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Questioning Pochettino

5 min read
by Bardi
For the first time in years, Pochettino’s position at Spurs can be questioned, because he set the rules on how to judge him 

There’s a rule in life, if you don’t meet your objectives you’ve failed. It’s a simple rule that governs all of us who work for a living. If you’re paid by someone, you’re expected to deliver, if you don’t you’ve failed and your job is in danger.

Mauricio Pochettino, is quite simply in danger of failing. This isn’t a trend of modern social media football rotting my brain, but simply a fact.

As he said himself: “We are going to create a debate that to win a trophy is going to help the club. I don’t agree. That only builds your ego. The important thing is being consistently in the top four and playing in the Champions League.”

From the moment he arrived it’s been clear through his attitude and selections that the league is his priority. As fans we’ve craved a piece of silver which we could pin to some of the best players we’ve seen in decades at the Lane, but we’ve accepted Poch’s stand for the greater good. But now that ‘good’ has gone a little stale.

For the first time since starting at Spurs, he’s genuinely under pressure and questions are being asked regarding his attitude and decisions. His sheet reads: One point from the last 15, a two game touchline ban and a footballing philosophy now open to in-game interpretation.

But first let’s get some perspective.

Pochettino’s reign at Spurs has been the happiest sustained period of supporting Spurs in my life. Three seasons of Champions League football is unheard of at Spurs. Our team is the backbone of the 3rd and 4th placed teams at last summer’s World Cup and our keeper was the winning captain. Things are better at Spurs than they have been for generations.

We’re in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, and qualification for next year is still in our own hands with 7 games to play, but…

There is no denying the Punxsutawney Phil feeling creeping over us as winter dissolves into spring. A huge lead blown, a position of power squandered and a transfer policy that has sliced through our Achilles like we’re a legend at a test event. Redknapp blew a lead and his position was questioned, why should Poch be exempt? Three years of delivering Champions League, isn’t three league titles or a bucket load of cups.

So where does the blame lay with this? Who is at fault for this collapse that has led us from a ‘title challenge’ to hanging on to top four?

There is nowhere else to turn to but the club and of course the manager.

The club were naive in thinking our squad which had already started to decline last year could last another 48+ game season. In key areas we’d seen significant drop offs in performance. Our fullbacks and central midfield, the key components of a ‘Poch side’ were injured, broken or past it. The club’s failure to address this was gross negligence.

However, Poch isn’t exempt from blame. Turning your back and saying this is not in my power is not an excuse. Reports suggest he was offered players such as Youri Tielemans, but he chose not to take the loan deal. He demanded that Spurs “be brave” they weren’t and he accepted that. He had a choice, he made it.

Other issue which we are within our rights to question Pochettino regard the handling of Kane’s return from injury and how its disrupted the team.

There is no universe where we’re a better team without Kane, but by throwing an unfit striker back into the starting XI at the expense of Son, has disrupted us and the South Korean. This disruption however has been a key feature of our play all season. We’ve swapped from the diamond, to 3 at the back, to 4321, to a 442 and at points a 451. There was once a predictability to our team, we had a manager with a belief and team who could play it, we no longer have either.

The problem we now face is we’ve got a manager lost in and among bad decisions made by himself, the board and a woefully inept scouting network. We’ve a legion of players rattling around Hotspur Way unfit to train, let alone wear the shirt. Our team is controlled by a core of players guaranteed to start no matter what level of form or fitness. Poch once so brutal in his selection and handling of players now is at the mercy of his big stars.

These are not the early drums beats to #PochOut. But they are the start of us asking questions.

He’s done so much good for the club and us supporters, but at what point do you stop to question? When does a bad run of form become terminal? When does a man run out of goodwill? At what point do we ask him to step aside for his and our own good?

A person can become so lost in his work that he never knows when to end it, or how to change it.

There’s a wonderful film called Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr. Douglas was this maverick writer, brilliant and compelling, but when he tried to repeat that first great work, he became lost in a maze of indecision. It wasn’t until he drove into a wall that he could figure himself out. Right now Poch reminds me of Douglas. Brilliant, charming, talented, but lost in a club that swallowed a lot of men quicker and easier.

There’s big choices that need to be made and big decisions to be taken. Does Poch have a clear enough vision to do this?

When Poch sold the cups for the league, he asked us to judge him on the league. As he said himself: “If you don’t finish how we have finished [in the league] in the last three seasons but win the FA Cup, I don’t know if Levy would have too much patience with me.

Poch never won that FA Cup and now there’s a danger we won’t finish where we’ve been finishing.

