Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou

[rossdapep]

We need only 4 points from our remaining 5 games to match Poch's first season, which was also a transition year with a new manager implementing a new style of play. Our goal difference is currently 10 better, with 9 more goals scored so far, so we should be relatively content on that front too. If anything, Ange is doing better, because he inherited a team that finished 8th last season, while Poch inherited a team that had finished 6th.
We improved significantly in Poch's second & third seasons, as players adapted to the system and a the squad was bolstered with well-suited signings. I don't see why we can't do the same under Ange.

I actually felt quite despondent with Poch's first season. Was not sure where it was going.

There were highs Chelsea 5-3 and Arsenal 2-1 but my word there was a lot of games where I couldn't see what Poch was doing.

The press drifted in and out. We kept struggling to beat crap teams.

It was nothing like his impact at Southampton which was almost instant - probably cause he had more coachable players there.

There was a little to go on for the following season but I wouldn't say it was anything to start to get excited about or even hopeful.

Also, the second season we didn't win any of our first 4 games and squeezed past a poor Sunderland 1-0.

I think the City game (4-1) was when we really started to see what we were capable of.

But compare that to Ange's first season and we have certainly seen a lot more evidence in his first year than Poch's

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Behave.

Compare Pochs first eleven for that season Vs Anges.

Our squad this season would absolutely destroy the squad that Poch inherited.

Poch didn't have 250m to spend either.

I think you need to behave.

Poch inherited prime Lloris, Vertonghen, Walker, Rose & Eriksen, plus a young Kane who banged in 21 PL goals in.
He also had a not quite prime Dembele on the bench, who was already better than Bissouma's average performance has been this season.

The transfer market has become far more inflated since 2014, and the £ is worth about 50% less now. Chelsea (PL winners) and Man City (PL runners-up) spent less than £250m between them that season, but were considered to be spending extravagantly at the time.

Poch didn't have his first season derailed by an injury crisis that was immediately followed by multiple key players disappearing for AFCON / Asian Cup.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

I actually felt quite despondent with Poch's first season. Was not sure where it was going.

There were highs Chelsea 5-3 and Arsenal 2-1 but my word there was a lot of games where I couldn't see what Poch was doing.

The press drifted in and out. We kept struggling to beat crap teams.

It was nothing like his impact at Southampton which was almost instant - probably cause he had more coachable players there.

There was a little to go on for the following season but I wouldn't say it was anything to start to get excited about or even hopeful.

Also, the second season we didn't win any of our first 4 games and squeezed past a poor Sunderland 1-0.

I think the City game (4-1) was when we really started to see what we were capable of.

But compare that to Ange's first season and we have certainly seen a lot more evidence in his first year than Poch's

Yes, which only goes to show that we don't need to be feeling pessimistic at the moment.

 

[rossdapep]

I think you need to behave.

Poch inherited prime Lloris, Vertonghen, Walker, Rose & Eriksen, plus a young Kane who banged in 21 PL goals in.
He also had a not quite prime Dembele on the bench, who was already better than Bissouma's average performance has been this season.

The transfer market has become far more inflated since 2014, and the £ is worth about 50% less now. Chelsea (PL winners) and Man City (PL runners-up) spent less than £250m between them that season, but were considered to be spending extravagantly at the time.

Poch didn't have his first season derailed by an injury crisis that was immediately followed by multiple key players disappearing for AFCON / Asian Cup.

Yeah there is some real upgrades there.

Different systems and functions but you could make a case that all of those players are better than what we have in their positions now.

Even Rose was probably more defensively sound than Udogie.

 

[RuskyM]

Behave.

Compare Pochs first eleven for that season Vs Anges.

Our squad this season would absolutely destroy the squad that Poch inherited.

Poch didn't have 250m to spend either.

The squad Ange inherited finished 8th (two places and nine points lower than Sherwood's boys) and then lost its best player days before the season started.

 

[jolsnogross]

It's really disheartening.

We will never get to where we want to be unless we are prepared to sit through a bit of pain and let the coach address all aspects.

That isn't a quick fix, it's over a period of 2-3 years.

I hope Ange is at the helm barring a complete disaster because that's the only way we sort all our ills out.

Even this is too optimistic. Poch transformed this team into title chasers and CL finalists. Within a year the chairman and a strong majority on here were very keen on his removal.

Ange has plenty to do to get near those levels and I suspect he won't be given time. Im not sure what you define as a complete disaster, but he certainly wont be given time even well short of relegation threatened disaster.

And I'm not even sure anymore what criteria should be used to make a decision on how long spurs manager's should get!

