One of the more obsequious fan tropes to have emerged since the spread of the Internet, is the hysterical ‘GET BEHIND THE TEAM!!!’ nonsense.
This is essentially screamy virtue signalling by sad lonely people, who want to impress upon total strangers, just how brilliant a fan they are.
Sure, going to games to shout abuse at your own team has always struck me as daft, but online, supporters ought to be able to discuss whatever negatives they want, without being heckled by zealots.
Indeeed, anyone who believes Dele Alli will be less effective against Watford because some random on Twitter has told him to shove an oversized garden gnome up his bottom – may not quite understand how the human mind works.
But the question I’m posing here, is how should the dialogue between the players and the manager play out? What’s the best practice there?
Interesting quotes via The Sun this morning, which will divide opinion amongst the fan base (but what the hell doesn’t, these days?).
This reveals to me a weakness that I’d hitherto suspected but had yet to be confirmed.
We live in an age where things have become so touchy-feely, that people are actively encouraged to ‘identify’ as the gender of their own choosing.
This politically correct lunacy has now reached the Tottenham Hotspur dressing room, where it is deemed ‘unhelpful’ to bawl a footballer out for being useless.
I’d ask you to consider this; what does Pochettino do? If he cares (we know he cares), then he must be absolutely furious with players that waste his time. If he doesn’t yell at the offenders, is he going home and kicking the cat?
It’s not normal, it’s not healthy for humans to bottle up emotions. For a football manager it’s completely disastrous. A coach’s remit is to fire up the team, not act like a financial advisor talking to a vicar.
These quotes from Poch tell us far too much about what’s wrong in the Spurs squad.
Is this holistic approach another stunning example of Tottenham ‘doing things differently’?
There’s never been a successful football manager in the history of the game that gave a damn about their players’ feelings.
If Pochettino wants dignity, then he’s going the wrong about it. There’s no dignity in losing.
Only food and drink I’m afraid. Some shopping centre!
I think personally that happened after the Bayern game and its why they looked like Zombies on Saturday.
Shop till we drop.😦
Train them even harder I say, if they want less relentless training then don’t fuck up on the pitch. Poch boot-camp here we go!
Any chance you have any spare? Ya know, to lift me from this Lilly White darkness?? Jesus and the Mogadons are certainly weeping lol!
Ah let’s cheers up lads. We could all go shopping?
Has Daniel opened a GAP at the new spot yet?
Any chance you have any spare? Ya know, to lift me from this Lilly White darkness?? Jesus and the Mogadons are certainly weeping lol!
Ah let’s cheers up lads. We could all go shopping?
Has Daniel opened a GAP at the new spot yet?
Is the farmer worried about leaving the EU?
😁😁
I’m immune on account of the mogadons…..it serves a purpose.
Ssssh….Just breathe naturally…The ether will take effect any moment now….
There is a time and a place where not dwelling on mistakes work…but at some point, you have to realiase that does not work and individuals need to be called out. I think reports out of United in the Fergie years showed him to be perfect at this. However, as you say, I work a lot with people in their young 20’s (grads) and they all are softening year after year. Any negative comments are seen to be “bullying” no matter how constructive. I have struggled to assign mentors as people of the older generation are starting to lose patience trying to help them. If they ar enot GIVEN a stellar career its the fault of the company not themselves. Hard work is as alien as negative feedback. If Football is even close to the same, I feel for Poch. These kids really throw their toys out of the pram at every turn.
Sure we’re all a bit down in the dumps.
We perhaps don’t deserve the recent blips we’ve had because we’re too used to blips. But now that we’ve had a taste of sunshine, we expect it to never rain again.
We’ll be grand lads…
Remember what the Chinese Monty Python boys told us:
A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbours exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbours shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
The moral of this story, is, of course, that no event, in and of itself, can truly be judged as good or bad, lucky or unlucky, fortunate or unfortunate, but that only time will tell the whole story. Additionally, no one really lives long enough to find out the ‘whole story,’ so it could be considered a great waste of time to judge minor inconveniences as misfortunes or to invest tons of energy into things that look outstanding on the surface, but may not pay off in the end.
To sum it up kids: Keep your pigtails tight and your fingers crossed. It’ll all come good any day now. Promise.
Yours truly,
Gary Doherty
If he hasn’t already done that it is the whole squad that needs to watch it.As he says the whole squad is in this together.
