Team playing well under Pochettino: MYTH

Heard this alot since the QPR nightmare - few selected quotes below since Saturday........

We have been superb since Pochettino arrived - QPR was a one off

One bad game since he took over get over it

we were brilliant vs Man United, world class vs Man city, excellent vs Wigan and unplayable vs Everton

Got me thinking have we really been "brilliant" "excellent" World class" "Technical genuis" ect ect

1) Everton game we looked good for first 60 minutes

2) United away - shocking in 1st half, good 2nd

3) Wigan same as Man united very poor in 1st 45 good for 2nd half

4) Man City good for 90

5) Newcastle again good for 40 (1st 20 minutes of each half) poor for 50

6) QPR very poor for 90 minutes

So imho we have played well for 280 minutes under Tino and been poor for 260. or 50/50

So we have been good for the 90 minutes only once, we have won one game in 6 and we are now in a real relegation battle.

The myth that we have been "superb" since Tino arrived is now dead.

(vs) QPR very poor for 90 minutes

Disagree

QPR was down to the fact we fail to break down teams who come to defend, we are much better suited playing against sides who actually play football against us. I dont like QPRs style of football on Saturday but it worked, physical & lumping it forward for Remy to run on to.

It's probarbly been said however "The manager should never have been changed" ahhh good to get that off my chest ......

I might debate the number of minutes we were good / bad, but otherwise I agree.

v Man City we were excellent, but lets not kid ourselves, they were very flat that evening. Against Wigan we defended like muppets (much like v QPR) despite playing well for half the game. Against Newcastle we were flat for a chunk of the game and defended poorly. Notable that two very experienced managers have worked out how to play against our new tactics recently

Conclusion: plenty to do still, especially at the back

QPR was down to the fact we fail to break down teams who come to defend, we are much better suited playing against sides who actually play football against us. I dont like QPRs style of football on Saturday but it worked, physical & lumping it forward for Remy to run on to.

Newcastle played football agaisnt us - the differnce in that game was imagination. We have very little in the final 3rd

Pochettino obviosly needs more time to get the team to play the way he wants. To bad we don't have much time... :-(

Newcastle played football agaisnt us - the differnce in that game was imagination. We have very little in the final 3rd

If we played quicker ball instead of Ramirez & Puncheon holding onto it for too long I think we would be a lot better in the final 3rd. Saturday was frustrating especially Ramirez

Totally agree with the lack of imagination in Newcastle game, also no plan B either

undoubtabally our best result under Mopo was home against City..

On the day Mancini decided to play a midfielder in central defence instead of Kompany

On the day Gareth Barry scored the most outragious own goal and Englands best keeper makes a right ricket and drops the ball at S. Davis feet.

Yes we played well, they let us, in fact they encouraged us..

we got very lucky that day

undoubtabally our best result under Mopo was home against City..

On the day Mancini decided to play a midfielder in central defence instead of Kompany

On the day Gareth Barry scored the most outragious own goal and Englands best keeper makes a right ricket and drops the ball at S. Davis feet.

Yes we played well, they let us, in fact they encouraged us..

we got very lucky that day

Swings & roundabouts ...... foul, offside, lucky deflection, unlucky pen, own goal all vs Newcastle

He was brought in as an expert, (defense) a supposed improvement on Nigel. What time does he need when we were playing well and had a near settled team. plus a new center back and now players returned from injury (that Nigel didn't have_. He's getting worse not improving.

Disagree that we were very poor for 90 mins v QPR. We dominated every aspect of the game (apart from goals scored) - possession, shots, territory, but we couldn't find a way past their very deep defence and two holding midfielders. The Sunderland game was pretty similar, also the Wigan game. Losing Lallana before half time didn't help with the lack of ideas in the second half in addition to Puncheon having a poorer game.

