Last Updated: 19-12-2019

Since the dust has settled on the sacking of Mauricio Pochettino, and José Mourinho has firmly taken over and improved results, we can properly do a retrospective of Pochettino’s Tottenham, and why it all ended as badly as it did. The original title of this article was ‘Why Are Tottenham Hotspur So Bad?’, and I had planned to release it before Pochettino was ‘relieved of his duties’ by the board. But, since Daniel Levy acted much quicker than I have time to learn javascript and develop websites, this piece is more of a retrospective than a current diagnosis of what was, and still is ailing the squad.

Before we continue, I will preface my analysis with the fact that I am fairly big Tottenham Hotspur fan, and I was firmly in the #PochIn camp before he was fired. That said, I didn’t feel Pochettino was completely faultless, but I would cautiously also attribute some blame to those above Pochettino. While, the structural problems at Tottenham are nowhere near as dilapidated as those at Manchester United or Arsenal, there are still lessons to be learned if we don’t want to see similar breakdowns in the future.

When Pochettino first arrived at Tottenham, he inherited a squad largely littered with unmotivated senior players that needed shifting or revitalising, and an undercurrent of promising young players, hungry to usurp their senior counterparts. In his first year, there was a lot of experimenting, but there was pleasing progression in players such as Harry Kane, Danny Rose and Kyle Walker. By three years into Pochettino’s project, things were looking very pleasing. Gone was the dead wood, the team’s spine was filled with young talented footballers. A drastically different style of football from the dreary Andre Villas Boas and Tim Sherwood days gave the fans a team they could really get behind, and look forward to watching on the weekend. In the league, the team was regularly finishing in the top four, and, uttered in hushed tones, even challenged for the league. In their final season at White Hart Lane, Tottenham Hotspur recorded 17 home wins, giving the old stadium a befitting send off.

The 2017/18 season ended with Spurs finishing in third, comfortably inside the top 4. By the end of the season, the struggles of playing at Wembley at the start of the season were all but forgotten. However, it’s after this season that we begin to see the cracks emerging. The 2017/18 season was quickly followed by the 2018 FIFA World Cup. 11 of Tottenham Hotspur's players would participate in the semi finals, as England, Belgium, Croatia and eventual winners France, would go the furthest, and accumulate minutes on the pitch. When the players returned to the club, many required rests, and with Levy failing to provide Pochettino and his squad with the necessary squad additions, the players were in for a tough season.

The chart below ranks players by the number of minutes played in all competitions between August 2015 and the 21st of November. The chart only displays the top 50, but it’s quite clear a good portion of the top 50 players hail from Tottenham Hotspur. 7 in the top 50, and 5 in the top 25, and additionally Kyle Walker who spent more time at Tottenham than Man City since August 2015. With 6 and Kyle Walker in the top 11, the most minutes chart is weighted towards Tottenham at the top end. Other teams feature regularly, Manchester City, Liverpool and Man United form a good portion of the top 50. This illustrates that within Tottenham, some players were relied on very heavily for club and country.

If we look at the total number of minutes played by club, we see that Tottenham players amassed more minutes than any other club. Counting only the more prevelant featured 11, Tottenham players still rank highly, meaning those minutes are not being distributed evenly amongst the squad.

Looking at the squad minutes variation, which is just the standard deviation across the entire squad, Tottenham come in highly. This suggests a huge gap in the first team accumulating minutes, and the fringe players being used sparingly. Interestingly Liverpool come in very low in minute variation, meaning their small squad are rotated fairly evenly.

Hamstrung with the financing of a new stadium, which consumed more resources as the stadiums protracted opening was delayed, Levy was cautious with releasing more funds to bolster the exhausted squad. The 2018/19 season started well for Tottenham, trailing only to Liverpool and Manchester City by Christmas, and qualifying for the knockout round of the UEFA Champions League. However it’s here we see the fatigue catch up with the squad, injuries started to accumulate, and bad form saw Tottenham fail to register an away league win after the 2-1 victory at Fulham on the 21st of January 2019 (albeit after a serendipitous stoppage time goal by Harry Winks). This poor away record would continue to haunt Pochettino until after his reign, with Mourinho being in charge for the next away victory.

