Poch’s Same Old Failings Painfully Exposed By Emery

From a Spurs point of view, there was an air of inevitability surrounding Sunday’s North London derby result. Coming off the back of two morale-boosting wins against Chelsea and Inter Milan, a fair majority of fans were probably hopeful of another three points in the league against Arsenal, keeping up an unexpected title charge despite all the off-the-pitch distractions which surround the club.

Instead, Tottenham were brought back down to earth with a resounding thump, being out-fought, out-played and out-gunned by an Arsenal side, who – and it’s painful to admit this – were simply a far better side on the day. For all of Poch’s good work with this Spurs side, we are still painfully inconsistent in the games against the teams around us, and losing 4-2 wasn’t even a surprise in the end. If we want to win anything we should grab a bookie-bonus-code.co.uk and try to claim a victory that way!

Pochettino said in his post-match interview that “we were unlucky in how we conceded the third goal” – unlucky in the manner it went in, yes, but any fan could tell that another Woolwich goal was coming; and this is where my main issue with Pochettino lies. We all know he’s slow to change personnel on the pitch when things aren’t working out, but this was exposed even further by opposite number Unai Emery’s decisiveness.

Half-time saw Emery bring on Aaron Ramsey and Alexandre Lacazette for Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alex Iwobi respectively – both Ramsey and Lacazette were instrumental in Arsenal’s almost complete dominance in the second half.

In contrast, Pochettino refused to change shape or bring on a game-changer until the 79th minute, when the game was almost out of sight. Now, I’m no manager, but surely he could see that our set-up simply wasn’t working.

Davies and Aurier were constantly penned by Bellerin and Kolasinac; Vertonghen and Foyth looked like strangers together; the midfield was a complete disaster and we should pray that Dier and Sissoko are never paired together again; Kane was isolated throughout. Something needed to happen, yet there was no proactive move from Poch.

Don’t get me wrong; I am a firm believer in what the Argentine has built at our club and he’s certainly the best manager I’ve seen at Spurs in my lifetime. But if he constantly fails to act decisively in a game where we’re clearly on the back foot, then we will simply never be able to take that next step forward.