Mauricio Pochettino leaves Chelsea by mutual consent

[Sleeping Dave]

9 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Will break this down in two parts.

Re the defender situation. I like Chalobah, sung rave reviews of him when he came onto the scene and how he played. However, as time has gone on he's shown a limit to what he can do. He's prone to lapses in concentration which lead to mistakes and silly fouls, I mean that abysmal attempted stooping header against Liverpool that he completely botched immediately springs to mind. There is a limit to what he provides and I've said this recently. He's abundantly poor in the air, gives you little to nothing from a possession based capacity, and overall is quite a passive defender. Players like Fofana, Badiashile and Disasi when fit do provide a wider scope of tools that are of greater benefit. Whether they provide a talent improvement is subjective, but not everything revolves around talent and attributes/profile play an equally important part. 

Re the remaining part. As you said, you've provided some extreme examples to make a point, but let's run with that for a moment. Let's say we did just that, purchased 10 £100m or 5 £200m players and they flounder. What do the repercussions of that look like? Not only are we in the hole with massive transfer fees we're not going to be recouping, but established players in these sort of transfer bracket are going to be earning some significant coin on top. We'd be, and to put it crudely, completely fucked. As such we'd have little choice but to persevere, maybe try to offload a couple for huge losses, or be stuck trying to sort loans over the following windows. Can you imagine the state of thing with 5 or 10 Lukaku like deadweights? 

Don't disagree we've started slow, but as I shared in the match thread this was the same case with Poch's first season at Spurs. Wasn't until the beginning of December when things turned around. We're not only facing the general adjustment to a new manager, but also the turnover of faces, a young team, and missing a couple key players through injury. This is not your normal set of circumstance and therefore judging it as such isn't the best approach either.

You make some valid points no doubt! As I’ve stated before, Chalobah isn’t a top class defender. I’d be the first to concede that. But my worry is that I don’t see any of the defenders we’ve bought being that either. Badiashile has the potential, but Disasi and Fofana? Meh. 

I also agree that, for the sake of continuing with an extreme example, buying 10 £100m players would have some considerable risk attached to it mainly due to their wages. We only have to look at Koulibaly and Sterling. Massive wages with very questionable output. Perhaps that strategy will emerge once we have a more settled side? So far we’ve bought two of them with a couple of £40-50m players on top and a considerable amount in the £15-30m bracket. Perhaps a more middle ground would have been preferable? 4-5 £100m players, a few in the £40-50m bracket and considerably less in the £15-30m bracket? My main gripe is the overall balance of the strategy. 

Lastly, a point for clarity. Yes, we can’t judge this project just yet. But I definitely see some very dark clouds on the horizon. We are one injury away on Jackson from being neck-deep in a puddle of shit. 

[paulw66]

4 league games, it took some. 

Well done. 

[Gurj SS]

8 hours ago, paulw66 said:

4 league games, it took some. 

Well done. 

Still 4 games more than Poch.

Just imagine sitting in the room when the lineup was annouced to face Nott-Forest, and seeing 5 DFs, 3 CMs, 1 WG and 1 CF.

The game was lost before it began, these young lads will need extra confidence installed and even at times fake trust in them; imagine seeing your new manager go 4231(433/4123/4141) in pre-season with proper attackers and then watch him start the season with a much more negative system? Then do press conferences talking about the maturity of the players, or lack of it, better if he had kept quiet.

[Max Fowler]

Lose to Bournemouth and it's time to start Poch Out!

[xceleryx]

10 hours ago, Sleeping Dave said:

You make some valid points no doubt! As I’ve stated before, Chalobah isn’t a top class defender. I’d be the first to concede that. But my worry is that I don’t see any of the defenders we’ve bought being that either. Badiashile has the potential, but Disasi and Fofana? Meh. 

I also agree that, for the sake of continuing with an extreme example, buying 10 £100m players would have some considerable risk attached to it mainly due to their wages. We only have to look at Koulibaly and Sterling. Massive wages with very questionable output. Perhaps that strategy will emerge once we have a more settled side? So far we’ve bought two of them with a couple of £40-50m players on top and a considerable amount in the £15-30m bracket. Perhaps a more middle ground would have been preferable? 4-5 £100m players, a few in the £40-50m bracket and considerably less in the £15-30m bracket? My main gripe is the overall balance of the strategy. 

