The Chels

same. More subtle changes in personnel and tactics (e.g. Luis for Azpi to provide more width) would IMO serve us better than the gung-ho approach which abandons any sense of defensive stability and is essentially 'the more people we have attacking, the more likely we are to score'.

You can still maintain at least SOME defensive stability when you're trying to score right at the end. Plenty of big teams have maanged that over the years. Our gung-ho approach makes the chances of conceding much higher than the chances of scoring, especially if we've been poor all game and a goal is unlikely.

Why do we allow the game to become so stretched when we can't score? If we're going to have everyone attacking in the opposition half then we should be pressing frantically when we lose the ball to maintain the attack and prevent the counter. You could blame fatigue but we do this quite regularly like against Villa and Palace away last year. We were so open defensively - extremely lucky to get a point today.

It's going to happen every time we play away to a small team if we're still unbeaten. Losing here might be best for us in the long run.

You're talking about Luis? Right because Sunderland-Chelsea is so much more fiery than Atletico-Real.

Some width would be nice!

I wouldn't say he's been unlucky but it does show he still has a lot of room for improvement. This season in the CL most of his chances have been ones where he starts with the ball outside the box and he's not particularly good in those circumstances. He's had quite a few potential 1v1s but he's either been tackled by the last defender or hit the ball straight at the keeper. He's been lethal in the PL because he gets more of the ball in the box.

If he had won the treble here and Real came calling you think he wouldn't have left for them? Don't kid yourself.

That's what they say in the article and I don't see how that's being deluded. I've been saying the same thing - if you park the bus and allow the opposition on to you (as opposed to pressing high and squeezing the game) then you have to rely on perfection from your players and hope the opposition don't produce a moment of brilliance.

Well technically, yes. But I'm sure they considered Courtois as one of their own.

We need to hope someone else will knock them out because I think they would beat us again. They know Costa inside out and would easily nullify him, while Cesc isn't mobile enough to deal with their pressing game and Hazard would be triple marked. That's pretty much all of our open-play attacking threats dealt with. Meanwhile our major weakness when playing a defensive system, lapses in concentration from Ivanovic and Hazard, can still be expolited in the same way - long diagonal balls. Imagine also how motivated Simeone, their players and crowd would be after we took 3 of their players. I don't see anything other than an Atletico win.

Actually I mean the SF against Barca with the 4 penalty appeals turned down. You're talking about the ghost goal? Well when your tactics depend on everyone doing their job perfectly then referee/player mistakes are inevitable (as we again saw last year with Hazard v Atletico). We were so much better than Liverpool that we didn't need to be so defensive. Our approach was very disappointing and ultimately costly, especially in 06-07 where we won 1-0 at home and all we needed was to score a single goal in the second leg. Liverpool would then have had to score 3 but Jose decided to play for the 0-0, conceded and lost on penalties. It's no surprise that once he left we beat Liverpool twice in the CL in the following 2 seasons with a more attacking approach.

Robbed is 2008-09, not the games under Mourinho.

Because Willian scored and got an assist and now he's amazing offensively, apparently.

But we do leave lots of gaps because of our disjointed pressing. For example Matic will press high on his own, get bypassed and leave huge gaps behind. How often do you see Atletico leaving gaps between their defence and midfield? They are unbelievably good at their pressing game and in comparison we are very disorganised even though we have the players for it in Azpi, Luis, Willian, Oscar and Matic especially. The current system will not cost us against the smaller sides but in the biggest matches, it tends to leave us either far too open (eg United/Lpool away) or far too defensive (eg City away). Still we can get away with it because these teams aren't that clinical unlike in the CL. Jose has always struggled with maintaining the balance which is why he regularly gets knocked out in the CL semis. I really can't see the advantages of his big game tactics, especially in the CL (park the bus, local and disjointed pressing) over a system which involves collective counterpressing and counter attacking even after scoring. The latter results in the concession of fewer chances and creation of more chances if done properly which we are more than capable of doing.

It is. I know we won 5-0 but I don't like how we back off and allow the opposition so close to our box. When defending we often had a 6-man defence which is all good and well but when the opposition are so close to goal anything can happen. Watching Atletico now just reminds me of how ridiculously good they are at pressing. The opposition hardly every get near their box and that way you don't have to worry about lapses in concentration, a moment of brilliance or a fluky deflection, etc. They also still maintain a big attacking threat and they're hardly every pinned back (exception was the end of the CL final) unlike us. In contrast our pressing is much more localised which can be more easily bypassed and that leaves big gaps in the middle. In comparison to Atletico, our defensive system against the biggest teams relies too much on luck imo which is what consistently lets us down in the CL semis.

Great motivator but poor tactician.

Does the own goal count as an assist?

He also said they're 'very defensive' and we'll take control of the game, so Luis would be better suited I'd have thought,

Luis dropped from the CL team. If it's for not closing down the Maribor player quickly enough for the goal then that's very harsh considering Ivanovic does the same every game.

I'd say the opposite. Over 2 legs the better team will usually win whereas a final is more unpredictable.

Our best chance would be in a final as their superior quality would probably come through over 2 legs. Even then it would bery very difficult. If we concede first then we're screwed because of their counter-attacking. If we score first we'd park the bus, invite them on to us and inevitably concede.

I agree that he can sometimes be pretty frustrating with the ball at his feet. He's never been the best technically but he does make up for that with his goalscoring and intelligent play (his off-the-ball movement is always excellent).

No doubt someone had a word with him about his comments.