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Mourinho's one of the best managers out there and he has no "philosophy". He adapts to the situation, the oppostion, the game at hand... Poch needs to learn that, in my opinion. Especially with us playing our home games at Wembley next season.

Mourinho's philosophy is most certainly based on being solid in the middle and being a master at his teams seeing out wins, basing that on the experienced players he has at hand. He has made United INCREDIBLY hard to beat and considering how easy they seemed to be beaten the last 3 seasons, that's a testament to him. He does adapt, you're right, but he still keeps his main philosophy in place.
 
I wrote on the Rose thread back in early Feb that with him out we might have to reconsider our ambitions.
I think he is the most important player in the side now. He is the only leader we have on the pitch.
 
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So, what's gone wrong?

- 1 win in 6 with that 1 win coming against a Championship team
- Knocked out of Europe by losing to a Belgian mid table club.
- 8 goals conceded in our last 4 games

It can't be as simple as saying we miss Rose? Is our depth really that shit? It's as if we have a set 11, a well-oiled machine that works together but if just ONE player is missing, we're poor. We're unbalanced, lack penetration and seem to resort to knocking it long.

I'm hoping our new scouting department look to purchase players who will IMPROVE us and can pop in to the team when needed, REGARDLESS OF AGE. Enough with this buying players under 25 bollocks. We need experienced guys in there, winners who are going to grab these players when they're not performing. I'm all for bringing kids through and having a young team but not at the extent where we're not buying certain players because there is a YOUNGER player available who MAY turn out as good.

Pochettino ultimately needs to decide on a philosophy and fucking stick to it. Why are we buying wingers when we don't play with wingers? Why are we buying Janssen when it's clear we needed an ALTERNATIVE to Kane who can run the channels and use pace to trouble? Too many times throughout games we seem to be changing it up, it's as if Pochettino has been criticised for not having a Plan B so he's trying numerous different tactics to try and show he has and it doesn't work. Sometimes we line up with a diamond, sometimes 3 in midfield, sometimes 3 at the back and sometimes 4-2-3-1, yet we don't have the players for all those line ups.

It's at that stage where I'm not even confident that this time can even get us to Wembley in the FA Cup and even when we do, what good is that going to do when we're fucking shit at the venue anyway!?

Really really worried about next season with our away form this season and our form at Wembley whenever we tend to play there. Talk of transitional periods, that is next season. I just hope the players and the entitled fans understand this.

Agree with much of this, but I'm pretty sure we've only conceded 5 goals in 4 games, not 8?
 
Our team is just so young, and outside of just one or two positions we have zero depth.

Dier does not belong in defense. He's been poor there all season. He's 10x the midfielder. If either Rose or Walker is out our replacement fullbacks can't even be mentioned in the same sentence. Ditto for Toby/Jan.

Outside of Winks which of our squad players has impressed, barring Son's contributions this season who gives you faith that we've got options in midfield? Same for Kane. Janssen just hasn't been good enough.

It wouldn't really take a lot. We just need maybe 3 options that can compete with our starters, back to front. When we suffer even a single injury to one of our starters, our entire performance falls apart and we look very average.
 
I see that today's win saw us equaled our Premier League record of 53 points from 26 games which we got under Redknapp during the 2011/2012 season.

Just one point at home to Everton would see us break that record of points after 27 games and I am more than confident we can do that.

I think we are 1 point better off on the same fixtures as last season after beating Stoke at home today (drew 2-2 last season) and we are 2 points better off than we were at this gameweek last season so continuing to show that improvement.

We got further in the League Cup, further in the FA Cup, unfortunately not as far in the Europa League but we played Champions League football so I feel we have made substantial improvement on last season.

I think considering we've been at times this season without the likes of Lloris, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose, Dembele and Kane - the fact we've showed such improvement is a testament to the manager and team we DO have and just think of where we could have been or what we COULD have achieved had we had that spine for the majority of the season.
 
Thread is redundant.

Absolutely no question that we've improved this season. One point off breaking our total points record in the Premier League, 7 wins in a row which is another record, 16 straight home wins which must be up there with breaking records.

Will have to revisit this thread next season.
 
Thread is redundant.

Absolutely no question that we've improved this season. One point off breaking our total points record in the Premier League, 7 wins in a row which is another record, 16 straight home wins which must be up there with breaking records.

Will have to revisit this thread next season.

Sorry, it's 12 straight home wins, but yes, good times.
 
Sorry, it's 12 straight home wins, but yes, good times.

If we include the cup runs - it's actually 15. We're both wrong :(

Bournemouth (4-0)
Watford (4-0)
Southampton (2-1)
Millwall (6-0)
Everton (3-2)
Stoke (4-0)
Middlesbrough (1-0)
Wycombe (4-3)
West Brom (4-0)
Aston Villa (2-0)
Chelsea (2-0)
Burnley (2-1)
Hull (3-0)
Swansea (5-0)
West Ham (3-2)
 
2016/2017
- Played 5
- Won 3
- Drawn 2
- Lost 0
- 11 points

2017/2018
- Played 5
- Won 2
- Drawn 2
- Lost 1
- 8 points

Already 3 points worse off than we were last season. All the teams that had strengthened around us have all started the season strongly and are creating quite the gap. Obviously we are only 5 games in but the Wembley factor is clearly a problem here.

