MrExcalibur100

I do agree about Neville though. He's by far the best football analyst this country's got and I like him a lot, but I think he's starting to get worried by us; He's worried by the squad we now have at our disposal and how that will affect his beloved Man United in the long run. He seems to have Chelsea on his mind a lot nowadays. First, it was the Fabregas issue on how he contributes little defensive cover to the defense and how playing a double pivot with him will cost us. I thought it was weird since it was so early in the season and Fabregas and Matic were still building their partnership. They've since made the right adjustments with (Oscar playing a vital role) and have both been brilliant. Now this talk about how this squad is not able to see out games and drawing comparisons with the 2005 squad, which is silly since we've drawn two games at Old Trafford and the Etihad and won the remaining 7. Yet, he comes to the pre-mature conclusion that this team lacks the ability to see out games. How'd you do that, Garry? For one, this team has far more attacking flair than that one and we play a different style. The ruthlessness of this team lies in it's ability to outscore the opposition, the fact we're averaging almost 3 goals this season is testament to that fact.

Read the explanation I gave on the difference between our performance at Etihad this season in the league and last season. Jose tried to make the team do the same thing and it backfired. We couldn't counter-attack because they didn't commit many bodies to attack and they pressed our forwards high up the pitch. It was similar to our loss there in the FA cup.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2811737/Jose-Mourinho-hails-Chelsea-s-fringe-stars-narrow-2-1-win.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2811737/Jose-Mourinho-hails-Chelsea-s-fringe-stars-narrow-2-1-win.html

Yeah, really terrible. He needs to shoot more. He needs to be more selfish. He needs to be more decisive. Why does he hold on to the ball for too long. Why does he have such a big ass? He really needs to be more like (Neymar, Bale, Reus, Robben, Di Maria, Gotze.........................) He's just a shite Aaron Lennon.

The article I posted was actually for him.

http://thetacticsroom.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/there-are-lies-damned-lies-and-eden-hazards-goal-and-assist-statistics/ This is a very good article on Hazard's season so far.

I was literally about to include the exact same thing in my post but left it out. There's no reason why those Liverpool vs Chelsea battles should have been so closely contested. We just had comfortably more quality and talent than they did. But Benitez was happy to play Mourinho at his own game. Sit back, defend and play on the counter. When Hiddink came and went for it more against them, we smashed them.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To butress the points I was making. Caution was evident in the Arsenal game with the Mikel sub for Schurrle around the 60 min mark. We were playing on the counter throughout the 2nd half. Same in the United games we're still banging on about. The difference between Jose first time and now is that his caution is so far only restricted to the really big games unlike before when it was 1-0 and shut up shop. It's no surprise we've been really drab attack wise vs Arsenal, Man United and Man City apart from some moments of individual brilliance. The players seem afraid to express themselves and that's not all down to the players alone. Against the smaller teams, we're really playing with total freedom and laying down the gauntlet, attacking with numbers and being ruthless.

It's incredibly naive to believe these aren't orders from the manager or this isn't what we practice on the training ground. The team isn't "brutal" yet we've scored over 30+ goals this season. This team has already shown it has more than enough attacking quality to put the opposition to the sword. Mourinho has always been a ridiculously cautious manager in any club he's managed. Anyone who's followed his career knows that. Look at the way we played against Man City away. You think those weren't tactical orders? Phase 1 was to sit back, drop deep and defend in numbers, Phase 2 was to counter attack with pace and exploit gaps Man City leave behind. Unfortunately for us, Phase 2 didn't work effectively enough because Pellegrini learnt his lesson from last season's defeat in the league (he actually already learnt it in our 2-0 FA cup loss to them the following week) and had Mangala/Kompany press very high up the pitch in high block, together with the two fullbacks with very tight marking on Costa and our two wingers. The referee was also very lenient and allowed Man City to do a lot of "tactical fouling". We couldn't even come out of half in that game and had to endure wave after wave of City attack. The average layman thought we "parked" the bus, but we didn't, it was just failed execution of the same plan that worked in our 1-0 win last season at the Etihad, but Pellegrini made adjustments. Some how we scored from a very poor corner by them, but even after that we continued to play the same way vs 10 men! We clearly lacked a plan B. Neville was just guarding his words so as not to outright blame Mourinho's tactics. Afterall, he just granted him and the paper he writes for (the Telegraph) an hour long interview at The Bridge the other day. The substitution of Oscar for Mikel was meant to communicate a message to the team; To drop back and hold on to what we had.

He should be called back in January. Convinced more in his brief stay here than Zouma has in his.

Now I know how Salah got out of Egyptian military service, his shooting is fucking awful.

Actually, no. "Everyone" does not know why.

I'm still not sure why Baker isn't even getting a sniff this season. The guy is almost 20, and is one of our best English prospects in the team. I maintain that he should have played instead of Mikel tonight, who was a basically a nonentity. Also Izzy Brown should have gotten some minutes towards the end, he has some PL experience from his time at West Brom. Drogba could barely even walk towards the end there.

A complete waste of a team slot and not CFC quality. He was pretty shocking out there apart from the cushioned pass for Didier's goal that even I could have done. Why not promote one of the English boys into the first team or promote Boga as the 6th choice AM/winger?

What a shockingly abysmal game of football!

I know, but still not against League Two. It's just "banter" though, I guess and it's only some fans.

Some silly chants from our fans today. It's a once in a lifetime experience for some Shrewsbury fans, no need for that.

Jammiest of Jammy goals. Poor Shrewsbury, a draw is probably a fair reflection. At least Mourinho was clever to save face and not bring on Hazard. Would have been embarrassing.

Why Kalas was loaned out again after impressing with us, I'll never know. Zouma is a circus act out there when put under pressure.

Hazard to the rescue, lol.

Look at Zouma for that corner, just completely hopeless. He was at fault for even giving the corner away in the first place with his hilarious defending.

Deserved!!

Baker will probably get 10 minutes. Same with Izzy Brown. Jose as usual will take zero "risks" with the score only 1-0.