#im in pep defence squad now don't @ me

[sharleslecler]

first of all, isn't the award for the premier league manager of the year?? so i don't think the ucl results are that relevant. of course they matter in the manager's overall season but the focus of this award is on the league. it's called epl manager of the year for a reason. just because it's "expected" from him doesn't mean it's easy. a lot of people have something to say about pep always having tons of money to spend, including myself, but money means nothing if you can't make the right signings and manage a team. look at manchester united and how much money they've spent in the last 6 years and how many pl titles they've won. furthermore, pep is the first manager to retain the premier league title in a decade and only the third to do so overall. the fact that liverpool lost one game all season (to city as well so basically that game won them the pl) and city still won the title speaks volumes about the team's level. yes, they competed really closely with liverpool and won it by one point. if anyone except pep could've won this award (which would be crazy ofc bc man literally won the title) it's klopp. at the end of the season they won 14 consecutive games. it would've been easy for them to panic when they were so close to liverpool and always had the pressure on them to keep up but even in the difficult games they squeezed the points out of them, combined with winning one domestic cup and competing for a domestic treble. spurs lost 13 games this season if i'm not wrong. every top 6 team except the top 2 has had an abysmal form this season. it was barely a competition for top 4. i'm not underestimating pochettino and i do think that for spurs' standards he's done a great job, not just this season but all the seasons he's been there but having any other manager except the one who won the title win this award doesn't make sense to me. winning the title means your team has been the best this season and performed better than other teams. how can you be the best in a competition if you don't win said competition? city have the money to be the team that they are but they also have the ambition. spurs are by no means a 'poor' team. the reason they didn't spend money is because their $1 billion stadium was in construction. and when you have players like eriksen, son, vertoghen and alderweireld, kane and world cup winner lloris you can't exactly complain that you have a shit squad. these players have carried the team for a lot of games and saved spurs' season. and i'm saying all of this as a fan of pochettino because i do think he's a good manager. and yes, trophies aren't everything but until you actually have a trophy you can't except to be considered the best.

I KNEW IT.

I said weeks ago, when we got to the CL semi-finals that win or lose (we won, COYS) Poch deserves the Manager of the Year award for getting us far as he did, but that he would lose it to either Klopp or Pep depending on who the PL Champions are. We got even further than that and he still loses it.

What has Pep done this year that goes above and beyond what we expect of him? And I understand it’s hard to retain the PL title, but can we say we didn��t expect him to? Given the money he has available and the squad? Even Klopp has achieved more by even sticking close to City and getting to the CL final.

I am extremely biased I realise, but I just think Poch’s achievements are momumental. We haven’t signed a player for 18 months and we could win the Champions League. Not to mention yet another top 4 finish. I can’t help but think that Pep hasn’t done anything special and has actually underachieved, especially in the CL. Whereas Poch? Everything he does is special. Everything he does with Spurs is above and beyond anything we should actually be achieving, given our lack of signings. What happens if the award had been given out after the CL final that Spurs had just won? Would Pep still win it?

And I’m sorry, but Poch deserved this award and nothing anyone says could convince me otherwise. Sometimes being a manager is about more than the trophies you lift.