Panic is the order of the day
Panic is the order of the day, well it is if you do a tour of the web reading websites, everywhere is calling for change.
Mauricio Pochettino has been in the job 5 minutes, 5 Premier League games and the very same people who were saying Daniel Levy needs to give him time are now shouting for change because he hasn't swept a magic wand and cures all ills in one wave of the messiah's hand.
Pieces like the one in the Metro from Spooky where he says thinking long term is irrelevant. An open admission he is one of today's impatient generation who want everything now and for some reason complain when football clubs act in the same way. Don't do as I do do as I say.
A recipe for disaster. What exactly was he expecting after 5 games? Utopia? Even the ants had to go on a journey with ups and downs to find that. As with any journey it's a question of retaining faith in the face of set backs. It took Liverpool a whole season to learn what Brendan Rodgers wanted, Spurs players are supposed to have learnt in 5 games! For all that it was a good read.
We traditionally struggle against WBA every season, they always score, we struggle to score more than one are rarely more than 2. Of course we had a 3-3 draw where we gave then a three goal start and substituted our centre-half at half-time.
It's only WBA therefore we should win is the very attitude of failure. If the players think like the fans in that way then they will under perform when they should be seeing it as a big game with three points at stake. Then they will raise their game and you can only do that if you have the right mentality.
Players like Dembele flopped against Leeds in the FA Cup on that day because, as he openly admitted he wasn't motivated, didn't see it as a big game. That rang alarm bells for me at the time. WBA is just another extension of that, another game not perceived as being a big game and we get a performance level to match the mental attitude. His skill level hasn't changed between that and games where he has performed well, only his mental approach.
It's the biggest issue Pochettino faces, far bigger than who the striker is or who the centre-backs should be. Look at Jan Vertobnghen last year when he decided he didn't want to play, he turned up and went through the motions. His skill level hadn't changed, he hadn't suddenly lost it, he simply had the wrong mentality, the wrong mental approach.
It's the same with Adebayor, he only performs in games he perceives to be big whereas Hugo Lloris performs every game. You don't see him decide a game isn't a big game and therefore doesn't get his best. You don't see him making a half hearted attempt at a save from a ball less than a yard or mete from him. Match talent with a brain and you have a player, talent without a brain and you have inconsistency.
A manager is not a motivational expert or a psychologist, he is a planner and a tactician, he manages the same way a site manager manages a new build. A site manager doesn't motivate the workmen on a building site, outside forces motivate each individual one, football is no different. If you don't know what motivates an individual you can't motivate them, you can't push the right buttons. They motivate themselves, you can't tell someone this is how you have to be motivated.
Where were the leaders in the team against WBA, when things weren't going well, who stepped up to the plate to try to get the players geed up. Did anyone? Leaders do, winners do. It may not work but they try. One captain and two vice-captains playing, Lloris can't affect forwards which is why he isn't captain but what did Kaboul and Adebayor do, or were they too wrapped up in their own game? PR speak after a game is no good, it's too late.
When AVB arrived the idea was to create a winning mentality, to change the way the club and by club we mean players really, to one where winning every game is important. 99% of people don't know what a winning mentality is, they don't have one so how can they, they therefore dismiss it as nonsense, but still moan when things aren't going right.
Spurs are in a transitional period where we have a new manager and a new style of play to learn. It may be similar for half the team but for the front four it isn't, they haven't played interchanging football before. As Gordon Strachan tells us on Thursday nights, it's new to the Premier League, Pochettino has brought something different, not just a foreign name.
The call for revolution from impatient fans rather than evolution is loud and clear. Presumably next summer they will want revolution again and the summer after and the summer after, where despite having to fund a stadium that presumably they want, the money has to go into the team as well. The two aren't compatible.
We need to keep debt down to borrow to build the stadium and if we build debt buying players we can't raise the capital against the club. I seem to recall Arsenal couldn't buy players when they were building and they also has Champions League football and a bigger income, we are having to try and do it on a smaller income.
Put the club in debt so it can't afford a new stadium and then complain when a new stadium isn't built. Which do people want, the stadium or the team, you can't have both, unless you allow evolution and give Pochettino the time to improve the squad. If it is felt he is the right manager he'll get it, that's obvious, it's been our aim for years.
Paying two players somewhere, probably upward of £150,000 a week to train with kids and play no part in first-team football isn't an option. Would you buy a new printing press for your company and leave it sitting in the corner while you did everything by hand with a rubber stamp? No, you wouldn't be deemed suitable for a long term role in that position. You would have shot yourself in the foot, but is it the fault of the person who sacked you? No, it's yours.
The point is you don't keep the wrong person in a job for the sake of it, you only keep the right person in a job and it's who Daniel Levy perceives to be the right man that is important.
We spent money last summer, raised it and spent it. Those players have to perform or we have to slowly ship them out if clubs will pay what we paid for them, to expect the club to buy players and simply sell them at a loss after one season is just fantasy stuff. With a stadium to pay for purchases have to largely be funded by sales.
