Posts Tagged ‘Mauricio Pochettino’

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This might seem like a fairly obvious statement but the truth is that Daniel Levy doesn’t strike us as a man who likes spending money on players.

With the demeanour and looks of a James Bond villain and all the business acumen required to play Scrooge in a pantomime version of “A Christmas Carol“,  he appears to be the archetypal, old fashioned employer who thinks that his workforce is a necessary evil and only there to make money for him.

Why else would he be prepared to borrow and invest in a stadium which, at the last estimate, is going to cost in the region of ÂŁ800 million? This is according to club director Donna Cullen and is virtually twice the original price quoted. (more…)

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Going into 2018 and Arsenal fans are now roughly a quarter of the way through their sentence of having to put up with Stubborn Old Man for two years longer than they had hoped.

His resolutions however, should be music to their ears. He WILL try and win Big Vase despite his reluctance to accept promotion to Big Cup if he does so. He will also try and finish in the top four, (just in case plan A fails), and have a go at winning the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup. (more…)

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Managing a top six club in the English Premier League is a job with a lot of pressure accompanying it.

The rewards for the success of the club and, therefore, the manager, are vast. The price of failure is usually the sack for the manager and a severe loss of revenue for the club.

So how do the different managers cope with the pressures of the job? We looked at the top six as usual. and gave each of them a barometer reading from 0-10 whereby 10 means that they couldn’t handle the pressure any better. (more…)

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Manchester United need to buy players, that much is evident. The supporters think so, (don’t they always)? José Mourinho thinks so and all we now need is for the Glazers and their little puppet, Ed Woodward, to think so as well.

Buying players however, whether spending the ÂŁ300 million Mourinho believes is required or less, will not enable Manchester United to catch Manchester City this season. What it should do, if the correct signings are made, is consolidate second place and increase the gap between United and the rest.

This season City have been, and still are, by far the best team in the Premier League and, assuming they don’t take their foot off the gas, will win the title with ease and games to spare. (more…)

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As another year draws to it’s conclusion in just a week’s time, we look at what the big six managers would have liked for Christmas and try to figure out whether or not they will get their heart’s desire in the near future, (or the January transfer window as it is now known in football circles).

So, in no particular order other than their initial letter and it’s place in the alphabet, here’s our list: (more…)

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Well, to start with, if you support a team currently below Tottenham Hotspur then the chances are somewhere between zero and minus ten!

However, your chances improve if you support one of the current top six. Manchester United are currently second and eleven points off the leaders so they, in theory anyway, have the best chance and that would be somewhere between zero and minus five.

So, you see, the higher up the table your team is, the better your chances of winning the title.

Seriously though, can anybody catch City? (more…)

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With two more meaningless friendlies on the horizon for a very average England team, the Premier League has, once again and for the third time already this season, ground to a shuddering halt.

These two games are against Germany and Brazil and withdrawals through injury mean that England go into the games with an even greater paucity of talent than usual.

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Mauricio Pochettino has decided that Harry Kane, Harry Winks and Dele Alli are not fit enough to even travel with the squad, never mind take part in the games. He has, as a token gesture, left Kieran Trippier who he thinks could benefit from the game time. (more…)

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Unless you have a different idea to the rest of us on how the game of football should be played, it is difficult to disagree that Manchester City are the form team at the moment. Not only that but, when in full flow, they are without doubt the most attractive of the top teams to watch.

But who comes next? Forget parking the bus, forget different tactics and formations for different games. Who, when in full flow and playing all-out attacking football, is next in the list of “must watch” teams? (more…)

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This is a question we would like to be able to put to José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. It would also get interesting replies from Arséne Wenger, Antonio Conte and Jürgen Klopp, not to mention Mauricio Pochettino.

To be fair they all set out, at the beginning of each season, to play open attractive football. Football is, after all, part of the entertainment industry and it’s success is measured, to an extent, by the amount of people who watch the games. This, in turn, dictates the quality of sponsorship attracted which determines the money paid into the clubs by these sponsors, and so on and so on. (more…)

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It has been another successful weekend for Manchester.

City, in particular, looked mightily impressive against Stoke and United managed to keep the back door shut against Liverpool.

Despite Mourinho being criticised, totally ridiculously, for Liverpool’s inability to score, a draw is still a good result at Anfield.

Certain pundits, such as the idiot Garth Crooks at the BBC, thought United should have attacked Liverpool and tried to win the game, a tactic which could easily have gone pear-shaped and resulted in the first loss of the season. No, JosĂ© got it spot on and, had Lukaku not shot straight at Mignolet when clean through, he could have been celebrating another one of his famous smash-and-grab acts. (more…)