I definitely think it's fair to question Pochettino.
I've had minor issues with him throughout, but I expect that with any manager/coach/player/chairman etc but the general overriding qualities he brings have mostly mitigated any minor issues I've had with him.
I think he's often made poor selection choices at big moments, or made poor tactical choices at big moments or both (early example was playing Townsend and Chadli in the LC final instead of Lamela and Dembele - later things like Son as a LWB in the FAC semi). He's neglected the midfield for much of his tenure IMO. His in game management is often very poor, he's often slow to react. he often sets us up badly for big games. And then there's the whole bullshit "promoter of youth" thing, which grates heavily.
But most of these have been easily superseded by the fact that he's a very good coach with a very clear ethic, invariably improves individuals he works with, and most importantly had the ability to improve us as a collective, with the ball and enormously without it.
He is, or has been, without doubt, the best pure coach in my 50 years.
Issues I've got now are no longer those minor ones though, they are more fundamental.
The minor selection issues have become major ones.
Week after week he picks this structure that just doesn't suit us, doesn't get the best out of the players we have. Makes us less than the sum of our parts, not more or even level. Insanity is repeating the same thing and hoping for a different outcome.
How any top grade manager can think Sissoko belongs in a midfield competing for titles is frankly very, very worrying. Whatever we think of Sissoko, he's does not belong at this level. You have to drop a long way down this league to find midfielders who are technically and intellectually worse, you have to drop a few pegs down to find a more disjointed and incoherent midfield than ours is now. Before the Sissoko issue, there was Dier plodding around, and Poch thinking he was good enough to play there regularly.
And it's thinking that he can play players who don't want the ball under pressure, but persisting with trying to play from the back - under pressure.
How bad do senior players need to be before the great "brave promoter of youth" actually grows some bollocks and promotes youth?
We used to try and dictate games from midfield, now we just bypass it.
Two central strikers, no wide AM/Forwards, meaning the FB's that are already getting blamed for everything, are even more exposed. Moura as one of those central strikers?
And then there's the fundamental issue of what type of team are we now? We don't press high up any more really. There's very little tenacity in our midfield. I can only remember one great 90 minutes of football all season, against Cheslea at home.
Currently, I think his selections, particularly a couple, are absolutely tragic, I think his structural set ups are fucking terrible, and we are not even an aggressive cohesive group without the ball any more.
We are a bunch of decent footballers, quite well coached generally, throwing the dice every week.
I know there have been mitigating issues. The WC killed us. People don't want to admit it's a thing and players would never say it, because it would seem "weak", but there is no way it's not affected us more than most, even the injuries are possibly a sign of this.
And we have had the ground bollocks.
But these things aren't forcing Poch to pick certain players over others. The bullshit "paid to train" mantra has been changed to "if I paid 30m for you you can play no matter how shit you train". Playing at Wembley doesn't force him to choose poor tactics. The WC should have been an opportunity to give young players more game time, not marginalise them.
Even if you disagree with my personal player selection gripes, I'm sure you'll all have your own. Tripper, Rose, Davies, Lloris....whoever.
Now, maybe we'll smash the last 7 games, clear out the dross, sign some decent players and become the good version of a Pochettino team again. I don't even care if we don't make CL, as long as I can get on board with the way we are set up and play. Our cohesion as a team. I put much more stall in performances than I do trophies. As long as we look like a cohesive unit with and without the ball, I'm pretty happy.
And these are not sudden issues because we're on a bad run. I voiced many of them last season, and at the beginning of this season (and the middle) when we were winning games but not playing well. Many of us were getting shit for saying that results won't always outrun performances.
If we get back on track then I'll give him lots of credit, as I have for the great things he's done previously and the massive overall effect for the positive he's had on this club. But right now I'm just calling what I see and feel.