Henrique

Shocking football in the 1st half. Something is really wrong. The team can even exchange two passes. Southampton is controlling the midfield, and the team is basically playing long balls to a isolated Falcao. When a player in the mid has the ball, there is no one nearby to receive the ball, so there will be a long ball again. Defense still as bad as it used to be.

Fair result. Very bad football in this 1st half.

wtf Ivanovic.

I think thats happening because he is way too isolated.

100% dive. Mané deserved a yellow.

Too many long balls there.

whats up with Bertrand horror hair?

I will quote this post, to make some things clear. First, I think it would be nice if the staff can share with the rest of the forum, what they believe is the ideal talkchelsea, and how the things you pointed in that another post are related with Jose Mourinho, because its seems you just said the staff don't see as a good thing people saying a bad word about Mourinho. Second, I want to express my point of view about Mourinho. You might be glad that Mourinho is the manager, and the whole stadium might chant his name tomorrow. I realized that many fans have a special relationship with Mourinho. I remember that TOPTB said one time something like this "there is no better man in the world than Jose Mourinho to manage a southwest London football club", and he also said that only people who really undertand what Chelsea is, would undertand what he was talking about. I don't pretend to undertand what a sothewest London club is, since as I foreign, and an outsider, I cant tell you that I will never understand this kind of relationship, where the club and the manager are the same thing. Chelsea is Mourinho, and Mourinho is Chelsea. If you speak a bad word about Mourinho, you are speaking bad about Chelsea. I don't have any special relantionship with Jose Mourinho, because as TOPTB said, I will never understand why there is no better man to be at a southwest London football club. He was important for Chelsea (Mourinho, not TOPTB), but I don't think he deserves all the credits for the success the club got in recent years. With the amount of investment Chelsea made in football in the past 10 years, the results where only a question of time, Mourinho or no Mourinho. City and PSG are here to prove that. So, I'm not discussing Mourinho CV, or how many trophies he won in the past. I'm discussing if he is the right manager for long term succes and, whether you like it or not, Mourinho was hired again to bring success, and he got a contract extension to bring long term success, and thats how he is going to be evaluated. A big football club, with many sponsors and marketing deals, is not paying huge money for a manager because he is the best man to be at a southwest London football club. At this moment, I don't think Mourinho is the right man for a long term job. The quality of the squad deteriorated since he returned, his tactics are looking outdated and unidimensional, he is proving to be really bad in rebuilding a squad, and he has a very weird way to "motivate" his players. You said in another post, that something must change in this forum. That might be true, but I don't think many of your comments are helping. If people who are big fan of Mourinho want to discuss Mourinho's job with good arguments, thats fine, but sometimes its not happening. Days ago you just said people will be fucked off if the team win tomorrow, and some people were saying bad things about Mourinho even "when the team was 6 points clear last season". Thats not helping this forum, if you ask me. If the team is 6 points clear, it doesn't mean everything is right. If the team win a match, thats not enough to fuck people off. I have to remember you, even last season many people were criticizing this team, people who were saying Mourinho was genius, are still saying he is a genius. Last season, you were always renaming this topic to "moaning thread", you know because everyone who realized the team had many problems when it was "6 points clear", were just moaning. I don't pretend to know whats bad or good for Chelsea, perhaps non-foreign who will be chanting Mourinho's name tomorrow know one thing or two about that. However, Mourinho's future relies on his results. There are many signs out there that is losing the squad, the team is unbalanced, tactics are poor and I don't see he changing his ways, because since 2010 Mourinho is looking everything, but special.

To be honest its one of the best articles I've read about Mourinho.

??

You are sounding like "the only place to be". You really are. Just saying.

Perhaps when we were 6 points clear last season, many people realized the team had many problems, and they knew something really bad could happen this season. I think they were right, because what's happening this season is not unexpected.

No mate. No one here will be fucked off, because beating "Saints on Saturday" at Stamford Bridge is an obligation, getting a top 4 finish is also an obligation, not an achievement, and even if Ivanovic scores a hat-trick, no one will be fucked off, because we are talking about a long season, and Ivanovic will keep fucking the team as long as keep playing game after game, unless he start to score 2 goals for every goal the team conceds for a poor defensive performance coming from him.

Can anyone copy the telegraph article here? They are asking me to pay money, because it seems I've reached the limit of free articles per month.

