A serious look at Mauricio Pochettino

Amadaeus said:
When you actually look at some of those performances that they lost, most of them, they did not deserve to lose. When we look at the game we lose and even won, we deserve to lose a few of those games and didn’t deserve to win a few of those as well. Pochettino was unlucky, whereas ole was very lucky to get some of his result.



This is a myth that needs to be quashed. Spurs players are not better than ours, they are just better managed. Pochettino getting the best out of average players is what good managers does and what any good managers would do with the players they have. We saw how good our team can be in our honeymoon period, where did all that fight and brilliant display went? If it happened then, it can happen again and we only need a good manager to get that performance out of those players. Ole has showed that he is struggling to do this, I doubt Pochettino would has he had had to deal with much worse group of players.
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I think Spurs have quality in certain positions over United.
Up top Son and Kane are a lot better than Rashford or Martial,
Eriksen is equal to Pogba,
Toby is better than Smalling/Jones,
I think United's squad is better but starting 11s are probably equal, if not in Spurs favour.
All this talk of Poch winning us every trophy under the sun is just pie in the sky. No one knows how he'd get on, the fact remains he hasn't actually won anything with Spurs, yet. And he has spent some money too...
 
Champ said:
I think Spurs have quality in certain positions over United.
Up top Son and Kane are a lot better than Rashford or Martial,
Eriksen is equal to Pogba,
Toby is better than Smalling/Jones,
I think United's squad is better but starting 11s are probably equal, if not in Spurs favour.
All this talk of Poch winning us every trophy under the sun is just pie in the sky. No one knows how he'd get on, the fact remains he hasn't actually won anything with Spurs, yet. And he has spent some money too...
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This is what some people don’t understand. When we bought Martial and Pogba, no one in their right mind would say they were worse or even to players like Son or Eriksen. Heck, even in form, Martial and Pogba are still better players. It is just that our manager is not getting the best out of our players. If Son or Eriksen was at United, we would be saying that Martial and Pogba are way better. The manager we have at United are not getting the best out of our players which is why some fans think our squad is terrible. If we don’t have a good manager in charge, buying another £300m worth of players will not change anything. Pochettino winning anything at Spurs would be a tremendous accomplishment considering what he has spent compared to his rivals. Most of these trophies are dominated by teams that spend more money on players than a developing country on their economy. That formula would not change without some tremendous amount of luck and a good manager at their helm.
 
Pochettino would basically have the same issue as Ole. His whole system is one of crazy high intensity, work rate, having everyone at a 10/10 intensity level for every game. Same with Klopp or Pep. Having everyone always fully on it and giving 100% intensity every minute they play. Never accepting anything less. These players showed it for about 2 months under Ole and then fell apart and now you see them all jogging around. Some of them like Rashford have that spirit and mentality, but the majority dont. Poch, Klopp or Pep would come in and sell half of them and replace them with players that suit. That's what Ole wants to do and needs to do. Nobody could come in with this group and succeed.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
I would literally sacrifice all our budget and go in next season with Lingard and Jones, if that means that Poch is our manager
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And we'd be in the exact same position. How many failed managers is it going to take for fans to realize the problems at this club run way deeper than the manager?
 
purgethefallen said:
No he wouldn't, it's taken him five years just to stay top 4. He's so good he came 3rd in a two-horse race, for God's sake!
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What absolute bollocks, we have finished in the top 4 for the past 3 season, this season will be 4. So four out of his five seasons in the top for, and doing better in the CL. If you are going to kick the guy at least tell the truth.
 
