''I would like to stay 10-15 years''
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He really seems to be the man
Thank you
Very proud
Thank you
Very proud
Love how he seems to dress for the occasion. No proof of that, mind, just an anecdotal observation - big European nights he seems to be quite chic, while he seems to enjoy the tracksuit when he's slumming it in the league or domestic cups. Would love to see him turn out in the training kit at the scum, subtly show them what a poxy bunch of no-hope cunts they are.
Where do I wire my contribution to the 15 year contract???
Where do I wire my contribution to the 15 year contract???
You can send it to me and I'll try and sort things !
Missing our best CM, DM, both left backs unfit, and our second-highest scorer suspended in Europe, yet we fought Real Madrid to a standstill. Give us a full strength squad and I don't think we'd be losing many games against them.
We're third in the League, fighting the best in Europe, on a squad made of Academy products, kids and misfits. Pochettino is going to have a stadium named after him and we're going to enjoy our best era in half a century, if not ever.
The magic is real.
We're third in the League, fighting the best in Europe, on a squad made of Academy products, kids and misfits. Pochettino is going to have a stadium named after him and we're going to enjoy our best era in half a century, if not ever.
The magic is real.
I would love it if he strides out to the touchline at the emirates in his vest and pants
ochlol:ochhail:
He should show up for Whoolwich in shorts and a t-shirt. Can be interpreted two ways, either he thinks it is a holiday or he is ready to come out and clatter Ramseey if need beI would love it if he strides out to the touchline at the emirates in his vest and pants
The dude rocks Aquascutum. My late grandfather rocked Aquascutum and was considered quite the sartorial gent. Nuff said...
But but Liverpool play the kids though don't they??
On Tuesday afternoon, Craig Shakespeare was sacked by Leicester City after eight months in charge. On Tuesday evening, Harry Winks produced an excellent performance in Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-1 Champions League draw with Real Madrid, the kind of display that tantalisingly appeared to offer a solution to England’s lack of creativity and composure in central midfield.
At first glance, it might seem that these two events are completely unrelated, two stars passing – one rising and one falling – in the crowded constellation of English football.
I’m not so sure though. For what was Winks’s performance if not a vindication of a bold call by a manager secure enough in his job to think long-term; and what was Shakespeare’s sacking if not a reminder of the extreme rarity of such a situation?
Within the space of eight months, Leicester have dispensed with one manager who won them the league title, and another manager who – as The Times stats guru Bill Edgar pointed out on Twitter – had during his tenure garnered more points than any other club outside the big six. In addition, Shakespeare oversaw a Champions League knockout-stage win over Jorge Sampaoli’s Sevilla, and a highly creditable performance in a narrow defeat to Atletico Madrid. Not a bad body of work for a rookie head coach, right?
Yes, some of the summer signings haven’t gelled; yes, Leicester are in the relegation zone, but they are only eight league games into a season in which they have already faced Woolwich, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool. Even the result that did for Shakespeare, a 1-1 draw with West Bromwich Albion, was hardly calamitous.
All in all, it was an odd sacking, which, along with the utter lack of surprise and outrage with which it was received, speaks of a new reality. Clubs like Leicester are increasingly using managerial changes not to correct fundamental failings, but simply to jolt a squad of players out of a poor run of form. In the new model, managers are the most expendable part of the shebang. If you alight on a brilliant one, great, otherwise they are simply a short-term accelerant. A new manager will come in at Leicester, like so many Premier League dressing-rooms before, offer a short-term “bounce” – usually just regression to the mean, in fact – sufficient to propel the club out of the relegation zone, and then when his effect wanes, another log will be thrown onto the fire.
If that all sounds rather judgmental, the intention is not to pronounce upon the rightness or wrongness of this approach. In the ephemeral landscape of the Premier League, it can work, and it can even be sustainable. Watford, whose entire philosophy as a club is based around a conception of the manager as a short-term movable part, are riding high in fourth with their fourth manager in four seasons. Southampton have turned themselves into a pretty consistent top-half force despite burning through managers like Donald Trump gets through communications directors.
