Mauricio Pochettino - now sacked from Chelsea

It's only a matter of time that they finally win this. They reached two semis in two consecutive semis. the experience is there. they have the right squad and the coach i think.

Would be Uefas dream

Still waiting on that city champions league

I don't think I've seen a worse performing top team ever.

They play like complete shit then get saved by moments of individual brilliance.

Needs to be sacked tomorrow

I am convinced it is not the coach any more. These failures happen too often to be blamed on one man.

It started with Neymar frankly... he brought in a shit attitude and it impacted the club culture. Before him, the club was actually progressing. The Ibra era didn't win the CL. But the team was good and the culture absolutely fine.

It became a clown show with Neymar. Also, brining in Unai Emery was a huge mistake.

Neymar isn't the President of the club though. Nasser needs to be held very much accountable for letting whatever toxicity spiral out of control.

Then again, PSG reminds me of Madrid back in the Ferrari boys days where the players generally did whatever they wanted and managers were just there to pick the players the President felt like buying. And if shit went belly up, he's out of a job.

Can god pls just rewind to 2015 where we had MSN Barca winning the trelbe, no Trump, no Covid, etc... the world was so awesome

sportsczy wrote:It started with Neymar frankly... he brought in a shit attitude and it impacted the club culture. Before him, the club was actually progressing. The Ibra era didn't win the CL. But the team was good and the culture absolutely fine.

It became a clown show with Neymar. Also, brining in Unai Emery was a huge mistake.

What do you think about the Ibra-Leonardo feud?

danyjr wrote:I am convinced it is not the coach any more. These failures happen too often to be blamed on one man.

oh it is the coach.

Just look at what City and Liverpool are doing. Their boards aren't comprised of geniuses. They just hired the right managers and let them do their thing.

United and PSG, on the other hand, kept hiring questionable managers and it showed on the pitch.

The Bald Fraud would turn this clusterfuck of a club into world beaters and he would make Neymar as docile as a nun.

City and Liverpool's board ARE comprised of geniuses. They extract extreme value from the market, have an established long term vision, and hire managers based on achieving those visions.

City were preparing the team for Pep two years before they signed him.

Turok_TTZ wrote:I will never fathom those who actually rate this poser. Pochettino is out of his depth and will never be good enough for the big time. How many more times must pochettino get exposed before people realize he's a 3rd rate coach? Hope he stays on at psg so that they remain a 2nd rate club.

He's one successful job away from being a genius and "brilliant man manager" again. Real Madrid are a few transfers and some matured players away from being a serious force again. Whoever manages that team when the time comes, has their work cut out for them.

Lord Spencer wrote:City and Liverpool's board ARE comprised of geniuses. They extract extreme value from the market, have an established long term vision, and hire managers based on achieving those visions.

City were preparing the team for Pep two years before they signed him.

I agree with all your points but unreservedly disagree that City extract extreme value from the market. Unlike Liverpool, they have spent way over the market prices for some of their players, because they can. Liverpool spent overboard for Keïta, maybe Oxlade but their signings have mostly been bargains.

danyjr wrote:

Lord Spencer wrote:City and Liverpool's board ARE comprised of geniuses. They extract extreme value from the market, have an established long term vision, and hire managers based on achieving those visions.

City were preparing the team for Pep two years before they signed him.

I agree with all your points but unreservedly disagree that City extract extreme value from the market. Unlike Liverpool, they have spent way over the market prices for some of their players, because they can. Liverpool spent overboard for Keïta, maybe Oxlade but their signings have mostly been bargains.

Other than Graelish, I think they rarely spent overboard for important pieces in the project. B. Silva comes to mind specifically as a relatively cheap option, while Dias is similar to price and long term importance to VVD.

In that way, they spend what they need to get someone that they need and then immediately utilize, or then use to trade for a better option (like getting Coentrao from Juve with a swap deal).

Sure, they are not as thrifty as Liverpool, because they don't need to, but get the extreme value footballing-wise from their purchases, and their players don't drop in value.

For every bargain Dias they spent £57m on Laporte and £50m on Stones.
Cancelo for £60m was not cheap.
Rodri for £62m, Mahrez £60m. The list goes on. None of these players are flops, but City paid the market values for these players at best.
Having a bench worth quarter of a million is not extracting extreme value from the market. You are paying all these guys high salary too.

City's philosophy is not comparable to Liverpool.

