The Tottenham solution beggars belief

If you are going to do something then you should do it the best way possible and incorporate any advancements in science. You should buy the best you can afford to buy. If you want to be the best, you learn from the best.

A bunch of amateurs Tottenham


What you don't do, is do something because that's the way it has always been done or buy Joe Average and expect him to be Gareth Bale.

Mentality is the biggest component in sport and I'm sorry to all of you who don't understand that, but it's a fact, a proven fact, go and ask Gold Medal winning athletes. Gary Neville and Roy Keane have both pointed out recently that Spurs are mentally weak and it's what they associate with Tottenham traditionally, they won't be the only ones.

The world and his wife know Tottenham must do something about their mentality, I have been writing about it for a couple of years. Our failure to address such an obvious weakness endemic within the whole club is to my mind inexplicable.

The words of Mauricio Pochettino after the Newcastle United defeat partially explain the problem, it's being left to amateurs. Now this is not a dig at Pochettino, although some will read it as such, but a cry for the club to do something about the problem.

The club should be employing a specialist to handle the mental side, Pochettino should be asking the club to appoint one.

“I think we are the psychologists. The players want to hear the manager and the staff, the assistant manager, the goalkeeper coach. We can help them. 
“In my career always, when I was a player, we had a lot of meetings, just the players for good and bad things. Maybe here, it’s not the habit. We tried to push that because it’s important sometimes that the players have different meetings with the captain to realise some different situations. The players can always improve in their own meetings. 
Should Tottenham have a professional or a mistake riddled captain as a mental coach?
“We did a lot of work in groups, and as individuals. In the training ground, in meeting rooms, in my personal office, in different areas. But always you need more time to change the habits. We talk about mentalities and changing habits. 
“The mental process is always more slow than the physical or tactical. We are in a good way, I think our job does not reflect in the table. This is maybe a difficult period, but it is the process we have to go through."

Now as far as I am aware Mauricio Pochettino has no qualifications in this area, he only has his own experience, he is in effect an amateur practising at being a professional. Now I know that sounds harsh but mentality is far too important not to be taken seriously and simply leaving it to a coach is not taking it seriously.

This is what we did when I was a player so this is what we will do now. Things move on, things improve, leaving the mentality of the players to an amateur is archaic. Tottenahm need to address the issue, bring in a sports psychologist who will have input on all transfer activity, conduct all player assessments.

If a professional looked at the start of the second half of the Newcastle game he would have a fit. Gary Neville pointed out 4 players who weren't even ready and we also had to wait for Erik Lamela to make an appearance.

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If that is the level of mentality installed after 5 months then I would strongly suggest what is being done isn't working. We are playing at it. It's hardly any wonder the players turn themselves off during games, resulting in mistakes, resulting is goals and dropped points.

Daniel Levy needs to instigate an additional level of coaching and create a culture of improving players mental development. It should be a bolt on to existing coaching and take the place of some of the meetings. A bunch of players with the wrong mentality have a meeting to try and improve their mentality. It's nuts.

Would that happen in business? No it certainly wouldn't, you bring in someone who could explain the problems and how to deal with them. If you can't see a problem then you can't fix it and the players clearly can't see that not switching on until the whistle blows is a problem or they wouldn't have let it happen after the last time.

So people who can't see a problem are meeting to solve a problem they can't see. A bunch of untrained amateurs are meeting discuss an issue they don't understand and find a solution. It beggars belief. They know about skill, about playing football but they know nothing about mentality, if they did then there wouldn't be the problems there are.

The club is letting them down and they in turn are letting the club down. This 'this is how it's always been done' attitude is part of the whole problem and until you change that you are not going to change the mental cancer that runs throughout the club, not just through the playing staff.