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.
My impression of people selling themselves as coaches in the business world is that they are talking out of their ass, and don't really have much usefull stuff to add anywhere. You are reinforcing this impression by posting your take on Poch and Spurs.
First of all, a business coach with a clue would argue that an organization going through a change - such as that of a football team with a new manager and new ideas - needs time to get things settled. Especially when coming into a team that spent all of last season performing far below what was and should be expected of them.
You say that most successful football managers are managers first and football managers second. What I think you're saying here, is that managing your people is more important than applying tactics and philosophies. To me, it seems that Poch has got a lot of players trying again. Dembele, Vertonghen, Kaboul, Rose, Naughton, Capoue, Lamela and Chadli all seem more motivated and willing to give it a go so far this season. Ade seems to be trying, but just seems out of form. Eriksen seems a bit frustrated, but I think that has more to do with him failing on the technical stuff at the moment than anything else. To me, there doesn't seem to be any man management issues at the moment. To me, the problem seems to be that the confidence isn't quite there yet, as a result of last seasons misery, that the consistency isn't there yet, due to new tactics requiring a mutual understanding in the team, and that a very key player is completely out of shape (Adebayor), meaning we've been playing pretty much with ten men in every game.
These constant changes you are talking about is utter bullshit. The players get to play with the players they are used to playing with pretty much every game. The line-ups have been VERY consistent. The fact that he uses one line-up for PL and another one for cups doesn't mean he's changing shit up all the time, adding confusion, it just means he has two teams at the moment, thus letting the players off with a easier match program in the early part of the season. Poch is known for training his teams really hard. If he's doing that in Spurs - which I hope and expect - then letting them off with ~1 game per week is probably a very good thing.
His lineups in PL:
West Ham: Lloris, Dier, Kaboul, Rose, Naughton, Lamela, Eriksen, Bentaleb, Lennon, Capoue, Adebayor
Played Dier as CB because of injuries to Vert and Chiriches.
QPR: Lloris, Dier, Vertonghen, Kaboul, Rose, Bentaleb, Capoue, Lamela, Eriksen, Chadli, Adebayor
Played Dier instead of Naughton due to the latter's suspension. Chadli instead of Lennon, because of Lennons poor display and general poor form. Rest of the team identical. One non-forced change.
Liverpool: Lloris, Dier, Kaboul, Vertonghen, Rose; Capoue, Bentaleb; Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela, Adebayor
Excact same team as the previous match.
Sunderland: Lloris; Dier, Chiriches, Kaboul, Rose; Capoue, Dembele; Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela; Adebayor
Two changes after the crushing defeat against Lpool. Dembele in for a Bentaleb, Chiriches for Vertonghen.
West Brom: Lloris, Kaboul, Rose, Chiriches, Dier, Capoue, Dembélé, Chadli, Lamela, Eriksen, Adebayor
Same team as against Sunderland.
Woolwich: Lloris, Rose, Vertonghen, Naughton, Kaboul, Capoue, Chadli, Mason, Lamela, Eriksen, Adebayor
Vertonghen finally back as CB, Mason in for Dembele after a very impressive game against Nottm Forest, Naughton back to RB.
To me, this seems very consistent. He is trying to figure out the Schneiderlin position, having tried Bentaleb, Dembele and Mason there. A few changes to CB too, which was injury related in the beginning, and he probably wanted to try Chiriches for some crazy reason. On RB he was forced to change after Naughtons red card, then gave Dier quite a few chances after his early success. Probably saw that Dier was in trouble when challenged on the ground at the back, and made a good change when putting Naughton back in against Wool.
So, that's three positions with changes.
Lloris started every game.
Rose started every game.
Kaboul started every game - despite bad performances in the first few (I wanted him out, not only of the team, but of the club, after his start. Poch stuck by him, and got a brilliant performance against Woolwich).
Capoue started every game.
Eriksen started every game - despite struggling a bit technically and with getting the pressing game going.
Lamela started every game.
Chadli started since he took over for Lennon after the first game.
Adebayor started every game - despite struggling enormously, being imo the worst player in pretty much every appearance.
If this isn't consistent, not giving the players a chance to play and fail and come good, I don't know what is.
As for playing two different teams, I've already said a few things about that. It allows for him to give players rest, give some players much needed hard training, give players consistency in terms of which team mates they line up with, give more players match experience and match fitness. Most likely it's not the result of not giving a fck about EL, but him trusting a very good squad to be good enough to beat the likes of Partizan and Besiktas with the second eleven.
A team of Lloris, Naughton, Vertonghen, Fazio, Davies, Bentaleb, Stambouli, Lennon, Townsend, Paulinho and Soldado should, in theory, be able to do well against those teams. Unfortunately though, the setup isn't quite right. It has the wrong types AMs, a few players there needing people to set them up, in a team lacking the ability to set people up well, and with some players completely out of confidence and form.
I agree that he's not doing that EL lineup stuff perfectly, but it is a result of wanting consistency, the opposite of what you accuse him of, in the PL. And he's still giving players chances, while trying to get to know the squad.
