Jose Mourinho - SACKED

[braineclipse]

You and i disagree on what was or what wasnt a hole that needed fixing.

We never got to see where he went with the signings because he was sacked 12 games in - with Sessegnon and GLC spending more time unavailable than available.

I think we agree to a certain extent at least actually. A GLC/Ndombele type player was definitely needed. It was arguably one we could accept taking some time in sorting out.

We probably disagree more on where the priorities should have been, what holes were bigger and in more need of rapid fixing.

Then again I've always rated Sissoko less than the average on here. Perhaps it was a sensible decision to trust him for that role and it just didn't work out.

 

[billyiddo]

I think we agree to a certain extent at least actually. A GLC/Ndombele type player was definitely needed. It was arguably one we could accept taking some time in sorting out.

We probably disagree more on where the priorities should have been, what holes were bigger and in more need of rapid fixing.

Then again I've always rated Sissoko less than the average on here. Perhaps it was a sensible decision to trust him for that role and it just didn't work out.

I think Poch thought quite highly of Skipp as we saw him getting minutes here and there and maybe he still saw Dier as an option in DM? Those two as options in a 3 with GLC and Ndombele? With Sessegnon coming in over the course of the season at LB? Who knows what the plan was - who even knows if he got all the players he wanted

 

[Finney Is Back]

That is indeed true. Though I think we’re “in the hunt” for the Europa in the same way that a bloke on his horse, in his hunting outfit, gathered outside the pub with others waiting for the hounds to arrive is in the hunt. We’ll see whether we remain in the hunt the moment we actually have to jump over a reasonable sized hedge.

I actually wonder whether our early start in the Europa partly explains our decent start this season and our recent drop off in performances? I wonder if we were significantly fitter than our peers at the very start of the season and now that they have caught up on the fitness they find it easy to dominate us with our weak, small club tactics?

Just looking back at this.... It didn't even take a reasonable sized hedge!!!!

 

[StephenH]

If Levy is a big fan as he made out in that documentary and delays, he will go further down in my admiration of the man. Mourinho was a mistake, we all make them. Lets now move on and not compound this by procrastination.

 

[braineclipse]

I think Poch thought quite highly of Skipp as we saw him getting minutes here and there and maybe he still saw Dier as an option in DM? Those two as options in a 3 with GLC and Ndombele? With Sessegnon coming in over the course of the season at LB? Who knows what the plan was - who even knows if he got all the players he wanted

Mourinho could have done the same. Thought highly enough of Skipp, thought of Dier as a DM.

Luckily he didn't. Luckily he got Hojbjerg in because he would have ended up with Sissoko like Pochettino did.

It's hindsight for sure, as I already said. But isn't that how we evaluate these things?

I'm sure Mourinho had plans for this season that didn't pan out. All managers do. When too many plans don't work out we evaluate with hindsight. And so does the chairman.

He probably didn't get all the players he wanted. Just like Mourinho didn't.

 

[billyiddo]

Mourinho could have done the same. Thought highly enough of Skipp, thought of Dier as a DM.

Luckily he didn't. Luckily he got Hojbjerg in because he would have ended up with Sissoko like Pochettino did.

It's hindsight for sure, as I already said. But isn't that how we evaluate these things?

I'm sure Mourinho had plans for this season that didn't pan out. All managers do. When too many plans don't work out we evaluate with hindsight. And so does the chairman.

He probably didn't get all the players he wanted. Just like Mourinho didn't.

Not sure what your point is tbh

If Mourinho got his CBs at the expense of a full back and Hojberg we could be no better off, just the problem area changes.

Same with Poch and his window - he had more problem areas to fix than Mourinho did and you're just complaining that he didn't fix the ones that cost us in hindsight

 

[afsoc4life]

Listen to the Lloris interview. They are not the words of a captain in a dressing room that is pulling in the same direction.

There seems to be problems behind the scenes. Jose may well be part of that. He’s certainly split the fan base.Would not be a stretch to think he’s divided the dressing room.

You are joking. Have you been part of a Sports team before? You think everyone pulls in the same direction. Even Jesus Christ had enemies even within his team of disciples. You are giving a dog a bad name to hang him.

 

[djp82]

You are joking. Have you been part of a Sports team before? You think everyone pulls in the same direction. Even Jesus Christ had enemies even within his team of disciples. You are giving a dog a bad name to hang him.

No I’m not joking. I play football so well aware how a team works. And the politics and cliques in a changing room.

Of course not everyone always pulls in the same direction and there’s not always perfect harmony. But good teams don’t allow the changing room stuff to affect performance. Unless there’s a very deep rift. Which the way our club captain aired the dirty laundry last night would suggest there clearly is.

 

[AdamB]

Down to 3/1 as next man out

 

[braineclipse]

Not sure what your point is tbh

If Mourinho got his CBs at the expense of a full back and Hojberg we could be no better off, just the problem area changes.

