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Manager Mauricio Pochettino

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I do wonder why some people bother reading anything a player or manager says at all.

When it suits them, its gospel, and when it doesnt, its bullshit.

Wasnt too long ago people were dismissing Pochs words during the window about the squad and how you cant believe a manager during the window and we were definately signing Schniderlin.

Extremely strange to turn asset of comments like these into something negative on the eve of the NLD.
 
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“We need time,”
“It is important there is confidence between the players, manager and staff, and we are still learning and trying to improve.”
“The difference between the top clubs and Tottenham is that they are used to winning,” Lloris added.
“Confidence happens when you win the big games.
"We are hungry and want to improve.
"We are at the beginning but can see progress."
Hugo

We need to listen to the players and manager if we want this to be the turning point that we can finally build on.

The building blocks are there, and the way Poch is setting us up is positive in terms trying to play football and taking the game to the opposition.

As Lloris says, we have to wait. There is no other way....the Poch Out noises on here the other day were a disgrace and an embarassment. The fans can make or break this one, its up to us.
 
As long as you drop Vlad for tomorrow Mr Poch. Good chance we haven't got any cohesive defensive unit we can put together at all for some time yet but, if he gets the nod after last Sunday when we have options there has to be some ?s
 
Simmo said:
As long as you drop Vlad for tomorrow Mr Poch. Good chance we haven't got any cohesive defensive unit we can put together at all for some time yet but, if he gets the nod after last Sunday when we have options there has to be some ?s
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If everyone else looks like crap in training though, does Poche have a choice? We all make our judgements based on in-game stuff, but the coach sees these guys every day, and perhaps is seeing stuff we don't that gives him a different perspective?

At this point, I'm just going place my faith in the coach and make a few small sacrificial offerings that the whole Woolwich squad suddenly acquires horrifically painful, but non-lethal diseases.
 
For me it does not matter if Poch says the right or wrong things.

What he has done this month is make many of the same mistakes AVB made.

The biggest nailed on failure was playing wingbacks with wingers Townsend and Lennon supplying a lone Soldado with cross after cross mixed in with pot shots.

It's clear he hasn't watched AVB's seasons which for me is a criminal risk because you have to learn from history.

That shape and personnel provided Soldado with his worst ever goal drought and left us open to soft wings, so when we went one down I didn't have any sympathy for Poch but I did for Soldado and even our wingers because that is just lazy management. It's setting up a player with a confidence crisis and wingers who are struggling with one foot out the club with nothing to aim at so they delve into their desperation bag of tricks. It led to the Forrest fans singing "what the fucking hell was that", "you're just a shit Arron Lennon" and "your just a shit Theo Walcott" to our wingers.

I'd be more forgiving if Poch made his own mistakes, but he's making AVB's mistakes.

The good news is, he had a plan B and it worked great. But how many times is he going to make mistakes we have already made? Like Vlad as a center back with Rose next to him is some next level ignorance of what has gone on in the past.
 
I'm not a melter but I'm worried.

Before and after last night's match, Pochettino looked alarmed and bemused at the players' inability to put his instructions and coaching into effect.

Watching him during the matches, it's clear that they are not doing what they've been told and his frustration is evident.

My concern is this. In my job, I do a lot of performance coaching with senior managers for large organisations and I recognise the signs when people are not performing and the manager has no answer. Pochettino is showing those signs.

He looks genuinely surprised and confused at what he's seeing. At Southampton, the players seem to have accepted what he told them and put it into practice. For whatever reason, ours aren't. His answer is lots of personnel changes, people in for a match then out if they don't perform. He's already used 23 players this season.

I understand that he wants to evaluate his squad but no team ever performs well without a stable core.

Constant changes can also undermine the manager's credibility as the team members realise that he doesn't know his best personnel. This has a negative, cyclical effect on individual and collective confidence.

For all the modern obsession with football tactics, systems and "philosophies," the most successful football managers are managers first and football managers second.

I hope Pochettino will be successful but I think he's realising that this is a far bigger job than he thought.
 
Southampton didn't click straight away... This is what we bang on and on about, how we need to be giving managers time and yet here we are, looking at posts like the one above. This isn't a dig at you, Nantynew, but what did you want him to be doing by now? An 89th minute penalty is quite unfortunate and completely down to that bell cake Chiriches. Apart from that, they only had a few balls over the top which we killed off, had we won 1-0 you wouldn't have posted that even though he would still have been 'frustrated' on the sidelines.
 
Benny said:
Southampton didn't click straight away... This is what we bang on and on about, how we need to be giving managers time and yet here we are, looking at posts like the one above. This isn't a dig at you, Nantynew, but what did you want him to be doing by now? An 89th minute penalty is quite unfortunate and completely down to that bell cake Chiriches. Apart from that, they only had a few balls over the top which we killed off, had we won 1-0 you wouldn't have posted that even though he would still have been 'frustrated' on the sidelines.
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1-1 was lucky, for us. 1-3 would have been a fair result imv.
 
