Why should Champions League be a minimum? They’re 5th when you look at the wage bills and they finished 6th and 8th in the two previous seasons. A top 4 finish is a success and not just minimum. Liverpool already challenging for the title only tells you that Klopp’s doing a great job.
Nothing to suggest that they’re about to drop off either.
Pochettino got spurs to within a few games of winning the PL last season and he was very good at Southampton.
This season spurs have the best defensive record, although they aren’t scoring that many, apart from the Swansea match, but he has made them a very hard team to beat, with some quite average players.
He finished 3rd in a two horse race. Hasn’t won anything. Got eliminated in the group stages of the PL in a not very strong group.
It seems it doesn’t take too much to be considered a top manager these days.
Ranieri actually won the PL last season with a vastly inferior squad to Spurs so finishing third in a two horse race is hardly groundbreaking stuff.
If Klopp was our manager, I think we’d be the best pressing team in the world. A front three of Ox, Sanchez, Walcott all with elite quickness and led by a CF with amazing determination; Ozil, a very intelligent player and the ideal man to take advantage of turnovers by reading the unsettled situation and instantly playing the killer ball; secondary pressers like Coq, Xhaka, Elneny, Bellerin who are all high energy players. Our squad is really suited to play that way yet most of the time we suck at pressing as we are totally disjointed and don’t fully commit.
Lallana and Sturridge have been important to them to. They’ve signed well. Firminho was one of the better players in the BL, Lallana looked really good before he signed for them, as did Mane. Coutinho has always been one of their better players. No world class players but plenty of good players.
IMO Rodgers would of eventually turned it around for them. They were bound to have a hangover after 13/14 and then lost Suarez, Gerrard and saw Sturridge become a cripple.
You lost me when you mentioned Ox and Walcott in the front three.
I don’t think Walcott, Chamberlain or Ozil have the stamia to constantly press. Welbeck on the other hand…
I’m just talking about how we’re lining up these days. Replace Ox with Iwobi if you want. This is the team we have.
[quote=“SRCJJ, post:304, topic:729, full:true”]
He finished 3rd in a two horse race. Hasn’t won anything. Got eliminated in the group stages of the PL in a not very strong group.
It seems it doesn’t take too much to be considered a top manager these days.
Ranieri actually won the PL last season with a vastly inferior squad to Spurs so finishing third in a two horse race is hardly groundbreaking stuff.
[/quote]To be fair he was higher in the PL than Klopp, and that was my point.
There are better managers, but I just don’t see a lot of difference in the quality of Klopp or Pochettino.
He did it all with a slightly above average squad though.
Not only that but objectively they played some very good football, they blew it towards the end for sure but I don’t think it’s a stretch to call him one of the better young managers around.
They’re currently only four points behind us and were without Kane for almost two months, I wonder how we would’ve faired without Sanchez for the same period.
The same way we persisted with Giroud as our main striker for 2-3 years and still finished above Spurs every single time.
The same way we beat them to 2nd place last season despite being 8 points behind with 4 games to go.
Don’t compare us to that lot, it’s bloody insulting lol.
I know all that lol I’m just talking in the context of us managing without our best attacking player.
We missed Santi for half the season and still finished above them. As important as Özil Sanchez are to the team, the argument could be made Santi is just as if not more important.
Yeah Sanchez also missed a couple of months last season also.
No he isn’t lol
Correct on so many levels. One of which is you have to factor in Santi is a very injury prone player.
Never getting a full season out of him.
Santi played every game of the season when he first joined no? I remember him racking up 38+ iirc. It feels like the last couple of seasons is when he’s been stricken with injury.
Oh he’s not? Well our win percentage when he isn’t playing disagrees with you.
Santi is not more important than Ozil and Sanchez. We can replace Santi easier than we can replace Ozil or Sanchez.
Are we talking about who is easier to replace or who is more important in making our team work? Two very different things imo.