Lastly, a point for clarity. Yes, we can’t judge this project just yet. But I definitely see some very dark clouds on the horizon. We are one injury away on Jackson from being neck-deep in a puddle of shit. 

The others brought in to complete or replace Chalobah don't need to top class to be more beneficial to the team. As I touched on, attributes and profile are equally as important in some cases as pure talent, if not more so in certain situations. I've made the comparison between Chalobah and Disasi last week I believe, Disasi simply provides more of what we need from a skillset perspective, this is then of course backed up from a statistical standpoint. All of this ultimately fits the team and system better. A crude example is if you had Player A and Player B both of equal overall ability, but one is superior in the air and more progressive on the ball, while the teams focus is to play possession football from the back, there's a clear standout option between the two that you'd pick. 

I think it pays to remember we're virtually building from the ground up. I wouldn't be surprised if phase one, if you will, is to invest heavily in young talent to build a general foundation. Once that's in place we can then move into the next phase, which may see the addition of couple of more established entities to further raise the immediate ceiling of the team. It would make sense, as it's far more practical to try and add one or two quality players to an exisiting side then it would be to try and rebuild through a plethora of higher cost established players. 

We're certainly still short in one or two areas, and injures here would seriously screw us over if we're not careful. That being said, from an overall perspective I'm far from pessimistic about where we are right now. We've had a long overdue clear out, we've reduced the wage bill, we've invested into an array of young talent all with various levels of potential. If we can add to this over the next few windows with a couple of slightly more established players then that could seriously elevate us further. I'd likely hold more concern if we were still limiting ourselves to young talent only in another 2-3 years time, but we're not there yet.

[paulw66]

9 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

Still 4 games more than Poch.

Just imagine sitting in the room when the lineup was annouced to face Nott-Forest, and seeing 5 DFs, 3 CMs, 1 WG and 1 CF.

The game was lost before it began, these young lads will need extra confidence installed and even at times fake trust in them; imagine seeing your new manager go 4231(433/4123/4141) in pre-season with proper attackers and then watch him start the season with a much more negative system? Then do press conferences talking about the maturity of the players, or lack of it, better if he had kept quiet.

He was unlikely to start Palmer, who was signed the day before, whilst Mudryk and Madueke have both had injuries, and is possibly why neither started. Nkunku and Carney were obviously two players to heavily feature in pre season, and now unavailable.

By the time we play Bournemouth on the 17th and barring no new injuries, Poch will be able to chose from Sterling, Jackson, Mudryk, Madueke and Palmer for the attacking options, with Broja also a possibility from the bench.

If all of the above are available for Bournemouth, and he proceeds with the same personnel (using only 2 forwards) then I will have concerns. 

[Gurj SS]

8 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

He was unlikely to start Palmer, who was signed the day before, whilst Mudryk and Madueke have both had injuries, and is possibly why neither started. Nkunku and Carney were obviously two players to heavily feature in pre season, and now unavailable.

By the time we play Bournemouth on the 17th and barring no new injuries, Poch will be able to chose from Sterling, Jackson, Mudryk, Madueke and Palmer for the attacking options, with Broja also a possibility from the bench.

If all of the above are available for Bournemouth, and he proceeds with the same personnel (using only 2 forwards) then I will have concerns. 

Wouldn't it then have made more sense to try your hardest to compensate for the loss of attacking ability?

Maatsen was sharp in front of goal in pre-season, so the following team makes more sense doesn't it?

Sanchez;

Gusto, Disasi, Silva/Colwill, Chilly;

Caicedo, Gallagher;

Sterling, Enzo, Maatsen;

Jackson;

 

Let's say everyone is fit, a starting line-up of Sanchez; James, Disasi, Silva, Chilly; Caicedo, Enzo; Madueke, Nkunku, Sterling, Jackson; is far more attacking than the one I've named above. If our guys can't play Forest at home without needing another CB to compensate for missing attackers then that doesn't fill me with any sort of confidence; just a simple swap was needed; Gusto, Gallagher and Maatsen in for James, Nkunku and Madueke. 

