Interesting post, and agree overall with the gist. Just curious on your take why would he fail at United?
Pochettino sacked by Spurs
- Thread starter mu4c_20le
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I love Ole - he's a hero of the club. That's not going to change. But we need to accept that United should be getting a high calibre coach. Taking out any sentimental feelings for Ole, it is obvious United need to try and get Poch.
All competition is relative though. Its not as if he took Man Utd to the Norwegian league here.
Competitions aren't on the same level of course. When were we ever interested in the manager who won Norwegian league, and will we be interested who will win it if we sack Ole and scout a new manager ?
Let's forget Ole. And let's just say success Poch had at Spurs is completely getting overrated.
Glad you can post again now. Can you back this up with some examples? I'd be interested to read the thoughts of Spurs fans who have held the same view for a long time supposedly.
It's basically because people think that he would suddenly be brilliant if he was given:
a) Money
b) Better players
The reality, thus far, though has been:
a) I'd struggle to think of a signing he's made that's improved Spurs that was a big signing. It's always been the case at Spurs that we've done well out of cheap signings than big ones. His history at Espanyol, Southampton and Spurs is littered with expensive failures, and as a Spurs fan you hear rumours from "ITK" about the ones we get offered and he didn't want, like Tielemans.
I just don't think he has an eye for a player.
b) The height of his powers have come when managing players of a lower reputation - look how he's handled unhappy "stars" at Spurs - Walker, Trippier, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Eriksen, Adebayor, Kaboul and so on. His solution is worse than the way people complain about Mourinho. He'd do no differently to OGS imo - cast out the "stars" and rely on the lesser players.
In addition to all this, a lot of the complains about Pochettino's time at Spurs have been about how "Levy doesn't back him". By observation, Woodward is certainly no different, potentially worse, and so he'd hardly find himself able to get a Dybala at the drop of the hat. United were linked to the same players as spurs for most of the off-season (NDombele, Fernandes, Dybala etc.) and got none of them, so I'd be wondering about that.
The bigger issue though, which Mourinho will inversely benefit from, is that he's not going to get a hug and a blowie from the United board for "having a go" or reaching a final - they will want him to win. This is a problem, because he's so far been a serial bridesmaid at Spurs - unable to cross that final threshold.
The last, unknown issue, is the Harry Kane factor - how much of Kane was due to Poch, and/or how much of Poch was due to Kane. Just like Bale dug out AVB multiple times (which the lesser observant of Spurs will see), a good majority of Spurs' results in the last 12 months have been tumescent football rescued by Kane's clinicalness. Even throughout the 'better' first half of last season, we played terribly but managed to grind out results somehow - it was never that convincing, but we'd all assumed it was one of the Fergie things about how a good team still wins points when they play badly; it just turned out we'd play badly all season (including in the CL) and look good in spite of it. I don't think we had a single CL game where we looked convincing (especially in the final), but we managed to prevail by a series of miracles.
He’s shown enough to take charge of another big side, I think he’d be a great fit for Atletico if/when Simeone goes. I wonder if Real would go for him though. If you get to a CL final and consistently qualify for the cl, you’re there or thereabouts.
Read somewhere around this point in time. Mostly before the CL final, because there was a period of buoyancy/false hope around then...
https://spurscommunity.co.uk/index....ochettino-thread.126827/page-700#post-6239216
Don't look for 100% of people having the view - it was quite a big proportion of the fanbase who were growing unhappy with Poch, but there are pockets of anti-ENIC posters who tend(ed) to flood and attack the sceptics (no different to most forums, but just anticipating that not being appreciated).
As mentioned, I can only post something like 7 times per day, so any back-and-forth is going to exhaust that.
Ole outwitted Potter hands down whereas Poch's pressing game did not work. I do not think that much of Poch's Spurs, not a patch on Mourinho.
Different styles suit different opposition. Poch is rigid and unsophisticated. When the pressing does not work?
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Getting top 4 after buying 2 or 3 players over the last few seasons is not a minimum goal....it is your goal. Seriously- you have won less trophies in the last 30 than we have in the last 3 or 4.
That's what happens when you are (were) the second highest paid manager in a league.
