Matchday discussion

The three statements about Pochettino's last year at Spurs that I listed in my previous post ARE facts, however unpalatable the remaining fans of PSG's manager find them. Nothing more to be said.

 

Not sure it’s entirely factual? There was an entire season of results that lead to the CL and the last minute missed penalty at a neutral ground was a tiny part of the story. We had a very unlucky start in the final which could have been very different if a penalty had not been awarded immediately, killing any confidence we may have had. We were playing pretty terribly for the whole of 2019 for the very same reasons that everyone is using as excuses for the current manager...no investment etc.

Again...the PSG manager is indeed the PSG manager now so any comments made are made about our current manager not anyone else...others seem to keep referring to him while defending JM. So, either we start to evaluate JM and ignore making reference or blaming the previous manager or we continue to defend JM by including the psg manager into the discussion but don’t expect no counter arguements...nothing to do with being a fan or not of any specific individual

 

So is Simone's. Defensive tactics is hated everywhere unless it provides results. Trophies excuse defensive coaches. Once Atletico wins La Liga the love will come back.

 

Have you watched AM? I don’t think our performances and style can be compared to them despite their impressive defensive record?

They have won 13, drawn 2 and lost 1. They have scored 31 and conceded 6.

 

I am convinced that if Spurs acquired Bruno Fernandes in the summer, there will be no mess at all. With Bruno Eriksen could be relegated to the bench and decay he created could be stopped. CE could be sold, as he was, in January. JM cleaned the decay, but team still is missing a playmaker, as CE has never been replaced. Ndombele might show some ability, but is physically limited being out of gas by an hour.

That is redundant to One. No one disagrees, even Poch.

I think Kane and Son were overused. Locelso is out injured. TN, as I said, do not last a match and Dele is not used being protected from injury. He will be dealt in order to get the last Poch's admirer out and fund the acquisition of a CB Mou is desperate to get. If kept, Dele will be used to the benefit in the second half of the season.

 

I'm both old enough and old-fashioned enough to believe in the existence of facts, things not subject to change to suit agendas, and I repeat that all of my statements about Pochettino's last year were objectively true. Arsenal would have beaten us to the final CL place in 2019 if they'd scored that penalty; we WERE terrible in the CL Final (and would have been screaming for a penalty if the handball had been at Liverpool's end), and our PL form under Pochettino in 2019 would certainly have put us in the relegation zone over a whole season. Yes, there's plenty of scope to discuss the reasons for our abysmal form, but that doesn't alter the FACTS in the slightest.

 

Haha really?! I’ll focus on your Arsenal last minute penalty for now....we played another 9 games after that as did everyone else and IF things had of been different in any of them we could finished 3rd or finished mid table. A missed penalty from Arsenal wasn’t the reason they didn’t get the CL the combination of all of the results for them and us in the subsequent games was the reason they didn’t get the CL spot. You can’t pick one moment in a game with 9 games to play and use that as your “fact”.
Now, for the penalty...I never said that it wasn’t a penalty but it was launched at his hand in the first moments of the biggest game of their careers...that 100% would have had an impact on our performance for the rest of the match.
The only fact you have stated that is actually correct is our form in his final season was indeed relegation worthy.

These are facts:
Most wins by a Spurs manager in post-war era (159)
Four consecutive top four PL finishes (Before he arrived, Spurs had only recorded two top four finishes in the previous 22 Premier League seasons)
First ever Champions League final
Net spend of £19.83 million per season

But he is PSG manager not ours so let’s get back to your opinion of our results and performances in the 13 months JM has been our manager. Has he improved us, got us playing any better or made any changes that you are happy with?

 

Dear God the smartest fellow in the room doesn’t know what a fact is... might have to reassess that assertion

Mess... stumbled... embarrassed... abject... are all subjective non quantifiable terms that have no place in objective analysis

Meanwhile the PSG manager has won his first trophy... aren’t you the one who said he didn’t have the bottle to win silverware?

Enjoy the clown car while you stew over that missed penalty

 

Do you spend your leisure hours counting angels dancing on pinheads? How far away from reality into the world of 'what ifs' and 'might ofs' do you carry your arguments? If Spurs hadn't 'illegally' bought a pair of football boots for a player back in 1893, we might never have turned professional, and spent the last century as deadly rivals of Walthamstow Avenue or Dulwich Hamlet - but we did and so we weren't! I could run through dozens of other 'what if' moments, and in parallel universes Arsenal would have scored, and Sissoko not conceded the CL Final penalty, but in this one neither of those things happened, and the FACT is that our lead over Arsenal in the final table depended on that miss, and we DID play terribly in the CL Final. As usual, you can choose to come back at me and, as usual accuse others of dragging our former manager into the debate when you're the one who constantly references him, but it really is futile and boring - surely even you can see that?

