I honestly don’t hate Poch, I’m nearly 60 and he gave me two of my favourite seasons as a Spurs fan (I have to go back to the 80’s for other favourite seasons) and I think despite not winning anything he’s possibly the best coach we’ve had in my time.
And I don’t think Ange is the messiah either, last year I was pointing out the flaws when we were winning, likewise got stuck in this thread when we were on winning form for pointing out what I thought were inherent flaws. And fuck knows some of his decisions lately really fuck me off.
But I’m also realistic enough to see that when Poch wasn’t presented with good recruitment his football turned to shite, even in the peak years some of his decisions cost us titles/cups, and last year his £1bn Chelsea shipped more goals than Ange and his “no defence” football.
Likewise, these guys that keep saying Ange doesn’t adapt, don’t spend a fucking nano second actually analysing whether he actually does tweak things tactically, because he does. But you can’t tweak a VVD or a Toby A, Vertinghen, a peak Kane, a peak Son, Eriksen, Dembele, Wanyama etc until we build another great team, whoever we appoint will fuck us off. The one thing all those managers had were at least one or two top of the tree players. Modric, Bale, Kane etc. Ange doesn’t even have one of those to carry the team.
I remember during the dog shit Mourinho/Conte years people saying “I wouldn’t mind losing if only we were trying to win”. Turns they are going to whine about losing no matter how it happens. Who knew.
I’m ambivalent about what happens to Ange now, finding it hard to care, but until we recruit another good team, we won’t be one, no matter who’s in charge.
And this is the the most competitive PL, with better coaching and players from top to bottom, there has ever been. By a fucking mile.