You don't pick up almost £9m a year to perform an 'Okay' job.
I know a lot of people dismiss the notion of anyone claiming to have information, but this is what has been posted on the Spurs side.
(I'd hypothesise, if true, that the "friend" might be Nathan Gardiner, who was for some time the Spurs fitness coach but was 'replaced' in the summer by Poch's son Sebastiano. That's what would make it 'fit' someone who would know all this stuff but not still be there now.)
Even if you don't believe it, there have been numerous articles and player quotes that basically corroborate all of the above.
So the sacking wasn't going to be based on the position in the league - I think Levy was pretty good friends with him and quite loyal to him, so there would have no doubt been more to the decision that made things untenable imo.
Thanks for your input mate
Your expectation is too high, look at this beloved club even poorer performance than Spurs most time. I felt Poch did very good job. I never understand the one you mentioned in your username.
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Amazing how once the manager is not at his best everything is re-written. When Poch was at his peak, improving players like Kane, Walker, Rose, Vertonghen, Eriksen was used to support in his favor, now that he is sacked, the narrative is changed to "he inherited the team, players were already there at the club". Of course they were already there looking like bunch of average players and once Poch took over, they looked like players who were among the best in their position.
He did very good job at Spurs and Spurs didn't spend anything to refresh the squad, they reach the end of the cycle with many player losing motivation and fatigued (both mentally and physically). That's why the greatest ever manager said team should be refreshed with new addition to add that hunger, competition for places.
It's just hilarious when Poch's role is played down when it comes to players like Kane, Alli, Walker, Rose and many more players. It's not coincidence that almost every player started to play better than they did previously and looked like new players.
Gone are the days where manager stays for 10+ years, manager cycles are short, among them Poch did very good job for 4-5 years and reached the end of cycle for various reasons.
This is the guy who barely spent any money (with no signings for 18 months) and made them regular top 4 team, reached CL finals, outplayed one of the European super club in their own stadium but somehow he should be working even more miracles because he earns 9 million per year.
He did very good job at Spurs and Spurs didn't spend anything to refresh the squad, they reach the end of the cycle with many player losing motivation and fatigued (both mentally and physically). That's why the greatest ever manager said team should be refreshed with new addition to add that hunger, competition for places.
It's just hilarious when Poch's role is played down when it comes to players like Kane, Alli, Walker, Rose and many more players. It's not coincidence that almost every player started to play better than they did previously and looked like new players.
Gone are the days where manager stays for 10+ years, manager cycles are short, among them Poch did very good job for 4-5 years and reached the end of cycle for various reasons.
This is the guy who barely spent any money (with no signings for 18 months) and made them regular top 4 team, reached CL finals, outplayed one of the European super club in their own stadium but somehow he should be working even more miracles because he earns 9 million per year.
The problem is (1) who's to say which "narrative" is correct, and (2) they can still both exist; ie. he improved the players to very good levels, but ultimately failed to win anything with such a good squad.
Xg works for prediction.
When comparing historical data with actual pts available we can forget about xg.
Easy to see which narrative was correct, checking the posts from the time when he was at his best or looking at the performance of the players before Poch took over.
He failed to win anything, so what? He brought them at least in the contention of winning things with such a low spend, low wages and barely signing anyone for 18 months. He improved the players, made them more than sum of its parts.
In the end he deserved to be sacked, doesn't mean anyone should rewrite what happened 4-5 seasons ago.
fbref.com which uses StatsBomb data.
Well Poch didn't make players like Eriksen, Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Walker, Lloris, Son, Alli, etc. They were all pretty good for their previous clubs, but at the age where more improvement was possible. The fact that he helped them develop was good, but with the benefit of a lack of Poch-vision, they were all highly rated players at their previous clubs. Players like Rose, Kane, Dembele, Dier, were definitely improved/ well utilized by him.
The problem with the spend point is that in the end it was a good team and he failed to win. If he were to go to another club which bought him a good team with more money, where's the guarantee that he'll win?
The problem with the wage point is that I'm sure winning something together was part of what Poch used to convince those group of players to stick around a while on lower wages. He failed to do so, and now quite a few want to leave on free transfers.