When you pay your players not to disrespect fans you deserve every failure that comes your way

This latinos vs French players feud is going to blow up now i reckon. No way they look sideways while Messi and Neymsr walk like they own the place

I hope Mbappe can lose this bad habit he's picked from them

danyjr wrote:For every bargain Dias they spent £57m on Laporte and £50m on Stones.
Cancelo for £60m was not cheap.
Rodri for £62m, Mahrez £60m. The list goes on. None of these players are flops, but City paid the market values for these players at best.
Having a bench worth quarter of a million is not extracting extreme value from the market. You are paying all these guys high salary too.

City's philosophy is not comparable to Liverpool.

Your point?

Laporte and Stones are still rotating as starting CBs, with years of service for Stones, and years remain for Dias. Both are slightly more expensive than Konate, while arguably been better dollar for value than Lovren at 20. Both were cheaper than VDV.

For comparison, top CBs typically cost around that range, with City paying above it to ensure they get the target they want, which they use for years.

Rodri for 60 million is cheap for Fernandinho's direct replacement, and Mahrez is also cheap when compared.to the money United, Chelsea, and even Arsenal paid to get less talented offensive players. Still at the club, still scoring and playing regularly.

Cancelo is a huge value if he plays in the same way for a few more years, just like Walker was.

Just because the price is high doesn't mean they are not extracting extreme value from their purchases. Sure, they may not be as good at that as Liverpool, who are better at unearthing extremely cheap gems, but they rarely spend on wasted talent.

By the way, I consider Liverpool's most valuable purchase is VVD at over the odds, which ensured they get him, and was an extremely missing cog in their machine. It's dirt cheap when you consider his influence.

Also, the proof of getting the extreme amount of value from the market is in the trophies. If Liverpool miss a couple of them because they didn't spend more to get some needed players, then are they really being smart?

Lord Spencer wrote:

danyjr wrote:For every bargain Dias they spent £57m on Laporte and £50m on Stones.
Cancelo for £60m was not cheap.
Rodri for £62m, Mahrez £60m. The list goes on. None of these players are flops, but City paid the market values for these players at best.
Having a bench worth quarter of a million is not extracting extreme value from the market. You are paying all these guys high salary too.

City's philosophy is not comparable to Liverpool.

Your point?

Laporte and Stones are still rotating as starting CBs, with years of service for Stones, and years remain for Dias. Both are slightly more expensive than Konate, while arguably been better dollar for value than Lovren at 20. Both were cheaper than VDV.

For comparison, top CBs typically cost around that range, with City paying above it to ensure they get the target they want, which they use for years.

Rodri for 60 million is cheap for Fernandinho's direct replacement, and Mahrez is also cheap when compared.to the money United, Chelsea, and even Arsenal paid to get less talented offensive players. Still at the club, still scoring and playing regularly.

Cancelo is a huge value if he plays in the same way for a few more years, just like Walker was.

Just because the price is high doesn't mean they are not extracting extreme value from their purchases. Sure, they may not be as good at that as Liverpool, who are better at unearthing extremely cheap gems, but they rarely spend on wasted talent.

By the way, I consider Liverpool's most valuable purchase is VVD at over the odds, which ensured they get him, and was an extremely missing cog in their machine. It's dirt cheap when you consider his influence.

Also, the proof of getting the extreme amount of value from the market is in the trophies. If Liverpool miss a couple of them because they didn't spend more to get some needed players, then are they really being smart?

Very galactíco/oil money mercenary mentality which is applicable to 0.01% of the teams in the world.

Was Cristiano Ronaldo a good signing for Madrid? Yes it was. He won them titles, including 4 Champions Leagues trophies, more publicity etc.

But the flaw here is that NOBODY could afford Cristiano back then. So to say Madrid extracted extreme value from him when they were competing in their own financial bubble is pointless. Same with City. Liverpool cannot compete with oil money City have so they have had to be much more creative with their money instead of signing established players for a fuck tonne of money.

danyjr wrote:I am convinced it is not the coach any more. These failures happen too often to be blamed on one man.

I've seen nothing from him on a tactical level. Coaching superstars is different than coaching athletic players for underdog teams. There's a reason Madrid players have never wanted to bring Conte in.

At least Conte is elite tactically. Pochettino is the complete opposite.

I'll start it off from back to front:

Goalie: Insists on playing from the back despite not having a goalie good with his feet. Hasn't been able to decide who his starting goalie is.

Centre Backs: Often find themselves isolated defending counter attacks due to poor positional play up front. Struggle to find good passes from the back when Ramos isn't playing.

Fullbacks: Plays wingbacks like Mendes and Hakimi as fullbacks in a 4-3-3 where they don't have any one covering their back. All attacking fullbacks these days have the CM dropping to cover. Poch did this for Hakimi for the first time in his PSG stint when he had Danilo drop there against Madrid.