Dropped 4 points last season at home in 19 home games.

3 games in to the new season at "home" and we've already dropped 7 points.

Last season, we beat Chelsea 2-0 at home, beat Burnley 2-1 at home and beat Swansea 5-0 at home. That's 7 points worse off from the same fixtures.
 
Best start to a Premier League under Pochettino.

9 points out of a possible 12.
Scored: 9
Conceded: 4

The fact 3 of those games were away from home with one of those being Man Utd is pretty good. Big home game coming up but a win would see us keep up our impressive start points wise. We have a favourable fixture list following that and big Champions League games to look forward to aswell.

17/18: 7 points from a possible 12
Scored: 7
Conceded: 2

16/17: 8 points from a possible 12
Scored: 7
Conceded: 2

15/16: 3 points from a possible 12
Scored: 3
Conceded: 4

14/15: 7 points from a possible 12
Scored: 7
Conceded: 5
 
2017-18
Played:
6
Won: 3
Drawn: 2
Lost: 1
For: 10
Against: 5
POINTS: 11

2018-19
Played: 6
Won: 4
Drawn: 0
Lost: 2
For: 12
Against: 7
POINTS: 12



Results comparison:
Newcastle (A)
17/18 - 0-2 W
18/19 - 1-2 W

Fulham (H)
17/18 - 2-0 W (Huddersfield, team promoted via playoffs)
18/19 - 3-1 W

Man Utd (A)
17/18 - 1-0 L
18/19 - 0-3 W

Watford (A)
17/18 - 1-1 D
18/19 - 2-1 L

Liverpool (H)
17/18 - 4-1 W
18/19 - 1-2 L

Brighton (A)
17/18 - 1-1 D
18/19 - 1-2 W

--

So without looking too fancy, we are actually doing better than last season. Won more games. Exact same goal difference. 1 point better off in the league. 1 point gained on last seasons fixtures. When you add into the fact that 4 of our opening 6 games have been away from home, we haven't made any signings, still haven't hit into gear yet, it isn't quite the crisis it's all cracked up to be.

Plus we have a great new stadium to look forward to.

Huddersfield and Cardiff coming up next. Arguably the two worst teams in the league this season. Maximum points from that and we can start looking at the league table and wondering why on earth we were all melting after 2 losses.
 
I'd like to see a tune up of our passing. We pass well but I think it could be better and done with more focus.

Don't pass to move the ball, pass to move the opposition.
 
Seeing as Dele became noticed when he bossed the CM at Man U, could we not move Dele into CM alongside Dembele.
He has the ability to get stuck in, get into the box and be creative from there.
This would enable us to play 2 of Son, Lamela and Moura alongside Eriksen with Kane up top.
Dembele role could be similar to Dier


Not long term, but just until we sort out this central midfield problem.
Aurier Alderwiereld Vertonghen Rose
Dembele Dele
Lamela/Moura Eriksen Son/Moura
Kane

Dier
Lamela/Moura/Son
Wanayama
Trippier
Llorente
Winks
 
2017-18
Played:
6
Won: 3
Drawn: 2
Lost: 1
For: 10
Against: 5
POINTS: 11

2018-19
Played:
6
Won: 4
Drawn: 0
Lost: 2
For: 12
Against: 7
POINTS: 12



Results comparison:
Newcastle (A)
17/18 - 0-2 W
18/19 - 1-2 W

Fulham (H)
17/18 - 2-0 W (Huddersfield, team promoted via playoffs)
18/19 - 3-1 W

Man Utd (A)
17/18 - 1-0 L
18/19 - 0-3 W

Watford (A)
17/18 - 1-1 D
18/19 - 2-1 L

Liverpool (H)
17/18 - 4-1 W
18/19 - 1-2 L

Brighton (A)
17/18 - 1-1 D
18/19 - 1-2 W

--

So without looking too fancy, we are actually doing better than last season. Won more games. Exact same goal difference. 1 point better off in the league. 1 point gained on last seasons fixtures. When you add into the fact that 4 of our opening 6 games have been away from home, we haven't made any signings, still haven't hit into gear yet, it isn't quite the crisis it's all cracked up to be.

Plus we have a great new stadium to look forward to.

Huddersfield and Cardiff coming up next. Arguably the two worst teams in the league this season. Maximum points from that and we can start looking at the league table and wondering why on earth we were all melting after 2 losses.
When you add into that the fact that we have played all six games away from home
:pochshock2:
 
When you add into that the fact that we have played all six games away from home
:pochshock2:

Just like last season.

Mighty impressive. Though I think in the modern game, away fixtures, for the top clubs, being tricky is probably going down the route of myth.
 
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