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Pochettino charged with reversing Spurs' ingrained traits - opposition profile
Friday, 22nd Aug 2014 21:48 by Clive Whittingham

The archetypal modern day Tottenham Hotspur season in 2013/14 saw them miss the top four and replace two managers. Can it possibly be any different under Maurcio Pochettino?

Overview

If you wanted a season to sum up all of Tottenham Hotspur’s problems, and Lord knows that’s exactly what the White Hart Lane faithful didn’t need, then surely you couldn’t have got a more perfect specimen than 2013/14.

Firstly, Tottenham often spend large portions of their summer haggling for every last penny over the sale of their star player — Dimitar Berbatov, Luka Modric, Michael Carrick and so on. Last summer it was Gareth Bale, and while a world record fee of £100m for a player Spurs were on the cusp of loaning to Nottingham Forest just a few short seasons previous more than justified chairman Daniel Levy’s notorious approach to transfer deals, the length of time the deal took to get over the line, and the publicity it attracted, didn’t make for a settled summer.

Secondly, Tottenham tend to sign a hell of a lot of players. One of those big money sales usually gets reinvested in half a dozen players, and while that makes wonderful business sense it, again, doesn’t make for stability ahead of the new season. Last year the Bale money went on eight players of eight different nationalities and left the squad heavy on midfielders, and incredibly light on strikers — particularly as the manager at the time Andre Villas Boas wouldn’t tolerate Emmanuel Adebayor.

Thirdly this clutch of new arrivals tends to raise expectations, and the regulars down the Seven Sister’s High Road dream of top four finishes and ending up above bitter rivals Arsenal, who are usually undergoing some sort of crisis revolving around expensive season tickets and no signings being made at that point.

Fourthly, Tottenham’s managerial appointments are far more miss than hit. During Daniel Levy’s time with the club Glenn Hoddle, Jacques Santini and Juande Ramos all failed to live up to expectations while Martin Jol won many admirers, but no coveted top four finishes. They change their bosses frequently and, again last season, offloaded the boss they started with midway through the season — sacking Andre Villas Boas after a 5-0 defeat to Liverpool.

Andre Villas Boas remains an absolute mystery to me. Here is a man whose reputation seems to be based entirely on one exceptional season at Porto — operating with the biggest budget in one of Europe's least competitive leagues — the fact he's worked with Jose Mourinho before, and that he achieved both of these things while still in his early 30s. That has so far been enough for Chelsea to throw an unbelievable contract and compensation package his way, and then, when his grand plans for reinvention at Stamford Bridge upset Big Racist John and the gang and got him the sack, a similarly attractive deal at Spurs. Both the London clubs will have paid through the nose to offload him, and he's walked straight into another job at Russian club Zenit who are also known for tossing good money after bad.

How does he keep doing it? He must be absolutely crawling in money now and nothing that he says or does on the field gives much clue as to why. His supporters at Tottenham point to a better points average than his predecessors, but still nobody during Daniel Levy’s spell as chairman has found them that top four position other than Harry Redknapp. The fascination with Villas Boas in this country, hopefully now quenched, would be like Neil Lennon, who won everything there was to win at Celtic in his first managerial job, being handed first the Bayern Munich job and then, after a colossal pay off there, being taken on at Borussia Dortmund for similarly massive money. The obsession with the young (he's young you know, not sure if we mentioned that) Portuguese boss is baffling.

Fifthly, and most importantly, the top four and the Champions League qualification that comes with it tends to elude them. That not only proved to be the case again last season, but the results they achieved throughout the campaign really highlighted the gulf that exists between Spurs and the clubs they aspire to be — a gulf that only seems to be growing at the moment.

If the final league table (Spurs finished sixth) wasn't enough to convince you that the North London side still aren't good enough for the top four, then their results across last season drew a very distinct line. For long periods of the season, including the first dozen matches (nine wins and a draw) they were absolutely fine and looking good. When they played the top four however, on almost every occasion, they collapsed. They lost 6-0 and 5-1 to Manchester City , 5-0 and 4-0 to Liverpool, 4-0 to Chelsea , and on three separate occasions to Arsenal without scoring a goal.

All in all, the campaign was a bit of a debacle, and although it reflects well on Villas Boas’ replacement Tim Sherwood that they ended up as high as sixth, he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory during a six month spell in charge. At times it was as though that bloke from the pub who blames each and every defeat on the fact that modern footballers earn too much and don’t care as much as they used to had been put in charge of something other than tying his own shoes.

Sherwood arrived wearing a gilet, stomping his feet and making a lot of noise. His touchline presence was more angry teenager than Premier League football manager and although he recalled and revitalised Emmanuel Adebayor, and publicly called his players out after heavy defeats, those losses against the league's better teams kept coming and were rarely small. You couldn’t help but think it was a shame that Tim Sherwood was nowhere near as good as Tim Sherwood seemed to believe he was.