It is what it is, but one thing it does militate against is long-term vision: the sort of long-term vision, for example, that has seen Mauricio Pochettino gradually nurture Winks from fresh-faced academy product to, er, still fresh-faced Champions League starter. The cultivation of Winks has been a project: two Europa League appearances in 2015-16; three Premier League starts and 18 substitute appearances last season; now this season, a little bit more trust still. This, basically, is player development. Green shoots, the like of which you rarely see without a constant gardener.
It has escaped no-one’s attention that Pochettino is, to a quite ridiculous extent, the England team’s best source of new players. Winks, who earned his first cap against Lithuania earlier this month, is the 15th of the past 30 England debutants to be coached by the Argentine. If you really want to gauge Pochettino’s impact on the national team, have a look at predicted England line-ups for the 2018 World Cup, compiled three years ago, and consider how much stronger England are for the unforeseen rise of Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Danny Rose, Kyle Walker and now Winks.
Right now, Gareth Southgate’s national team is crazily reliant on Pochettino’s ability to develop English players, and by extension, on the climate of managerial stability at Tottenham that has allowed him to do so. But conversely, if Pochettino’s impact, if those conditions, could be replicated at just one or two other Premier League clubs, just imagine how strong and deep England’s squad might be.
Leicester have had some good English players over the past three seasons too, but nothing like the same level of consistency or managerial continuity. Jamie Vardy aside, the younger cohort of Demarai Gray, Ben Chilwell, Marc Albrighton and the now-departed Danny Drinkwater – each now on their third club manager in less than a year – have struggled to trace the sort of linear improvement seen in Pochettino’s protégés. It’s hard to imagine any of them going to the World Cup.
Or what about Southampton, Pochettino’s alma mater? Nothing they could do about losing Ronald Koeman but the appointment and subsequent firing of Claude Puel after a very respectable season was curious. Ryan Bertrand, James Ward-Prowse, Fraser Forster and Nathan Redmond is as good a group of English players as exists outside the big six, but is it a coincidence that, as they try to get to grips with the methods and strategies of yet another manager, each is far from their ceiling this season?
Consider in particular Ward-Prowse, only a year older than Winks, cut from the same cloth: a cultured, technical, intelligent midfield player – the sort of player England don’t produce enough of. But while Winks is thriving under a manager who knows him inside out and has overseen his entire career trajectory, Ward-Prowse is on his fifth Southampton boss. After playing for England last season, this season he has lost his place in Southampton’s starting XI. Why hasn’t he kicked on? Well, why do you think?
On social media, Pochettino’s willingness to deploy Winks in the Bernabéu was contrasted unfavourably with Antonio Conte’s reluctance to start Tammy Abraham, Ruben Loftus-Cheek or Nathaniel Chalobah. (Chalobah moved to Watford this summer while the former two are on loan this season.) But Conte is employed by a club that have had 11 managers (including interim managers) in 13 seasons. Only once in the Roman Abramovich era has a Chelsea manager survived a trophyless season; Pochettino has been allowed three at Tottenham.
English football needs more Pochettinos. But where is the next one going to come from? Ronald Koeman has shown commendable willingness to trust Everton’s young English players, but now he finds his job in extreme peril (not without justification, admittedly). Jürgen Klopp has shown an instinct to develop the likes of Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander-Arnold, and has signed up for the task of restoring Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Dominic Solanke, two of the more naturally talented English players in their respective age groups. But what happens to Klopp if Liverpool finish sixth and trophyless this season?
This column offers no solutions – this is just the way things are in an imperfect world. Clubs do not exist to serve the interests of the England national team and the Premier League does not exist to provide the perfect lab conditions to cultivate young English talent. But it does feel like the impact of managerial instability – or otherwise – at club level on players is an underrated factor in their development.
What if Winks isn’t the only young English midfielder who could have held his own against Casemiro and Luka Modric? What if he isn’t even the best? Perhaps he is simply the one with the most stable coaching influence and the best opportunities. The more common stories like Shakespeare’s become, the rarer stories like Winks’ will be.
Genuinely never been as excited to read a book as I am for his. The small extracts I've read on Amazon have already got me swooning over the man...
Just when we thought the days of grown men camping outside of shops to buy a book about a magician were over
