THE TIME IS COMING FOR POCH TO WALK AWAY
No MANAGER wants to bow out on the most humiliating result of his career. nobody thinks the time for mauricio Pochettino to walk away from Tottenham is this very second.
Yet, make no mistake, the moment is coming. Tuesday night’s capitulation does not happen at a wholly healthy club. It does not happen at a club where the manager and his players are as one. Yes, the game against Bayern munich ran away from Tottenham in the second half, when Pochettino could not get his team together and regroup.
even so, there was enough experience on the pitch for Tottenham to avoid appearing foolish. Yet, for whatever reason, no player took that responsibility. To be beaten 7-2 at home is not just a loss. It is a symptom of disease.
Tottenham are not watford, overwhelmed and outclassed by manchester city on several occasions in recent seasons. They will see Bayern munich as peers. an established member of europe’s elite, but not out of their league. Liverpool took Bayern apart in the away leg last season and Tottenham met Liverpool in the final.
So Pochettino will not have seen this debacle coming; or maybe he did. Let’s face it, he hasn’t looked happy for some time now.
The autobiography of the great comedian Gilda radner had the title It’s Always Something and much the same could be said of Pochettino these last months.
He reminds me of Jose mourinho in his dog days at manchester United, when everything seemed to irritate him.
The club got on his nerves, the players got on his nerves, the einsteins really got on his nerves.
even if he won, he moaned — except he didn’t actually win much by the end. and, like mourinho, nothing seems to make Pochettino smile for long.
He should have been delighted that a player of christian eriksen’s talent did not get the move he wanted this summer. Yet even that seemed to displease him.
The win against Southampton on Saturday, with 10 men for a long period, might have been the turning point but couldn’t be sustained, even for three days.
If there is a sadness in what has befallen Pochettino lately it is that he missed his moment.
Jurgen Klopp recognised when he bought Virgil van Dijk that Liverpool were ready to go. Pochettino has never allowed himself to believe that of Tottenham. They were always a work in progress, they always needed more.
and while they cannot compete with Liverpool and manchester city now, was this previously the case? The year Leicester won the
The players need to hear a different voice. Poch needs a new challenge. But first he needs a rest
title, Tottenham had a wonderful team. There are tales that Pochettino is distant now, of friction in the dressing room, too. His team loses at Colchester and he speaks of players having different agendas. They mutter the same of him. The cryptic comments about his future, the talk of quitting. Even on the eve of the biggest match in Tottenham’s history, the conversation was about Pochettino. Daniel Levy, the chairman, must be tiring of it. Pochettino speaks, and looks, like a man who needs a holiday, needs to clear his head, needs time away. In a different industry an astute boss would offer a sabbatical, but football is not like that. If Pochettino is to take a break and return with the intensity and focus of old, it would mean walking away from Tottenham, and considering his work there done. Would that be so bad? Pochettino has not delivered a trophy but he has made a football club. The modern Tottenham, part of the Premier League elite and Europe’s, too, if whoever succeeds him maintains their position. The best stadium in the country has been built on the back of Tottenham becoming a fixture in the Champions League. That is Levy’s fine work, but Pochettino’s as well.
He has won more than trophies for Tottenham. He has created legacy.
And to do that is exhausting. It takes a toll, mental more than physical, which is why the result against Bayern Munich is a watershed. The biggest home defeat for an English club in European competition; the first time Tottenham have conceded seven at home.
The warning signs are inescapable. Tottenham’s players need to hear a different voice, Tottenham’s manager needs a new challenge. But first he needs a rest.