I guess I should say in mitigation for Poch the spine was absent; Toby, Dembele and H - that is going to mess you up at the best of times. Though, tbh, I don't even know what shape the team played at any given point - the fact of so many passes going wrong suggests the players didn't either.

Well done Leverhausen though; packing the midfield worked on this occasion.

Football's a funny old game. We beat City and then proceed to go steadily backwards on all fronts.

On last nights performance you just can't see where our goals are going to come from. If we can't even beat a mid table German team, we are not going to get very far when/if we meet the bigger clubs. Also, the Wembley pitch appears to be more of an advantage to the opposition, as it is proving too big for us to make our usual pressing game effective.

I'm not looking forward now to the Arses derby. On present form we could be totally humiliated. Too much expectation is being placed on Kane's return. He is going to need a few games at the minimum to get up to match fitness and even then there is no guarantee he will start to find the net.

At the moment I doubt our midfield could even spell the word 'creativity' let alone understand what it is!

Kane certainly wasn't firing in the goals before his injury and now he's been elevated to almost messiah-like 'saviour' level which is going to heap a ton of unneeded pressure on to him because he'll be expected to "save" us.

I suspect similar will be said about Toby as well, but if you look at the situation with the defence objectively, since Toby's injury and Dier stepping in, we've conceded 3 goals in 5 games.

If you look at the 5 games before Toby's injury, we also conceded 3 goals in 5 games.

So you could quite legitimately say that Dier stepping in to cover at the back hasn't really made any difference but then, as usual, one poor performance and he's the worst player to ever lace up a pair of boots and we need Toby back NOW!.

The one thing I will give Poch credit for is that he didn't make any excuses. He acknowledged we were poor and even said it was "embarrassing" - which it was. At least it wasn't the usual "i'm pleased with the performance but ..." speech.

I'm honestly a bit ambivalent about sunday's game at the moment. If they win, they'll snigger and gloat and if we win, we'll probably do the same - it is what it is and nothing is likely to change.

That said, if we do win on sunday then that in itself could be a turning point because it could be a massive dose of confidence for the team going forward. Jermaine Jenas said last night that the whole team looked like they were lacking confidence and were playing like eleven individuals and he wasn't wrong.

I'd just like to say that I have absolutely no idea what has gone wrong with most of the players that performed so well last season and the team as a whole.

... but I don't like it.

Thinking about it a bit further, I realise that I am reasonably happy with the first choice back 4 and defensive midfielders but when I think about the 8 attacking players i.e. Sissoko, Lamela, Erikksen, Alli, Son, NK, Kane and Jansen, there are only two that I would be bothered if they were sold.

If I were Levy I would not currently sanction spending more than about £10 million on any overseas player at all or any English player that had not already proved their ability to play to an acceptable level in the PL.

The excuses are many and predictable. At the end of the day the buck stops with Poch. He is neither talented enough or experienced enough to know what to do to turn this around. The players arent playing for him - when you lose the players where do you go? Sunday could be a massacre. Of course form sometimes goes out the window in these games but can anyone really see it? Time to say our Hail Mary's. Maybe we need Sunday to happen to pluck those stubborn remaining heads out of the sand.

Here we go again .. nought to nuclear in one gigantic leap. There's no middle ground with you, it's straight from "great win" to "we're f***ed, sack the manager" and telling everyone they've got their head in the sand without a sideways glance.

There's a good reason why this thread generally falls quiet after a lot of matches nowadays .. think about it.

Why is it quiet ? Because more often then not we have been total garbage and instead of facing up to it, some people avoid the thread rather then face the reality of what they are seeing. Further proving my point of burying their head in the sand. As far as I can see Im the only person who has said this has been coming for some time. You have championed Poch so much that your too embarrassed to admit that maybe, just maybe........he just isnt good enough. Think about it.

Because many people probably get tired of being judged on how much of a fan they may or may not be based on how angry you clearly want them to be.

I guess its no different to you judging me as a bad fan because I dared to critcize Poch.

