I love how managers have to answer that question no matter how early in the season it is. They were asking Guardiola about the treble a month ago.
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Not sure you can say trophies are fuck all to do with it, although I appreciate there's more to it than just trophies. But to dismiss them altogether is silly.
Agreed but if he hasn't won us a Cup or league title by next Wednesday , I want him gone
The interview was good, Poch seemed far more relaxed and candid talking to Jenas than he is in press conferences.
Probably helps that Jenas had written that article singing his praises and predicting the win vs City.
Probably helps that Jenas had written that article singing his praises and predicting the win vs City.
Great interview. Loved how his face lit up when he was asked about the work he does with the young players, and that he said that they reminded him of himself and the footballing education he got at Newell's.
Also the bit about last seasons poor finish where he talked about other people's opinion on fitness and burnout.... You could just tell he was talking about the Dutch bloke who's obsessed with criticising him.
Also the bit about last seasons poor finish where he talked about other people's opinion on fitness and burnout.... You could just tell he was talking about the Dutch bloke who's obsessed with criticising him.
He's just so perfect for us. I fucking love Poch.
I enjoyed it. Left me wanting a lot more though. Didn't learn anything new.
I like JJ, he is also very good on the goggle box. Thought his relaxed approach and his links to Spurs + the fact he was a footballer also made Poch relaxed.
The only thing that I personally didn't agree with is when JJ started with the statement that after the Citeh win "fans believe we can win the league". Think he should have said "the media now believe we can win the league". For it was them that haven't been talking about us until the Citeh game.
I like JJ, he is also very good on the goggle box. Thought his relaxed approach and his links to Spurs + the fact he was a footballer also made Poch relaxed.
The only thing that I personally didn't agree with is when JJ started with the statement that after the Citeh win "fans believe we can win the league". Think he should have said "the media now believe we can win the league". For it was them that haven't been talking about us until the Citeh game.
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Quite enjoyed that interview, Pochettino was more candid than his usual press conference, post match interview self. It's great that his English has improved since his interpreter days. To think my initial worry about him not speaking the lingo when he first joined us.
JJ's last few playing years with us were pretty poor and was happy to see him leave for Villa an Forest on loan and QPR permanently, he just seemed at times looked like a passenger perhaps it was because he was blighted with injury most of the time? Since he's become a pundit and he's shown his affection for Spurs, he's really changed my perception of him, seems to be very thoughtful, intelligent and quite insightful.
JJ's last few playing years with us were pretty poor and was happy to see him leave for Villa an Forest on loan and QPR permanently, he just seemed at times looked like a passenger perhaps it was because he was blighted with injury most of the time? Since he's become a pundit and he's shown his affection for Spurs, he's really changed my perception of him, seems to be very thoughtful, intelligent and quite insightful.
I reckon that would have been top of the list of questions the producer said he had to ask - Jenas isn't normally so direct / forthright.
Agreed. BTW should have said that I *didn't* agree with him (changed it now). It's only the media that have not thought of Spurs as contenders, rather than the fans.
International breaks have a numbing effect: anything that happens before them – and whatever joy those events may have brought – is typically suffocated by the ennui of having to watch the English national team. Not just the performances, of course, but the established behaviours surrounding them. The last domestic weekend was only ten days ago, but it feels far longer: that’s what a week-and-a-half of slow news cycles, slow England performances, and snark will do.
Still, Tottenham signed off with a flourish. Manchester City were beaten and battered at White Hart Lane and those who had proclaimed Pep Guardiola a Premier League winner-in-waiting were encouraged to take a few backwards steps. It wasn’t a smash and grab affair, Spurs outplayed, outworked and outfought City. Say it quietly, so as not to antagonise the Pep loyalists, but Guardiola was also tactically bested by Mauricio Pochettino. In theory, it should have been an even game decided on the break of the ball, a refereeing decision, or a single mistake. As it was, the hosts were incontestably superior and, on another day, might have won by a wider margin.
In the light of day (or icy chill of the international vacuum), Spurs were impressive because the nature of their success was so unusual and because, essentially, they managed to slay a few of their dragons in the process. Over the last decade, two Tottenham truisms have been irritatingly constant: one, that they are always reliant on a small cluster of individual players and, two, that they suffer more than most from continental hangovers.