Same with Poch and his window - he had more problem areas to fix than Mourinho did and you're just complaining that he didn't fix the ones that cost us in hindsight

I'm saying we could have found a better balance between solutions for the here and now and the future

I'm saying that we could have spread that money a bit more over several important positions. Ndombele and GLC covers some of the same positions and roles.

If Mourinho had signed two defensive midfielders, no left back and no striker backup it would have been similar. Particularly if there was no real reason to believe that none of the defensive midfielders were particularly likely to make a quick impact.

My point is that, in hindsight, under Pochettino we got it wrong that summer and that's continued to hurt us to this day.

 

[billyiddo]

My point is that, in hindsight, under Pochettino we got it wrong that summer and that's continued to hurt us to this day.

That's a completely backwards way of looking at it imho, the horse had already bolted at that stage, it's what came before that summer window wrt to letting the squad stagnate that is the root of the problems, that and then jacking in the manager once the rebuild was underway.

We gave him money that summer so obviously everyone was onboard with moving forwards, 12 poxy games later Levy brick his pants - that's what's hurting us

 

[Finney Is Back]

All clubs will have examples of players they could and should have signed.
Bruno Fernandes is one example. I don't think it was ever an option to sign him, GLC and Ndombele. Particularly without selling Eriksen. So we needed a decision, the decision seems to have been GLC and Ndombele. If Pochettino was against that, argued for Fernandes instead, fair enough. I don't see how you know that.
We should have also signed X player type arguments doesn't really do it for me.
Part of the job for the manager and recruitment department is to identify players that will work even if your first choice isn't possible for whatever reason.
I wanted Wijnaldum, but got Sissoko type arguments similarly doesn't do it for me. Why was Sissoko on the list in the first place? Why didn't the manager veto it? Why weren't there more players like Wijnaldum on the list?
Hey, perhaps Mourinho just got super lucky and all the players he wanted were his first choice players for those positions. I somehow doubt it. Hojbjerg was a great buy, in part because we were able to identify a player we could actually sign. If he went to Liverpool it would have been up to Mourinho and the recruitment department to identify a similar player, several similar players, players we could sign.
I'm sure there are players we could have gotten over the line. Part of the job of the manager and recruitment department is identifying those players we should push the boat out on, over and above other players we are "interested in". Perhaps Pochettino did that with Grealish and Levy just stubbornly didn't listen. No way to know.
Regardless the job is then to identify other players that fit in, that solves problems rather than becomes one. It's difficult, being good in these areas means outperforming others, not being perfect.
Pochettino started very well in the transfer market, at a time when we could gamble on cheaper players and it didn't take that much to improve on players in our starting 11 because we weren't very good. As the job became spending more money, getting real quality in to make a quick impact on an already good team he didn't do as well. It was difficult, it is difficult, but he didn't do particularly well.
It left us in a bit of a mess sadly.

Re: Fernandes, the player himself said that it was an option for us to sign him. We absolutely wanted him but wouldn't spend the money. After not paying the money for Fernandes the club then went on a weird wild goose chase for Dybala. Pochettino knew we were losing a genius of a player in Eriksen and tried to replace him first with Grealish and then with Fernandes, neither time did the heirarchy deliver.
Re: Sissoko. I'm not sure he was on the list. He was bought in the very last knockings of the transfer window. I suspect that Pochettino made do with him in the fear of going into that season woefully short of numbers after he wasn't given one of the actual targets. The fact that Sissoko was signed from a relegated club with just minutes of the transfer window left suggests to me that he wasn't anywhere near ike a first choice target for the manager.
In his 11 transfer windows at the club Pochettino got a net amount of £100.7 million to spend. £70.7m of that was in his very last window. He then got sacked before he could use that £70.7 millions' worth of improvements. I'm not sure how any manager can be expected to keep a team in the Champions League, let alone improve them armed with a net amount of £3 million per transfer window to spend.

 

[Mr Gogolak]

But your point about a hundred managers is exactly what Levy is trying to address
- Everton, Leicester, West Ham, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, etc. can all have a few good seasons based on good manager, point in time cash injection but inevitably it will regress to norm because they don't have the income that puts them in the elite bracket (same thing Italian clubs are panicking about now)
- Spurs with the stadium has an ability to gain income higher than our current EPL potential, the role of the next manager is to keep us competitive until that cash kicks in and then we may not be Pool/United, but we will be ahead of everyone except them and the money doping clubs.

I'm not really questioning Levy's long-term vision. He's always been pretty good at that. If you could travel back in time to the mid-90s and tell any Spurs fan we'd be playing in a CL final 20 years, I don't think anyone would have believed you. We were a shambles back then. Now, 4th place isn't good enough.

I haven't looked at the numbers but I strongly feel that spending power and average league position on a few years are linked. That said, it'd be difficult to argue that Arsenal have benefitted from their new stadium. It was supposed to put them on a par with United at the time. While there have been other factors, it coincided with their fall down the pecking order in England.

But, much like what's happening with the coronavirus situation, you have to do something, no matter what. I agree that Levy's strategy makes sense but I can't help but regret the extinction of more coulorful and interesting managers we had in the past. Sometimes, I feel like today's football looks like American sports and that's not necessarily a good thing (for me).