It was clear that the players were physically and mentally exhausted. And while other teams like Liverpool and Man City also had players feature across many games and accumulate many minutes, it was clear their transfer strategies allowed them to revitalise the squad keep pace along the season. Eventually battling it out in one of the most exciting title challenges in premier league history.

It's also remembering how Liverpool were in a similar position around the same time as Tottenham after Pochettino came on board. They too fired Brendan Rogers and hired Jürgen Klopp around a year after Tottenham. However their fortunes have not reflected each other. While Tottenham found their peak under Pochettino much quicker, Liverpool have slowly turned into an extremely strong squad capable of amassing 98 points in a single premier league season, while reaching the final of the UEFA Champions League.

On the scatter chart below we see how Tottenham’s squad retention and induction of new players compared to Liverpool, and other clubs.

As the old saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. Levy’s reluctance to spend stems from somewhere, who can forget the summer of 2013 and the ill fated ‘Magnificent Seven’. For those uninitiated, after selling Gareth Bale for a world record fee in the region of £86 million, Tottenham replaced the Welsh winger with 7 new signings. Tottenham proceeded to have a disastrous season, firing Andre Villas Boas before Christmas, and the fans enduring a miserable season on the back of a strong Bale-led Tottenham, narrowly missing out on Champions League football. Of those 7, only 2 still remain at the club.

There’s no question this experience influenced Levy’s transfer strategy, which is now cautionary to say the least, with the new recruitment approach targeting young malleable footballers, plying their trade closer to home, and that can will rise in value. But with the stadium debt decreasing, Tottenham fans have been treated more glamorous signings recently, namely Tanguy Ndombele, Giovanni Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon.

In the past, in trying to squeeze value from each signing, cut rate deals such as Georges-Kevin Nkoudou or Clinton Njie who were sold at a loss may have been more successful signings like Oussmane Dembele. In trying to squeeze as much value from sales, Daniel Levy couldn’t clear less desired players like Victor Janssen or Emmanuel Adebayor from the wage bill to make room for new signings.

As stated at the start, I don’t attribute all the blame with Levy and ENIC, and we should remember that even at 47, Pochettino is still learning his trade as a manager. Having been fired by Tottenham, he’s still seen as one of the brightest young managers in the world, and it won’t be long until he finds himself in a high profile job. However there are few things he will need to improve before he can realise his potential as a manager. One glaring weakness to his game, and something noted by many, is his reluctance to make early bold substitutions in game.

Something I personally observed was Pochettino’s principles change from implementing a strict system based on pressing and quick interchanges in a 4-2-3-1, to trying to fit his best eleven on the pitch, and fitting the system and formation to his best available team. Some saw the drop in intensity as a way of combating Tottenham’s miserable characteristic of ending the season looking lethargic, and bottling crunch games or games deep in cup competitions. Without a system, we saw chance creation and output for Harry Kane and Dele Alli decrease, if we look at the charts below, we see how their attacking outputs decrease in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons. Approaching their mid 20's, the players outputs should be increase as they develop as footballers, approaching their theoretical peak.

A difference between Liverpool and Tottenham is that we see a transfer strategy implemented to fit the managers system and philosophy. Liverpool and their once-maligned transfer committee were able to identify targets to improve on players in Klopp’s clearly defined strategy. When your strategy is largely “play your best available players”, it makes the job for Levy and the scouting team to identify valuable players worth chasing.

In Mourinho, Levy now has a manager that has been known for his appetite for big money signings and upgrading his squad. It remains to be seen how this relationship with blossom, but early signs have seen Mourinho improve the teams peformance, improve the form of individual players, and give a chance to young players. To what looked like fans as a season written off, is suddenly looking like a hunt for a top 4 finish.

All of the data for this article was sourced from WhoScored.com.
The python, javascript and html files for this page can be found on my github repository.
If you enjoyed this article, or have other questions, get in touch by emailing jakehu1993@gmail.com, through my twitter @JaaaaakeH, or through LinkedIn.