 

[McFlash]

Poch transformed this team into title chasers and CL finalists. Within a year the chairman and a strong majority on here were very keen on his removal.

To be honest, our decline under Poch was obvious way before the cl final and that run massively papered over the serious cracks that had appeared.
Poch didn't help himself at all either.

So it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that he was flying high and within a year everybody turned on him.
It was a slow and painful decline over quite a period of time.

 

[rossdapep]

To be honest, our decline under Poch was obvious way before the cl final and that run massively papered over the serious cracks that had appeared.
Poch didn't help himself at all either.

So it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that he was flying high and within a year everybody turned on him.
It was a slow and painful decline over quite a period of time.

Exactly we were getting worse and worse from 2017-2019.

The entire 18-19 season was filled with lucky performances in the league before our form totally nose dived.

We we poor in the group stages of the CL as well, little bit lucky Barca had already qualified as they took their foot off the pedal.

Start to 19/20 season was really poor and extremely concerning.

Players had clearly become despondent and were no longer reacting to Poch's voice and methods.

We are on the ascendancy now, we were on the descendacy then - huge difference in how the two scenarios are judged.

 

[Styopa]

Are you talking about the developed players or the players they were when Poch inherited them?

Just the players as they were when Poch inherited them. Although several of them, notably Llloris, Walker, Dembele, Vertonghen and Eriksen were arguably well into their development by the time Poch arrived.

And although the team was a shambles the season before Poch arrived, it still stumbled to 6th place under the expert stewardship of AVB/Sherwood. So, two places higher than we managed last season.

That’s not to take anything away from what Poch achieved, by the way. He did a great job.

 

[newbie]

I agree with everything you say and I’m still fully on board the Ange train mostly for the reasons you’ve mentioned, but the concerns for me are bigger than set pieces:

- We concede too many goals, period. Our attack is nowhere near good enough yet to compensate for how leaky our defence is, so we have a handicap that we have to overcome in every single game.
- The whole is less than the sum of its parts. Our back 5 are excellent individually yet we such a poor defensive record. We’re stacked with talented midfielders who are performing well below the level that we know they’re capable of.
- Team selection and squad management is becoming questionable. Ange clearly has blind spots with certain players.
- Our results and most worryingly our performances since Jan have been largely underwhelming. The 2024 form table puts us 8th in the league, behind Bournemouth and Man Utd, whose manager is likely to get sacked. We’ve scored the same amount of goals as Luton in that period and 4 less than Chelsea, whose forwards are a laughing stock.
- There really hasn’t been any obvious on-field improvement, development or progress in that period. We have gradually returned to majority squad health and we have typically had 1-2 weeks to train between games which is an incredible luxury for any new manager to iron out any deficiencies, instill their style, tweak their tactics and prepare the team for specific games (Conte took over a Chelsea team who’d finished 10th under similar circumstances, brought in a new system and won the league in his debut season). We just haven’t seen the benefit of any of that - I think most people, Ange included, would have expected us to get better as the season went on whereas we’ve arguably got worse. You have to at least question why that is.

i think players returning and time between games could also have made it really hard to keep a rhythm going.

I would argue we lost a lot of players after the Chelsea game and other players stepped in and exceeded expectations.

then bents got injured, his not regained his form, bis hasn’t found his groove, son is patchy, I would argue good finisher but his lost a couple of yards and just isn’t aggressive enough.

richy finds form keeps getting injuries

los celso same

davies and royal played above expectations they where warriors, we need better players but they better than I have expected under the circumstances.

udogie injuries in and out

I think it’s been really hard to get a rhythm going to the squad as some players just haven’t been able to find their groove again, you know that groove is there. It will just take a bit of time. How long do you wait again? You don’t have extra games so it’s hard for them to find it when they’re not playing regularly.

 

[sidford]

Honestly it is a strange seemingly stubborn answer from Ange but I can only think he’s just playing the media a bit here and/or what he means is if we spend all our hours just on fixing set pieces right now that won’t ‘solve all our problems’ hence his medicine/illness analogy.

What I think he means without saying it directly is that there are many factors which we need to improve e.g.
-Improve the quality of the players in the squad
-Improve our overall tactical play
-Improve our concentration and mindset
-Improve our game management

etc etc, Ange sees it as being more nuanced and multi-factored and wholistic than just as simple as ‘fix the set pieces’ and that’s his view on how to be successful is more an overall approach and then the set pieces will
Take care of themselves as part of that.

I can see why some are confused/frustrated by his comments on this though.

