POCH out!……. There. I’ve said it.
I won’t be the most popular person at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but I can’t keep it in any longer.
Mauricio Pochettino is clearly a good manager.
He’s moved Spurs up from being a team fighting to get into the top four, to a team finishing in the top four (although, the way they’re playing at the moment, that run could be coming to an end).
But I don’t think he can take us any further – and it doesn’t look like he wants to.
The 1-1 draw against Watford has left Spurs five points behind Chelsea in fourth, and the Hornets were unlucky not to get the win on Saturday.
I’m entitled to my opinion. I’ve been a fan since I was a nipper and been a season ticket holder for around 30 years.
I’m sick to the back teeth of seeing endless sideways and backwards passes.
Keeping hold of the ball is a waste of time if you don’t hurt the opposition when you’ve got it. And Spurs rarely hurt the opposition these days.
Why, oh why, can’t they ever break down supposedly inferior sides?
That’s Pochettino’s fault. He tells the players how he wants them to play.
Funnily enough, Liverpool and Manchester City do quite well moving the ball forward quickly.
Talking of top teams, they win things.
But if you want to win things, you need to put out the strongest team you can in the domestic cups, a concept Pochettino doesn’t seem to understand.
He ‘rests’ Harry Kane for Colchester in the League Cup….and the chance of another trophy bites the dust.
Fans want to see their club win trophies. That’s what they remember and tell their grandchildren.
The run to the Champions League Final was great but why couldn’t Pochettino lift the team for that match, the biggest game in the club’s history?
He dropped Lucas Moura, the bloke who got us there, and didn’t have a Plan B when Liverpool got a penalty after 22 seconds.
OK, it’s not his fault that there are a number of players who don’t want to be at the club.
But it is his fault if he keeps playing the ones who have just given up.
Christian Eriksen is convinced he’s now good enough for Real Madrid.
Dream on, mate. Zinedine Zidane probably wants players who give a toss, put in a shift, and can actually pass to their own teammates more often than not, instead of giving the ball away.
Freeze him out. Put him the reserves.
Kieran Trippier, deemed good enough to represent his country against Bulgaria on Monday night, left Tottenham and Pochettino didn’t get in a replacement.
Does he seriously think Juan Foyth, Serge Aurier or Kyle Walker-Peters are up to filling Trippier’s boots? Don’t make me laugh.
Surprise, surprise, the lack of a top right back has been one of the reasons contributing to the disastrous start to the season.
And I simply don’t buy Pochettino’s line that he’s no longer involved in transfers and should be called ‘coach’ not ‘manager’.
The players appear to have lost faith in him. They’re certainly not performing for him.
He now looks and sounds like a manager who’d rather be somewhere else (presumably, in sunny Madrid or the red half of rainy Manchester).
On the touchline, he appears out of ideas, just standing there, dazed look on his face, with his arms folded as the games pass him by.
After matches, one baffling statement follows another.
Saying he’d have left if we’d won the Champions League, cryptic talk of ‘’different agendas’’ behind the scenes, and other gibberish.
Sorry fellow Spurs fans, Pochettino has done a fine job, and we’ve progressed.
But it’s time for a change after five-and-a-half years, a reboot, something and someone to reinvigorate the team and try to take them to the next level.
Who can do that? Mourinho? Not after what he did to United. Allegri? Who knows.
We’ll see.
The faithful will, no doubt, still sing: ‘’He’s magic, you know……Mauricio Pochettino.’’
Sadly, for me the magic has faded and we need someone new to wave their wand.
