Alex

I think the pro and contra Pochettino sides came together in agreement towards the end that there have been firm signs of progress and definite reasons for optimism next season. I think we also all agree that there may be better coaches to take the project forward in summer 2025, but he's done a damned sight better than Potter in a similar situation the season before. Also, like for Man Utd, there's a sense that whoever is currently available will likely be no better.

It takes a big man to climb down from a position, which is why so many choose to double-down rather than change an opinion or admit to being wrong. Glad that optimism seems to have taken hold even in the anti-Pochettino brigade. Great end to the season, big signs of progress and much to look forward to next season, although a long-term injury to Palmer especially, or Gallagher and we'd be screwed.

Nope, plenty of stuff I don't agree with is left-wing. What I don't agree with is people saying daft things they might not even necessarily understand. Also never enjoyed the darker periods of political associations of my two sports clubs, Chelsea and Harlequins. Chelsea's former association with the far-right and Harlequins' once-upon-a-time being accused of being a group of elitist poshos. I love the fact both are now places I can take my young sons who are both getting into supporting the same teams me and their grandfather do.

Except that's not true. Yesterday in a debate with another member of the site you started using loaded political culture-war terms like 'virtue-signalling' and 'cancel-culture'. The overwhelming majority of people visiting this site want to talk about football and indulge in a bit of general harmless chit-chat. If anyone really wants to discuss politics there's any number of outlets where they can indulge themselves. Perhaps you were using those terms without understanding them, if that's the case, I'll inform you that they're extremely politicised. 'Virtue-signalling' is a pejorative slur used to denigrate progressives by the right, accusing them of grandstanding and backing a cause they don't believe in to look good. Basically of being fake and having an ulterior motive. It's like the terms 'woke-washing', 'snowflake' and 'libtard'. The whole 'cancel culture' thing is similarly politically pregnant. You may genuinely have meant nothing by these terms (in which case also Google 'cancel culture'), but they've said a lot about you, your political viewpoints or those of your social circle and the media outlets you most probably favour. And again, the irony here is these sort of terms, along with associated talking points are usually handed out to pro-regime media outlets in those authoritarian countries we were talking about, because they're all extremely right-wing. Anyway I don't want to know about your politics, football and friendly banter for me only, please keep your politicised slogans out of your posts.

To me this is all academic since I can't see us splashing out on the big star striker we need and how many successes have there been on that front anyway? For every Costa, Drogba, Hasslebaink, Vialli and Zola there have been many mixed bags like Torres, Morata..etc and then all the flops. For me Jackson's in the mixed-bag camp for the time being, but with reasonable potential.

Sorry I can't resist doing an xceleryx-style response. Please imagine this being said in the voice of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons: 'You have an almost intuitive grasp of the obvious'. Yes those sort of countries have government troll farms pumping out fuel to fire the flames of the political culture wars in the West. The irony here being that the sort of content they produce is all about things like 'virtue-signalling', and 'cancel-culture', that you were mentioning yesterday, to rile people up and divide our society.

This is a point I often hear that hasn't been thought out at all from a global perspective. If social media companies did that then in all the autocratic countries where they're such a a force for social justice, police could then identify and persecute those dissenting online.

This comment has now tipped this into BS political discourse, which is a direction none of us want to see it heading. Just let it drop

Pochettino's recent media comments would suggest he thinks it's a strong possibility he'll be on his way. No way Jose will be coming back

With Quins giving it a real go against Toulouse in the Champions Cup semi, this could be a fantastic day.

We've looked disciplined today in defence, extremely direct and a far superior than a mid-table team.

Beauty!

We are totally outplaying them. We look confident, dominant, direct...great stuff

Courtois is now back starting for Madrid and since Kepa's injury the have been playing Lunin, they won't be buying him. Fofana seems a fairly similar player to Jackson, but I've only seen some highlights, but hopefully he might be more clinical. Yep Enzo and Sterling being moved on would be ideal. Hard to see who'd come in for Sterling or him accepting a salary cut from his enormous salary package that nobody else would pay him. I'm pretty sure we're stuck with him. The prospect of Broja, Kepa and Lukaku all returning isn't good. We still haven't managed to get a fee for Lukaku and at his age now I doubt there will be many takers.

Very happy to see Caicedo and Cucarella start to show they aren't huge wastes of money.

I think even the doom-mongers will have to admit that this season was much better than last. FFP is the big cloud hanging over us though. It's clear we need to keep Chalobah and Gallagher, but Kepa and Lukaku potentially returning will be problematic too with their huge wages. I'm indifferent to Pochettino, but paying compensation for him to leave and getting nobody necessarily better means I'd like him to see out his contract. I'd like to keep the five centre-backs and Fofana to come back from loan as a reserve CF challenging Jackson. Maybe we could see similar improvement to what Arsenal showed a few seasons ago when they were in a similar situation wondering whether to sack Arteta and not making any major signings.

That's not at all what they said! They said a manager's impact is hard to gauge and that a successful manager moving club has just over 50% chance of being successful. Villa are again a specific example of a manager doing well when he comes in (and Unai Emery has a mixed record of success as well). Villa have had lots more examples of managers doing badly when they came in. Gerrard was a successful manager before his move, so that's just balanced out Emery. This example is not the "clear statistics" you stated, just another example that supports the point you made on what I believe was simply your gut feeling. The Economist analysis however is a pattern that emerged from 15 years of English league data encompassing every managerial change during that time.

Coul you cite these self-contradictions please? You also still haven't cited these clear statistics you mentioned about management change being the biggest factor affecting team performance that started this whole debate.

Lol, come on now, The Economist never has been solely about economics, not should it be. It's a current affairs periodical that's mainly about world events and politics (much the same as any newspaper is about current affairs and politics). Also in the same way the FT isn't just a financial newspaper and both are pretty much the pinnacle of journalism. It also doesn't have the sort of political bias as many national publications. As someone that spent his early career working as an analyst I really enjoy their data-driven journalism. The 2019 analysis didn't mention Brandt, but it did call Klopp an outlier in the data in that he was a successful manager repeating his success elsewhere. Has Pochettino been moaning about the board signing the wrong players? If he has that seems to have passed me by.

Yep, you're right he did, but they also pursued Brandt: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/its-shame-liverpool-21m-target-27405055

You should Google the 2019 Economist piece entitled, 'Managers in football matter much less than most fans think'. Fans do lay most of the blame or credit for a team's performance on the manager. The article gives statistical evidence of how most successful managers struggle to replicate their success elsewhere suggesting other factors are more important to their original success. I think success or failure is holistic and everything plays a part. In 2017 Klopp asked the board to sign a German forward called Julian Brandt. The Sporting director said the analysts preferred a certain Egyptian winger.

From the Economist article about Klopp's departure (and the study I was recalling was also by them in 2019): In 2013 Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement as Manchester United’s manager after 27 years. He became so central to the club that his power was practically unchecked. For his final two years in the job, Sir Alex could walk past a nine-foot bronze statue of himself at the club’s Old Trafford ground. He was able to handpick his successor—a fellow Glaswegian, David Moyes—and then sit in the directors’ box to watch it all fall apart." It goes on, but it basically said Manchester United had fallen behind most other clubs in terms of off-field developments during Ferguson's tenure and they basically needed three people to replace him. I think replacing a manager of 27 years who had brought an unparalleled period of success to Manchester United is a pretty unique case. I don't really understand what your answer meant.

The question I am asking is what data supports your point since you said it is statistically clear?

Two people whose posts I enjoy reading. Didn't think either of you two chaps were the sort to get irritated about much, especially opinions about football