• ! ! ! IMPORTANT MESSAGE ! ! !

    Discussions about police investigations

    In light of recent developments about a player from Premier League being arrested and until there is an official announcement, ALL users should refrain from discussing or speculating about situations around personal off-pitch matters related to any Arsenal player. This is to protect you and the forum.

    Users who disregard this reminder will be issued warnings and their posts will get deleted from public.

Mate, let's all laugh at Tottenham!

Uncle Good-Advice

Active Member
To be honest I can't say that Mourinho is a good manager anymore and I'm surprised that many people here rate him. Of course stranger things have happened but he was always driven by being ultra-competitive and siege mentality that he usually creates around his squad. It looks like he lost that edge. And, in general, players are no longer buying this kind of crap, it's all smiles nowadays, nobody will die for Jose and the badge.

Besides, when was the last time that somebody jumped successfully from being a pundit to a full-time manager job?
 

Sanchez11

Nobody Is Coming!

Country: England
Only one man left for us now :Celebration:

1237083_1019759178064298_8495719066865995083_n.jpg
Ah yes an ipad merchant!!
 

2Smokeyy

5.0 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (49)
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
Levy is a shrewd businessman and he’s being proactive unlike our board so I don’t see why most are laughing at their situation. Also, I think he’s made the right call imo as once you lose the dressing room like Pochettino did, there’s no way back. Our club should have noted that down as Emery already lost the dressing room but he still seems to be lingering around here as they don’t have the balls to sack him.
 

2Smokeyy

5.0 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (49)
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
I still think we should have gone for Mourinho especially if we wanted to secure CL football for next season. I would rather trust Mourinho at achieving our short term objectives than say an Arteta who is a massive risk.

Levy probably realised that this a pivotal time for their club as they were having a dreadful run of results plus a number of their players seemed disinterested and were all running their contracts down. Also, without CL football next season and losing key players on a free (Eriksen, Vertonghen and Alderweireld) they would run the risk falling further away from the top 4 positions and closer to the likes of Everton and West Ham.

It’s interesting that Mourinho is the head coach and not the manager there, I guess Levy will still have the final say with the recruitment of new players. Although if **** hits the fan that’s the first person Mourinho will blame for having sh*t players.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
There many managers that better than him we can get in summer hiring mourinho will make this club more toxic alot of fans not fan of him and they'll can't wait when we go into bad run so they'll want him sacked

Don’t know if we’re going to be getting top managers when the likes of Bayern and Barca will have vacancies.
 

albakos

Arséne Wenger: "I will miss you"
Administrator

Country: Kosova

Player:Saka
Let's make another Sol !
Poch is miles better than Emery for PL.

I thought Mourinho at United would've been the most hated combination for us.
Seems like he will overdo it.

The regular jibes to Arsène and especially the weak Emery will intensify.
 

A_G

Rice Rice Baby 🎼🎵
A-M CL Draft Campeón 🏆
Don’t know if we’re going to be getting top managers when the likes of Bayern and Barca will have vacancies.
How many top managers are going to be available anyway? Bayern have zeroed in on Ten Hag and Barca have been linked with Koeman/Martinez when they finish up at Euro 2020. Naglesmann seems like he wants to build something in Leipzig and they've apparently already turned Allegri down once before, so I'm not sure what options there are in terms of the really big names.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
How many top managers are going to be available anyway? Bayern have zeroed in on Ten Hag and Barca have been linked with Koeman/Martinez when they finish up at Euro 2020. Naglesmann seems like he wants to build something in Leipzig and they've apparently already turned Allegri down once before, so I'm not sure what options there are in terms of the really big names.

Gallardo might be but he’s a gamble, @MaraDon might know more about him.
 
  • Like
Reactions: A_G

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
Ornstein’s Athletic article on everything

“Don’t look at the boss.”

Tottenham players had become used to saying those words to each other in recent weeks. Don’t catch his eye, don’t give him an excuse to get you in to trouble, just get on with training and surely this will all be over soon.

Mauricio Pochettino had never been overly friendly around the training ground, that just wasn’t his style. He was the boss after all, not the players’ friend. And after becoming Tottenham’s most successful manager in 50 years, who cared how chatty he was anyway? The team had become regulars in the Champions League, they were beating the biggest teams in Europe and had challenged for the Premier League title at their peak. They were scintillating at their best, hunting down the opposition in packs and entertaining their fans with a team full of improving young players.

