boratsbrother

14 minutes ago, chara said:

Given straight uncomplicated yes/no I would still say yes,,,the reality however doesn't allow for such a simple answer....better the Devil etc unless there is a better prospect available...which all seem to agree is not the case.

For me it is support for The Poch by default,,,credit when due but my God we saw some abysmal displays not fully justified by the new squad injury list apologies.

A couple of disgraceful pressers didn"t help my view and as I alluded to in another post somewhere I truly wondered if someone else was doing the real coaching all of a sudden,,the difference has been astonishing at times and over such a short period.

I read some comments from Sours fans comparing Poch's first seasons at Chelsea and Spurs. They said the trajectory of the performances is identical. 

At Spurs, they said for most of the season there was bits of quality shown in amongst a lot of rubbish. Here's the significant bit though. It wasn't until near the end of that season when they started to see signs of better things to come. 

Some of the comments are just plain silly  bias against Poch.😟

Any of the great football we play well ( imho, when we play well now its by far the best football since Ancolotti's first season) it's down to the brilliance of individuals but when the team plays poorly or there are individual mistakes, it's all down to Poch's shambolic coaching.

He's not being judged after his two year contract has ended. Not being judged on one season. Not being judged on half a season. Not evevn judged on a run of games or even one game. No, to still have a go his haters are now reduced to singling out moments of games  where we have a bad spell of play as an example of how shit a coach he is .👎👎👎

3 hours ago, ROTG said:

In 2024 the team took 2/12 pts from the top 4 teams - that is reality and nothing to do with Burnley 

and is a reality check on the level of the team 

In all competitions we've played the top four teams 11 times this season.

The three times we've played the likey champions, we've drawn 2 and lost 1. All three games we held our own.

One good performance against Atsenal and one very bad one.

One decent game at home to Liverpool  in the league and one bad one away. A game which had their fans saying it was the best they played this season. A cup final in which we were the better side but lost.

2 draws in the league against Villa and an easy win in the Cup at their ground. We were also the better team in the recent 2-2 draw at their ground.

So, from where we were and still are, 2 bad games out of 11 against the best 4 teams is imho a very encouraging sign for the future.

27 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

 

An Enzo who needed surgery.

Confident we see a much better version next season.

 

I doubt he'll be a first choice start most games, so will he accept being a rotation/bench player?  

Our injuries are finally clearing up, so next season we'll have Colwill, Chilly, James, Nkunku, Sterling, and possibly Chuck and Lavia as well, all wanting to start games most weeks.  

1 hour ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

Yeah, it's a very fair point. Elite managers seem few and far between these days. Alonso has the potential to be one, but my guess is that he is off to Madrid next summer anyway.

Alonso is one who looks like he could become a great manager. I thought he was staying in Germany though? If he ever comes to England it will probably be to Liverpool.

Arteta is obviously another young manager  doing a fine job. 

58 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

He’s building the foundations of a new team, ready to be taken over by the next man, who will hopefully be the manager that is good enough to bring us glory.

And who are the managers who are top level who will come here and take us to glory? 

Imho, there's just three in the entire workd who are still elite - Pep, Ancelotti and Klopp. The rest are either levels below, once great but well past  their best or play football which is too negative to win the league in this era.  We won't ever get Pep or Klopp and Ancelotti is a manager of great teams but not a builder of great teams.  I honestly don't see anyone out there who I'd be confident of doing a better job than Poch is doing.

Alsi, nobody is taking this into account. Poch might just be reaching his peak as a manager. Might just have learned enough from his past shortcomings which stopped him from going up a level to being a top manager rather than a nearly man.  

54 minutes ago, ROTG said:

What are you basing this on the last 4 games - or the season?

The improvement has not been just the last four games! 

I've posted this stat at least twice over the last week, but here it is again - since Boxing day,  we have won more points than every team except City and Arsenal. Being the 3rd best team over the last five months  proves beyond any doubt there has been consistent improvement from Poch and his players. 

3 hours ago, Floyd25 said:

Why did we ruin the liquidator by singing about spurs? They’re a joke club, their sole purpose is to be obsessed with arsenal. We spend far too much time being concerned with them, they’re shite and so are their fans, worst fan base in the league. 

Unfortunately, we don't have a big  West London team to have a fierce rivaly with,  so we have to look elsewhere for a team to hate.

1 hour ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

Man City, look set to be the first team to win the league 4 times in a row... hmm.