I can understand people having a go at the team / MP for the QPR game but the bigger question for me is whether MP has delivered an upgrade on NA. Six games is probably too few to judge him on, just as judging NA on the first six games of the season was wrong given the opposition in those games. Give it another 4 games and consider whether Mp has improved what we previously had with NA. I think that there are very promising signs, exemplified by the good spells in the games listed in the OP (IMO approx 60% of the time played), but more needs to be done to improve the consistency of performance.

QPR's second goal was similar to Sunderland's winner, ball down from the right, tapped in. I fail to see the improvement in our game to be honest. Yoshida who looked as if he was making great strides under Adkins looked awful on Saturday.

The first goal was an absolute farce, you knew from the minute Remy got the ball that it was going in.

If we played quicker ball instead of Ramirez & Puncheon holding onto it for too long I think we would be a lot better in the final 3rd. Saturday was frustrating especially Ramirez

 

Totally agree with the lack of imagination in Newcastle game, also no plan B either

Totally disagree, think Ramirez was the only forward who actually moved the ball about quickly on Saturday, he either did quick one touch passes or ran at people and played one-twos. He was also making loads of off-the ball runs that the other weren;t doing. Lambert couldn't control the ball, Puncheon just came inside and didn't offer a pass to Clyne.

Against teams sitting deep we have struggled, Ramirez and Lallana are our best hopes in this situation with quick passes or using Lambert's aerial threat, but Samba nulified him.

We played ok against QPR, it wasn't a bad performance but sloppy defending gifted them two goals that they shoudln't have had. Let's be honest QPR barely left their half, I doubt Samba moved more than about 20 yards in any direction.

Boruc barely had to make a save apart from the two goals. The same errors happened against Wigan and Newcastle. (and even for Man City's goal).

Hopefully with Fonte now back fit and Shaw will be starting regulalry again the defensive errors will be less.

Just like the start of the season those are what are costing us games. Performances have been average (QPR) to very good (Man City) under MP, but we have started gifting goals again.

The first goal was an absolute farce, you knew from the minute Remy got the ball that it was going in.

A farce .. really !!?? A long ball over the top, which their pacey ran on to & scored. Remy was clean through ... it was fairly obvious he was going to score !

I can understand people having a go at the team / MP for the QPR game but the bigger question for me is whether MP has delivered an upgrade on NA. Six games is probably too few to judge him on, just as judging NA on the first six games of the season was wrong given the opposition in those games. Give it another 4 games and consider whether Mp has improved what we previously had with NA. I think that there are very promising signs, exemplified by the good spells in the games listed in the OP (IMO approx 60% of the time played), but more needs to be done to improve the consistency of performance.

Fair enough but you have hit the nail on the head of the problem. We have given him 6 games and now need to give him 4 more. 10 games of waiting to see if he delivers, in January, when we are in the bottom 6

Although I was never totally convinced by Adkins, I can't see what is better since he went. One new player, purchased pre-Pochettino, and not played. Same mix of the squad. Maybe a different use of Subs but hard to see if anything much has been achieved by the change and apart from Man City the results could even be getting worse. Once again the need to use a transfer window to bring in enough players who are better than what we have, has been missed. Relegation still a possibility.

dunno bout playing well but it was only newcastle game where we was really second best.

Not sure it's fair to expect us to completely dominate a team for 90 mins even when playing well!

Shame i don't have enough money to buy the club and re install Nigel ....

dunno bout playing well but it was only newcastle game where we was really second best.

 

Not sure it's fair to expect us to completely dominate a team for 90 mins even when playing well!

I am a responable guy and some say too generous. I dont expect dominance for 90 minutes and have judged our performances fairly above (50/50 so far Good/bad)

This is just a response to the SWF "experts" who claim that we have been "superb" since Pinocchio arrived.