Also with the above his changes wouldn't have upset the balance of the team so much, but instead Poch not only waited 14 mins to make a change but then took off the vice-captain and left a CB on in his position at LB, then the changes about 15mins after that left us shapeless and frantic with players often finding themselves right next to each other.

So far Poch has shown to be a reactive manager (with some panic mixed in) and not a progressive manager, and that's fine when playing against teams better than you but when playing everyone else he has to give the opposition something serious to think about and not let them settle in the game; especially at home. Poch didn't think how to deal with the missing attack by trying to play 2 LBs down the left (with Maatsen being a very attack minded one at that), which natrually would have given us more defensive cover anyway but at the same time given way more attacking threat than an extra CB, he clammed up and went into his shell; he came out thinking as long as we don't concede we might be able to get lucky.

I think it comes down to this, we didn't need all those players avaible to not play the system we played against the lowest performing away team last season, we just needed Poch to use his most attacking lineup possible (within reason of course) to compensate for injuries.

[paulw66]

2 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

Wouldn't it then have made more sense to try your hardest to compensate for the loss of attacking ability?

Maatsen was sharp in front of goal in pre-season, so the following team makes more sense doesn't it?

Sanchez;

Gusto, Disasi, Silva/Colwill, Chilly;

Caicedo, Gallagher;

Sterling, Enzo, Maatsen;

Jackson;

 

Let's say everyone is fit, a starting line-up of Sanchez; James, Disasi, Silva, Chilly; Caicedo, Enzo; Madueke, Nkunku, Sterling, Jackson; is far more attacking than the one I've named above. If our guys can't play Forest at home without needing another CB to compensate for missing attackers then that doesn't fill me with any sort of confidence; just a simple swap was needed; Gusto, Gallagher and Maatsen in for James, Nkunku and Madueke. 

Also with the above his changes wouldn't have upset the balance of the team so much, but instead Poch not only waited 14 mins to make a change but then took off the vice-captain and left a CB on in his position at LB, then the changes about 15mins after that left us shapeless and frantic with players often finding themselves right next to each other.

So far Poch has shown to be a reactive manager (with some panic mixed in) and not a progressive manager, and that's fine when playing against teams better than you but when playing everyone else he has to give the opposition something serious to think about and not let them settle in the game; especially at home. Poch didn't think how to deal with the missing attack by trying to play 2 LBs down the left (with Maatsen being a very attack minded one at that), which natrually would have given us more defensive cover anyway but at the same time given way more attacking threat than an extra CB, he clammed up and went into his shell; he came out thinking as long as we don't concede we might be able to get lucky.

I think it comes down to this, we didn't need all those players avaible to not play the system we played against the lowest performing away team last season, we just needed Poch to use his most attacking lineup possible (within reason of course) to compensate for injuries.

Yup, I am not saying I agree with the selection. Too many defenders , especially at home, is something we have been guilty of since 2017/18.

That said, I am willing to see what happens when a few more pieces of the attacking puzzle are available and fully fit.

[martin1905]

3 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

Wouldn't it then have made more sense to try your hardest to compensate for the loss of attacking ability?

Maatsen was sharp in front of goal in pre-season, so the following team makes more sense doesn't it?

Sanchez;

Gusto, Disasi, Silva/Colwill, Chilly;

Caicedo, Gallagher;

Sterling, Enzo, Maatsen;

Jackson;

 

Let's say everyone is fit, a starting line-up of Sanchez; James, Disasi, Silva, Chilly; Caicedo, Enzo; Madueke, Nkunku, Sterling, Jackson; is far more attacking than the one I've named above. If our guys can't play Forest at home without needing another CB to compensate for missing attackers then that doesn't fill me with any sort of confidence; just a simple swap was needed; Gusto, Gallagher and Maatsen in for James, Nkunku and Madueke. 