Leaving aside the 115 charges, I just feel complete indifference towards them as a club. I  never watch their playstation football unless they're playing us. 

I prefer the Spurs stat from this season. No team with their  points total after the first  ten games has ever finished outside the top three. Spurs being so Spursy again.  

8 hours ago, paulw66 said:

my wider problem is that he doesn't seem to save much at all. 

Exactly what I've been thinking lately.

For me, he seems to either be seeing the ball a fraction of a second late or moving his feet a fraction of a second too slowly. Just doesn't get across to enough of the shots that aren't straight at him. Personally I think Sanchez is the better shot stopper, but neither are really good enough to be a number one keeper. Petrovich has age on his side though and with more experience at this level he might be develop into a number one in a couple more seasons. 

1 hour ago, ROTG said:

Those you mention with Lavia when he was at Southampton will have had a full PL season under there belts, therefore it will be interesting to see their trend lines next season. Or should we will wait another couple of seasons as they are work in progress?

A win tomorrow will see us overtake Liverpool and be the team with third most points since Boxing day.  Contrary to what most are saying about the improvement being down to Enzo not playing, that stat shows the improvement has been over a sustained period of five months.

Furthermore. Over the period for Jan 23 to Boxing day 23, we've gone from a team with a points tally of a relegation fighting team, to that position of being the 4th or 3rd best in the league. Is that not a remarkable rise for a young, unproven  squad with a huge injury list?  From where we were, I think we've  been the most improved team in the league this season.

19 minutes ago, jasonb said:

Certainly possible.

I've paid for.a lot of cars and holidays for a lot of bookmakers over the years🤡 which is an indication of how good I am at predicting  sports results.

19 minutes ago, east lower said:

Did you watch that game on Saturday? We were a level below ordinary for 80 minutes against the fourth worst team in the league. Arguably they were the better side. And once more we had to score 3 (or more at times) to win.

A proper coach who can get a consistent performance, get some organisation and discipline into what we have - MAY get us into the top four.

Jackson marshalling Boly at set pieces, it’s so bad it’s ameteur. 

If the coaching is so bad, how are we already 10 points better off this season? Almost doubled our number of goals? The fourth best team in 2024?

Are you another one who expected a new manager to come in and take a midfield team straight back  to the top four and fix every aerea of the team in one season?   Did you expect a very inexperienced team at this level to gel in one season and be top four?  

Have you forgot that a much better City team were relatively average in Pep's first season? Forgot that Liverpool were defensively dodgy for Klopps first two years? Poch isn't their level, but you somehow expect him to do better and with a worse team.  The goalposts for what would be acceptable for a first season have been moved so much they're not even on the pitch now.  If we lose he's slagged off for losing because all that matters is the result. If we win but the performance isn't good, then he's slagged off for the performance.  I think you and the anti Poch section are the ones that's losing out on the enjoyment to be had from watching a young team being built and progressing. I saw the unbridled joy behind that goal on Saturday. Same with the Utd game. Spurs game. West Ham game. Their reaction is good enough for me.

Anyway, Poch's critics on here are now being significantly outnumbered by former players, pundits, journos and even fans of other teams, who are all saying we are on the right track and Poch is doing a good job. Equally, all of them are saying the team is far from the finished article but will improve as they gain experience.  

But as always. Although I wildly disagree with your opinion, i respect it all the same. Each to their own and all that.

3 hours ago, jasonb said:

I

City to win the Cup and the League and open up a 5th CL place and we will get one of the next two EL places.

 

I have a sneaky feeling Spurs will get at least a draw against City giving Arse the title and Utd will win the final. 

1 hour ago, CarefreeMuratcan said:

Yes but neither team has anything to play for, I think that will edge it for us.

But both of them can go out and be relaxed and playing without tension can help a team perform better. 

This is the first game this season i wont be able to watch on TV or follow on the radio. Tbh, I'm not that fussed about us playing in the Europa League. Too many Thursday/Sunday games for my liking. But we'll have a lot of players wanting and needing game time next season, so there is that to take into consideration.

5 hours ago, ROTG said:

I’ll give you that one, along with it being a WC pin point cross from RJ. 

And an equally fine pass from Caicedo to James.

From the halfway line the ball is in tha back of the net three touches later. In recent years we'd have seen Jorginho pass the ball five yards to Kova, who'd have gone on one of his famous ten yard runs, stop when he gets halfway into their half, run sideways pass it to Jorginho who'd pass it to someone else...zzzzzzz. 

