Pochettino: I won't change gameplan

8:19am Friday 8th March 2013 in Sport

Mauricio Pochettino Mauricio Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino insists Saints will stick by their principles – despite back-to-back defeats to teams in and around the Premier League relegation scrap.

The Saints boss was the toast of the town as his insistence on a high pressing game led to a great victory over Manchester City at St Mary’s.

But losses have followed at Newcastle and at home to QPR to lead to questions over whether it has already been worked out.

Saints travel to Norwich tomorrow for a game that could massively boost their survival chances if they were to win it.

Pochettino is adamant he will be sticking by his plans.

“That’s our mentality,” he said. “We’re disappointed that we didn’t get any points against Newcastle and QPR, even though we played better than them.

“We have to carry on the way that we’ve been playing because we’ve been playing very well.

“Looking back on QPR, the two chances they were able to get they scored two goals. That’s just not on and it’s something that we need to address. We’ve all accepted that those kind of mistakes cannot happen at all.

“My line of thinking is to keep going with our own philosophy of playing football and being a lot more effective in terms of scoring goals, and nullifying other teams and their goal scoring opportunities.”

The importance of the Norwich game is underlined by the fixture list which shows the next two are tough home games against Liverpool and Chelsea.

“We can’t really get ahead of ourselves, we need to take every game as it comes,” said Pochettino. “The game against Manchester City seemed quite tough and difficult but we did manage it quite well. Instead games that should have been easier, such as QPR, we had problems in them.

“What’s most important is that the team finds its regularity in terms of the mental aspect because in a tactical manner the team is playing in a regular way in these last six games.

“So we just need to find a regular way of playing in a collective and individual manner which perhaps was lacking against QPR.”

Pochettino confirmed the Daily Echo’s story that Adam Lallana is set to recover from the head injury that forced him off against QPR to be in contention to face Norwich.

Left-back Danny Fox is less likely to recover in time. Pochettino also said there were a couple of other injury doubts but refused to say who they are.

Comments(13)

Seedhouse the Unrepentant says...
9:10am Fri 8 Mar 13

I remember when Nigel said the same thing after a couple of losses and got slated.

I like the pressing game but felt we were a lot deeper against QPR than Citeh.

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Saintwiz says...
9:32am Fri 8 Mar 13

Two defensive errors v QPR, not chances they created.

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costa gaz says...
9:33am Fri 8 Mar 13

It worked against Man City, it almost worked against Utd and Everton, but against teams in a similar position as us it's less effective as they are prepared to let us press and then catch us on the break.
Very simple really, as demonstrated by Pardew and Rednapp.

We press so high that there is very little space for the likes of Rodrigues to run into, we try to walk the ball into the net like Barca.
Very effective if you have Messi, Iniesta Xavi etc..etc..

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SaintJD says...
12:08pm Fri 8 Mar 13

It's more defensive personnel that have been found out in recent weeks because, consistently, they can't cut it.

With Shaw and Fonte properly bedded back in and Forren potentially in contention I hope the errors that have miraculously crept back in will strangely disappear again.

Pressing game can work, but it's about being sensible with it. Against Everton and Man City you clearly have an eye on now over doing it. As long as we don't get carried away it can work in most cases. Although Suarez and Sturridge with Gerrard raking diagonals through to them is a bit of a worry.

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OSPREYSAINT says...
12:47pm Fri 8 Mar 13

It is a case of practising it until it works to perfection, the more you practice, the luckier you will get it is said.

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Dickosfc says...
12:50pm Fri 8 Mar 13

It’s all good controlling a game for vast periods of a game but a single lapse in concentration can kick you hard. That’s what’s been happening a lot this season.

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batesieboy says...
12:57pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Basically, Morris is saying if we score more, and let in less, that would be good. I have to agree with him.

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right back in the bar says...
1:09pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Now's the time to stand up and be counted. When Adkins lost to Sunderland just before Christmas in what was a mirror image of the Saints performance last week (lots of possession but ponderous, predictable, and no cutting edge) we went on a 5 game unbeaten run that yielded 7 points. A run like that now would leave us needing 6 more points from 5 games to make the 40. I think the upcoming games will suit us: we are not yet good enough to make the most of long spells of possession, but when we press teams that want to play and win possession, the spaces are already there to play in and we have the players to exploit them. Part of the problem last week was that QPR sat back and picked us off; Norwich at home won't do that and neither will Chelsea and Liverpool when they come to us. I still think we will make safety with games to spare.

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Galapagos Saint says...
2:27pm Fri 8 Mar 13

It will be less than 40 point this year. There are defo at least 3 teams worse than us. We would have to be extremely unlucky to go down

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Block 34 says...
3:46pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Funny, I didn't think Saints had any principles, or are they the ones the fly-vendors are selling on the Northam Road?

If any manager is losing games he needs to take a long, hard look at his gameplan. Naive might be one word, but MP will hae lost of time to perfect it in the Championship if he doesn't start supporting the hype of his appointment with some results.
I feel sorry for Nige, having to watch his hard slog undone. Very sad.

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right back in the bar says...
5:22pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Block 34 wrote:
Funny, I didn't think Saints had any principles, or are they the ones the fly-vendors are selling on the Northam Road?

If any manager is losing games he needs to take a long, hard look at his gameplan. Naive might be one word, but MP will hae lost of time to perfect it in the Championship if he doesn't start supporting the hype of his appointment with some results.
I feel sorry for Nige, having to watch his hard slog undone. Very sad.
In the 16 games preceding MPs appointment, NA took 19pts.
MP has 5 pts from the 6 games since he has been in charge. He needs another 13 pts from 10 games to get us to 40 and match NA's points tally over 16 games. And viewed another way, NA put a run of 10 games and 14 pts together prior to getting the boot and the same again would easily secure safety. I think it unlikely we wont get there; but if the unthinkable happened it would down to MPs failure to match NAs results pure and simple.

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angiemill says...
8:23pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Sometimes I can't believe you lot. We're playing great football with a great team, we're winning games against top clubs (admittedly losing some as well) but overall we're on the up. No, we're not going to qualify for Europe next season but we've got great players, a manager that has more charisma and knowledge than NA ever had but we are on the up and we shouldn't get carried away with second rate achievements that were platitudes to a second rate team.
Come on guys and galls, let's embrace it.

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batesieboy says...
2:02pm Sat 9 Mar 13

No, we won one game against a top club. We have been losing and drawing far too many. We should be safe already. No such thing as too good to go down. Three points highly welcome, one would be good. COYS.

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