Media and Progress

Article by Lee Mason

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We saw in the papers on Saturday how Van Gaal will win the league with United, how Southampton would be destroyed by Liverpool and how Mauricio Pochettino can now speak English. Thankfully, for the first time in ages there hasn't been a general consensus among Spurs fans that we will win this competition or that competition this year. Frankly, over the last five or six years we have had more false dawns than a Dawn French lookalike competition.

AVB's tenure looks strange in retrospect. Despite some uninspiring football over the course of his first season, there were moments of where we looked solid and exciting simultaneously; in particular the 2-3 win at Old Trafford. Some players, such as Walker, improved dramatically. Yet after the debacle of the summer transfer window that followed a record points tally in the league he looked to have given up the ghost. This appeared to be a situation contrived by Baldini and Levy.

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Sherwoods departure couldn't have come to soon for most fans. His constant sniping at the board and Levy, rightly or wrongly. His lack of tactical nous. His freezing out of salient players. His friends in the media did their best to keep him employed as they continued to state his high win ratio, whilst ignoring the fact he had one of the worst loss ratio's in our history. At the Ledley King Testimonial when his name was read out ten minutes before kick off as one of the 'Legends Team' there were jeers and boos echoing around the stadium. The boos were so loud I could hear them over the sound of my guzzling of overpriced beer. Five minutes later they read the names out again, this time his name was not mentioned. The writing was on the wall.

In the strange, hushed atmosphere of the Lane this pre-season we have been able to go about our business with no pressure from the media; apart from the obsession that Pochettino can now speak English. Sort of.

Pochettino has an understated approach to the team, he has slowly transformed us. Anyone who saw us against Schalke couldn't help but say how we progressed into a more fluid attacking unit. Our pressing in the first five minutes or so of the game was excellent, other than a clumsy lunging challenge in that opening five minutes by a Schalke defender they didn't get near to the ball. But the devil is in the details. Five minutes of excellent pressing play before half the team seemed to drop off on the pressure. This is understandable as it's a brand new system. We went from rigid high line square passing with the slowest of build ups under AVB to hit and hope, over the park Redknapp-lite football under Sherwood. To go through those two extremes and then end up with Pochettino must confuse the players so much they don't know if they're going to buy those £10,000 football boots or a stuffed Jack Russell covered in diamantes and gold leaf.

The West Ham game highlighted Pochettino's talents, bringing on subs that made an impact, changing the shape here and there and responding to a very harsh red card for Naughton. Dier was inspiring and looked great on the right(though I'm sure Harry Redknapp will come out and say he saw Dier as a foetus playing a blinder and 'I told Levy, get him, get him, top top triffic player').

After the forgettable first half of AEL Limassol game, there followed the come back in the second half, largely inspired by bringing on Lamela who set up two has shown how Mauricio has galvanised the team. Who knows what could happen against QPR? Harry's return to the Lane will be something he will play on and already seems to have been bemoaning his treatment at the club. Meanwhile we will be facing QPR with a team that has Soldado with more confidence, Lamela feeling like he can do the business and a surprisingly reinvigorated Danny Rose. A sentence I'd have never thought I'd see.

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