 

Well said

The mystifying selective bias may seem prevalent here but looking and listening elsewhere I get the impression that the majority of Spurs fans have a good sense

 

I like this post

Unfortunately Bale will not be given a run of games because essentially he doesn’t track back to run wind sprints all day... a defensive prerequisite for any forward at Spurs these days

Exciting times

No one is missing Pochettino per se... that horse is long gone

Rather he’s mentioned here as the reference point from which the current manager will be judged

 

Aaaaaah my mistake...ok so we only made CL because of Arsenals penalty miss...phew, lucky they missed. Should have not bothered with the rest of the season as clearly that wasn’t required after the miss. At least you have schooled me that a missed penalty is indeed a FACT that proves why we managed to get to the CL at the end of a season because I had missed that in every other seasons final league positioning.
If you read what I have previously said, when I mention Poch it’s in direct response to someone making a point in discussion about our current manager which usually has a reference to how bad the side is he had inherited or how well we are doing in comparison. If a comparison is made, Poch is the counter point in that particular debate hence why he is still coming up.
What is futile and boring is the football we play and the constant whining on here about how it’s not JMs fault, how poor everyone of our squad is and how they choose to ignore all of his instructions and tactics and decide to play their own game during every match we play.

Still based on your FACT if we score a penalty at some point, the season will turn and into the top 4 we will pop which will be great.

 

Oh and just to be crystal clear, who brought the the previous manager into the discussion?

 

I haven't been in a 'you started it, no YOU started it' row since I was in short trousers, and I can't be bothered to scroll back to check the original culprit who dragged the mouldering corpse of Pochettino out for yet another post-mortem, but I think his record had been under discussion for quite a while before I chipped in with my modest contribution. Just saying, but no doubt you'll be back in for another nibble.

 

I will have a little nibble given the fact you claimed in your post “As usual, you can choose to come back at me and, as usual accuse others of dragging our former manager into the debate when you're the one who constantly references him, but it really is futile and boring - surely even you can see that?”
I could be bothered to scroll back and Poch was brought up by a couple of others and you which kind of goes against the accusations of constant references, futility and boredom which you made which shows you haven’t actually read what I’ve been saying (or why I have said it). Hopefully now even you can see that?

Despite us not quite agreeing on what constitutes a fact no in terms of final positions and factors impacting our CL final performance, I am still keen to hear your opinion on som earlier questions as I do feel that more often than not I am in agreement with your view....Are you happy with how we are playing and our results? Do you think we have progressed as a team or in terms of style/brand over the last 12 months and what would your opinion be if we end up 8th but with the Carabao Cup in the cabinet?

 

No, no and I'd be pleased with anything in the trophy cabinet after the poorest trophy haul in our history - two League Cups in thirty years! As I've previously said, I've always liked Mourinho (just as I liked Wenger, Klopp, Ranieri and a surprising number of other clubs' managers - it's only some Spurs managers I can't stand), and want/ed him to succeed, but I think our problems are too deep and chronic for a short-term fix, as he's discovered.
I remember West Ham fans from the Greenwood era saying that they were sick of 'The West Ham Way' if that meant pretty but ultimately unsuccessful football, and I've long felt the same about Spurs, even as far back as Pleat in the '80s, or even (but don't tell anyone) in Nicholson's last few seasons.
We currently have a team devoid of winners and leaders, and Mourinho is trying to overcome that with a rigid system which appeared to be working early in the season, but clearly isn't now. People cry out for Bale, or Alli or even Lamela (!?) to be brought in, but they're either has-beens or never-wases, and the likelihood of Levy stumping up the cash for the quality of player we need is next to nil. We spent twenty of the last thirty years trying to get back into the elite that people of my age think we belong in, and to see us slipping back into the chasing pack is deeply depressing, but it's the future I expect to see, barring a total change of policy from Levy/ENIC, or the arrival of a sugar daddy. Donald Trump's got some more time for hobbies these days, hasn't he?

 

Very true, I would be happy with a cup, it’s just such a shame that the only entertainment that we can expect is from the manager and his comments rather than any football. I think the biggest problem I have at the moment is that I genuinely like JM from what I have seen but can only continue to back him while picking up points. All of the draws are really unforgivable especially against sides like Fulham. Playing however we play, using players that we do have, is one thing when we are winning but dropping points despite playing like we are is another (especially when other teams are getting the exact results that I’m referring to such as Chelsea against Fulham or West Brom against Wolves). It would be a very different opinion for me had we have beat the teams by the odd goal that we drew with because the pain would have been worth it. Trouble is we keep letting that leads slip and if our lack of improvement and tactics do not deliver results they are ultimately delivering failure all at the expense of decent performances. I really hope we win the cup because it’s such a pivotal thing to measure JM by....If we don’t and our league position ends up where it looks like it might, it would be a complete disaster of a season.....Such a delicate position we are balanced in currently

 

Interesting comments from Sissoko which seems to contradict the idea that JM is telling the players one thing but the players are ignoring and doing something else “be careful and don’t concede goals” when winning 1-0. That sounds like the instruction/game plan was to take no risks and defend at all costs (against Fulham) not to attack and score more to put the game out of site?
https://twitter.com/footballdaily/status/1350431563029368833?s=20

 

What does this statistic say other than they on top of the la liga table currently? Is that your argument AM style is different? They play defensive style successfully. Same style as Spurs. Better results that may be attributed to a little better players in MF and FB and a little weaker league.

 

The statistic says that they score more goals, concede less goals? They don’t sit deep and hit long balls...they defend as two deep defensive lines of 4 with 2 up front who press from the front. All of their defensive players defend aggressively and all of the defensive players rotate in positions to cover across both MF and at the back.
I would not say that is the same as what we do? They just defend well but other than that it’s not really very similar?