Fair enough but you have hit the nail on the head of the problem. We have given him 6 games and now need to give him 4 more. 10 games of waiting to see if he delivers, in January, when we are in the bottom 6

Only if you believe we were playing brilliantly under NA. I don't think we were. What I saw on Saturday reminded me of several games both this season and last where our players do not seem to turn up. We were dreadful on Saturday, no creative ideas, no movement off the ball, poor passing, even an inability to control the ball. But i saw the same when NA as in charge, I don't know why this happens, its almost as if we are meant to lose some games to satisfy some betting ring somewhere (I jest, I don't really think this, but you do wonder sometimes why players don't perform). Perhaps players think they are going to get an easy game, but it is up to managers to spot this and do something, and I don't feel MP is any different to NA in this regard. Comments about Yoshi are interesting, yes he did have a poor game Saturday, but then take a look and see what changed, (1) he moved back to the left of centre because Fonte came in and (2) then has to cover again for Fox and his woeful positioning. Will be interesting to see how we perform against Norwich, this is the first time MP will have had to pick up the team from a woeful performance and will give us some indication of whether he has the skills and ability to pick it up. I just hope next time I'm at SMS I don't see our team play such crap again. I will criticise MP for his subs though, bringing on JWP and not Davis was baffling, and I was somewhat bemused that Guly did not replace Lallana, but I would concede that Guly was probably not fully fit, and that JRod did actually play quite well. But then NA was not exactly masterful with his subs either.

A farce .. really !!?? A long ball over the top, which their pacey ran on to & scored. Remy was clean through ... it was fairly obvious he was going to score !

Yes, the farcical nature being that it was obvious to us all yet our management and our team let it happen.

What was even more obvious was that Lambert was never going to score when Samba had him in his pocket, yet we still tried going through him at every opportunity,

We haven't been "superb" under MP, but I'm not sure anybody seriously believes that anyway. However 2 things I am sure of - he is here to the end of the season, and the squad of players isn't going to change, so beating ourselves up over things we have no influence over isn't going to help our collective sanity over the remaining games.

Only if you believe we were playing brilliantly under NA. I don't think we were. What I saw on Saturday reminded me of several games both this season and last where our players do not seem to turn up. We were dreadful on Saturday, no creative ideas, no movement off the ball, poor passing, even an inability to control the ball. But i saw the same when NA as in charge, I don't know why this happens, its almost as if we are meant to lose some games to satisfy some betting ring somewhere (I jest, I don't really think this, but you do wonder sometimes why players don't perform). Perhaps players think they are going to get an easy game, but it is up to managers to spot this and do something, and I don't feel MP is any different to NA in this regard. Comments about Yoshi are interesting, yes he did have a poor game Saturday, but then take a look and see what changed, (1) he moved back to the left of centre because Fonte came in and (2) then has to cover again for Fox and his woeful positioning. Will be interesting to see how we perform against Norwich, this is the first time MP will have had to pick up the team from a woeful performance and will give us some indication of whether he has the skills and ability to pick it up. I just hope next time I'm at SMS I don't see our team play such crap again. I will criticise MP for his subs though, bringing on JWP and not Davis was baffling, and I was somewhat bemused that Guly did not replace Lallana, but I would concede that Guly was probably not fully fit, and that JRod did actually play quite well. But then NA was not exactly masterful with his subs either.

You dont have to have thought we were playing brilliantly under NA. But the facts were that we were improving. Changing in Januaury for a new guy because we are certain he would be better is one thing, but then having to wait 10 games to judge if that was correct is risky beyond belief. Saturday reminded me of the worst games under NA at the early part of the season before we started to improve. We look like we are going through another learning curve now. Hold on to your hat

I am a responable guy and some say too generous. I dont expect dominance for 90 minutes and have judged our performances fairly above (50/50 so far Good/bad)

 

This is just a response to the SWF "experts" who claim that we have been "superb" since Pinocchio arrived.

it's the bits with us being v.poor that I'm worried bout Glasgow, i dunno that I've seen us being v.poor. Like Wigan first half was kind of an even game and I don't reckon that makes us v.poor. If Wigan was completely dominating us that would be v.poor!