Amadaeus said:
This is what some people don’t understand. When we bought Martial and Pogba, no one in their right mind would say they were worse or even to players like Son or Eriksen. Heck, even in form, Martial and Pogba are still better players. It is just that our manager is not getting the best out of our players. If Son or Eriksen was at United, we would be saying that Martial and Pogba are way better. The manager we have at United are not getting the best out of our players which is why some fans think our squad is terrible. If we don’t have a good manager in charge, buying another £300m worth of players will not change anything. Pochettino winning anything at Spurs would be a tremendous accomplishment considering what he has spent compared to his rivals. Most of these trophies are dominated by teams that spend more money on players than a developing country on their economy. That formula would not change without some tremendous amount of luck and a good manager at their helm.
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Spurs buying Eriksen was a coup, nearly all the top club's were sniffing around him, at the time he was seen as the next superstar. Is he better than Pogba? Yeah I'd say so, slightly different player but Eriksen has shown consistent performances whereas Pogba arguably hasn't. Nothing to do with the manager, more so to do with the desire of the player.
Same goes for Martial, he hasn't even staked a place in the French national team yet!! How's that better than Son, a regular goalscorer, we brought Martial based on his promise, so far he hasn't really shown it consistently, only in flashes, once again comes down to the mindset of the player, his drive to succeed. Only so much a manager can do to influence that.
Georgie seemed to have that man management, Poch? Meh who can tell, considering the amount of players that have been brought in by Spurs and not made the grade it's difficult to judge.
 
Champ said:
Spurs buying Eriksen was a coup, nearly all the top club's were sniffing around him, at the time he was seen as the next superstar. Is he better than Pogba? Yeah I'd say so, slightly different player but Eriksen has shown consistent performances whereas Pogba arguably hasn't. Nothing to do with the manager, more so to do with the desire of the player.
Same goes for Martial, he hasn't even staked a place in the French national team yet!! How's that better than Son, a regular goalscorer, we brought Martial based on his promise, so far he hasn't really shown it consistently, only in flashes, once again comes down to the mindset of the player, his drive to succeed. Only so much a manager can do to influence that.
Georgie seemed to have that man management, Poch? Meh who can tell, considering the amount of players that have been brought in by Spurs and not made the grade it's difficult to judge.
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If he was such a talented players no doubt that those top clubs would have gotten him. He was highly rated, but not highly enough for the top clubs to bring him to their club, which is why Spurs only get him for less than £15m. This is another revisionism that some of our fans try to produce on our players to strengthen their claims about how bad they are. Pogba showed great amount of consistency at Juventus when we bought him for a world record transfer fee . You don’t buy a player for that much if there was doubt about his ability. Eriksen was not as consistent then as he is now. Eriksen is a much more polished player today and that is down to the great management work at Spurs.

Martial was a raising talent similar to Felix at Benfica. All the top club wanted him and he even had a ballon d’or clause in his contract. Whereas Son wasn’t as good as he was then and is another player that went from an average footballer to a top talent under Pochettino. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, PSG and so on would have taken Martial then over Son anytime, so Martial was 99% the bigger talent at the time
 
We will see how well United do against City. Here's hoping they utterly show up City and get a big victory.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
Yes. Without any doubt
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Ole has a hell of a task on his plate, I see on here sell A,B and C and get in D,E and F. There are few teams in the world able to pay what you pay the majority of your players.
tom9999 said:
We will see how well United do against City. Here's hoping they utterly show up City and get a big victory.
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It’s a funny old game because if you do what does it say? If you beat City you are handing the title to Liverpool, and if you do why couldn’t the team turn up against Everton?
 
I don't care what anybody else think. United and Arsenal have the worst squad among top 6. Just because people overrate our players and underrate other teams players doesn't mean they're right. United squad is one of the most overhyped and overrated squad with nothing to show off I have seen in Premier League ever.
 
el3mel said:
I don't care what anybody else think. United and Arsenal have the worst squad among top 6. Just because people overrate our players and underrate other teams players doesn't mean they're right. United squad is one of the most overhyped and overrated squad with nothing to show off I have seen in Premier League ever.
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Come on, you have the best keeper in the world, you have Pogba who is a World Cup winner, Rashford and Martial who on their day are unbeatable, Lukaku who was topping the goal scoring charts at Everton. Is Mata, Matic, Herrera, Fred really that much worse than Dier, Wanyama, Sissoko and Winks? The problem with United is mental, I’m not going to point fingers at individuals but I’d say it’s more a lack of application rather than a lack of ability.
 