Also with the above his changes wouldn't have upset the balance of the team so much, but instead Poch not only waited 14 mins to make a change but then took off the vice-captain and left a CB on in his position at LB, then the changes about 15mins after that left us shapeless and frantic with players often finding themselves right next to each other.

So far Poch has shown to be a reactive manager (with some panic mixed in) and not a progressive manager, and that's fine when playing against teams better than you but when playing everyone else he has to give the opposition something serious to think about and not let them settle in the game; especially at home. Poch didn't think how to deal with the missing attack by trying to play 2 LBs down the left (with Maatsen being a very attack minded one at that), which natrually would have given us more defensive cover anyway but at the same time given way more attacking threat than an extra CB, he clammed up and went into his shell; he came out thinking as long as we don't concede we might be able to get lucky.

I think it comes down to this, we didn't need all those players avaible to not play the system we played against the lowest performing away team last season, we just needed Poch to use his most attacking lineup possible (within reason of course) to compensate for injuries.

It really is this simple.

No matter the injuries we still had the personnel to play 4231 and this isn't just about Forest, he's done it in every game before the injuries to Chuckwuemeka and the knock Mudryk got.

Top class managers don't change everything because of one injury, if Pep lost all his attacking players  he'd just play the kids, you'd certainty never see Kyle Walker playing right wing. 

We should be training day in day out to play a system and if one piece of that system is missing, for whatever reason, another player slips in and takes his place. What really concerns me is what's happening on the training ground. We must be playing this way in training, with Chilwell playing LW and Colwill LB.

After a full pre season and 5 games we should getting there in terms of how he wants us to play yet after a very encouraging pre season he ripped it up and started again. 

We will have more options after the international break but we will be starting from scratch again.

Yes it's early days but champions league qualification was so important this year and it already looks a real struggle. Regardless of how much we have spent and how questionable some of the signings were this horrendous start, and it really is horrendous is down to one man.

Postecoglou has never managed anything other than Micky Mouse sides in farmer's leagues and he's come in and made Tottenham arguably the best team in the league, after four games. Yes it's only four games but the turnaround was instant. So was Villa last year under Emery. We have not quite gone backwards as that was impossible but have seen very little improvement from Potter. 

It's not good enough and I don't care that it's only been 4 games. If we were playing a proper system with players in their right positions, playing really well but not getting results I wouldn't mind. What we are seeing is signs of a manager that is out of his depth and I so hope I'm wrong as, although I didn't want him after Tuchel, I was convinced by others that he was the right man for such a young squad but it's nearly 10 years since he took over Tottenham. 10 years in football is an incredibly long time and if you don't evolve you get left behind.

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by martin1905

[ROTG]

17 hours ago, martin1905 said:

What we are seeing is signs of a manager that is out of his depth and I so hope I'm wrong as, although I didn't want him after Tuchel,

After TT imo would have been the best time to see Poch’s  abilities with an established squad. 
 

problem now is Poch can always hide behind the club completely revamping the entire playing staff. 

[Gurj SS]

On 05/09/2023 at 01:31, Max Fowler said:

Lose to Bournemouth and it's time to start Poch Out!

I don't think the fans will need to, also I'm not keen enough on TB & Co enough to go blaming a manager instead of laying the blame at their doorstep.

Everyone thought Potter would be given at least 1 whole season to bed in his new age ideas, there was all this talk of a long term plan in motion. Potter was rubbish, Lamps followed and was rubbish too, TB pulled the plug on almost all the squad; looks like the conclusion was the squad needed to be sorted out and it wasn't TB's decision to bring in an average manager after a couple of months of extreme political turmoil which caused us to have a poor season (it was the fault of those who won us a CL and had a very very difficult time due to political issues which included at times questions being thrown up about the entire future of the club), but now the squad is pretty much brand new. Poch will need to show TB very quickly that he can make things work, because we've committed far too long term into the players to go back into the transfer market to correct mistakes; I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest transfer we make this season will be the signing of a new manager.

[Chelsea_Matt]

4 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

I don't think the fans will need to, also I'm not keen enough on TB & Co enough to go blaming a manager instead of laying the blame at their doorstep.

