This is something I was worried about when we hired Poch and why he wasn't my first choice. Since Santini all our appointments have been based on short term successes (Santini, Ramos, AVB and now Poch) or a reaction to events (Jol, Redknapp and Sherweasel). None of the managers where we've had time to sit down and consider the needs of the club have been appointments based on sustained success. Whilst I appreciate he wasn't going to come here, when you look at a manager like LvG you see a pedigree, a sustain history of winning. Now I do appreciate that it's very hard to find such a manager, but we had spoken to Frank deBoer and at least in his short history he has been able to maintain success. In contrast all Poch had to show for himself was an average stint at Espanyol and then the Southampton period. It's not the first time either. Ramos, prior to Sevilla, had about ten years of pure failure before be won the cups which got the attention of Levy. AVB, again, was a manager whose history was built around one good season and the fact that he used to be Mourinho's shoe shiner. It seems that we hire on the basis that the manager will be the next big things, rather than him actually being proven as capable.
In my view, Levy has painted himself into a corner with this hiring policy. He's let go two managers in Redknapp and AVB who, upon reflection, had better records than the current man has thus far. But what does he do? Pull the trigger again? Can we be certain that if he did he wouldn't then go and repeat the same mistake yet again? I'm not so sure we can be. At the same time, in Poch Levy has a manager who places emphasis on young and up and coming players, so that gets him off the hook of expensive signings. Poch knew this going into the job and it's possibly one of the other reasons Levy hired him. So anyone who says that Poch needs his own players should probably think about the idea that he was hired to work mostly with what he has.
If I were to make a random prediction I'd say we will have a relatively quiet summer in terms of signings and Poch will start the next season, but probably not finish it. Then we'll see rinse and repeat all over again (and that will continue at least up to the completion of the new stadium). The problem is that we are quickly becoming (if we aren't already) a poisoned chalice for managers and the days of being able to attract someone half decent to the job may have passed.
I guess we'll have to see what happens, but I wouldn't be surprised if for at least the next 3-4 seasons we're floating around 6th-10th spot in the table as a "best of the rest" team.