Mauricio Pochettino leaves Chelsea by mutual consent

[Max Fowler]

Just now, Max Fowler said:

You just cemented your status as a complete nutter.

You know I love your posts Droy, mods I am just teasing (but maybe semi serious..)

💙

[Dwmh]

31 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

You just cemented your status as a complete nutter.

One of us did, sure.  
But you think Man U was worse than all of them, even the Forest game.

[Max Fowler]

10 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

One of us did, sure.  
But you think Man U was worse than all of them, even the Forest game.

I mean I could go through them one by one but to take just one, the idea that our 4-1 win against Burnley was worse than our performance against Man United is just... I don't know where to start.

[JaneB]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

You know I love your posts Droy, mods I am just teasing (but maybe semi serious..)

💙

Don't get too cocky on here Max and cement your status as.....I'm not sure what tbh

#I am just teasing (but maybe semi serious)# 

[Dwmh]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

I mean I could go through them one by one but to take just one, the idea that our 4-1 win against Burnley was worse than our performance against Man United is just... I don't know where to start.

Burnley - whoops - slipped in by error into a long long list.
But Spurs, also 4-1 was a monumental farce of which I am still ashamed of as a Chelsea fan.

[Max Fowler]

14 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Burnley - whoops - slipped in by error into a long long list.
But Spurs, also 4-1 was a monumental farce of which I am still ashamed of as a Chelsea fan.

You can’t say it was worse than Man United though Droy.

[chara]

44 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Burnley - whoops - slipped in by error into a long long list.
But Spurs, also 4-1 was a monumental farce of which I am still ashamed of as a Chelsea fan.

Understand your point and to a degree agree BUT did we get any such ashamed response to the Cucu hair pulling incident from the Spuds fans? OK we are above them in the moral high ground table over the two games but Chelsea lost two valuable points...goes around etc....

[boratsbrother]

We shouldn't waste time splitting hairs on levels of shiteness of performances. At the moment we are putting in the occassional good/encouraging performances, a fair number of  average ones and too many shite ones. 

First things first. We need to start hitting our average a lot more often and then build on that by gradually increasing that level of play. Do that and we'll obviously see fewer bad performances and a few more good ones. Slower progress than we might wish for but a realistic view of where we are and how long it'll take to start turning the team around.

 

[Dwmh]

12 hours ago, chara said:

Understand your point and to a degree agree BUT did we get any such ashamed response to the Cucu hair pulling incident from the Spuds fans? OK we are above them in the moral high ground table over the two games but Chelsea lost two valuable points...goes around etc....

Confused.  My embarrassment was being outplayed 11 vs 11 and then looking silly playing 11 vs 9 as we still couldn't defeat an off side trap which was still lined up on the h/w line.  If they had painted a white line where Spurs players were going to stand we still couldn't have beaten that trap (oh they did).

I'm not concerned about the luck involved with refs - football has a big random element anway.

 

[Max Fowler]

2 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

We shouldn't waste time splitting hairs on levels of shiteness of performances. At the moment we are putting in the occassional good/encouraging performances, a fair number of  average ones and too many shite ones. 

First things first. We need to start hitting our average a lot more often and then build on that by gradually increasing that level of play. Do that and we'll obviously see fewer bad performances and a few more good ones. Slower progress than we might wish for but a realistic view of where we are and how long it'll take to start turning the team around.

 

There is no splitting hairs between the Spurs and Man United games. If you can’t admit that, that’s your prerogative.

[Backbiter]

2 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

We shouldn't waste time splitting hairs on levels of shiteness of performances. At the moment we are putting in the occassional good/encouraging performances, a fair number of  average ones and too many shite ones. 

First things first. We need to start hitting our average a lot more often and then build on that by gradually increasing that level of play. Do that and we'll obviously see fewer bad performances and a few more good ones. Slower progress than we might wish for but a realistic view of where we are and how long it'll take to start turning the team around.

 

I quoted this from the Guardian the day after the 4-4 with City:

Quote

they are capable of producing moments of sublime quality and moments of abject calamity, and as you scan the barcode on your ticket you have no idea of knowing which will prevail.

That is where we are. We are all over the place. The fans, players and manager all know it.

[Dwmh]

13 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

You can’t say it was worse than Man United though Droy.

Ten times worse.  

[chara]

3 hours ago, Dwmh said:

Confused.  My embarrassment was being outplayed 11 vs 11 and then looking silly playing 11 vs 9 as we still couldn't defeat an off side trap which was still lined up on the h/w line.  If they had painted a white line where Spurs players were going to stand we still couldn't have beaten that trap (oh they did).

I'm not concerned about the luck involved with refs - football has a big random element anway.

 

I did/do agree with your view but POINTS IS POINTS.

[Mark Kelly]

3 hours ago, Dwmh said:

Confused.  My embarrassment was being outplayed 11 vs 11 and then looking silly playing 11 vs 9 as we still couldn't defeat an off side trap which was still lined up on the h/w line.  If they had painted a white line where Spurs players were going to stand we still couldn't have beaten that trap (oh they did).

I'm not concerned about the luck involved with refs - football has a big random element anway.

 

We did beat it, three times. 

[Dwmh]

29 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

We did beat it, three times. 

two of them after Spurs had stopped even pretending to jog back.
We failed about 40 times.  It was awful.  It was we had never played a 3 vs 2 training exercise ever.