Poch (22nd Oct) - "if you don't score it's difficult to win."

Poch (2nd Nov) - "if you don't score it's difficult to win."

I've never said that. I have said that you often come across as barely being able to disguise your contempt for this team you claim to support though because that's what you think being a "real" fan is.

But i'm done with it now. It's boring. Rant and scream all you want and throw around all the accusations you can muster, but I'll just carry on doing what i'm doing.

Tottenham have needed a decent striker for 18 months. Kane not being injured last season was fortunate for the side but not so lucky this season. Sissoko was a crazy buy and Janssen doesn't at this stage look good enough

No ones ranting, no ones screaming, but go ahead and scurry away back to that sandpit of yours. If you think
that makes you a "real" fan then carry on doing what your doing to your hearts content.

You obviously don't think he is good enough so a question for you if I may...

Who could we possibly get (realistically and who would be available) to succeed him at this very moment who will take us to the next level?

I for one was extremely disappointed with last night's performance and frustrated with some of the draws we've had but to think we need a change in manager is utterly ridiculous.

I have a slightly different view in that I think Pochettino has actually done quite well with the players he inherited. For the most part he has improved their technical skills and made them into better players but I still don't understand why he hasn't worked on the fullbacks ability to cross, why he hasn't taught Lamela how to tackle or use his right foot, or Eriksen how to take a decent corner, or freekick.

He also hasn't been able to improve their mental ability and by that I mean their ability to think ahead, to make decisions based on their reading of the game, to anticipate opposition players movement and react to it instantly. This can be done in the classroom or during practice games in training, it's all pretty basic stuff but the evidence seems to suggest little attention is paid to improving the players mental abilities. Wasn't it Danny Blanchflower who originally said football is played with the head more than the feet?

So, I agree with Sparky's question, who would we replace Pochettino with that could improve this crop of players to the level we need to compete for honours?

To be honest Knarf, my question was more of a rhetorical one.

It was aimed at Pete to see if he could put a sensible reply together of who he thinks should replace Poch as he obviously doesn't want him as our manager and thinks somebody else could do better!?

I honestly don't think changing the manager will solve anything.
IMO the problem is the chairman.
If Levy doesn't spend sufficient money on a back up striker ( Jansen was another cut price bargain we found) but you get what you paid for.
I have always stuck to my belief that we will never win anything worthwhile until he and ENIC sell up to someone interested in the club and not profits

I think we are all sort of in agreement about the need to pay the going rate for a decent striker but I doubt it will happen whilst Levy holds the purse strings. Seems strange in retrospect that we paid £30m for Sissoko a midfielder who has gone back to his ineffective Newcastle form, yet quibbled paying anything over £15m for a striker. Last season we were extremely lucky to get away with just Kane up front but this term has shown that you really need 3 strikers in the squad to compete and have adequate cover.

Did Levy get what he paid for when somebody decided that Lamela and Sissoko were worth £30+ million each?

The biggest problem I can see is that our scouting of players is so poor. In fact one might be inclined to think that the less we pay for a player, the more chance we have that they will be a "hit".

Why did we lose our chief scout?
Because he couldn't get on with Levy as he is such a controlling little freak!

Might be an idea to try and calm down; nothing has fundamentally changed - this is the team that finished 3rd last season; we have very significant injuries, we are integrating four new players, we are trying to do something new (play in the CL while qualifying for the CL), and we're doing some of this at Wembley.

But again, nothing fundamentally has changed, we just have a set of new challenges to work through.

These are, of course, the highest level challenges the club has faced for 50 years.

I admire your positivity! Injuries happen and the team just has to get on with it but I find it hard to accept continued below par performances from some individual players. Every player has an off day now and then but in the CL game we had four players in particular who seemed to have left their footballing heads back in the changing rooms.

Is that the reason or does it just fit the narrative?

The fact is that for some time our "hit" rate of successful transfers has been about as good as our shots to goals ratio and arguably in somewhat inverse proportion to the amount of money spent.