I agree with this, I don't want to rewrite anything but bring another point of view to the table. I think you should consider that back then, Poch may have been a bit overhyped (like all new cool players/ coaches/ etc) thus all the good things in Tottenham were attributed to him, but now that the hype is dying down, people can realize that it actually wasn't exactly like that.
ok, there is no point reading beyond this point. We disagree at this point.
Eriksen, Vertonghen, and Alderweireld were highly rated at Ajax, and Son was a key player at Leverkusen, all good level, CL clubs, and all before Tottenham. Lloris was rated at Tottenham.
The only contentious ones would be Walker, who was not rated by everyone as a youngster, and Alli, who was rated as a youngster but was playing in a lower league. Do you disagree with all of that?
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They were rated but Vertonghen, Eriksen, Walker, Rose, Alli, Kane, Dembele, Son all played at much higher level than before. I didn't watch Toby for Atletico Madrid but iirc he was signed by Poch for Southampton and also for Spurs and he was very good too.
Yeah I think Poch worked wonders for Dembele's career, and Rose, Alli, and Kane all improved from quite low starting points. But that's the sort of distinction you can make without the Poch hype, which was the main point of my post. I don't think all of the players were bums who he improved, but he definitely did improve some of them and put together a cohesive unit.
He has both pros and cons, and, I'm trying to identify which is which. I'm not for or against him or anything like that, just trying to gauge his actual achievements from his mythical ones. My previous long post has a bit more detail on that.
He improved all the players I mentioned in the previous post, I didnt say they were all bums, I said he improved them and all played at higher level than before. Few of them looked average, like Walker, Rose and they were among the best in their position.
This.
A simple yet comprehensive statement and it still baffles me how people can still rebut to this. Imagine comparing Ole to Poch.
I think it's quite clear that poch and levy did not have a good relationship. Levy kept breaking his promises to him regarding transfers and poch kept obliquely moaning about levy in the press.
Wouldn't surprise me if levy loosens the purse strings more now, for no better reason than that he has more confidence in mourinho and likes him better.
And that's where we differ, I think the players I mentioned showed enough early promise to where they would naturally be expected to attain such levels once they hit their prime. The players he clearly improved were the ones who had not previously shown such potential like Dembele, Rose, Kane.
But that's just a small part of my post anyway, we can agree to disagree on that and move on. I pose the question, if he had such a good set of players but didn't win a cup, why the view that if he spends more money at another club to get good players, he'll win something?
There's really no comparison between Ole and Pochettino. The latter has been excellent at (nearly - if we're only including elite trophy winning teams in that ) the very highest level.
Which is irrelevant. Any alleged greatness of a manager is directly tied to their ability to win and retain trophies.
Rather he got overrated for his qualities of long term building.
Well our utter disdain for what Ole has done is fundamentally flawed
First, Ole Gunnar won a league title more than once and retained it. In a competition in which you are tested over 30 games. Anyone who thinks it means nothing is just a joker.
Second, he didn't even win it with the biggest nor wealthiest club in Norway. I don't give a rats behind how weak you imagine that league to be. Beating the biggest fish in THAT small pond to a title, more than once is an achievement. No matter how you look at it
And last, when it comes to bog clubs. They don't give a fig about your building record. They care strictly about your ability to get a team over the line trophy wise first. Before the not your building ability.
And for all pochetino's work, he is just an extreme version of Hector Cuper. Showing an inherent inability to win things. Not an elite class manager.
This is what I don't understand, the Norwegian league is not as strong as the premiership that is obvious, but it doesn't detract from winning the damn thing!!
Ole took an underachieving Molde side and led them to trophies, it doesn't matter that it was in Norway!! It's not like he took United over to Norway and won it with them, it's all relative!
Poch has got praise at Espanyol for finishing mid table. He got plaudits at Southampton for finishing 8th, he's getting lauded for finishing in the top four with Spurs. Whereas Ole is getting beaten up for winning league trophies and domestic cup trophies because it was in his home country, you couldn't make it up!!
Poch has won nothing his entire management career, maybe he needs to go to Munich so he can find out what what it feels like.