[Bison]

Haha should have said this months ago. 

[Bigpokey24]

we won't win anything with kids, and let us be honest Enzo and Moise are not good enough at this level

[chara]

Genuine question...not one posing as an opinion or statement,,,

Has The Poch been given a better or worse squad than SFL started with in his first (transfer ban) season?

The Cavalry to the rescue for SFL the next season was..A GENERATIONAL Talent...a top German goal scorer and a subtle player who did well against Chelsea...how did they work out,?,for differing reasons.

Everyone on here has years of Football experience and valid opinions and differing football philosophies.

But,,,I believe everyone can see quite how shallow in the real football World terms the purchasing/transfer  agenda is and how it will never come to fruition in time ..if ever...to prevent a spiral into a lower division sooner than later,,,,,that Chelsea have at best a journeyman coach compounds in built flaws in the system.

[jasonb]

Just thinking if we jettison Poch surely its SFL (or Fat Frank to some) to the rescue as no-one else will likely touch us.

[Dwmh]

1 hour ago, chara said:

Genuine question...not one posing as an opinion or statement,,,

Has The Poch been given a better or worse squad than SFL started with in his first (transfer ban) season?

The Cavalry to the rescue for SFL the next season was..A GENERATIONAL Talent...a top German goal scorer and a subtle player who did well against Chelsea...how did they work out,?,for differing reasons.

Everyone on here has years of Football experience and valid opinions and differing football philosophies.

But,,,I believe everyone can see quite how shallow in the real football World terms the purchasing/transfer  agenda is and how it will never come to fruition in time ..if ever...to prevent a spiral into a lower division sooner than later,,,,,that Chelsea have at best a journeyman coach compounds in built flaws in the system.

It is not about the playing squad it is about the mood, momentum and psychology of it all.  Plus the maturity (call it the ability of players to stick to their own level rather than being thrown up or down by the mood of the crowd).

SFL inherited an upbeat squad.  They may have drifted into lifelessness at the end of the season as they discovered a highly rated top player wasn't a very good manager.  But they were grownups and kept their standards (don't let Frank fans kid you, that was a very experienced team).
Poch inherited about as low a team as one can imagine of which only Silva has any Gravitas - any centre of mass that stops him going delusional on the upside or downside.

You are comparing players that were in the CL on their own merits and continued to play well (albeit largely playing Sarriball because that was the last coaching they remembered.  Comparing them with hugely de-motivated kids, with little emotional ballast, who have already known since game 6 that they are playing for a position between 9th and 15th.  Which would have been fine if they were still at Brighton.

SFL had 18 players that started 10 PL games or more.  4 were 21 or younger.  11 were 25+
And that ignores Pedro.  
25+ We have Sanchez, Silva, Chilwell, Disasi, Cucurella, Sterling and Nkunku. 
And only Sterling and Silva are 27+ 
Today we had Sanchez 26, Disasi, 25, Cucurella 25 - and that was the senior contingent starting.

[Dwmh]

11 minutes ago, jasonb said:

Just thinking if we jettison Poch surely its SFL (or Fat Frank to some) to the rescue as no-one else will likely touch us.

Who (see above) did not manage a young experienced team before, and all the players now know all about him.

[Bigpokey24]

we will never win anything with kids, they have no experience . The policy of buying young players only, has been an EPIC fail 

[xceleryx]

7 hours ago, Bigpokey24 said:

we will never win anything with kids, they have no experience . The policy of buying young players only, has been an EPIC fail 

It's only an epic fail depending on what unfolds in the future with these guys.

Call it a fault of ownership and a lack of clarity, but for arguments sake there is the possibility of there being multiples phases here with what we're doing. The first was to obviously shed a lot of inflated wages, under performers, and players possibly past their best. The second was to then invested heavily into young talent with lower immediate levels in exchange for the prospect of higher future rewards, this has allowed us to rebuild a full first team just about while keeping wages cost controlled. 

If the third phase was to then use the next summer window (or maybe even this January if options present), to then sign higher established quality that would immediate raise the floor level and fill in key areas of need, then a bit more understanding can be had. It would've been harder, if not near impossible, to just rebuild through proven established options alone initially - not to mention far more expensive with less wiggle room if signings don't pan out. 

This team is buildable though, that needs to be kept in mind. It's not as if we're a Man Utd for example and have spent millions on established options for high fees and wages, then still look a mile off. They're going to have a real hard time shedding certain players, as they've kinda had over the last season or two prior, purely because of what they earn. Even Arsenal when Arteta signed ended up just releasing a bunch of high earners to clear their wage bill for their rebuilding process. 

A project has certainly been sold to players upon them joining, it would be nice to know a bit more as to what that project actually is and the timeframe we're looking at. Knowing this would've likely meant a bit more leeway at times. This is something ownership need to fix and be more transparent about.

[Thiago97]

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2294203-comparing-mauricio-pochettinos-first-season-at-tottenham-to-andre-villas-boas

Well worth a look . Does it sound like a familiar situation ?

[Max Fowler]

3 hours ago, xceleryx said:

It would've been harder, if not near impossible, to just rebuild through proven established options alone initially.

I have rarely found a sentence of yours I have disagreed with more.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Max Fowler