Can't you do another category where we is v.average?

It was poor defending, Fox totally lost Remy who just spinted past him onto the throughball, no centre half made a challenge to win the ball in the air and Remy was left with a free shot at goal. You could argue it was good movement from Remy but it was very similar to Cisses goal in that we were undone again by a long ball forward in between the Centre Half and left back with no one taking ownership of the situation.

it's the bits with us being v.poor that I'm worried bout Glasgow, i dunno that I've seen us being v.poor. Like Wigan first half was kind of an even game and I don't reckon that makes us v.poor. If Wigan was completely dominating us that would be v.poor!

 

Can't you do another category where we is v.average?

I'm with you all the way on this. People seem to be assuming that any time we aren't dominating a match = us being poor. If we're talking percentages I'd say it's been more like 50% we've been the better team, 30% has been even, and 20% we've been under the cosh.

No we have not played better under MP, we have played MUCH better.

For the fun of it I have checked some stats on total shots and shots on goal in our last 15 games.

It´s easy to see that under MP we have dominated those stats in every game but the Newcastle one, and even in that one whick most people think was a poor game we had more shots on goal than them.

Now we have a team and manager with a bright future cause why do you think teams like Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea are in the top of the table every year?

Yes, cause they are dominating games and producing more chances than other teams.

No, we are not there yet because we lack that final bit of quality but to score goals you have to produce chances and that is what we have been doing the last games much more the last 6 games than earlier this season.

Saints-QPR 17–5 (9-3) total shots (shots on goal)

Newcastle-Saints 11–11 (5-7)

Saints- Man C 13-7 (7-4)

Wigan-Saints 5-15 (3-7)

Man U-Saints 11-21 (7-10)

Saints-Everton 14-10 (11-7)

Chelsea-Saints 19-7 (10-3)

Aston V-Saints 16-11 (10-4)

Saints-Chelsea 7-15 (5-12)

Saints-Arsenal 9-6 (6-4)

Stoke-Saints 10-8 (8-7)

Fulham-Saints 10-7 (2-3)

Saints-Sunderland 13-10 (7-6)

Saints-Reading 18-6 (9-2)

Liverpool-Saints 24-8 (11-4)

Stats are from BBC.

It was poor defending, Fox totally lost Remy who just spinted past him onto the throughball, no centre half made a challenge to win the ball in the air and Remy was left with a free shot at goal.

I agree, the Remy goal was completely avoidable even once he was on the wrong side. Fox could have pushed close to him as by the time the ball came down he had caught up with him. It would have at least put him off a bit. Instead Remy probably couldn't believe it when no challenge came in and he had all the time in the world to control and fire in.

It was poor defending, Fox totally lost Remy who just spinted past him onto the throughball, no centre half made a challenge to win the ball in the air and Remy was left with a free shot at goal. You could argue it was good movement from Remy but it was very similar to Cisses goal in that we were undone again by a long ball forward in between the Centre Half and left back with no one taking ownership of the situation.

It is very strange that opponents goals are usually caused by bad defending never by good play

I suppose people like you never expect to a see a goal

No we have not played better under MP, we have played MUCH better.

For the fun of it I have checked some stats on total shots and shots on goal in our last 15 games.

 

It´s easy to see that under MP we have dominated those stats in every game but the Newcastle one, and even in that one whick most people think was a poor game we had more shots on goal than them.

 

Now we have a team and manager with a bright future cause why do you think teams like Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea are in the top of the table every year?

Yes, cause they are dominating games and producing more chances than other teams.

 

No, we are not there yet because we lack that final bit of quality but to score goals you have to produce chances and that is what we have been doing the last games much more the last 6 games than earlier this season.