So it's another new manager at Tottenham, Mauricio Pochettino getting out of Southampton nice and early before the majority of his starting 11 followed him through the St Mary's exit door. He's even promised to speak a bit of English this season, so we can look forward to some cutting and incisive comments in the crucial pre-match press conference, and never boring post-match debrief.

Interestingly, none of his former charges have followed him, although it's certainly not for the want of trying to land Morgan Schneiderlin — the Frenchman openly angry and perplexed why everybody has been allowed to leave except him. Expect some interest in Jay Rodriguez before the window closes as well. The main business so far has been done with Swansea — Ben Davies solving the left back issue for a steep £10m, Michael Vorm showing a chronic lack of ambition by agreeing to come and sit on the bench behind Hugo Lloris. Eric Dier from Sporting Lisbon and Deandre Yedlin from Seattle look like small gambles on potentially brilliant future prospects.

Pochettino has shown in difficult circumstances at Espanyol, and a rather kinder scenario at Southampton, that he's a far more accomplished manager than the chumps who preceded him, but several teams who finished above Spurs last season have improved again this summer, and Manchester United who were a place behind them have made their own managerial change. Have Tottenham progressed to the same extent? Time will tell, but at the moment, admittedly with two weeks of transfer window remaining, I fear not.

Read what our Tottenham contributor Michael Pickard had to say in this week's fan interview by clicking here.

Scout Report

Before Louis Van Gaal came to these shores and conquered us — or, at least, our sycophantic national press — it was the fashion to play a 4-2-3-1 formation in Premier League matches. In use in Spain for a generation, the system infiltrated this country’s top division over the past two years until it had almost become the new default, replacing the classic 4-4-2 on which the Brits have so relied for so long.

Now, because Van Gaal plays it, it’s all about wing backs and back threes. Never have so many column inches and so much airtime been given over to the shape and system a football team is lining up in, and it’s all presumably because newspaper editors and sports channel directors labour under the misapprehension that the majority of us give a flying fuck what Louis Van Gaal and Manchester United are doing, unless what they’re doing is losing in embarrassing circumstances — in which case we pay it a passing glance and do a bit of a laugh snort.

Tottenham are old school this season, with Mauricio Pochettino sticking with the 4-2-3-1 that worked for him at Espanyol and Southampton. Expect an attacking Tottenham team, playing at a high tempo, and pressing high up the field.

This summer’s transfer business has been rather low key by Tottenham’s standards and that could well be that despite the likes of Lamela and Soldado bombing badly last season, Daniel Levy would like to try those players with a different manager rather than getting the cheque book out and replacing them all over again. Pochettino is a Marcelo Bielsa disciple so expect Spurs to be fluid and stationed extraordinarily high up the field this season. Emmanuel Edebayor will lead the line with a supporting cast of three and it’s there, with Christian Eriksen a shoo in, that last season's flops may find a second opportunity to flourish.

Lamela looked like a little boy lost last season but his English has improved and on Thursday night in Cyprus he was pressed into service from the bench late to turn around a one goal deficit and help seal a 2-1 win against Limassol in the Europa League. The arrival of his fellow countryman Pochettino as manager, with the system he employs seemingly perfectly suited to him, could finally kick start Lamela’s career in this country. He played for an hour at West Ham last week, on the right of the supporting cast of three initially and then the left following Kyle Naughton’s harsh red card, but regularly found the space between midfield and defence crowded when he tried to cut in field from his wing. QPR would do well to do the same because he will always cut inside rather than try and take a full back to the byline.

Whether Roberto Soldado fits with the shape, the high tempo ethos Pochettino demands, or the style of the English premier League remains doubtful — AC Milan are said to be lining up a move.

Pochettino was openly dismissive of the Europa League as a competition last season, happily taking his foot off the pedal at Southampton rather than press for a place in it through league positions ad ducking out of both cup competitions while fielding weakened teams despite being safely ensconced in midtable. Now, with a Champions League place the prize for the competition’s winner, it’s a legitimate route to Tottenham’s ultimate goal. That will mean stronger teams being fielded in Thursday night matches throughout the campaign thanks to UEFA’s systematic destruction of a once wonderful competition, flooding it with all sorts of clubs and bloating the whole thing to the point where most would rather not bother. If Tottenham are going to make a serious bid for it, then this Sunday represents the first chance to see how it will effect their league form the weekend after the long trips.

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TacticalR added 17:57 - Aug 25
Thanks for your oppo report.

Portuguese coaches...they're good aren't they? Perhaps what's happened to AVB is what usually happens to young footballers? After initial success they are snapped up for a huge fee and then either sink or swim. Abramovich interrupted AVB's organic development at Porto and has derailed his career. After Chelsea, AVB probably have been better off going to a less high-profile club than Tottenham and working with players who would be more amenable to his ideas.

It seems like every manager falls foul of Levy's obsession with getting into the top four. However, Pochettino does seem to be something different, so perhaps he can succeed where others have failed.
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