Winning cup or not shouldn't really matter. He took the first team to new level but he didn't have the squad to rotate to push them even more. Winning some league cup or other cup won't make any difference to their position. They were in such a delicate position with financial risks that surrounded the stadium and he steered the club to top 4 without much transfer activity.
With lowest spend, lowest wages he has achieved very good results which improved Spurs' situation when it comes to financial and coping with stadium burden. That is bigger legacy than winning a small cup.
I asked someone else, I will ask the same question. If Poch takes over PSG, Bayern, Juventus and wins league/few cups, will he become manager with "winner mentality"?
It's crazy to judge Poch based on winning the Premier league, the strongest league in the world, with Tottenham Hotspurs, a team who has finished top 4 twice in the last 22 years with little to no budget before him getting appointed, and comparing it to winning Norwegian league, whatever the team Ole managed there. It simply throws logic out of contest. All competitons are of course on different levels. Otherwise big teams will be hiring managers from minnows leagues because they overachieved there all the time. Did anyone ever suggest Ole to become our manager at any time during the previous years? Was he in the managers wanted list of anyone when LVG or Mourinho were having their meltdown? Will we ever scout any Norwegian league winner manager with an underachieving team after him?
Yes, Poch should have won a domestic cup or a Europe League and it was totally possible as I criticized him previously for that but the best 3 seasons Spurs had even had points and position wise since start of Premier League were all under him. The CL final last season was their first ever in history. That's the max this Spurs side could have achieved in both big competitions. They weren't going to leap crop City, Pool and Chelsea to league titles with their budget.
So just to be clear do you both think if Pep has been managing this Spurs side he would have went on and won the Premier League?
I would like to also know what were the initial expectations of Poch when he was hired as Spurs manager 5 years ago? Was anyone actually putting an expectation for him to challenge for the league when he was hired? Because this looks too much of a hindsight for me.
He tried buying some squad players but they flopped. In general, for a team in Spurs' position where the key players are promised silverware if they stick around on low wages, winning something is probably important.
I addressed this before but I don't mind doing it again, because I think this is where the "mythical" aspect of him comes up. I think the spend and wages isn't important due to the quality of players he had. For instance, if he were to come to United, purchase the whole Spurs squad on high fees and wages, and perform the same, he wouldn't be so fondly viewed.
No, although winning constantly does help cultivate that mentality if you don't already have it.
Low risk players while other clubs sign players for bigger fee who are more safer bet. Also not sure how you know that key players were promised silverware if they stick around on low wages, maybe they were promised jump to bigger clubs on bigger wages if they stick together for a year or 2, maybe these players thought they won't get better offers (except few players) so stayed at club or maybe the players wanted to run down their contract to sign bigger contracts like Toby, Eriksen are going and like how Rose said he will do.
Or maybe that's the ceiling of that team and were good enough for top 4 but not good enough winning trophies. You are ignoring the squad strength and just going by the quality of first team.
Spend and wages are important, it shows how much the team has invested and how much they got in return. You can't expect manager to improve every player, you need level of backing to cross the line.
IMO "Winning mentality" thing is just overplayed, especially when people judge young managers. If you have team rich and capable of winning, good manager will help you in winning it. If you have team that is so restricted financially, then it's hard to win. Like I said, Sarri didn't suddenly became winner because he won Europa league and will win Serie A, it's just that he finally managed a club that was good enough to win trophies.
Makes no sense.
By that logic, the winner of the Indian domestic league is a better manager than plenty of PL/La Liga/Bundesliga managers.
So you can't say on one hand that he improves players, and on the other, he can't work with low-risk signings.
Like I said previously, I think a lot of the players he improved already had that quality, and his ability doesn't extend to everyone. The low-risk flops are a good example.
True, but he didn't even really use his squad. He had the opportunity to strengthen his squad with backups and also to rotate at times, but he didn't do either well enough.
I guess the most obvious example would be the CL final with Kane being rushed back and Lucas benched
I think it's a thing which is hard to quantify but is identifiable; that said, true it can be overplayed at times.
In Poch's case I think you're right that it's more a matter of him being young, but I will admit some of his comments and behaviours are a bit worrying in that regard.