Everyone thought Potter would be given at least 1 whole season to bed in his new age ideas, there was all this talk of a long term plan in motion. Potter was rubbish, Lamps followed and was rubbish too, TB pulled the plug on almost all the squad; looks like the conclusion was the squad needed to be sorted out and it wasn't TB's decision to bring in an average manager after a couple of months of extreme political turmoil which caused us to have a poor season (it was the fault of those who won us a CL and had a very very difficult time due to political issues which included at times questions being thrown up about the entire future of the club), but now the squad is pretty much brand new. Poch will need to show TB very quickly that he can make things work, because we've committed far too long term into the players to go back into the transfer market to correct mistakes; I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest transfer we make this season will be the signing of a new manager.

Who? 

[Gurj SS]

5 hours ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

Who? 

We'd need a manager who is able to set a team up to be brave not only in battling with the opposition but also on the ball to make something happen, a manager who wants every attack to mean something and wants to see expressive creativity but then every tackle to mean just as much; who is brave in their selection and wants to implement an attacking system but is also able to keep one eye on game managment and using the correct personnel in the right moments of a game.  What's most likely the important element is to be able to maximise the potential of the squad they have at disposal with limited options and with such long term contracts at the club to be able to work within a tighter remit than other managers may be able to; because it's much easier to switch out players who are on shorter contracts and at reasonable prices. I'd go with Lionel Scaloni, he knows how to manage youthful and inexperienced players well, Argentina didn't just win the World Cup because they had Lionel Messi and his bodyguard (De Paul), Scaloni installed a never die Jose style culture in the whole squad, which is something we really need back asap; plus seeing as he has won everything already at international level I think Lionel Scaloni is the Enzo, Caicedo, Jackson, Nkunku of managers. He's still learning but the key thing is he's able to take a look at a group of players, take a look at the opposition, and make quick decisions on how to give the team the best chance of winning a game, none of this start safetly and feel the game, he sets up to take the game to the opposition and then make his adjustments off that as the game goes on. The key thing is we all know it's safe to say Poch wouldn't have been able to do what Scaloni did with Argentina, and Poch hasn't done enough at club level to say Scaloni can't do more than him if given the chance.

[DannyLB]

What we need most right now is stability. 

[xceleryx]

2 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

We'd need a manager who is able to set a team up to be brave not only in battling with the opposition but also on the ball to make something happen, a manager who wants every attack to mean something and wants to see expressive creativity but then every tackle to mean just as much; who is brave in their selection and wants to implement an attacking system but is also able to keep one eye on game managment and using the correct personnel in the right moments of a game.  What's most likely the important element is to be able to maximise the potential of the squad they have at disposal with limited options and with such long term contracts at the club to be able to work within a tighter remit than other managers may be able to; because it's much easier to switch out players who are on shorter contracts and at reasonable prices. I'd go with Lionel Scaloni, he knows how to manage youthful and inexperienced players well, Argentina didn't just win the World Cup because they had Lionel Messi and his bodyguard (De Paul), Scaloni installed a never die Jose style culture in the whole squad, which is something we really need back asap; plus seeing as he has won everything already at international level I think Lionel Scaloni is the Enzo, Caicedo, Jackson, Nkunku of managers. He's still learning but the key thing is he's able to take a look at a group of players, take a look at the opposition, and make quick decisions on how to give the team the best chance of winning a game, none of this start safetly and feel the game, he sets up to take the game to the opposition and then make his adjustments off that as the game goes on. The key thing is we all know it's safe to say Poch wouldn't have been able to do what Scaloni did with Argentina, and Poch hasn't done enough at club level to say Scaloni can't do more than him if given the chance.

Yes, because what we're missing is a NT manager who has absolutely no club level experience outside of a 12 month spell as an assistant at Sevilla. 

The fact this is even being discussed in the first place is ridiculous enough in itself. 

[Gurj SS]

17 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Yes, because what we're missing is a NT manager who has absolutely no club level experience outside of a 12 month spell as an assistant at Sevilla. 

The fact this is even being discussed in the first place is ridiculous enough in itself. 