Midfield: He had this fixation for playing donkeys for the longest time with Verratti despite it being clear Paredes should be one of the first names on the team sheet. At first he played Verratti DM who left an ocean of space behind him because he wanted contribute offensively. He then had Wijnaldum or Gueye attacking the box despite his wingbacks attacking high up the pitch. Kept playing Verratti on the left when it was clear him and Messi's link up was PSG's best way to progress the ball forward. Instead of bringing him closer to Messi he brought him further away.

Forwards: Complete disaster off the ball. Had Messi defending RW off the ball like it was 2009. When he wanted Messi defending in the front two, he was relying on Neymar to drop into the midfield 4 like it was 2015. It led to them defending in a 4-3-0-3 in 2022 which is absolutely unacceptable.

Offensively there was no cohesion on the ball. It was just Messi and Neymar brute forcing link up plays in the middle of the pitch where they always lost the ball. Mbappe was the CF who would rather play LW, and Messi was the RW who would rather play in the middle. They had no respect for their offensive positioning because he wanted to give them "freedom".

There was no patterns on the pitch. There were no instructions done to bring the best out of his attackers. He wanted his wingbacks wide but never had PSG make use of their width. He never tried creating 1v1 situations for his attackers. They were never trained to look for Messi at the edge of the box. There were no 3rd man runs. No one was attacking the box aside from Mbappe. It was ineffective sideways passing until one of the attackers went hero ball mode.

There was no creativity from a tactical standpoint. He kept trying to force his shitty 4-3-3 despite it being clear that it didn't work. At first he was forcing a 4-2-4 with Di Maria too. He didn't want to play with a 3-4-3 because he thought it was defensive.

Against Madrid was the first time he showed some tactical acumen but even then it was very basic. Danilo dropped back and he formed a box in midfield with Paredes, Verratti, Messi, and Neymar. That led to PSG dominating 150/180 minutes against Madrid because it gave them numerical superiority. He wiped all of that away by bringing off Paredes because he thought he'd get a red card. PSG lost total control of the midfield.

He's been a complete flop as a coach for PSG. I understand the tactical situation isn't the easiest but it's not like PSG performed well last season either. They lost the league to Lille despite him joining at a time when he couldve made a comeback. Neymar went from like 1G per game to 0.4 under him. Their XGA in his first season was higher than it ever was under Tuchel too. I've never seen a worse coached super team. He got carried by Mbappe.

I haven't watched PSG much this season, mostly their CL games so I can't comment on his PSG tenure as a whole.

I also don't think tactically Pochettino is an elite coach. I doubt if anyone ever did. He is great at creating a system that is true to his style as he did with Espanyol and Spurs. But he hasn't been able to get the best out of this PSG team because the players at his disposal, no matter how special they are, do not fit into his rigid system (especially the front 3). The attack seems disjointed because of the reasons you mentioned, but he is not the coach that has ever coached a front three like this and he is not doing a good job in finding a solution for them in his system.

Regarding this match specifically however, PSG's demise should be solely attributed to mentally weakness. You always seem to put high importance on tactical choices, and while they are often important, in this occasion it wasn't the tactics that were poor because Ancelotti's tactics were worse overall and he got carried by Benzema. I don't remember aside from 15 minutes in 180 minutes where Madrid looked like a team that could cause PSG trouble. The Paredes substitution could not have been avoided as he was already on 1.9 yellows. As someone who has closely followed him since he was at Boca, he would have gotten sent off 100%. So I cannot blame the coach here either.

I also think there is some unrest in PSG locker. I've heard many convincing stories of two gangs existing in the locker room. It is of course part of the responsibility of the coach to clean it up, but players these days have too much power in the dressing room, especially in a club like PSG where the president basically gave free reign to Neymar to have him at Paris.

All in all I think Pochettino was a wrong fit for PSG. Perhaps the previous PSG connection played a part in this fairy tale reunion but it all turned into a bad nightmare for the Parisians.

Not even nominated despite winning the league by 15 points at round 33.

I don't actually blame Poche for this year...  When Messi arrived, it was an impossible task to make a cohesive unit since Messi, Neymar and Mbappe dont' defend.  Add the fact that Ramos was perma-injured and he couldn't even play a 352 (which is what they needed to do).

I lay 90% of the failures of PSG this season at the feet of Messi and Neymar.  They just weren't there at all for the most part.  Messi had no more than impact than an Asensio did for Real Madrid.  Neymar was actually more impactful when he played then Messi imo.

You can't just turn it on whenever you want to.  You have to commit to the team and the season.

Officially sacked

Mbappe the director I'm loving it