Sorry, I don't buy any of that. This squad has been together for three, and in some cases up to five managers. The problems have been the same. Some have no professional attitude, or work ethic. Others simply don't have the talent or physical ability any longer. Some were completely wrong choices who either haven't panned out, or who were brought in for a very different team than the systems used at Spurs.
Several players have been isolated for their repeated failure to perform. That's on them. The rest of the team have been run into the ground through a very long schedule as a result of this unreliability of their teammates.
The result is that right now we have a team which is badly fatigued, and cannot paper over the squad deficiencies. We need a proper midfield partner for Bentaleb. The options we have either lacked commitment (Capoue) or mobility (Stambouli), meaning we've been stuck with a central midfield with the resilience and defensive abilities of a Galaxy bar.
Paulinho has shown the same problems for two years now, and I don't think anyone can blame Pochettino when the issue has been identical under AVB, Sherwood and himself.
We have had one decent rightback all season, who is injured again. With no competent right back, we've been stuck playing a pair of centrebacks out of position to substitute, which has been rather limited, and not something to be blamed on the coach.
We had the same problem at leftback on the weekend, with both Rose and Davies unfit. Not anyone's fault, but still a big problem for the team.
Going forward, we've struggled to consistently find a band of three behind Kane which can both score goals and press properly. Chadli has been great at finding the net, but is less so at pressing. Townsend isn't too bad at pressing, but his offensive returns have been slender. And Lamela has been similar to Townsend, with added flair while doing so.
At this point, Eriksen has covered more distance than any player in the Premier League and needs a (well-earned) vacation, with Kane in a similar physical situation.
Adebayor, Soldado, Kaboul, Capoue, Stambouli, Chiriches, Paulinho. They've all had a chance this year to make themselves essential. Many started the season as the preferred choices. All failed the team. None of them were good enough, and those names (bar Stambouli) have featured prominently in "things gone wrong at Tottenham" lists for longer than Pochettino's tenure.
At some point, fans need to stop being knee-jerk, bandwagon-joining, Sun-reading melts and start looking at the long view. This is a patched together squad that comprises of the faded remains of a great team, a hurriedly slapped-together Frankenstein of a replacement for that squad, and a collection of surprisingly good academy products. There was no long-term planning or vision involved with this, just a series of improvised quick-fixes, with the fingerprints of multiple people not working together all over this final result.
Has Pochettino been able to put together the squad he wants, with the resources he deserved to do it? No.
Last summer he hadn't the time needed to evaluate matters and make the changes he wanted. He'd needed to trust that there was a foundation in place. That was wrong. He's now had eleven months to try solving that mess by first finding reliable people behind the scenes to help with the backroom side, and only now really has the ability to make changes to the squad.
This has been an awkward year, but the problems are a lot older than our current coach.
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