InLevyITrust said:
Come on, you have the best keeper in the world, you have Pogba who is a World Cup winner, Rashford and Martial who on their day are unbeatable, Lukaku who was topping the goal scoring charts at Everton. Is Mata, Matic, Herrera, Fred really that much worse than Dier, Wanyama, Sissoko and Winks? The problem with United is mental, I’m not going to point fingers at individuals but I’d say it’s more a lack of application rather than a lack of ability.
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That's the problem. People evaluate squads based on names only. That's why I'm saying this squad is massively overrated and overhyped. We can count as many "big" names as we want but as long as their performance is stinking on the pitch week in week out it'll never a good squad for me and it's showing. Squad with some lesser names but performing more regularly is far better.
 
There is no way on earth the United squad is worse than what Arsenal have, look at half their line up today that is proper mid table standard or even worse in case of Jenkinson and Mustafi.

Spurs have actually built up a nice little squad. Davidson Sanchez is for the moment 3rd choice CB and he's one of most promising young CBs around. Upfront you have likes of Moura and Lamela as back up attacking players which isn't too bad. Just CM where a bit more quality is needed.
 
Can’t believe people thought Ole was a better appointment than Poch would have been. Crazy.

crossy1686 said:
:wenger:

You are watching the same players as the rest of us right? Fergie wouldn't even get a tune out of this lot.
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These are the same players that went on an unprecedented winning run no? Or was that Ole working wonders? and now that we are losing it’s nothing to do with Ole and it’s the players’ fault and not even Fergie would get a tune out of them?

I’m confused
 
FootballHQ said:
There is no way on earth the United squad is worse than what Arsenal have, look at half their line up today that is proper mid table standard or even worse in case of Jenkinson and Mustafi.

Spurs have actually built up a nice little squad. Davidson Sanchez is for the moment 3rd choice CB and he's one of most promising young CBs around. Upfront you have likes of Moura and Lamela as back up attacking players which isn't too bad. Just CM where a bit more quality is needed.
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Yeah Arsenal squad is terrible. I mentioned them with us actually.
 
FootballHQ said:
There is no way on earth the United squad is worse than what Arsenal have, look at half their line up today that is proper mid table standard or even worse in case of Jenkinson and Mustafi.

Spurs have actually built up a nice little squad. Davidson Sanchez is for the moment 3rd choice CB and he's one of most promising young CBs around. Upfront you have likes of Moura and Lamela as back up attacking players which isn't too bad. Just CM where a bit more quality is needed.
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I see where your coming from but that's purely because of our players surnames. Despite us having Pogba, Arsenal have a better midfield than us as a collective they play in unison and have better qualities on the ball. Lacazette, Auba, Iwobi have had a better season than Martial, Lukaku and Rashford, again they play as a collective Vs individual impetus. Whenever have you seen Rashford play off of our attackers, when has he done a simple one-two to create space for himself ? He's selfish and doesn't have the end product to warrant keeping the ball.

Sometimes it comes down to the relativity of how the players apply themselves, all of Arsenals outfield players bar the defence are of a good quality on the ball, defensively they are shocking and that to me is a personnel issue. I've watched Arsenal multiple times this season and they have looked a quality side, cannot be said for us we haven't had a good team performance aside when Ole was appointed in the Cardiff fixture. That's one game out of a dozen.
 
I find it very funny when people without any base just make absurd assumptions like x manager would have made this squad world beater or y manager would have improved this squad. No they wouldn't have. Pep wouldn't have made smalling a pique or pochetino wouldn't have made young into walker. Let us not forget what ole has actually done with this squad. We were sitting far away from top 4 when he took over and had no business of even being in this situation and yet here we are. Credit to ole for that. It's not ole who should be bantered but the likes of emery, sarri and even poch who have let this united side back in this top 4 race should be questioned. So bashing ole or questioning him after 4 months is ridiculous.
 