I get your points but set pieces are not part of some wider tactical plan they are their own thing. They are costing us as only 4 teams have conceded more than us and we have conceded more from set pieces than we have scored. You don't need months of pure set piece works to improve it so when you had a 2 week break with all players around i can't for life of me explain how we made the same errors as not protecting our keeper and giving the opposition free headers.
This is a bitch and moan about something specific, I am looking forward to next season to see what we can do but if we don't improve in this specific area it's difficult to see us achieving too much next season

 

[newbie]

I get your points but set pieces are not part of some wider tactical plan they are their own thing. They are costing us as only 4 teams have conceded more than us and we have conceded more from set pieces than we have scored. You don't need months of pure set piece works to improve it so when you had a 2 week break with all players around i can't for life of me explain how we made the same errors as not protecting our keeper and giving the opposition free headers.
This is a bitch and moan about something specific, I am looking forward to next season to see what we can do but if we don't improve in this specific area it's difficult to see us achieving too much next season

he knows, cynical fouls, better set pieces and losses turn to wins.

its a young new team, they need to learn gamesmanship.

 

[mil1lion]

We have to be honest and say all our managers have a tall order. Poch did a great job but it got to him towards the end and he kind of lost the plot. He needed time away. He didn't get the investment needed to rebuild and he had to navigate away from WHL for a couple of years. However he did also have a golden generation of talent for a few years and really should have won something.

I think there's certainly similarities for both. They both came into a team playing a slow dull brand of football. The fans were not enjoying what they were watching and they both turned us into an intense attacking team. I think we have the potential for another golden generation of talent with us now. I'm hoping the stadium will be the key now to allow us to keep pushing on and go the extra step by winning things. We have to forget the previous 5 years and judge on this season and beyond now. Not let our long running failures lead to impatience on Ange. It's a new beginning, we're heading in the right direction and we have an exciting young squad. Give him at least 3 years before even considering change.

 

[Sp3akerboxxx]

The squad Ange inherited finished 8th (two places and nine points lower than Sherwood's boys) and then lost its best player days before the season started.

Ange got 250m to spend and Conte had that team in 4th. Stellini and Mason had them in 8th.

 

[RuskyM]

Ange got 250m to spend and Conte had that team in 4th. Stellini and Mason had them in 8th.

You can't throw this 250m figure around when you know a) Deki and Porro were already arranged and b) we happened to sell our best player for £100m. Pretty vital context.

And if you really think Ange came into a good situation with a good squad then I truly think you're misremembering, because there's a good reason half of this year's team is new (Vic, Mick, Udogie, Sarr, Madders, Brennan.)

 

[Styopa]

You can't throw this 250m figure around when you know a) Deki and Porro were already arranged and b) we happened to sell our best player for £100m. Pretty vital context.

Another way of looking at it, is we sold Kane and gave Ange Maddison and Johnson as Kane’s replacements.

Deki and Porro were already here. Deki especially was already an important first team player under Conte.

The “remaining” funds we used on Vic, vdv and Drag - who all 3 were bought for a combined fee of less than Arsenal paid for Declan Rice or Man C paid for Gvardiol or Man U paid for Antony.

 

[Sp3akerboxxx]

You can't throw this 250m figure around when you know a) Deki and Porro were already arranged and b) we happened to sell our best player for £100m. Pretty vital context.

And if you really think Ange came into a good situation with a good squad then I truly think you're misremembering, because there's a good reason half of this year's team is new (Vic, Mick, Udogie, Sarr, Madders, Brennan.)

Yes, I completely agree.

He took over a side that Conte had in 4th, and then replaced half of it (and I completely agree with this)because they weren't good enough.

To compare this squad and situation, to Pochettinos Sherwood and half the squad revolt situation, then that is insane revisionism for me.

Lloris
Naughton
Kaboul
Dier
Rose

Capoue
Bentaleb

Lennon
Eriksen
Lamela

Adebayor

But honestly. How many of those would make it into our starting eleven?

 

[robhumphreys]

Much as I hate arsenal the one thing they did was to give their manager time which is now working for them. I’m not sure he would have gotten that here. We need to do the same with Ange and give him time

 

[Sp3akerboxxx]

No point bringing anyone else in, that's crazy.

5th place finish is good enough for another summer and a crack at next season

I feel like our recruitment has been on point since Paratici came in, so I'm pretty hopeful we'll improve regardless of our results for the rest of this season.

 

[thebenjamin]

Ange got 250m to spend and Conte had that team in 4th. Stellini and Mason had them in 8th.

Where do you think Ange would be now with the world's best striker in the team?