Tottenham Hotspur were dumped out of the Carabao Cup by
Tottenham Hotspur’s struggles this season continued on Tuesday night, losing on penalties to League Two side Colchester United in the Carabao Cup.
Spurs are out of the competition as Christian Eriksen and Lucas Moura failed from the spot in the shoot-out, heaping the pressure on Mauricio Pochettino.
Spurs currently can’t buy a win on the road, even against a fourth-tier side, and in eight games in all competitions this season, Tottenham have won just twice.
There are real concerns that Tottenham are coming to the end of a cycle, but for anyone thinking Pochettino is suddenly a bad manager, Jurgen Klopp’s final season at Borussia Dortmund felt somewhat similar in terms of a manager taking a team to its ceiling.
Klopp had guided Dortmund to the 2013 Champions League final, losing to a bigger domestic rival, just as Pochettino did with Tottenham this year. Guiding an exciting young team to that stage against all odds, only to come up short, would be a test of any manager’s quality in terms of how to respond.
Klopp still managed to guide Dortmund to second place in 2014, but the end of the cycle came the season after. The team had started to fall apart; Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski had gone to Bayern Munich, whilst Shinji Kagawa and Nuri Sahin had left for Manchester United and Real Madrid respectively.
Dortmund were disjointed in that 2014-15 season, sitting bottom of the Bundesliga table as late as matchday 18. Klopp’s ability was questioned, just as Pochettino’s is now, even though Spurs are nowhere near the relegation zone as Dortmund were.
Klopp did turn things around and finish in a Europa League spot, but he still knew that it was time to go. After seven years at Dortmund, Klopp had done all he could and quit the club, eventually joining Liverpool, where he is enjoying great success once again, showing that managers can need change just as much as players do.
Pochettino’s reign at Spurs is now at more than five years, and it is very much starting to feel like that final Klopp season at Dortmund. The team has lost key pieces, dressing room leaders are in strange situations with their futures, such as Roman Weidenfeller and Toby Alderweireld, and players may simply need to hear a new voice, a new message, a new approach after so many years under the same boss.
Hopefully, Pochettino can turn around Tottenham’s form, but the struggles come back to a cycle ending, a team that has gone as far as it can under its current management, and that can often need a new manager at the helm.
We’re still shy of two months into the season, so talk of sackings or resignations may be premature, but with Pochettino admitting dressing room issues, it does feel like this could be a final season for many at Tottenham, from Alderweireld to Jan Vertonghen, from Christian Eriksen to potentially Pochettino too. Yet much like Klopp did in 2015, Pochettino surely wouldn’t be out of the game for long if he does move on.
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