 

Saints-QPR 17–5 (9-3) total shots (shots on goal)

Newcastle-Saints 11–11 (5-7)

Saints- Man C 13-7 (7-4)

Wigan-Saints 5-15 (3-7)

Man U-Saints 11-21 (7-10)

Saints-Everton 14-10 (11-7)

 

Chelsea-Saints 19-7 (10-3)

Aston V-Saints 16-11 (10-4)

Saints-Chelsea 7-15 (5-12)

Saints-Arsenal 9-6 (6-4)

Stoke-Saints 10-8 (8-7)

Fulham-Saints 10-7 (2-3)

Saints-Sunderland 13-10 (7-6)

Saints-Reading 18-6 (9-2)

Liverpool-Saints 24-8 (11-4)

 

Stats are from BBC.

What a load of rubbish football is about results at the moment our results under MP are poor

It is very strange that opponents goals are usually caused by bad defending never by good play

 

 

I suppose people like you never expect to a see a goal

Do you think it a long ball forward which no one challenges and the full back losing his man are the result of great, inventive attacking play or poor defending?

Cisses goal against us was a cracking strike but it was almost identical to the goal saturday in terms of build up play and defensive sloppiness, a long ball forward which no one attacked, the striker losing the defender easily and it ends up in the back of our net.

What a load of rubbish football is about results at the moment our results under MP are poor

Quite, you can quote all the stats you want, the onlly ones that matter are the points you get from the games you play.

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the games. It depends how you want to see things.

1) Everton - outstanding for first 60 minutes. Ran out of steam and Everton deserved their point.

2) United away - lucky to get away with just two goals in 1st half, dominated the 2nd without creating enough. Slightly unlucky not to force the draw

3) Wigan - the better side in the first half, tough to be behind. Tremendous performance in the second and should have won

4) Man City - outstanding performance, worthy winners, hung on well at the end

5) Newcastle - played very well in patches, but equally poor in others. Scoreline flattered the Geordies

6) QPR - by and large we were the better side, but ran out of ideas very quickly and made poor mistakes in defence.

I'm not sure the team is playing much better or worse than under Adkins. The pressing style helped us dominate Everton and that was certainly hugely impressive. As was the domination of ManUnited (A) in the second half, but was that any more so than at Chelsea under NA?

It's fair to say that we played a hell of a lot better against Wigan than we did against Villa, but was our performance against ManUnited under Akdins at home any worse than the Man City home game? Different result, but performance wise?

Quite, you can quote all the stats you want, the onlly ones that matter are the points you get from the games you play.

But now you are talking against the sentiment of the thread.....

If you want to talk about results, start a thread and talk about that.

This thread was not about that....

But now you are talking against the sentiment of the thread.....

If you want to talk about results, start a thread and talk about that.

This thread was not about that....

At least read who started the thread FFS.

I also disagree with your asssessments of the games and think Chez is more or less spot on with what he says.

At least read who started the thread FFS.

 

 

I also disagree with your asssessments of the games and think Chez is more or less spot on with what he says.

My bad.

I am not saying we have been brilliant though, but we have been way better than most of the time under Adkins (this year).

And the game against QPR wasn´t awful. Not great, not awful. Just mistakes that cost us.

At least read who started the thread FFS.

 

 

I also disagree with your asssessments of the games and think Chez is more or less spot on with what he says.

And by the way.

My "assessments" were true facts, how can one disagree to that?

My bad.

 

 

I am not saying we have been brilliant though, but we have been way better than most of the time under Adkins (this year).

And the game against QPR wasn´t awful. Not great, not awful. Just mistakes that cost us.

Yet results are worse. Which would you prefer, going down having averaged 20 shots at a game or staying up averaging 6?

No we have not played better under MP, we have played MUCH better.

For the fun of it I have checked some stats on total shots and shots on goal in our last 15 games.

 

It´s easy to see that under MP we have dominated those stats in every game but the Newcastle one, and even in that one whick most people think was a poor game we had more shots on goal than them.

