Why Poch's hardline on commitment is sending the right message | Vital Football

Why Poch's hardline on commitment is sending the right message

Matic

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With one game left of the 2017/18 season, the silly season is fast approaching and for most of us it's a trying time. Our club may be known for striking up some excellent deals and snapping up top young talent for pennies, but we are also known for being penny-wise/pound-foolish and not acting quickly enough. This summer the bigger questions are going to be about our possible out-goings; Mr Rose and Mr Alderweireld.

Fans have been very critical of Poch and Levy's treatment of Toby and Danny this season, demanding we pay them what they want to stay and have demanded that they get given more game time at various stages of the season. And they are right to a point. Our wage structure is feeling more and more counter-productive as years go by given how much we would have to pay to replace talents of Danny and Toby's calibre with similar quality. And at times we have missed the quality of both of them when they both appeared to be fit and ready.

However, I am totally in support of Poch's actions. What we have are two players who have made it perfectly clear that they are willing to leave to get what they want and Poch sees this as lacking in commitment. In the same way he benched Walker towards the end of the season, Poch is sending a very powerful message - if you're not 100% with this team, you do not play. I'd argue it's sending a bigger message to all future signings of 'we are not a stepping stone club anymore and you will not be bigger than the club.' Changing the mentality surrounding the club has been Poch's biggest challenge to date and even though there are still big issues to be addressed, since his arrival Poch has made massive leaps forward in shaking off a lot of our past mental frailties.

Even though we are looking at short-term losses, I feel strongly that we will seen long term gains from these actions. We can all hope Levy changes our wage structure to be more in line with the clubs we are competing with, but for now, I see Poch's actions as the right ones.
 
Our wage structure if the 5/6th best in the Premier League in terms of overall wage bill which is funnily enough where we sit in regards to turn over....

Our bonus pool is one of the best.

Rose made himself look a dick; less than 6 months after signing a new deal with a big uplift which he then told the World and their dog he was delighted with - he came out and made himself look an absolute fool; of course he did so after being tapped up....

As for Toby, his agent has three top clubs interested in him, but 'apparently' all have now cooled their interest and not yet agreed personal terms (something you'd expect by now) because of the extent of his injury.

Poch really isn't sending anything to anybody other than wanting to maximize the funds he wants to get to bolster his spending power by not highlighting the extent to which their injuries may have impacted on their longer term abilities - we have a history of selling players after major injuries and none of them have come back to haunt us.

Football is a business, even if it is a sport we love, and there are times when at the business end of the season, cold hard logical business decisons have to be made.
 
Totally agree about Rose. He's made his own bed and it's clear now that we want him gone more than his want to be gone. As for Toby, it's less clear what is going on.

We will see this summer how true the injury issues are. If Danny and Toby get taken to the WC and both play big roles Poch will not escape the questioning over the fitness issue. Plus, injury concerns this big do not go unnoticed by clubs in transfer medicals nowadays so I'm not totally sure I buy in to the whole idea that we're wanting to offload them because of those concerns.

You are right though Ex - football is a business, but don't rule out Poch's understanding of the importance in changing how people think about our club. We've seen him shun players quite openly when they haven't got behind his philsophy (Adebayor and Kaboul) and we've seen him bench an important first teamer just because they announce they are no longer wanting to stay (Walker). Changing the way outsiders view the club is not only important for footballing reasons, it is also very important for marketing reasons.
 
I agree with what you say Matic, making examples of players like Walker, Rose and Toby proves a point to potential new signings. But are they intelligent enough to see what Poch has done?

I think we will always get the rogue player. Just the way it is. This should calm down a bit when we start paying the monies.
 
I would feel better about Poch's stance if he hadn't undone the work he'd done introducing a Plan B 3-4-3 system in the last 18 months. That has been a major consequence of the Toby and Rose absences with Wanyama's injuries also a factor. We used to be able to seamlessly interchange between our favoured 4-2-3-1 and the 3-4-3 system with wing-backs. He allowed opposition managers like Allegri and Mourinho to target our weak full-backs as he never changed formation and tactics. We have become predictable and need to think about that as we target replacements for the outgoing contract rebels.