form and were expected to go down just like Cardiff. Poch could have thrown his hands up in the air, given up before checking off to manage some obscure club in Argentina to pump up his ego and shine his resume with dead trophies.
Instead he got his hands dirty used his talent and coached and improved Southampton not just in performance but with mentality to just do the bare minimum of surviving the drop but I instilling in them the belief that they can play exciting football and finish in the top half of the table breaking their own records in achieving their highest recorded finish.
In comparison, today we have a manager who after taking over a club that finished 2nd the season before last and after spending 150 million, is here telling the fans that the team will have to be at their very best to beat Norwich. You wonder why the players love working under Ole when they only have to achieve these kind of targets to be seen as heroes by the manager?!
It's no wonder we now think its a miracle getting 3 wins over Partisan 2x and Brighton when in the past these were the bare minimum routine expected wins. Now they're seen as evidence of tactical master classes and signs of a great United Johan Cruyff styled modem reinvention of football that we've never witnessed before
I'd imagine if Moyes was in charge today he'd have his fanboys try and rationalize keeping him on the basis that we owe him a sense of Loyalty to finish the season while marginalizing Poch's achievements because SAF once said in his final interview as manager that vwe should back our manager
We're going to look very stupid next season fighting 6th if we pass on Poch in favour of a rookie who has been getting schooled on how two to play cohesive coordinated football on a regular basis by relegation level managers at bottom feeder clubs
There's a reason why opposition supporters love Ole and it ain't because he's a nice guy.
I asked yesterday if Ole would have been able to do the job Poch did at Southampton or Tottenham and there was no answers just snide remarks and deflection.
Truth is he'd have fallen flat on his face and drowned those clubs into a sea of pure mediocrity and his fan cult would say he didn't receive any backing and they were teams on the slide anyway.
The same shite excuse used for his stint at Cardiff as if he wasn't hired to improve their results but to just be a passenger watching them sink.
Southampton were heading towards relegation when Poch took over. In terrible form and were expected to go down just like Cardiff. Poch could have thrown his hands up in the air, given up before checking off to manage some obscure club in Argentina to pump up his ego and shine his resume with dead trophies.
Instead he got his hands dirty used his talent and coached and improved Southampton not just in performance but with mentality to just do the bare minimum of surviving the drop but I instilling in them the belief that they can play exciting football and finish in the top half of the table breaking their own records in achieving their highest recorded finish.
In comparison, today we have a manager who after taking over a club that finished 2nd the season before last and after spending 150 million, is here telling the fans that the team will have to be at their very best to beat Norwich. You wonder why the players love working under Ole when they only have to achieve these kind of targets to be seen as heroes by the manager?!
It's no wonder we now think its a miracle getting 3 wins over Partisan 2x and Brighton when in the past these were the bare minimum routine expected wins. Now they're seen as evidence of tactical master classes and signs of a great United Johan Cruyff styled modem reinvention of football that we've never witnessed before
And at the same time beat Poch 2 times, Lampard 2 times, didn't lose to Klopp (came closer to winning then losing), beat Rodgers, eliminated PSG and made some of the best transfer decisions we've seen since SAF, made our defense one of the best in the league when before it was one of the worst. Far from perfect, but there are major positives that a few bad defeats to inferior teams while we had half the squad injured do not wash away.
You have to consider club expectations. Going by Spurs expectations Poch although he didn't make the final step of making them a title winning or even a title chasing team. Oh the other hand Jose won trophies. You can tell those are 2nd rate trophies but he won us a trophy which United never won, EL.
So all in all I can't give you a single answer.
As for Klopp Cafe is not exactly sane most of the time.
of course many people went overboard due to him being Liverpool manager but even then he was a very good one.Poch I feel is being given too much excuses and his success being branded as nearly mythical one. What Klopp is doing is mythical tbh, Poch not. He took Spurs to a new level granted but then stopped so to say.
I'm not talking about beating another team in a one off game basis, I'm talking about performances. Any team/manager can beat another team in a one off game through either game raising or playing off the break etc
Those games you mentioned, we did not outplay any of those teams.
We were hanging on for dear life in most of those games. At home against liverpool we were camped out in our own box defending, looking like a team fighting for a point to just to survive relegation on the last day of the season.
We beat Leicester at home through a penalty. Before the season, that is a game that you would routinely expect to win regardless of who their manager is. And Rodgers is hardly Pep Guardiola level god who he seems to have turned into here.
Spurs again we did not outplay we were hanging on to our 1-0 lead while they missed good chances. The other time, was in pre season. I mean are you serious?
The point is we did not outplay any of these teams. My point is that lower teams have played us off the park. Notably Newcastle and West ham, who had individual players of their own trying to party tricks on our team because it reached a stage where it was so easy to run rings around our predictable prehistoric tactics
Go rd watch the AZ game if you can bare it. They should have battered us after playing posession football that would have made Barca proud
As for transfers, this is hyperbole.
He bought two of the best renowned British defenders. No integration or settling in was required, so of course they would have an instant mediate impact.
As for your ''best since SAF'' stuff, many thought the same when LVG signed, Falcao, Di Maria in his first season on the last day of the windows. They were flying in the first few months, then it went to shit and they were far more complicated transfers.