 

Now we have a team and manager with a bright future cause why do you think teams like Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea are in the top of the table every year?

Yes, cause they are dominating games and producing more chances than other teams.

 

No, we are not there yet because we lack that final bit of quality but to score goals you have to produce chances and that is what we have been doing the last games much more the last 6 games than earlier this season.

 

Saints-QPR 17–5 (9-3) total shots (shots on goal)

Newcastle-Saints 11–11 (5-7)

Saints- Man C 13-7 (7-4)

Wigan-Saints 5-15 (3-7)

Man U-Saints 11-21 (7-10)

Saints-Everton 14-10 (11-7)

 

Chelsea-Saints 19-7 (10-3)

Aston V-Saints 16-11 (10-4)

Saints-Chelsea 7-15 (5-12)

Saints-Arsenal 9-6 (6-4)

Stoke-Saints 10-8 (8-7)

Fulham-Saints 10-7 (2-3)

Saints-Sunderland 13-10 (7-6)

Saints-Reading 18-6 (9-2)

Liverpool-Saints 24-8 (11-4)

 

Stats are from BBC.

Nice argument and thanks for the effort, puts forward a different perspective clearly. Interesting to note that we are creating more chances noticeably more than earlier. However, have we traded this for a Vulnerability to fast counters that seems to be working without fail by the teams that are using it. (Frankly, in the qpr game, they were the team that looked dangerous to me, when they attacked I was scared. When we attacked it was nearly always half chances. We just attacked more, and lost because of it. It is an issue, because it is not likely that we will beat the top teams. And we are running out of time with no way to improve.

I think we will stay up, but with Chelsea and Liverpool coming up, we could find ourselves in deep doo doo in 2 weeks time.

I also think, that without doubt, Nigel would have kept us up. I just hope that MP will as well.

And by the way.

 

My "assessments" were true facts, how can one disagree to that?

stats dont give the whole story. Apparently we had 21 shots at goal on saturday, yet i dont recall us troubling the keeper on more than 4 or 5 occasions.

Yet results are worse. Which would you prefer, going down having averaged 20 shots at a game or staying up averaging 6?

Well, if we average 6 shots per game, we would most definitaly go down. No teams win enough games doing that and that´s why I strongly believe QPR are doomed.

Well, if we average 6 shots per game, we would most definitaly go down. No teams win enough games doing that and that´s why I strongly believe QPR are doomed.

Which would you rather though?

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the games. It depends how you want to see things.

 

1) Everton - outstanding for first 60 minutes. Ran out of steam and Everton deserved their point.

2) United away - lucky to get away with just two goals in 1st half, dominated the 2nd without creating enough. Slightly unlucky not to force the draw

3) Wigan - the better side in the first half, tough to be behind. Tremendous performance in the second and should have won

4) Man City - outstanding performance, worthy winners, hung on well at the end

5) Newcastle - played very well in patches, but equally poor in others. Scoreline flattered the Geordies

6) QPR - by and large we were the better side, but ran out of ideas very quickly and made poor mistakes in defence.

 

I'm not sure the team is playing much better or worse than under Adkins. The pressing style helped us dominate Everton and that was certainly hugely impressive. As was the domination of ManUnited (A) in the second half, but was that any more so than at Chelsea under NA?

 

It's fair to say that we played a hell of a lot better against Wigan than we did against Villa, but was our performance against ManUnited under Akdins at home any worse than the Man City home game? Different result, but performance wise?

Agree with this.

Plus, it doesn't take a genius tactician to play long diagonals against us. It's not the long ball tactics that have done us but the failure to defend them adequately. I think this is what Poche was saying cryptically after Saturday when he referred to players being in the right places but failing to prevent the goals.

No we have not played better under MP, we have played MUCH better.

For the fun of it I have checked some stats on total shots and shots on goal in our last 15 games.