But then they weren’t. Then the victories dried up, the tough training sessions caught up with the players’ minds and legs and the manager became surly and distant.

As one dressing room source told The Athletic: “It was the only decision that made sense.” With the team currently 14th in the Premier League, without a win in five, and with no away victory in the league since January, the players really had lost faith. From their last 24 league games, a run dating back to late February, they have taken just 25 points.

On Tuesday evening the club sacked Pochettino and 12 hours later replaced him with Jose Mourinho. This is why.

Some members of the first-team squad did not know about Pochettino’s sacking until the club’s online statement on Tuesday just after 7.30pm. Some senior staff were unaware of his impending departure as late as Tuesday morning, and some club scouts speaking to agents on Tuesday appeared to have no idea either as they continued to talk about Pochettino as Sp**s’ head coach in the future tense.

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy took decisive action to address a disastrous start to the season, ending Pochettino’s five-and-a-half-year tenure at the club. The decision paved the way for Levy to appoint a new manager in time for Saturday’s lunchtime trip to West Ham, and he acted swiftly. A statement on Wednesday morning announced Mourinho’s arrival on a contract until the end of the 2022-23 season.

Training has been pushed back to Wednesday afternoon, which will allow Mourinho, who had been out of work since being sacked by Manchester United last Christmas, to take the session. Sp**s’ interest in RB Leipzig coach Julian Nagelsmann came “one year too late”.

The former Real Madrid, Chelsea and Inter Milan manager Mourinho, 56, has always enjoyed associations with the biggest, richest clubs, but one source close to him told The Athletic that he is “always evolving as a man and a manager”. Another source with close links to Sp**s added: “If Mourinho is in the dugout against West Ham, as opposed to Pochettino, who’s got a better chance of winning? If you’re looking long-term, Mourinho doesn’t work. If you’re looking for two years, he does.”

After a week of talks over Pochettino’s future, in which he had resolutely refused to resign, Levy was eventually left with no choice on Tuesday but to dismiss the 47-year-old and his backroom staff, triggering what is understood to be a £12 million pay-out to the Argentine coach. Pochettino’s assistant Jesus Perez, and coaches Miguel d’Agostino and Antoni Jimenez have also left the club.

Talks started last Wednesday as Levy hoped to use the international break to find a solution to Sp**s’ bad start.

There was a growing sense of unease throughout the week as speculation about Pochettino’s future grew. Some first-team players — but by no means all — got wind on Monday night that their manager was on his way out. But with some players still on international duty, and no public statement until Tuesday evening, there was still a sense of confusion throughout the club.

Toby Alderweireld found out after playing in Belgium’s 6-1 win against Cyprus in Euro 2020 qualifying, adding: “It’s part of football. It’s never nice to see a manager leave but that’s all I can say, I think. It’s a surprise for me. The club made the decision and we have to accept this and try to change the situation as quick as we can… We have to be very thankful for what he achieved and I think he brought the club to the next level.”

Two contrasting emotions dominated the immediate reaction to the dismissal. The first was shock, a sentiment echoed by Ben Davies when he was told after helping Wales to reach next year’s European Championships with a 2-0 win against Hungary. It had “been amazing to work with him (Pochettino) for the last five years”, the full-back added.

Pochettino was the fifth-longest serving manager in English football until Tuesday evening, having joined Sp**s in May 2014. He was Tottenham’s longest-serving manager since Keith Burkinshaw and their best since Bill Nicholson. “The players thought he would get a few more games to turn it around,” said one dressing-room source. “They are in a bit of shock and it’s like a dad has left the family home. There wasn’t the impression he had managed his last game before the international break.”

Relationships between Pochettino and Levy, and Pochettino and his players had been deteriorating all year. It was no secret the Argentine wanted to quit if he won the Champions League final in Madrid in June. And that would have been a very appropriate moment to go — not just because it would have been a historic honour for the club, but because it would have marked one whole five-year cycle in charge for its manager. Pochettino built a team and then saw it develop to the climax of what it could achieve.

Pochettino knew how difficult it would be to give the club the new cycle it needed, which is why June 2019 would have been such a perfect time to leave. “Some managers mentally can’t keep going week-in week-out, they hit a brick wall,” said one source close to the club. “It looked before the Champions League final that he wanted to get out. As if his heart wasn’t in it any more.”