He told us how to judge him, we’re doing as he asks. If he fails to secure top four, the question about his future is valid. He’s an employee who has failed to deliver. I love Poch but love and football, especially love and Spurs, aren’t always enough.

All views and opinions expressed in this article are the views and opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of The Fighting Cock. We offer a platform for fans to commit their views to text and voice their thoughts. Football is a passionate game and as long as the views stay within the parameters of what is acceptable, we encourage people to write, get involved and share their thoughts on the mighty Tottenham Hotspur.

Bardi

3 Comments

  1. Owen Jackson
    02/04/2019 @ 3:52 pm

    I fully understand the question around the subject, but for me, Poch going would be the worst mistake we can make. To get the club to where it is has been nothing short of incredible. There is absolutely no reason why he can’t take us further, beyond the clubs contraints. I do have the feeling that he is being hung out to dry a bit and is having to be the fall-guy. A lot of is comments have felt like he has been towing the company line by saying that we don’t need to improve our squad or how well some of the underdog players have been playing. Now that we are coming under a bit more pressue there is an air of frustration in his voice. His recent comments about the club having to be “brave” and teams like Liverpool being set up to win the league sound as if his personal feelings are beginning to bubble to the surface. There is no way in the world that having players like Sissoko as a first-teamer, or going into the transfer window with an injury list like an epitaph to our fallen soldiers can be a benefit. With the club turning over sofas and routing through pockets to fund the stadium, it must be having an effect on funds. Regardless of what he or Levy have said, I just cannot see how it is not effected. You cannot tell me that there are not countless amounts of players around that wouldn’t love to move to top 4 team, in the FA Cup (at the time), the Champions League and about to open a new state of the art stadium. Those players were available, but I just bet not to Levy’s budget. It is Levy’s fault, but not a deliberate fault as these are just the consequences of the stadium and our moth filled transfer war chest.
    I can see this changing for the new season as investing in players is just as much branding for the new stadium as it is improving the squad. It’ll shut us up as much as anything else!
    No manager/player is infalible and to not ask these questions removes the pressure that they are rightful under, but to me the answer is there before the end of the sentance. This is his first “underperforming” season and we are still where we are, working within the contraints set by the club.
    Knowing how this Spursy world works, he’ll be out tomorrow, the stadium won’t get the safety certificate, this will be our third window without a player and half the squad will go. Hey-ho, I’ll still be there.
    COYS!

  2. Cheshuntboy
    02/04/2019 @ 5:48 pm

    Pochettino has had an easier ride from the media and fans than any other manager I can recall, at ANY club, with levels of hyperbole that are frankly absurd for a manager with absolutely nothing in the ‘trophies won’ column of his CV.
    The prevailing myth is that he rescued Spurs from mid-table mediocrity, when the truth is that we had spent most of the previous decade in the top six, and had twice broken into the top four under Redknapp – what Jol, Redknapp and the rest didn’t have was the near-collapse of the usual Big Four, which allowed us to break into the top three while Leicester were smart enough to snatch the title itself, Pochettino and Levy being too busy planning for future success to grasp the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
    Only a totally blinkered moron can believe that Spurs haven’t gone backwards in the past couple of years, and only that same moron can believe that we’re somehow going to improve without a massive investment in the team, which there are no signs of Levy/ENIC making with the stadium to pay for. As the article says, Pochettino has set the parameters for judging him, and why should he be spared if he’s manifestly failed to achieve them? Being media-savvy didn’t save Redknapp, so why should it help Pochettino?

    .

  3. Sweetsman
    02/04/2019 @ 11:42 pm

    Enter stage left: Cheshuntboy with clear Brexit vibes towards Johnny Foreigner Pochettino, along with barely hidden pining for good old cor-lumme cockney Redknapp. The predictably is laughable. Probably still breathing in fumes from the latest FLA gathering.
    As regards Bardi’s article, confounding factors regarding our transfer policy must include the contracted nature of the market due to the world cup, made worse by the success of our players. Poch’s aversion to January transfers is well-known and not without understanding from a number of commentators. The fact is that a gamble was made about the fitness of some players returning from injury, players who were the backbone of a formidable midfield. They’ve either gone geographically like Dembele, physically like Wanyama, or in their own heads like Eriksen. I agree that the handling of Kane and Lloris has not been the best; the former produced the same downturn in form last year and so there’s no excuse for making the mistake twice.
    Yes, he does need to be judged, but the timing of this article makes it appear very knee-jerk.

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