Likewise when Mourinho brought in Pogba, Bailey and Zlatan, people were cheering saying how great signings they were as they were also flying in the first few months and again far more settling in required for much of these transfers.
Lets see how Ole is able to integrate a player that is signed from abroad and see if he can get them to make an instant impact.
As for best defense, that's nothing but fluff. We had one of the best defenses in LVG
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/row-zed/man-united-best-defence-premier-4902548
In Mourinho's second season when we finished 2nd, we also had one of the best defenses in the league
Also none of these managers had us boasting about good defenses while languishing around the bottom half of the table or sitting 7th which is meaningless.
That's the equivalent of a hobo with no home, no form of transport only a begging tin cankering with coins ,boasting about having the best jacket to protect against the cold and the best trainers to wear when walking across uneven terrain.
Last edited:
We should be all over him. Not because he's some messiah who's going to bring back the glory. Because he's far, far better than the manager that we already have and is a step closer to getting it right. Then if/when a better manager becomes available on the market, we should fire his ass and get a new one in.
Of course they are risky. Sticking with an unproven manager is also risky.
Not sure what you the many hipster options are?
When you put all the arguments based on stats on the basis of "fluff", "not important", "we won but did not dominate", etc there is really no point in continuing the conversation. No problem with having different opinions of course, but anyone could make the same type of reasoning with our bad games, they were all "fluff". There is good and there is some bad in these few months of the season, pretending not to see one side or the other is silly imo.
If klopp does indeed leave at the end of his contract, I can see Liverpool going all in for him, dont see many others who would take charge with his premier league experience.
Indeed, I'd love to see him at Liverpool if Klopp leaves. However I think it's very unlikely. Klopp is contracted til 2022? And by then I doubt Poch will be out of job.
Best 3 in the World without a single trophy to his name.I love this thread. I don't remember laughing so much for footballing reasons.
It's definitely 100% fluff when you bring up pre season games as evidence some sort of sorry attempt to make a case for Ole being superior to other managers and making up stories about ''the best transfers and best defence since SAF'' while we sit in 7th with 4 losses and 4 draws in only November
Meanwhile you selectively cherry pick only bits and pieces out of my post, dodging the question on whether Ole would have been able to do the job Poch did at Southampton
I should use a crystal ball to find out or what kind of answer could i or anyone give to such a question?
I understand your opinion, very different from mine. No point in continuing this debate.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Are we going to look at it next year and think. "Maybe we should have appointed Poch after all"? Because Ole is not filling me with confidence at all.
I cant see him taking another job right away in the PL or anywhere I would say he will take the rest of the season out.
It will be a very big mistake if we do not act swiftly.
I hope Poch wants to take 4/5 months off to recover and get his energy back rather than taking the Bayern Job.
If Poch wants to get back into management, I would start a dialogue now because I am sure we will not win our next 2/3 prem games and the Ole cycle will continue..
Do well 2 games and regress.
I hope Poch wants to take 4/5 months off to recover and get his energy back rather than taking the Bayern Job.
If Poch wants to get back into management, I would start a dialogue now because I am sure we will not win our next 2/3 prem games and the Ole cycle will continue..
Do well 2 games and regress.
You know, I agree with you regards trophies, it should not be the only thing, when it comes down to it, there is only 2 or 3 trophies to be won each year, so there will always be good teams and good coaches who don’t win.
But he has had opportunities, especially season 15/16, which should have been the perfect storm for Pochettino and Spurs, but they ended up being 3rd in a 2 horse race almost, no kind way of saying it other than Poch and Spurs blew it.
What my issue here is more your insistence that somehow he’s done what he’s done at a small club without a great team, and that frankly is rubbish. The way you talk about his time at Spurs makes it sounds like he was coaching Bournemouth or Crystal Palace.
But come on now, this team he’s had was hugely talented. And yes of course he plays a big part in helping these players develop, but they where good players to begin with.
He started out at Spurs with a really strong base to work with and added good pieces, it wasn’t like he needed to completely rebuild from the bottom up, he had 6 or 7 of the most important parts waiting for him, and that is a massive plus for a coach going to a new team. Kane, Son, Eriksen, Dembele, Moura, Alderwereld, Ali, Vertonghen, Walker and Lloris, as well as the likes of Rose, Lamela and Wanyama, and I’m sure I’ve missed some others, that’s a good squad he’s had either from the start, or for significant parts of his time there.
So yes, Poch, excellent coach as it seems people have to keep pointing out, but no way on earth is he top 3 in Europe at this point, not even top 5 as of now, and yes, he does need to win trophies to be in that conversation, to take that step from really good to elite.
That's why I think the logical thing to do is make him DoF till the end of the season. He can get rest and do a bit of rebuilding. Ole won't like it but he'll take it for the £££ and the profile
I really don't think Poch would take a DOF role for money or profile, it would be very odd. He's a coach.
Could be a good move for Pochettino to go for Bayern, for all that work needs doing there at the moment it is a relatively straightforward opportunity to put some trophies on the CV, develop under pressure and reaffirm his qualities. Right now he's in a similar spot to say Hector Cuper after Valencia, and Cuper was a good coach but he kept falling short and then he fell down pretty quickly.
The idea would be that he takes over in the summer. He needs a rest.
DoF isn't exactly a holiday