But Liverpool beat Sp**s and Pochettino did not quit on a high but sulked off to his home in Barcelona instead. This went down badly with senior club staff, but Levy did not act, a decision that the Sp**s chairman is now thought to regret.

This made for a tense summer between the owner and his manager. For years Pochettino had wanted a serious clear-out of players, to make sure that he could compete with a team of young, hungry, ambitious footballers — just like he did in his first few seasons. But Levy could never deliver it, leaving Sp**s with the infamous no-signings summer of 2018, which contributed to some of the issues of staleness that have plagued their Premier League form in 2019.

Pochettino demanded signings and Levy broke Sp**s’ transfer record to sign Tanguy Ndombele from Lyon for £55 million, although several sources say that did not happen without its own fair share of drama, with the manager demanding the deal was done before he came back from his summer break, fully expecting Levy not to deliver. He was surprised when he did. Sp**s then added Ryan Sessegnon, Giovani Lo Celso on a season-long loan from Real Betis and almost pulled off a shock move for Paulo Dybala from Juventus. But Pochettino was still unhappy, feeling his squad needed far greater surgery. “Pochettino sulked and sulked his way to the sack,” said a source.

There is little doubt the squad Pochettino was working with was far inferior to the one who he almost took to the Premier League title in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen and Christian Eriksen had become jaded by their contract stand-offs with Levy, Kyle Walker had never truly been replaced, Danny Rose, Eric Dier and Dele Alli’s form had faded and Mousa Dembele — viewed by the manager and players as the heartbeat of the team — had departed.

What eventually did for Pochettino was losing the support of the dressing room over the course of this season. The players sensed that he did not have the same relish for the job as in his early years at Sp**s. They had once been willing participants in his demanding hard-running style, but their physical and mental energy did not last forever. The players have got older, and recently they have found themselves with less to give. The Pochettino regime of double sessions, very few days off and hard running started to drag. “The old effect of the double sessions had gone, and it was mentally important to regenerate,” said one dressing-room source. “So the moment of the sacking is a bit surprising, but the fuel tank got empty much earlier. At a certain moment, it is just over.”

The players were tired of the physical demands of Pochettino’s playing style, and that was clear in how the team stopped pressing over the course of this year. But they also found him increasingly distant as a manager, especially given his reaction to losing the Champions League final. The players grew tired of the coaching staff’s careful monitoring of their off-field activities, such as video games, and their public pronouncements.

Last month one source told The Athletic that “the place is a regime and the players are sick of him”. Recently at a sponsor’s event four players were asked to pass a jokey comment on Pochettino’s hair in a picture of his playing days, but they went quiet, reluctant to say anything that might get them in trouble. “Pochettino, who is never particularly warm with his players at the training ground, had become even more stand-offish in recent weeks,” said a source. “It had become a ‘don’t look at the boss’ situation.”

Before one game this season, the players were taken aback when they felt they were not given much tactical instruction from Pochettino and were largely left to their own devices. It led to another defeat.

When Pochettino rotated his team for the League Cup game at Colchester United at the end of September, which ended in a 0-0 draw and a defeat on penalties, some players were aghast at Pochettino’s post-match press conference. He spoke about “different agendas” in the team, which was taken as a criticism of some of the players who were trying to leave the club. They thought Pochettino should have taken more responsibility for losing to the League Two side.

That was two months ago and ultimately Pochettino has been made responsible for Tottenham’s bad start to the season. There are plenty of causes for Sp**s’ bad start, many of them not Pochettino’s fault. The club’s restrictive wage structure, the failure to refresh the squad and allowing the core of the team to get into the last year of their contract at the same time have all played a part. But in football the manager is always the easiest man to replace, and as Pochettino’s Sp**s finally came back to earth this year, that was the most obvious solution for Levy.

As this season started poorly and showed no sign of improving, it felt increasingly likely that this would be Pochettino’s last at the club. The only question was when he would leave. But once Levy had decided to get a new manager in, it made sense to make the change sooner rather than later. And with Pochettino determined not to resign, no matter how much he looked as if he was not enjoying his work, Levy was only left with one lever to pull. One source describes Pochettino as “sad but philosophical” on Tuesday night, but says he feels as if he was at the “end of the path”.
 

Yousif Arsenal

On Vinai's payroll & misses 4th place trophy 🏆
Trusted ⭐
Poch would be interesting choice for us the owner is worse than levy but with raul and edu they could work together well. He is off to manutd unless oleh make big turn around
 

Latest posts+

Top Bottom