I dont think it's melty to have concerns, otherwise you could be accused of not caring...

People say it will take a while to instill his way of playing, but I can't see how hard it can be for players to understand that he wants them to pressure the other lot when they have the ball....

Speaking of which.... we seem to be surrendering far too much possession these days, other teams that try to play this high-tempo pressing game do so when they lose the ball, whereas at the moment we just look like we're chasing the ball around the pitch, tiring ourselves out....
 
it may sound a little kneejerk but I really think any manager would struggle with the players we've got at our disposal. Of course it's early days and they are still getting used to a new manager and everything that goes with that but we have played 8 or 9 games now and we seem to be getting worse rather than improving and virtuallly none of our players have managed to string a couple of decent performances together as of yet. by no means a crisis but it is worrying
 
Nantynew said:
I'm not a melter but I'm worried.

Before and after last night's match, Pochettino looked alarmed and bemused at the players' inability to put his instructions and coaching into effect.

Watching him during the matches, it's clear that they are not doing what they've been told and his frustration is evident.

My concern is this. In my job, I do a lot of performance coaching with senior managers for large organisations and I recognise the signs when people are not performing and the manager has no answer. Pochettino is showing those signs.

He looks genuinely surprised and confused at what he's seeing. At Southampton, the players seem to have accepted what he told them and put it into practice. For whatever reason, ours aren't. His answer is lots of personnel changes, people in for a match then out if they don't perform. He's already used 23 players this season.

I understand that he wants to evaluate his squad but no team ever performs well without a stable core.

Constant changes can also undermine the manager's credibility as the team members realise that he doesn't know his best personnel. This has a negative, cyclical effect on individual and collective confidence.

For all the modern obsession with football tactics, systems and "philosophies," the most successful football managers are managers first and football managers second.

I hope Pochettino will be successful but I think he's realising that this is a far bigger job than he thought.
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He isn't chopping and changing. He is playing 2 different teams and trying to build continuity by sticking with a core of 2 sets of 11 players. Look at it this way, the team that played last night was only their 3rd or 4th game of the season.
 
Guido said:
He isn't chopping and changing. He is playing 2 different teams and trying to build continuity by sticking with a core of 2 sets of 11 players. Look at it this way, the team that played last night was only their 3rd or 4th game of the season.
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Playing 2 different teams is by definition chopping and changing.

And our back four for league matches has not been consistent, even with everyone fit (bar Walker).
 
Nantynew said:
Playing 2 different teams is by definition chopping and changing.

And our back four for league matches has not been consistent, even with everyone fit (bar Walker).
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For me last season was chopping and changing. Each to their own interpretation I guess.

Having purchased 3 new defenders it isn't a surprise. But it is becoming obvious by now that we are establishing a more consistent back four.
 
Sorry people but I'm on one this morning.

About this EL "play the B team" bullshit...

This is a competition that we should be trying to win, like everything else we enter.

By viewing the EL as a bit of an irritant and inconvenience, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Players are tired, the fans aren't up for it etc etc.

By putting out a reserve team, (albeit with Saint Hugo), we invite opponents to feel confident about playing us.

Because our players are not used to playing with each other, they don't form partnerships and then make mistakes.

Because they feel they have to shine in the midweek fixture to get a PL place, they hold on to the ball slightly too long, try a dribble too many or shoot when passing is the best option. If you've got one player doing this, that can be okay but 3,4,5 and you've got problems.

All of this undermines the team and individual confidence, whilst pissing off the fans.

It also distorts the evaluation of players and ironically makes it harder to identify who will fit in well to the first team and who won't.

We should play our best 11 for every competitive match, making one or two changes if necessary, to rest individuals or for tactical reasons.
 
While we all talk about it being early days, or that he shouldn't be using an almost formal A/B team set-up, I think a lot of the finger pointing needs to be at the players at this point. We've seen several guys turn out, show some fire and brains, and fight their way into starting roles, or to the "A" team. We've also seen a few other individuals show a shocking disregarding for their craft as footballers through completely ignoring the game plan that other people seemed to be following.

Some people were badly coached in the past, some people were just not given a chance, and some people clearly were coasting and have now been found out. We're starting to see exactly who's who in this squad, and I think come January there will be a few insufficiently ambitious Spurs sitting in a departure lounge heading somewhere else.
 
Lost a bit of faith when he didn't pull Vlad off with his last substitution last night, swapping strikers out when was bad enough but not pulling Vlad off after 55 mins I cant figure out!
Hopefully come good but yet to see "his style" that everyone praises.
 
But what if you bring him off to a chorus of boos and abuse? What good would that have done him? Yeah, he gave away a penalty but you can't really predict that sort of thing.
 
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