Mauricio Poch is just a likeable guy managing a likeable (minus Dele and Vertonghen) team. He's also one of the top managers in the world in the way he understands the game.

I would be happy to see the winner of Ajax Spurs win the CL.
 
Random Task said:
On what basis?
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I watched your match yesterday, Poch wouldn't stand for the lack of effort and half pressing for a start, those players wouldn't dare put in a performance like that under him. I remember when he dropped the likes of Paulinho, Kaboul (who was capt), Capoue, Lennon, Ade because of their attitudes and started to field the likes of Mason, Kane, Carroll etc...

Seems like this is a problem for Man Utd, the players have gone back into coasting mode because they know Ole won't drop them.
 
MagicKarpet said:
I watched your match yesterday, Poch wouldn't stand for the lack of effort and half pressing for a start, those players wouldn't dare put in a performance like that under him. I remember when he dropped the likes of Paulinho, Kaboul (who was capt), Capoue, Lennon, Ade because of their attitudes and started to field the likes of Mason, Kane, Carroll etc...

Seems like this is a problem for Man Utd, the players have gone back into coasting mode because they know Ole won't drop them.
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Agree when Poch took over we had players like Ade, Benoit, Capoue and Kaboul. Al work shy and all apparently had a grip on the changing room. I don’t think any lasted more than one season under him.
 
crossy1686 said:
:wenger:

You are watching the same players as the rest of us right? Fergie wouldn't even get a tune out of this lot.
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Then how Jose won EL and finished second last season with this "shit" team? Our team is not shit. It is not on City or Barca level but it is certainly team for top four and it is certainly team which can play good football. But this is what you get when you hire Molde coach because he is "very positive guy who smiles a lot"
 
Andycoleno9 said:
Then how Jose won EL and finished second last season with this "shit" team? Our team is not shit. It is not on City or Barca level but it is certainly team for top four and it is certainly team which can play good football. But this is what you get when you hire Molde coach because he is "very positive guy who smiles a lot"
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I like Ole, I don’t think he can be judged until we see what his plans are for the summer. I hear people saying “Pogba needs quality around him to perform”, I say bullshit what he needs are other senior players who are on his level to keep him in toe. No doubting his talent but at the moment there is a big question mark around his mentality, at United anyway.
 
InLevyITrust said:
Agree when Poch took over we had players like Ade, Benoit, Capoue and Kaboul. Al work shy and all apparently had a grip on the changing room. I don’t think any lasted more than one season under him.
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This is why a few wanted him because if he came in there would be no sentiments with him he would just get rid of the players that
A) don't have the ability
B) don't want to run
 
Andycoleno9 said:
Then how Jose won EL and finished second last season with this "shit" team? Our team is not shit. It is not on City or Barca level but it is certainly team for top four and it is certainly team which can play good football. But this is what you get when you hire Molde coach because he is "very positive guy who smiles a lot"
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You think that's all Ole is? You deserve what ever you get if you think this can be fixed by sacking manager after manager.
 
crossy1686 said:
You think that's all Ole is? You deserve what ever you get if you think this can be fixed by sacking manager after manager.
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Yes, i think that manager can be judged after 5 months. Because there is no progress at all. In fact we look worse than we looked with Jose.
I don't expect super flying football but i expect some minimum progress for which i can say that he is doing something good. Except nice words, we didn't get anything from Ole.

He is another bad call from Ed and we will lose another year or two because of it.
 