We gutted out most of the experience in the squad and gave Poch the job, in that case the ridiculous started way before I suggested Scaloni.

However, Scaloni can do something Poch can't, complete his tasks and actually win something. Also if you look at the qualifiers in South America they're pretty much setup as a league table. The transition wouldn't be all that different, plus it would give us an advantage in cups which may be our best chance at a return to European football.

[Max Fowler]

2 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

We gutted out most of the experience in the squad and gave Poch the job, in that case the ridiculous started way before I suggested Scaloni.

However, Scaloni can do something Poch can't, complete his tasks and actually win something. Also if you look at the qualifiers in South America they're pretty much setup as a league table. The transition wouldn't be all that different, plus it would give us an advantage in cups which may be our best chance at a return to European football.

Not sure about Scaloni.

If Poch leaves the first person we should turn to is De Zerbi.

Or else he will become Man City manager after Pep leaves. Guaranteed. 

[Max Fowler]

Let's not forget Tuchel lost 2 games in his first 25.

Poch has lost 2 of his first 5 games and drew another.

So much for experience letting us down!

[xceleryx]

4 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

We gutted out most of the experience in the squad and gave Poch the job, in that case the ridiculous started way before I suggested Scaloni.

However, Scaloni can do something Poch can't, complete his tasks and actually win something. Also if you look at the qualifiers in South America they're pretty much setup as a league table. The transition wouldn't be all that different, plus it would give us an advantage in cups which may be our best chance at a return to European football.

NT football is an entirely different kettle of fish to that of club football. We see this with players all the time, it's not a whole lot different to managers either. It's hard to take too much stock from it. That's not to say Scaloni is a bad manager, or to even discredit what he's achieved with Argentina, but there's huge unknown that comes with it as well. For the position we're in as a club right now, with the direction we've taken, I just cannot see why we'd go down this pathway. 

Either way, we've just hired Poch and there's no reason why we shouldn't be backing him at this point in time. 

[ROTG]

2 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

the position we're in as a club right now, with the direction we've taken, I just cannot see why we'd go down this pathway. 

I think Graham Potter would disagree 

[ROTG]

2 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

Not sure about Scaloni.

If Poch leaves the first person we should turn to is De Zerbi.

Or else he will become Man City manager after Pep leaves. Guaranteed. 

Lets see how De Zerbi handles twice a week football once European football kicks in. 

If he is any good one of the big Italian teams will come calling in the summer or before. I believe he has a buyout clause.

If the club were to hire him, it would support the lazy recruitment philosophy of winstanley and Co. 

[kev61]

2 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

Not sure about Scaloni.

If Poch leaves the first person we should turn to is De Zerbi.

Or else he will become Man City manager after Pep leaves. Guaranteed. 

You know you will get pilloried for those comments.I hope you don't care.

If I was in control I would already be looking at replacements.That's what a   properly run club would do.

I'm not saying Poch should be sacked,it's too early,but any club or business thinks ahead.If you see a player struggling you give him time but you should have to be thinking about getting rid of him - that goes for the manager as well.

We've went from a decent pre - season to losing at home against Forest ffs and it's not down to Nkunku or James being injured.

I know I will be laughed at,but the next 3 games will give me a clearer picture of Poch.

 

[Max Fowler]

13 minutes ago, ROTG said:

Lets see how De Zerbi handles twice a week football once European football kicks in. 

If he is any good one of the big Italian teams will come calling in the summer or before. I believe he has a buyout clause.

If the club were to hire him, it would support the lazy recruitment philosophy of winstanley and Co. 

Nothing lazy about it. He is the new elite manager and he will be managing bigger than the Italian league next job.

[chara]

3 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Nothing lazy about it. He is the new elite manager and he will be managing bigger than the Italian league next job.

Scolari ?

[xceleryx]

We don't really have a "general Chelsea thread", so going to pop this here since it somewhat pertains to our football under Poch currently. 

Really reaffirms that we're being let down by our wastefulness in front of goal. May also surprise a few to see Chilwell being as dominant as he has been given the flak playing him at LW has copped.