 

[Finney Is Back]

Poch was emotionally spent, everyone on here could see it so obviously Levy could too. The fact Levy chose to part ways with him wasn’t just down to poor results in the final year or so. It was best for all parties involved unfortunately, maybe Mourinho wasn’t the best replacement but the sacking of Poch wasn’t wrong....

indeed, outside of Emirates Marketing Project and Chelsea no one can get their first choice targets often. And if Levy kept giving Poch players he didn’t want, why didn’t he quit like any self respecting manager would? Poch had to adapt to not getting his main targets often just like 90-95% of managers do, and he did damn well with what he had. But this oh we would have signed these five amazing players then would have won things with Poch doesn’t wash - a lot of clubs fans could claim this about their clubs....

The sacking of Poch was very wrong.... Though I completely get why Levy had to do it... Otherwise it would've soon exposed that a big part of the actual problem wasn't the manager but actually the chairman. In many ways I think Poch probably should've quit that season when we signed nobody, though then we probably wouldn't have got to the CL final nor finished in the top 4 that season (which would've had our finances in even worse shape now). It is obviously just my own opinion but I think if we had've somehow won that CL final then Poch may well have quit. He knew that it was impossible to keep on achieving big things without being given the same tools as our rivals.

I think now we have to hope that we can somehow find another manager (and probably pair him with a DoF) that is good enough to allow a club to consistently overachieve in relation to its resources.

 

[Finney Is Back]

You'll be able to see it on the player's faces before a ball is kicked, most of them have already decided what to do with their runners up medals.

Put them in the bin I'd imagine..... Though I'm not sure the bin would actually want them...

 

[Finney Is Back]

Yeah it's meteorology that's the reason why we won't beat the best team in the country and not because they are better than us all over the pitch

Indeed.... It does make me laugh how now the chosen one of many posters on here is failing its suddenly the players mentality that is the problem as opposed to it being entirely the manager as it was 14 months ago!

 

[Finney Is Back]

We're better than Brighton all over the pitch. And Palace. And Fulham. And Zagreb. And Arsenal.

Hasn't meant much at times this season.

I suppose the common factor here is that all of those teams have managers with a system that he can get across to their players and is able to lift them in their performance?

 

[Finney Is Back]

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I bet Jose would pick Kane to play against all of those.....

I would actually fancy our chances at beating most of those with Kane in the team though... As long as we can avoid Reading that is!

 

[Finney Is Back]

A lot of fires, some of them could wait for longer term solutions, some of them definitely couldn't.

None of Ndombele, Lo Celso and Sessegnon were short term solutions. It's obviously easier to say in hindsight than before. Probably it was hoped that one or two of them would hit the ground running. That's fair, a gamble worth taking perhaps.

Even if it had worked that would have required several other players to step up massively. Aurier/Foyth, Sanchez, Winks and Sissoko. Gamble on one of them stepping up, fine, but almost all of them? And new signings from abroad to hit the ground running... You'd need very good reasons to.

With Clarke we spent around £150m in a situation with plenty of fires to be put out. In the short term no fires were put out.

Mourinho similarly had many fires to put out, with a lot less money to spend. He actually put out some short term fires. Without spending money on players aged 29+ he fixed some issues.

We still have fires to put out come the summer. A few too many for the liking of any of us however you look at it.

Another summer like 2019? Or another summer like 2020?

Regardless of the manager, and despite my fondness for a long term approach, we have to put out some fires short term or we'll suffer too much to make the long term viable.

We spent £150m! We could have signed long term solutions for some issues, and signed some short term solutions to our most pressing issues.

We had no real DM at the start of the window, and none at the end! Having spent £150m Moussa Sissoko was still starting in central midfield... How? Why? What?

We had so many fires to put out because up until the summer of 2019 our manager had been given £3 million net per transfer window to spend across an eon (in football terms) of 10 transfer windows. When that happens you're going to tend to decline quite significantly over time.

From what I can see so far Mourinho has put out two fires.... Left back and defensive midfield. Where else are we stronger?.... I guess we actually have a backup CF now (on loan) but the fact that the manager only plays him against third rate teams and doesn't pick him even against the second rate teams indicates to me that the player probably isn't actually considered to be very good?

I'm not sure if it has escaped your notice but we still seem to have Moussa Sissoko starting quite a few games for us even though Mourinho has spent another £100 million on top of what Poch spent in that final transfer window.

 

[Finney Is Back]

What other holes though? There were just the same holes. Ndombele, GLC, Sessegnon and Clarke filled no holes for Pochettino. If they had perhaps he would have gotten better performances and kept his job.

None of them filled any holes in that first half of the season. GLC was the only one doing any hole filling (on the pitch at least) at all that season, and that was only after half the season had gone and Pochettino with it.

Pretty sure they were all injured/unfit. I mean I know Pochettino was a genius at getting extra out of players but I don't think even he could've got a performance out of Sessegnon playing on one leg? (though I guess most managers have to try to do so with Lamela?!? )