Amadaeus said:
If he was such a talented players no doubt that those top clubs would have gotten him. He was highly rated, but not highly enough for the top clubs to bring him to their club, which is why Spurs only get him for less than £15m. This is another revisionism that some of our fans try to produce on our players to strengthen their claims about how bad they are. Pogba showed great amount of consistency at Juventus when we bought him for a world record transfer fee . You don’t buy a player for that much if there was doubt about his ability. Eriksen was not as consistent then as he is now. Eriksen is a much more polished player today and that is down to the great management work at Spurs.

Martial was a raising talent similar to Felix at Benfica. All the top club wanted him and he even had a ballon d’or clause in his contract. Whereas Son wasn’t as good as he was then and is another player that went from an average footballer to a top talent under Pochettino. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, PSG and so on would have taken Martial then over Son anytime, so Martial was 99% the bigger talent at the time
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Eriksen had 20 odd Danish caps already when Spurs signed him, pretty decent for an average footballer, he was very highly rated when Spurs brought him, there's no revisionist history there.
Pogba cost a premium because of his high profile and the fact it was us buying him, a transfer fee has no bearing on how good the player actually is, Pogba was and is class, but the fact he cost a world record fee does not mean he was better than Eriksen or is better now.
Son had a very good scoring record in Germany before Spurs brought him, once again, just because he wasn't high profile (he actually was to be fair, he was the most expensive Asian player at the time, probably still is) doesn't mean he wasn't very good, it's just astute scouting by Spurs, something United lack. He had played more senior games than Martial when Spurs brought him, and in a better league.
No revisionist history here I'm afraid.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
Yes, i think that manager can be judged after 5 months. Because there is no progress at all. In fact we look worse than we looked with Jose.
I don't expect super flying football but i expect some minimum progress for which i can say that he is doing something good. Except nice words, we didn't get anything from Ole.

He is another bad call from Ed and we will lose another year or two because of it.
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Who then? Who in your opinion could have come in and have us in 3rd place right now?

You're living in a fantasy land. Solskjær hasn't even had a transfer window yet and you want to judge him on a team he inherited? Time to face facts and admit that some of these players are already thinking about their next club and they just don't give a shit about United finishing in the top 4. Regardless of who the manager is.
 
crossy1686 said:
Who then? Who in your opinion could have come in and have us in 3rd place right now?

You're living in a fantasy land. Solskjær hasn't even had a transfer window yet and you want to judge him on a team he inherited? Time to face facts and admit that some of these players are already thinking about their next club and they just don't give a shit about United finishing in the top 4. Regardless of who the manager is.
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That transfer window excuse must stop. He will not buy 10-15 players. As i said earlier, it is not like he got Fulham squad. He got one very good squad in which he will change 2,3 maybe 4 players. But it will be basically this squad next season. And he is not doing nothing with it. Yes, players have bad attidude. But he is the coach. His job was to fix that.

I didn't expect 3rd or 4th place from another manager this season. I am not naive. But i expected to see progress. Parking the bus at OT against West ham and Watford is not progress. Being dominated by Wolves and Everton is not progress. Except nice words, what is the reason why he should get time?
Meh, as a coach he is just a fraud( yes, i said that word. Fraud). He is our football legend and i will remember him as a legend but as a coach he is out of his depth and he is just buying time with nice words. Every coach can talk nicely and say what he is saying. But he is not doing anything else.

To ask you something. Moyes took over worse squad than this and got only two players. But after 4-5 months, we all saw that he is not good enough. So what is the difference? At least Moyes had some attacking pattern to show( cross, cross, cross:)). Ole talks a lot about how he wants to play but when game starts i see fecking bus without any attacking idea.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
That transfer window excuse must stop. He will not buy 10-15 players. As i said earlier, it is not like he got Fulham squad. He got one very good squad in which he will change 2,3 maybe 4 players. But it will be basically this squad next season. And he is not doing nothing with it. Yes, players have bad attidude. But he is the coach. His job was to fix that.

