Recency bias is the thing that's killed the reputation around the prospect of Poch's management. If Erik achieved what Poch did at Tottenham point for point, league position for league position and UCL final for UCL final the forum would overwhelmingly consider that a significant success. Anyone telling themselves otherwise is fooling themselves.
I think what Erik initially brought to United was a projective identification of something that was appeasing to the club's direction, a presumably possession based manager revolved around the ethos of Ajax, front foot football and a solid coach to help individual players raise their level. If Erik played Jose football the fans would have had no interest because his CV wasn't anything significant to back him as a success on, aside giving Ajax some stability in a league that isn't even closely as competitive as the premier League.
So provisionally there's a parallel where Poch's CV was substantially being used against him and the promise of what Erik would seemingly bring to the table was the upsell. It's funny to see how the latter is playing out with Erik however. As is the case with recency bias however Poch no one has really given consideration to Pochs ability to coach a team and that's what's being unearthed at present.
So the difference between Poch and Eth is just like the financial markets, one person's stock was low and the others stock was high but once the speculation dies down the true revelation of the stocks value is revealed and that's the reality we are living in at present.
Poch for all the seasons with Tottenham only finished twice with more point than us last season. (77 and 86 vs 75). It took Poch a couple season with Tottenham before getting there. He had already had PL experience with Southampton, too. Why people seem to sweep Poch first season with Tottenham and the final few months into the new season before Poch got sacked, under the rug?
Poch Tottenham got to CL final after eliminating
ETH's Ajax by
away goal rule, in dramatic fashion: AKA Ajax threw away huge advantage. It reflects badly on ETH and Ajax? Sure. But it can be interpreted that a stronger side, more experienced, higher paid side got lucky. The margin is close enough that with current CL rule eliminating away goal, that tie was not over!!!
Poch had already used up that CL finalist credit with getting PSG and Chelsea. It's no achievement just to be there and lose. Outside of that one season CL, Poch run in CL and EL with Tottenham was underwhelming if not to say outright shite. More importantly Poch won nothing with Tottenham a team he luckily got for cheap.
ETH already won a trophy with us and made another final in the first season. Poch never made it to two finals in a season with Tottenham. The competitiveness in the league last season and currently is no lesser than Poch time with Tottenham.
Right now, for all rightful bashing on our playing style, result wise we're still better in the league despite facing a more severe injury crisis. The excuse that Chelsea is one prolific scorer away from being good is wishful thinking because the striker market is very difficult now and they had problem finding that scorer for Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel, Potter. People should be worried about whether Poch would be able to even make top 4 with Chelsea this season because if he wouldn't; he wouldn't be compared kindly to Sarri, Lampard first stint first season (transfer ban) and Tuchel tenure facing similar scoring issue. There would be no excuse there and then for Poch.
In short, Poch himself has more things to be worried about for the sake of his own reputation than taking a moral victory over ETH.