No, but I expect the club to back the manager, which it has not. It has not provided him with what he needs. We're challenging for the top four because Pochettino was managing to squeeze everything out of a thin squad, and now we're seeing the punishment of that as the players look tired and out of ideas. Also, there's a difference between finishing top four comfortably (as we did last season) and being right in the battle for top four, we're slowly degrading every season (gone from 2nd, to comfortably 3rd, to now struggling for top four at all). What is next? We will keep declining without investment.
We KNEW Dembele was injury stricken and was likely going to leave soon, his replacement should have been sorted in the summer. Also, the likes of Van Djik have been signed in January, it is possible to bring players in if a club needs to, which we did. We have no central midfield. Sissoko, a broken Wanyama, Skipp, Winks and Dier is not a good collection of midfielders for a top 8 side, let alone one sitting in third. You can't just continue to escape having no quality in midfield and avoid the problem. We sold our most dominant midfielder and did nothing about it.
Oh dear. Seriously? We're replacing established key players with youth products now, and you think that's going to keep us in the top four going forward? Alright Glaston, however you feel. We've done well by promoting youth when they're ready, not because we've forced them in to a lineup due to a lack of options. Foyth has potential but has already cost us on numerous occasions, KWP is clearly not ready to play regularly and as much as I think Skipp may be good enough one day, he offers very little at PL level.
I don't know why people are so stuck on Grealish. There are so many central midfielders out there we could have targeted. Brozovic, Kondogbia, Demirbay, SOMEONE. I'm not a scout and not being paid by the club to identify targets, but if we genuinely couldn't find a single central midfielder to bring to a CL club that could improve on our current options, then sack the fecking scouts. And stop going on about 'the price', every club has to pay decent money in modern football, we will not continue to qualify for the CL if we show zero ambition, and financially we will rot away as a result.
Toby is gone. 100%, we're not paying what he wants, it's not a doom laden prediction. And come on, why do you think Eriksen has failed to sign a contract and barely looks arsed any longer? He's gone, glaston, unless we offer him a stupid contract which we will never do. Toby might be 31 but he's still one of the best central defenders in the league and will be very hard to replace. There are loads of stupid calls about Spurs players like Kane leaving, but Eriksen/Toby are clearly on the way out.
Look, if you can't see what is right in front of you, that's fine .. but it's pretty clear to me that our horrific form for a long while is the blatant result of a squad that is suffering from under investment. We've got serious quality in the side but that quality hasn't been added to for a good while now and is becoming complacent, and in certain areas we're barely top 6 standard, over-reliant on some of our world class forward players. The rot and decline will continue to happen and we will slip down the table more and more if we allow the board to ignore what Pochettino badly needs and has asked for, money to spend on players. We need a serious replacement for those leaving, and some serious money to patch up areas already struggling.