Pochettino did a reasonably good job at Spurs. He got us European Cup football in four consecutive seasons, which was good going in that prior to that, we’d only ever qualified for the tournament twice in 60 years. We weren’t at as low a base as a lot of people would lead you to believe prior to Pochettino taking over in 2014 and what he achieved at Spurs is a bit overstated. In the 5 seasons before that, we had finished 4th twice, 5th twice and 6th. There was an element as well that Man U were in decline post Sir Alex, Woolwich were in the dying days of Wenger and dropping out of their perennial Top 4 slot and Klopp and Guardiola were only arriving and Liverpool and Citeh were in transition.
He had a good Plan A. We were possibly the fittest team in the league initially and played this high octane, pressing style, which worked quite well for about 3 seasons. There were always question marks over him tactically and in match astuteness on the line. There was a sense that he got outwitted in most high stakes games when he came up against the big coaching beasts. Squad became jaded, after about 3 years of getting run into the ground and there was no real Plan B. He didn’t have a good eye for a player in the transfer market. Ndombele, Davinson Sanchez and Lo Celso are the three most expensive signings in Spurs history with a combined cost of around £150 million. All still on the books and you’d do well to get £50 million combined for the three of them now.
Sounds like another disaster waiting to happen for united. He must have a great PR team. You’d imagine he was up there with klopp and pep the way people go on
Yer man Guillem Balague is big pals with him apparently. I’m not sure if Balague has influence in club boardrooms, certainly not to the extent of a heavy hitter like Graham Hunter anyway.
If Pochettino goes to Old Trafford, he’s taking on a job where the expectation is to be winning the League or European Cup every season. He’ll be given resources and spending power commensurate with those expectations. That wasn’t the job spec at Spurs, nor would it be in 95% of the other managerial posts out there.
Nothing in his managerial cv so far which indicates he can deliver on that front, although maybe he hasn’t had a proper opportunity to do so yet. There has always been a whiff of a nearly man off him though. He’ll probably be given two, maybe three seasons tops at Old Trafford to deliver.
I think Poch would be a great appointment for Manchester United. He’s a modern systems manager and will give detailed tactical instructions to every player and plant a bomb up the players’ collective arses, which they badly need.
What happened to Maguire at the weekend happens because of confusion. No system of play. Wan-Bissaka and Shaw stand off as they do because of confusion. Confusion is brought about by poor coaching and a manager who doesn’t have authority.
Poch’s biggest challenge would be how to combine a modern systematic style of play with the existence of a player who does not want to work. PSG seems good preparation for that because they had three of that type of player in the one team, rather than one.
This time last year Chelsea were a standing joke under Lampard. They ended up winning the European Cup.
Who had Leicester anywhere near the top 4 at the start of either season? I’m not sure he’s a top manager but to have them challenging the top 4 and win the FA cup was a fair achievement all the same.
PSG is a circus. Tuchel didn’t “knock it out of the park” with PSG either. They got a very easy run to a European Cup final in which they never raised a gallop. And they still nearly managed to fuck up that run against Atalanta in the quarter-finals, being bailed out in the last few minutes by a former Stoke City squad player. Tuchel got sacked because PSG were under performing domestically.
Tuchel ended up winning the European Cup that season.
Under Poch PSG beat Bayern in the quarter-finals last season which is probably their best European win ever. And they’re walking the league again this season.
Tuchel got sacked because he fell out with Leonardo, who seems a difficult enough fella to work with. He didn’t do a perfect job but he seemed to have a far better handle on the team than Poch does at the moment and had implemented more of his ideas on the side than Poch has. Poch won that Bayern match playing 8 men behind the ball and belting it up to Mbappe to score.
He’s done well wherever he has gone but he’s lacking a bit to be a top top manager. I think he struggles to adapt in game and his team’s are never defensively astute. The 2014 season was a cracking season, goals galore… But his naivety down the home stretch showed and he hasn’t looked to have learned from it since. There’s something shifty about him also, he makes all the right soundbites but he gives off an untrustworthy vibe.
It’s the kind of job where you need a facilitator for all the galacticos. A bit like Real Madrid really. Zidane is the man for PSG. Would have been risky for Man U to give Zidane his first head coach role in the mess they’re in at the moment.
Pochettino was screwed at Spurs because Daniel Levy wouldn’t give him appropriate backing in the transfer market when things got stale, after making good progress with the squad previously . Cc @Fulvio_From_Aughnacloy