Snowflakes is right,the world’s full of them right now,people who almost demand the right to be offended.Counselling must be the fastest growth industry on the planet.
These pampered,overpaid kids,which most of them are,need a reality check.It’s not just our players either.Poch needs to lay down the law and if somebody doesn’t like it or takes offence they can fuck off.
If he hasn’t already done that it is the whole squad that needs to watch it.As he says the whole squad is in this together.
Snowflakes is right,the world’s full of them right now,people who almost demand the right to be offended.Counselling must be the fastest growth industry on the planet.
These pampered,overpaid kids,which most of them are,need a reality check.It’s not just our players either.Poch needs to lay down the law and if somebody doesn’t like it or takes offence they can fuck off.
The whole team lacks that bit of spite , that kick up the arse , that this isn’t good enough and I won’t rest until it is Winners Mentality!
Fragile , complacency , incompetence , bottle jobs is what’s engrained in the club and when the chips are down its sulk mode.
bench them – no contract…no effort…no play.
tough shit – as I said, non contractual luxuries. Pampering players does my nut. Like allowing youth players to not be apprentices anymore.
Yelling is one way of communicating displeasure, but if you do it too often, it loses potency. A bit like coffee loses the ability to keep you up all night if you drink it often enough. If you want swearing to be effective, you must use it judiciously scarcely: a shock factor helps sometimes.
There are clearly players who respond to a strong bollocking, who may not respond to a firm ‘that was totally unaceptable.’
Equally, there are people who can take strong criticism but not if it is couched in personal terms. Adult men are not twelve year olds whose voice has still not broken. Any adult who has reasonably high personal standards knows full well if they have done badly and being in effect told that they do not already know that may be counterproductive. The question: ‘do you really think that was halfway acceptable?’ gives the chance to show they deserve to be treated like an adult after all…
The best managers can use both techniques with different folks. Jock Stein was a master at it. For those born after 1985, Stein was arguably Scottish football’s greatest manager, winning nine successive championships, the 1967 European Cup and numerous domestic cups to boot. Alex Ferguson saw him as his mentor….
I guess the questions I have are, why has this approach towards the players worked for the last three to five years and now it doesn’t? Is it age? Is it the spoiled brats finally have realized they don’t want to work as hard as they have been? They aren’t smart enough to realize that hard work is what made them what they are? Are they just knackered because their team success has given individuals more international team appearances? Do we have the biggest contingent of International players amongst last seasons top four? I could go on but I digress.
As a team they are getting soft. Whether its fear of injury or Poch’s softness I’m not sure. We are not as aggressive as we used to be, players going over way to easily and not putting a foot in when needed. Our mental toughness has disappeared. We used to be able to come from behind regularly and even used to punish teams and win 4 or 5 to 1 or nil. Now we get a one goal lead and we think the game is over and lose interest. I hate to say it but that says a lot about the type of players we have and what the manager deems as acceptable. Palace was a look at what we were! everything since is what we have become. Mental toughness and fortitude are gone at the moment
They’d go straight to the PFA, snowflake style….
Perhaps not such great idea, it will just remind the ‘Ajax three’ and Rose that the sooner they get this year out the way the better…
Hard to manage four 30 odd year olds in the last year of their contracts that realise that their chance to win a massive trophy slipped away in Madrid at the end of last season.
Just think about that situation for a manager, how would you deal with it? I’m not sure what the approach should be apart from either giving them new deals or moving them on, Levy did neither in the summer and here we are.
Many heart goes out to Poch, he’s doing all he can with a basket full of rotten apples…
Nah – forget the double sessions, take away their non contractual luxuries. Make them travel with the fans, stop their boots getting cleaned…make them earn luxuries.
Poch wants a clear out, the squad isn’t fit for purpose without some ‘churn’, some ins and outs to freshen things up.
There’s no point in telling the player’s they’ve been shit, they know they’ve been shit. Players don’t fear being shit because they still take home 80k a week, double sessions however are different matter, punish the useless overpaid fuckers in training!
Go the Poch man!!
Pochetinos cat is long since dead. Players are paid too much to get shouted at now apparently…. Although I wouldn’t think that would apply at ENIC fc. My main problem with Mo is a simple one. He’s been manager for 5 or more years and I still am unsure of how to correctly spell his name.
He should make it mandatory that some players watch repeats of the final last June. Snowflakes win fak all.