The amount of drivel above, holy shit. Where have you all been when voting list was created after JM sacked, not one single soul mentioned him in here before news came out about possibility of Ole becoming a new manager. Whos next for comparison.
Looking at his overall performance at spurs and where he goes from here, I am not that convinced he has what it takes to be a top coach.
He has a lot of managerial virtues, no doubt. They speak for themselves really.
But he also came across as someone who is more comfortable without the pressure of the very top. All his talk about the project, doing things the right way, building the club for the future is more important to him than success, that 'trophies just builds more ego'. Etc. It speaks of someone who is either too insecure or too eccentric to be bothered with the trophy hunt (or both).
The latter happens. Bielsa is basically that eccentric. Laudrup also said he never had any interest in managing a big club. Klopp is perhaps similar, except that he is driven enough to take teams there anyway. The whole "I'll resign if I win the CL" bespeaks of such eccentricity.
And frankly I think the pressure of trying to escape the spiral got to him at the end and he lost perspective on himself and how to work with the squad. Also happens. Klopp resigned over it at dortmund. Rodgers certainly lost it in his final year at Liverpool.
If he were to join a team like united, I think he'd make them a top four team and stall, because his comfort zone is that "building towards" phase.
Wouldn't last a season in Madrid.
Maybe it would be different at PSG where the title ought to be a foregone conclusion and he can put his mind to to cracking the CL code for them.
But overall I think he'd be happier somewhere like arsenal, dortmund, Roma or Valencia. Clubs in need of development projects who won't lose their shit two seasons later because they aren't challenging for the title properly.
I think because spurs was his first big job, he had to find out some of these things in the heat of it all, and there were some learning on the job situations that lead him to rationalising the path of least resistance at times (I'm sure levy loved how poch conformed to his shoestring budgets).
He's still young though. 47. Basically the same age as Rodgers. Think he would benefit from taking his time picking his next job, getting the stresses of the past year out of the system and figuring out what he actually wants from his next job.
He has a lot of managerial virtues, no doubt. They speak for themselves really.
But he also came across as someone who is more comfortable without the pressure of the very top. All his talk about the project, doing things the right way, building the club for the future is more important to him than success, that 'trophies just builds more ego'. Etc. It speaks of someone who is either too insecure or too eccentric to be bothered with the trophy hunt (or both).
The latter happens. Bielsa is basically that eccentric. Laudrup also said he never had any interest in managing a big club. Klopp is perhaps similar, except that he is driven enough to take teams there anyway. The whole "I'll resign if I win the CL" bespeaks of such eccentricity.
And frankly I think the pressure of trying to escape the spiral got to him at the end and he lost perspective on himself and how to work with the squad. Also happens. Klopp resigned over it at dortmund. Rodgers certainly lost it in his final year at Liverpool.
If he were to join a team like united, I think he'd make them a top four team and stall, because his comfort zone is that "building towards" phase.
Wouldn't last a season in Madrid.
Maybe it would be different at PSG where the title ought to be a foregone conclusion and he can put his mind to to cracking the CL code for them.
But overall I think he'd be happier somewhere like arsenal, dortmund, Roma or Valencia. Clubs in need of development projects who won't lose their shit two seasons later because they aren't challenging for the title properly.
I think because spurs was his first big job, he had to find out some of these things in the heat of it all, and there were some learning on the job situations that lead him to rationalising the path of least resistance at times (I'm sure levy loved how poch conformed to his shoestring budgets).
He's still young though. 47. Basically the same age as Rodgers. Think he would benefit from taking his time picking his next job, getting the stresses of the past year out of the system and figuring out what he actually wants from his next job.
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He can't improve every player, thought I will add that but thought that much is too obvious.
He is manager/coach, not God/magician. He can't sign me and improve me to the level of any league.
He didn't have good squad, he had good first team. Obviously it's so easy to improve the squad without spending any money or signing players.
I don't know which behavior, I read few dressing room things and then you have players like Kane and few others called him friend. I don't know what all happened in that dressing room, in this era, staying 5-6 years at single club is a good enough record.
Anyways we won't agree on most things, you rate his work differently, and I rate it completely different. For me he has done the best possible job with the level of investment.