 

It´s easy to see that under MP we have dominated those stats in every game but the Newcastle one, and even in that one whick most people think was a poor game we had more shots on goal than them.

 

Now we have a team and manager with a bright future cause why do you think teams like Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea are in the top of the table every year?

Yes, cause they are dominating games and producing more chances than other teams.

 

No, we are not there yet because we lack that final bit of quality but to score goals you have to produce chances and that is what we have been doing the last games much more the last 6 games than earlier this season.

 

Saints-QPR 17–5 (9-3) total shots (shots on goal)

Newcastle-Saints 11–11 (5-7)

Saints- Man C 13-7 (7-4)

Wigan-Saints 5-15 (3-7)

Man U-Saints 11-21 (7-10)

Saints-Everton 14-10 (11-7)

 

Chelsea-Saints 19-7 (10-3)

Aston V-Saints 16-11 (10-4)

Saints-Chelsea 7-15 (5-12)

Saints-Arsenal 9-6 (6-4)

Stoke-Saints 10-8 (8-7)

Fulham-Saints 10-7 (2-3)

Saints-Sunderland 13-10 (7-6)

Saints-Reading 18-6 (9-2)

Liverpool-Saints 24-8 (11-4)

 

Stats are from BBC.

Totally understand why you have posted these & thanks, the only stat that ever matters is the full time score.

Which would you rather though?

Completely irrelevant since you cant make that kind of choice out here in the real life.

Which team will be most successful in the long run, the teams that produce a lot of chances or the team that don´t?

Would you think that we had won more or fewer games if we had produced this amount of chances over the whole season?

I´m confident we are staying up this season, and much more so since 18th of january than before that date. And that´s not due to which manager we have but because we´re playing much better football now, even though the results hasn´t gone our way.

Completely irrelevant since you cant make that kind of choice out here in the real life.

 

Which team will be most successful in the long run, the teams that produce a lot of chances or the team that don´t?

Would you think that we had won more or fewer games if we had produced this amount of chances over the whole season?

 

I´m confident we are staying up this season, and much more so since 18th of january than before that date. And that´s not due to which manager we have but because we´re playing much better football now, even though the results hasn´t gone our way.

Its not irrelevant at all. Reading went up above us last season playing counter attacking football and having a lower shots per game ratio than us, fair to say they were a better team than us based on their league position isn't it. You claim we are playing "much better" under Pochettino because we'd had more shots at goal than under Adkins, yet results were better under Adkins. You used stats to prove this, so why is it irrelvant to ask you if you would rather we stayed up having 6 shots at goal a game or went down having 20? Your stats would say that we've been the better team wouldn't they if you chose the 20 option. Answer the question rather than avoiding it.

It´s only relevant if it can be related to real life, your question can´t.

And even if so, I´m not the only one good at avoiding the question/s, am I?

And no, I am not talking about "shots per game ratio". I am looking at every single game as it´s own game. And in every game under MP we have been the more producing team. And I have said it has not given us the results yet, but I believe that in the long run it will, cause it usually does that. Why would you otherwise think the top teams are there year after year if they weren´t producing more than their opponents?

And results weren´t that much better under Adkins. 22 points from 23 games compared to 5 points from 6 games. Not that big a difference, is it?

And results weren´t that much better under Adkins. 22 points from 23 games compared to 5 points from 6 games. Not that big a difference, is it?

Which of the team playing under MP were playing in the Prem for the first time ever? Which of the team under MP were new to the country? Which of them were bedding in with their team mates? Or learning the language?

Which of the team playing under MP were playing in the Prem for the first time ever? Which of the team under MP were new to the country? Which of them were bedding in with their team mates? Or learning the language?

Ok, we can compare last 6 games under Adkins to the first 6 games under MP.

That would put it to 7 points compared to 5.

Not that much difference either in my opinion......and for the record I believe Man U, Man C and Everton are tougher opponents than Chelsea and Arsenal that we had during the last 6 games with Adkins.