I didn't expect 3rd or 4th place from another manager this season. I am not naive. But i expected to see progress. Parking the bus at OT against West ham and Watford is not progress. Being dominated by Wolves and Everton is not progress. Except nice words, what is the reason why he should get time?
Meh, as a coach he is just a fraud( yes, i said that word. Fraud). He is our football legend and i will remember him as a legend but as a coach he is out of his depth and he is just buying time with nice words. Every coach can talk nicely and say what he is saying. But he is not doing anything else.

To ask you something. Moyes took over worse squad thyn this and got only two players. But after 4-5 months, we all saw that he is not good enough. So what is the difference? At least Moyes had some attacking pattern to show( cross, cross, cross:)). Ole talks a lot about how he wants to play but when game starts i see fecking bus without any attacking idea.
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Moyes took over the current Premier League champions who won the league by 11 clear points. You've lost your head.

Sack Solskjær then appoint Pochettino. Sack him in December when he can't get it to work, bring Zidane in. Sack him the following year and try Conte. Maybe then you'll realise what the issue is.
 
Amadaeus said:
If he was such a talented players no doubt that those top clubs would have gotten him. He was highly rated, but not highly enough for the top clubs to bring him to their club, which is why Spurs only get him for less than £15m. This is another revisionism that some of our fans try to produce on our players to strengthen their claims about how bad they are. Pogba showed great amount of consistency at Juventus when we bought him for a world record transfer fee . You don’t buy a player for that much if there was doubt about his ability. Eriksen was not as consistent then as he is now. Eriksen is a much more polished player today and that is down to the great management work at Spurs.

Martial was a raising talent similar to Felix at Benfica. All the top club wanted him and he even had a ballon d’or clause in his contract. Whereas Son wasn’t as good as he was then and is another player that went from an average footballer to a top talent under Pochettino. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, PSG and so on would have taken Martial then over Son anytime, so Martial was 99% the bigger talent at the time
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City were definitely in for Eriksen, could have easily outbid Spurs but Eriksen chose Spurs over City. Sit on the bench behind Silva at City or walk into the starting 11 for Spurs, playing games week in, week out. Easy to see why he chose Spurs. He has been a mainstay of the Spurs squad for years now and has really grown his game into the classy player he is now. Also think he has been sensible about his career trajectory not signing a new contract at Spurs leaving the door open if a big name like RM come calling.

I agree on Martial vs Son, also the fact Son at the time also had to complete his mandatory military service. Martial was the more sought after talent and singled out for big things. Son was seen as a good player but not in the same league as Martial.

I think Pochettino is very well regarded by young players looking to make a step up, Frenkie De Jong specifically cited Pochettino as a reason he considered long and hard about moving to Spurs last season. And it was why Alli chose to go there over Liverpool if im not mistaken.
 
Casanova85 said:
For all I care, he could be knocked-out in the UCL semis (VAR saved him in the QF) and end 5th or 6th in the PL. No FA Cup title either.

Not impressed.
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Wow I'm sure he'll be devastated that you're not impressed.

It's the furthest this club has EVER been in the top European competition and massive for the club. We've knocked out the 2nd best team in Germany and the best team in England who possess infinitely greater resources than our own, all whilst dealing with bad injuries constantly.

Also .. we're currently 3rd and since United and Arsenal keep losing, seems likely we will stay there. 3rd and a CL semi final would be a fantastic season for a club who spent nothing in the summer.

Also what do you mean VAR 'saved him' ? VAR made the correct decisions, both times.
 
SquishyMcSquish said:
Wow I'm sure he'll be devastated that you're not impressed.

It's the furthest this club has EVER been in the top European competition and massive for the club. We've knocked out the 2nd best team in Germany and the best team in England who possess infinitely greater resources than our own, all whilst dealing with bad injuries constantly.

Also .. we're currently 3rd and since United and Arsenal keep losing, seems likely we will stay there. 3rd and a CL semi final would be a fantastic season for a club who spent nothing in the summer.

Also what do you mean VAR 'saved him' ? VAR made the correct decisions, both times.
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Spurs got to the semi finals in 1962.
 