That goal was  the type of play we've been crying out for for a long time!  We are now scoring all types of different goals from all over the pitch, which is why so many teams find it difficult to contain us now. 

55 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

Thing is, we're only 10 points off 4th now, and we have had an absurd number of injuries. 

Even without buying another player, you could make that up by just have an ordinary season, injury wise.  That's ignoring any expected improvement in the younger players 

Indeed!

Just carrying on at our 2024 level we'll almost certainly finish 4th at worse. That is unless there's a significant improvement from a Villa, Spurs, Untied or Newcastle and I honestly don't see significant  improvement in any of those teams. I expect Newcastle and Spurs to be the level they are now. Villa to fall back with Utd maybe overtaking one or two of those three but not enough to keep up with us.

Sort our defence out and we'll seriously challenge Liverpool for third.

3 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

 

As for me not enjoying TT's football. That's just my own opinion. Nothing more. Others prefer more pragmatic football and I can understand why they do.

 

 

Just like to add this bit.

Also, as great as he is, I don't like watching Pep's teams either.

Everything is so controlled and coached to the enth degree to make it almost machine like. You know what your going to see over and over and over again. Every performance looks the same as the previous one. 

7 hours ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

In hindsight, we should have loaned him straight back to Shakhtar, but with the fee paid that was never going to happen.

I think the only thing stopping him going out on loan next season will be the pride from those that scouted and then signed him, but I do think a loan is needed for this guy to stand any chance of making it here.

Maybe I’m being a fool, but I do still think he can be a good player at a decent level… if that’s with us, who knows.

Loaning back to Shakhtar would not have improved him. He'd just continue to look good in a much lower standard league.

Also think it would be a disaster to loan him out afteecywo years here. It could mentally crush him and ruin him for good. As we saw on Saturday with that goal, there is  definitely a talent there. There was another excellent example of it last week when he burst through into the box controlling it with a great touch while running at top speed and getting off a good shot.

He's still very inexperienced  at this level for a player of his age. Stating the obvious, but only time can give him that experience and with experience he should become more consistent.

8 hours ago, kev61 said:

No. You said we played lousy football under Tuchel - I said no we didn't -  it is simply not true.

The standard of football in the world is declining for sure but that is to do with money.

In my humble opinion Tuchel cared - but if you have some overpaid brats in the team it makes a managers job very difficult.

 

Tuchel did care, I'm not disputing that. We only have to see that an old Messi well past his peak was named player of the last wotld cup to see the quality has declined across the world. Lots of decent to good players, but very, very few genuine great players.

As for me not enjoying TT's football. That's just my own opinion. Nothing more. Others prefer more pragmatic football and I can understand why they do.

I just love watching this young team finding their feet as individuals and as a team. Loving the incredible, bonkers games we're involved in,  but understanfing and accepting there will be bad moments and bad games along the way back to the top. 

3 hours ago, ROTG said:

Maybe a certain pro Enzo poster should look at the players assisting him in the midfield area in the team when his metrics were good. Kovic, Havertz, Felix, Mount, Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek, were regulars pre and post the nobody coach

He was also protected with the team continually switching to a back 5 and him playing the deep midfielder role. Enzo metrics for 2 - 5 meter passes was outstanding 

You've named a group of players who couldn't score in a wild weekend in an Amsterdam brothel.  Deadwood who were taking this team nowhere and had to be moved on. Proof of that is we're now one of the most potent attacking teams in the country scoring almost twice as many  goals by getting rid of that deadwood.

I'll take a charity bet right now with this prediction  - top 4 next season and a title challenge the season after. That's how confident i am about this squad and its potential.

5 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Your comparisons are all forwards and thus entirely irrelevant when discussing a player like Enzo. 

Fabregas was never physically special, neither was Paul Scholes when he dropped back into that deep midfield role later in his career. 

Sure, Enzo has his physical limitations but there are ways around that where he can still be put into a position to succeed and be impactful. 

People wanting him sold are going to be highly disappointed.

Happily,  it looks like Poch is going to have a very different kind of team selection problems next season. Rather than who's fit enough to play, it's going to be who the hell is he I going to leave out?🙂

1 hour ago, ROTG said:

Yannick is a spokes person for TBSD 

He continually say the words it’s a project,  the process and young team. 

I'd  never heard of him until today when one of his videos popped up.

More rumours. David Ornstein is saying Utd want Poch.

YouTube 'football therapy' guy said Poch has clarified his position and would like to stay if the owners want him.

Don't know where he heard Poch say that btw