The Tottenham Hotspur hierarchy never publicly identified their expectations for Mauricio Pochettino upon his appointment.
If it was that their new head coach immediately get them back into the Premier League's top four, they are likely to be disappointed. Tottenham's early-season form has shown there will be no quick fix turning them into a Champions League-calibre side again.
With 10 league games played, the north London club sit eighth with 14 points. Although only three away from fourth-placed Arsenal, the mixed nature of Spurs' performances has left doubts as to their overall viability in 2014-15.
The failure to beat some of last season's top four (Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City) was not wholly unexpected. Compounded by disappointing home defeats to West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United, however, an unfavourable picture of Spurs has been painted at various points already this season. Prior to this past weekend, the statistic they were eight points worse off after nine games than a year ago kept being trotted out.
The early stages of the Pochettino project have not totally underwhelmed, though. Spurs have handed defeats to in-form West Ham United and Southampton, while the most recent win over Aston Villa displayed some welcome perseverance after they went a goal down. They have also reached the quarter-finals of the Capital One Cup, and are in a decent position to progress in the Europa League.
Give or take an off year, between 2006 and 2013 Spurs were legitimately among the strongest contenders for a top-four place. Given their struggles to keep up with the Premier League's elite last season, their inconsistencies so far in this campaign seemingly confirm the notion that the most appropriate term for their current status is that of an outside bet.
How Tottenham look to progress from here under Pochettino's management is intriguing to say the least.
Last week, the Daily Mail's Neil Ashton reported that chairman "Daniel Levy will begin a major restructuring of Tottenham’s scouting and recruitment procedures after their poor start." Perhaps the most telling line about the club's direction over the next few months or so followed.
"Although Levy is deeply unhappy with the performance of the team under their new head coach, the Argentine has the chairman’s full support."
Levy backing his head coach would certainly please supporters keen to see stability at White Hart Lane after a turbulent few years. The idea he has grown inpatient with the players—particularly several of those signed in the heavy spending that followed Gareth Bale's big-money move to Real Madrid—adds an interesting twist to the potential timescale for Pochettino.
He has set to work implementing his oft-called philosophy with the current group, of which he already agreed his own changes to this past summer (signings such as Eric Dier and Benjamin Stambouli, departures of players like Michael Dawson and Gylfi Sigurdsson). The "attacking football" he referenced upon his hiring, via TottenhamHotspur.com, has been seen so far in various shades and varying degrees of success, underpinned by defensive performances that have been decidedly inconsistent.
On the more positive sides, there was the dominant fluidity of their most impressive wins over Queens Park Rangers and Southampton, and the measured strikes and concentration that earned a 1-1 draw with Arsenal. Less satisfying was the lack of ideas that undermined the aforementioned efforts against West Brom and Newcastle. Not to mention the failure to convert in the first hour versus Aston Villa on Sunday (the latter three all also undermined by poor concentration defensively).
In all this, it is clear Pochettino is still figuring out what works for this squad. One that—although expensively assembled in parts—is still young, and in the form of players like Dier, Christian Eriksen, Harry Kane and Erik Lamela, has the potential to improve considerably under their head coach.
The possibility of Levy changing the means by which Spurs recruit could help Pochettino to build sensibly and productively over the next year or two. But what Ashton termed as the chairman wanting to "make sure there is a system of accountability in place after last season’s blame game" must be applied with consideration to what the Argentinian wants for his team.
Definitively knowing who has what say in which players come in will matter little if they do not correspond with the natural development of the team under Pochettino. That comes back to him being allowed enough time to figure out what does and does not work.
After the upcoming international break, a near-constant run of fixtures follows until mid-winter (with the traditional intensification over Christmas and New Year's).
It will present us with a better idea of Tottenham's development with Pochettino at the helm—and if things do not go too smoothly, with an indication of just what the appetite is in the boardroom to support getting things right beyond this point.
//from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/1scNt86
via IFTTT November 04, 2014 at 05:13AM
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