The Wait

I suppose the problem is simple. Do you stick with a Manager who’s done well for you in the past or do you change for a different model? I think that’s what we’re pondering at the moment.

Mauricio Pochettino came along and changed expectations, the first manager to come along and get Spurs to the Champions League in back to back seasons. He moved expectations and now through a series of unfortunate events, seems unable to keep that momentum and we’re looking like coming off the rails. If we haven’t already.

I always find the concept of blame an opaque thing, if every problem in football was as simple as blaming a manager for everything it would be to miss the whole picture. There are players who are obviously off form, ones who need to adapt to their new club yet the squad is dysfunctional and therefore it will take longer for those new players to adapt. There is the issue of holding on to players who don’t feel wanted and, as a consequence, having less resource to bring in players where we’re clearly lacking.

Though if this was just a case where buying in a new right back and sitting back to watch the team benefit then I think we’d do that come January but something has set in a little deeper. Our problems are not actually simple at all, which is why this line of thought provides little comfort.

Aside from watching Spurs I’ve also watched non-league and that has some benefits. Expectations are rarely set high, the pressures are different and thankfully VAR hasn’t quite reached that part of the game yet. But more relevant in the lower echelons, there comes a point where a manager just seems to run out of ideas. There’s no massive hostility or fans with banners, there just comes a point where the manager can’t fix the problem. The club isn’t bad, neither is the manager, there’s just no distance left to run. Sort of a ‘7 year itch’ in footballing terms.

We have heard theories and rumours of affairs causing a breakdown in the squad, punishing training, poor recovery and treatment of the squad, resentment about being underpaid and the truth of these theories is debatable at best.

My theory, to add to the heap, is that everyone has become tired. Very tired.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you’re more inclined to take advice from a stranger than a close member of family? There’s no rational reason for this but there’s definitely a human one, when you know someone, you know what they’re going to say, how they will react. In this situation you stop asking questions when you already know what the answer will be. At Spurs you have a set of players who can predict every training session, who are used to how Pochettino will respond to certain scenarios and they just stick to playing in patterns. I don’t know if this theory is true but having watched our performances up to this point I reckon it’s a fair guess.

This season there has been so little of the way of a spark. Our flair players have not shown their potential and some of the decisions have been odd on starting line ups, including the fabled ‘making substitutions late in the game’ and not giving the fresh players a chance to impact the game earlier. The reality behind all these issues is that we have become stagnant, disorganised and even complacent at times.

This is a horribly challenging situation because it requires Mauricio Pochettino to turn this ship around and at each league game the questions accumulate until there is something more tangible to our performances. To turn things around at this point would be monumental and if he can manage that then he has a long term future and will earn even more credit with us. If not, neither we nor the club can stay patient forever. The question is simple, does he have it in his power to carry out this particular resurrection?

There needs to be signs of progression, things we can hold on to for proof. The first half against Sheffield United saw Spurs go without a single shot on target. Sheffield United had two decent chances to score with dangerous crosses and on one chance we got lucky from a profligate finish. There was some effort on our part, we scored a decent goal, they got two but for VAR. Both having very similar build ups and had us conceding a worrying amount of space. We actually began to look dangerous in the last ten minutes. Had we of shown the endeavour a little earlier then we might be able to take some solace and maybe even three much needed points.

I am reluctant to call time on Pochettino. He has been a great manager and elevated the club to levels that you could not have predicted when he stepped in. He has done a great job and earned credit but he has to find a way of winning games like he has in the past and do so soon before real damage is done to the club and his own personal brand.

I think it’s fair to say we’re not going to make any wholesale changes to the squad until at least the end of the season, so the task right now is to get the squad motivated and the system functioning. Showing some purpose and producing decent performances that give us the belief that they’re not beyond redemption. The questions remain, can Pochettino do it? How long should he be given? If he can’t who can?

It’s a waiting game and a frustrating one at that.