Five games is no time to be calling for knee-jerk revolution.
Mauricio Pochettino has been in the job 5 minutes, 5 Premier League games and the very same people who were saying Daniel Levy needs to give him time are now shouting for change because he hasn't swept a magic wand and cures all ills in one wave of the messiah's hand.
Pieces like the one in the Metro from Spooky where he says thinking long term is irrelevant. An open admission he is one of today's impatient generation who want everything now and for some reason complain when football clubs act in the same way. Don't do as I do do as I say.
A recipe for disaster. What exactly was he expecting after 5 games? Utopia? Even the ants had to go on a journey with ups and downs to find that. As with any journey it's a question of retaining faith in the face of set backs. It took Liverpool a whole season to learn what Brendan Rodgers wanted, Spurs players are supposed to have learnt in 5 games! For all that it was a good read.
We traditionally struggle against WBA every season, they always score, we struggle to score more than one are rarely more than 2. Of course we had a 3-3 draw where we gave then a three goal start and substituted our centre-half at half-time.
It's only WBA therefore we should win is the very attitude of failure. If the players think like the fans in that way then they will under perform when they should be seeing it as a big game with three points at stake. Then they will raise their game and you can only do that if you have the right mentality.
Players like Dembele flopped against Leeds in the FA Cup on that day because, as he openly admitted he wasn't motivated, didn't see it as a big game. That rang alarm bells for me at the time. WBA is just another extension of that, another game not perceived as being a big game and we get a performance level to match the mental attitude. His skill level hasn't changed between that and games where he has performed well, only his mental approach.
It's the biggest issue Pochettino faces, far bigger than who the striker is or who the centre-backs should be. Look at Jan Vertobnghen last year when he decided he didn't want to play, he turned up and went through the motions. His skill level hadn't changed, he hadn't suddenly lost it, he simply had the wrong mentality, the wrong mental approach.
It's the same with Adebayor, he only performs in games he perceives to be big whereas Hugo Lloris performs every game. You don't see him decide a game isn't a big game and therefore doesn't get his best. You don't see him making a half hearted attempt at a save from a ball less than a yard or mete from him. Match talent with a brain and you have a player, talent without a brain and you have inconsistency.
A manager is not a motivational expert or a psychologist, he is a planner and a tactician, he manages the same way a site manager manages a new build. A site manager doesn't motivate the workmen on a building site, outside forces motivate each individual one, football is no different. If you don't know what motivates an individual you can't motivate them, you can't push the right buttons. They motivate themselves, you can't tell someone this is how you have to be motivated.
Where were the leaders in the team against WBA, when things weren't going well, who stepped up to the plate to try to get the players geed up. Did anyone? Leaders do, winners do. It may not work but they try. One captain and two vice-captains playing, Lloris can't affect forwards which is why he isn't captain but what did Kaboul and Adebayor do, or were they too wrapped up in their own game? PR speak after a game is no good, it's too late.
When AVB arrived the idea was to create a winning mentality, to change the way the club and by club we mean players really, to one where winning every game is important. 99% of people don't know what a winning mentality is, they don't have one so how can they, they therefore dismiss it as nonsense, but still moan when things aren't going right.
Spurs are in a transitional period where we have a new manager and a new style of play to learn. It may be similar for half the team but for the front four it isn't, they haven't played interchanging football before. As Gordon Strachan tells us on Thursday nights, it's new to the Premier League, Pochettino has brought something different, not just a foreign name.
The call for revolution from impatient fans rather than evolution is loud and clear. Presumably next summer they will want revolution again and the summer after and the summer after, where despite having to fund a stadium that presumably they want, the money has to go into the team as well. The two aren't compatible.
We need to keep debt down to borrow to build the stadium and if we build debt buying players we can't raise the capital against the club. I seem to recall Arsenal couldn't buy players when they were building and they also has Champions League football and a bigger income, we are having to try and do it on a smaller income.
Put the club in debt so it can't afford a new stadium and then complain when a new stadium isn't built. Which do people want, the stadium or the team, you can't have both, unless you allow evolution and give Pochettino the time to improve the squad. If it is felt he is the right manager he'll get it, that's obvious, it's been our aim for years.
Paying two players somewhere, probably upward of £150,000 a week to train with kids and play no part in first-team football isn't an option. Would you buy a new printing press for your company and leave it sitting in the corner while you did everything by hand with a rubber stamp? No, you wouldn't be deemed suitable for a long term role in that position. You would have shot yourself in the foot, but is it the fault of the person who sacked you? No, it's yours.
The point is you don't keep the wrong person in a job for the sake of it, you only keep the right person in a job and it's who Daniel Levy perceives to be the right man that is important.
We spent money last summer, raised it and spent it. Those players have to perform or we have to slowly ship them out if clubs will pay what we paid for them, to expect the club to buy players and simply sell them at a loss after one season is just fantasy stuff. With a stadium to pay for purchases have to largely be funded by sales.
Five games is no time to be calling for knee-jerk revolution.
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