Scroto Baggins said:
City were definitely in for Eriksen, could have easily outbid Spurs but Eriksen chose Spurs over City. Sit on the bench behind Silva at City or walk into the starting 11 for Spurs, playing games week in, week out. Easy to see why he chose Spurs. He has been a mainstay of the Spurs squad for years now and has really grown his game into the classy player he is now. Also think he has been sensible about his career trajectory not signing a new contract at Spurs leaving the door open if a big name like RM come calling.

I agree on Martial vs Son, also the fact Son at the time also had to complete his mandatory military service. Martial was the more sought after talent and singled out for big things. Son was seen as a good player but not in the same league as Martial.

I think Pochettino is very well regarded by young players looking to make a step up, Frenkie De Jong specifically cited Pochettino as a reason he considered long and hard about moving to Spurs last season. And it was why Alli chose to go there over Liverpool if im not mistaken.
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Yea Pochettino is great at developing players and it shows with what he payed for these players and what their actual value is right now. However, I would like to see him develop players that are already highly rated and have huge egos. He has done well with Aurier, but at a bigger club he would have a team full of players with big egos.

Champ said:
Eriksen had 20 odd Danish caps already when Spurs signed him, pretty decent for an average footballer, he was very highly rated when Spurs brought him, there's no revisionist history there.
Pogba cost a premium because of his high profile and the fact it was us buying him, a transfer fee has no bearing on how good the player actually is, Pogba was and is class, but the fact he cost a world record fee does not mean he was better than Eriksen or is better now.
Son had a very good scoring record in Germany before Spurs brought him, once again, just because he wasn't high profile (he actually was to be fair, he was the most expensive Asian player at the time, probably still is) doesn't mean he wasn't very good, it's just astute scouting by Spurs, something United lack. He had played more senior games than Martial when Spurs brought him, and in a better league.
No revisionist history here I'm afraid.
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I never said he wasn’t highly rated, just that he wasn’t highly regarded enough for the other top clubs to get him or for Spurs to spend a lot of money on him. If he was, Spurs would not have gotten him. At the time, you could compare Eriksen to Paqueta or Suso right now, who is highly rated, but not a polished player that is attracting a lot of interest from the top club. Also, I never said Eriksen was average, I said Son was average at the time Spurs purchased him.

Pogba was better than Eriksen when we bought him and when Spurs bought Eriksen. Pogba was courted by all the top clubs in Europe, Eriksen wasn’t and shows the gap of talent between the two players then. Pogba is still the better player and if he was in a team that has a good footballing philosophy, there would be no question who is the better player. During the honeymoon period, a lot of the fans was saying Pogba was the best midfielder in the world , that is the type of player we have in Pogba. I don’t think I have seen anyone claim that with Eriksen.

There are a lot of decent goal scorer in the bundesliga and a lot of those players are not highly rated. 12 goals in 43 matches and 17 goals in 42 matches, is nothing to boast about when you have a player like Kevin Volland offering a better return; scoring 13 goals in 28 matches and 14 goals in 30 matches in another season for the same Leverkusen team. So that argument is a non-starter.

What do you think, should United go after Volland or Felix this summer???

Martial was like Felix at the time and he was more highly rated than Son, not because of his appearances or goal scoring capabilities, but because he was highly regarded but professional scouts across Europe. If Martial was playing under Pochettino, he would be even more highly regarded.
 
Amadaeus said:
Yea Pochettino is great at developing players and it shows with what he payed for these players and what their actual value is right now. However, I would like to see him develop players that are already highly rated and have huge egos. He has done well with Aurier, but at a bigger club he would have a team full of players with big egos ...
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The things is (a) not all highly rated players have big egos (Harry Kane is one example); and (b) it's not desirable - in a team sport - to have players with big egos if there are alternative options.

Pochettino specifically prefers players who don't have big egos. Instead he's big on team spirit and team ethos.
 
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