So the context in which that City game occurred is highly relevant: they entered the fixture without Mousa Dembele, Harry Kane, or a fully-fit Eric Dier and, perhaps more pertinently, only four days after returning from a Champions League game in Russia. If someone were to create the perfect conditions for that club to lose a football game, surely it would be those? Spurs are the side of flashy-but-flawed individual class, whose success in one area ordinarily comes at the cost of progress in another; that afternoon at White Hart Lane – and the entire week as a whole – was shockingly unfamiliar.
Pochettino does not get short-changed for praise. The Argentine is widely celebrated for the emotional change he has created in North London and for the form and fitness his players often show. He enjoys a curious psychological hold over his squad, too, and – cumulatively – those factors portray him as one of the leading man-managers of his generation. He works his players like dogs and yet, in a bucking of a contemporary trend, they still seem to adore him. It’s all praiseworthy, but none of it is really new: this is who he is and this is the quality of manager we know him to be.
But if there is a new, welcome detail, it was evidenced by that City game. Just as they had on that Tuesday night in Moscow, Tottenham were able to win on the following Sunday because of their shape. Not because a Bale, Ginola, or Sheringham-like talisman had carried the other ten players on his back or because the attacking patterns and intensity were unusually rich. No, that was Spurs as a fully-functioning football team: a complete piece of work, a precise mechanism.
After the final-whistle, there was no wild delirium at White Hart Lane. Instead, a softer satisfaction. As the supporters snaked out through the breeze-blocked concourse, the chatter hinted at a deep pride. A rival had been soundly beaten and all the usual victory noises were made, but there was also a shake-of-the-head novelty to that game, one which broadened the shoulders of those fans and put a swagger in their step. That’s quite unusual. Winning is winning and it always affords a certain smugness, but those three points felt especially significant. In the past, big clubs beaten at the Lane have generally had asterisks to grasp. Not in tenuous way, either. In past seasons, Spurs have sometimes come out on top in those kind of encounters, but have typically done so after a few moments of fleeting inspiration or having had to endure a late, perilous wobble.
This was not that. The knees didn’t buckle, there was no real onslaught from a powerful opponent and, curiously, Tottenham remained in charge for almost the entire 90 minutes. What that crowd had seen – and were reacting to – was probably the reaching of a waypoint. Pochettino’s team are always intense and generally play with tangible emotion, but rarely in such concentration. Even in the highly successful 2015/16 season, Spurs had a distinct “on” and “off” setting: they would win games with short bursts of power, but still had periods of vulnerability – especially so when key personnel were injured, suspended or off-form.
This was different, though. This was a group of players who had such conviction in their structure that their absentees were irrelevant. For traditional powerhouses, the Chelseas and Manchester Uniteds, that’s the norm. For Spurs, though, it very much isn’t. It was like watching an Alex Ferguson team in one of those big Old Trafford showdowns that he always, always seemed to win. Not in style, of course, but in its general feel. He could be without Paul Scholes, Roy Keane or Ryan Giggs and yet, somehow, the strength of his squad would be enough and he could always rely on Park-Ji Sung scoring a goal or Darren Fletcher playing like Michel Platini. They were always more than the sum of their parts and that’s the level all aspirant teams have to achieve.
Tottenham are not there yet, but this was evidence of them moving in that direction. It all felt highly unusual, but it was complete to the point of being intoxicating. That feeling – the odd sense of comfort and satisfaction – is how it feels to be an excellent football team.
Pochettino tells Spurs fans not to expect more contract renewals soon
On an unrelated note, Hugo and Toby still have 4 years left on their contracts... right?
:kanewtf:
Edit: wait, Lloris has 3 left.
On an unrelated note, Hugo and Toby still have 4 years left on their contracts... right?
:kanewtf:
Edit: wait, Lloris has 3 left.
More importantly, doesn't jan have one or year?
Not really. Wimmer is more than able as we saw last year. If vertonghen or his agent want to play silly cunts then that's their prerogative. I don't think any horseshit will wash with Poch. He's a ruthless cunt when he has to be. And that's without even mentioning the bald Satan.
Jan should be careful. He might have been our best defender for a while, but now I think there's an argument that he's the least talented in our starting back line (depending on your view of Walker).
We've got the best (in terms of overall talent and chemistry) centre-back pairing in the league; surely he'd want to keep that going.
For what it's worth Vertonghen did say before he joined us that his intention was to go abroad to a good club for a few years to see whether he could play at that level and then return to Ajax. Maybe that's still his intention. Not extending doesn't make him a silly cunt, it is his right. He signed a contract and he presumably will honour it, I don't see the issue with that (provided he doesn't do a Judas Campbell on us by joining Woolwich of course, lol). Can't force players to extend.
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