Good evening ladies and gents,
The season is now over and it is a little bit of time to reflect on the season as a whole.
Many of you will know, like Si, I was very much pleading for us to appoint Pochettino this time last year and through the first 6 months or so of the season I was pleading with all of you to understand my views and have some patience.
Through a bit of a tricky run of form around the end of January-February time I teetered on the Poch out side of the fence although was vocal that I didn’t believe there were any available or suitable managerial options that could come in and do a better job and here we sit off the back of a season where we are 19 points ahead of where we were this time last year, back in European football (albeit not the top tier), a 6th placed finish & signs of a culture and team starting to form.
I’ll remind you all of an article I wrote back in January where I was detailing the 3 P’s that were needed for this project to be successful; Read Here
Perseverance
Patience
Progress
We have been patient with Poch this season and although lots of us have had moments where we questioned him or even wanted him out we stuck by him and we persevered with him and the team in hope that we would see some progress and in the last weeks/months of the season that has paid off and we have seen some progress on and off the pitch in my view.
My first issue with parting ways with Poch would be going back to square one and the side effect that could have on the squad and the club, as we all know A LOT of the playing staff are massive advocates of Poch.
My next issue is undoing all the progress we have made across the season which has been grueling and hard to watch at times which has ended really nicely with 5 consecutive wins (should have been 6) and qualification back to European football again.
My last issue (major issues only) is the replacement, there is far from anyone obvious and starting the project again could set us back so much further than what it would by continuing with Poch (under a close eye) and allowing him the time to see how far he can take us.
I am far from sold on Poch being a long term manager but for the here and now I see very little upside in moving him on, I could be completely wrong and a new manager if the right one is selected may elevate this group of players, but it could also go south very quickly.
Really interested to hear all of your thoughts and reasons behind those thoughts on the Poch situation.
Thanks for reading
Luke Rushbrook
I’m in the same boat - was very keen on his appointment, was positive about him up until about February when it wouldn’t have pained me to see him sacked but I now would be sad to see him go. I just don’t see who is a better option at the moment - the best option for me is to keep him and try to get some stability and further prigrrss.
Just been looking at the Matchweek 7 PL table which is the weekend of 23 and 24 Sep 2023. From that point onwards, I believe we have had the 4th best points haul -58 points. Spurs had 52 points and Villa 57 points (probably should have been 55 points but for our perfectly good disallowed goal a couple of weeks ago) .