http://www.espnfc.com/club/chelsea/363/blog/post/2638970/jose-mourinho-attacking-weakness-has-been-exposed Chelsea's poor defence has exposed Jose Mourinho's lack of attacking nous Chelsea first team manager Jose Mourinho says two ridiculous mistakes cost them the match against former club Porto. This time, and much like on the pitch, Jose Mourinho didn't quite go totally on the offensive. Sure, after his Chelsea side lost 2-1 to FC Porto because of a Maicon goal from a set-piece, the Portuguese described it as "ridiculous." "For us, it's a ridiculous mistake," Mourinho said. "We watch dozens and dozens of repetitions of Porto taking corners. I thought we were completely ready for that." Mourinho, however, wasn't quite ready to go that bit further. He checked himself. "I don't think my players deserve me to be critical with them, apart from the two mistakes they made. Two mistakes cost us the game." Mourinho is fundamentally right. Two mistakes did decide the game, and they point to one of the biggest differences from last season and basically all of the manager's best teams: Chelsea can no longer defend; there is a porousness about them that you just wouldn't associate with the Portuguese. It has drastically lowered their standard of performance this season, but it also raises another problem, and one that is arguably much more important and much more deep-rooted: Chelsea don't score enough to compensate for their poor defence, because they just don't create enough chances. It is getting pretty stark and has escaped exposure so far because of a range of other issues. Mourinho certainly hasn't mentioned it this season, but then to do so might be to accept a few home truths about himself. He has a career-long problem with creative football. Chelsea may no longer be able to defend, but he's never really been able to attack in the way that befits his otherwise justifiable status as one of the best coaches in the game. It is perhaps his single greatest flaw as a manager, although the real concern might be that he doesn't even see it that way. Jose Mourinho's Chelsea stumbled to another defeat, this time to his former club FC Porto. Consider some of his other comments after the Porto game: "The players reacted in a positive way and tried to get a result," Mourinho said. "Diego [Costa] hit the post. [branislav] Ivanovic had a chance with an open goal, one metre from goal. There was a clear penalty in the last situation. We reacted well." That is an incredibly generous spin, especially given the fact that Porto had just shown them what attacking really should be about. For spells of football either side of the Maicon goal, Julen Lopetegui's side were absolutely battering Chelsea, through all manner of moves. They were crossing, creating interchanges, cutting through. Whatever the approach, the consequence was Asmir Begovic and the rest of the Chelsea backline struggling to beat the ball away under the sheer force of the onslaught. Compare that to what Chelsea were doing, and the chances that Mourinho outlined. The first, the Costa shot that hit the bar, was an opportunistic effort from way out. The second, the Ivanovic miss, was from a set-piece. The third, right at the end, was born from desperation rather than design, and that is the key point. None of these opportunities saw Chelsea actually open up Porto through interchanges or moves. Even their goal, through Willian, came from a freakishly good free kick, rather than free play. That has been consistent with this campaign and should be an increasing concern. A breakdown of the goals they have scored in the Premier League so far this season is telling. Of those 11, two have been crossed free kicks that wrong-footed the goalkeeper; two have been ludicrously good long shots; two have been own goals from ludicrously pronounced deflections; and one has been a header from a set-piece. So the vast majority of their goals have not come from constructive play or attacking patterns. That is not a surprise if you watch the patterns of their games. Against Porto, it often seemed as if the general idea was just to get the ball high up the pitch -- usually through Willian or Ramires just running with the it -- and hope for some individual play to come off. Costa actually tried his best to make that happen through some fine runs, and he had one of his best pure football performances in some time, but he was starved of aid and service. The ESPN FC crew discuss Jose Mourinho's squad choices after their latest defeat against FC Porto in the UEFA Champions League. That has also been a pattern of this season, and that is why this goes way beyond all the commotion about Eden Hazard getting dropped. Chelsea's personnel may change, but the staleness and predictability remains. It was the same on Saturday against Newcastle United. When the Chelsea's most advanced six players had the ball, they encountered one of two problems. The first was all of the other five were usually way too far away, with huge gaps between them, in a way that greatly contrasted with last season's tightly connected cohesion. Cesc Fabregas at one point had the ball in the centre circle, but there wasn't a Chelsea player within 30 yards of him. That made it much easier for Newcastle to hound him down. The second problem was that Chelsea were matching none of the opposition's movement. It was not just that they were so far away, but how stationary they were. There were a number of occasions when one Chelsea attacker had the ball but only had teammates effectively standing still watching him. With no one making a move that would actually open space or create angle, he was usually forced to try dribble forward with it, but that usually ended down a blind alley. This may be Mourinho's big blind spot. How do you expect to open teams or create with that set-up, that lack of movement, and that evident lack of instruction about what they should be doing going forward? It also seems to prove what many say about his coaching. Sources close to Chelsea players state that, for all the sophistication of most of his training, the drills and plans relating to attack are extremely basic. Last season, it amounted to getting the ball to Hazard and trusting the rest of the attackers to be good enough and clever enough to play off him. It is a world away from the craft of Pep Guardiola's attacking approach, but it can still work if players are on form or if the defence is tight enough so you don't need many goals. That is precisely why Mourinho's problem with creativity has become more pronounced than ever. The attackers are off-form, meaning they can't compensate for the lack of collective design with their individual play, and the defence has fallen apart, meaning one or two goals are no longer enough to win games. It will probably mean that trying to rely on the same restrained game plans is not enough to win trophies this season. He'll have to do something else. Mourinho's best qualities of defensive resilience and psychological intensity are failing him, so his worst flaw has been laid bare. It is time for the Chelsea manager to front up about it. Miguel Delaney is a London-based correspondent for ESPN FC and also writes for the Irish Examiner and others. Follow him on Twitter @MiguelDelaney.

Champions League and Seria A: May 2010. More than 5 years. After that he managed for 5 years two clubs with huge money and amanzing individual talents.

It was funny, because as soon as the things were ugly, he called both players. The message actually was (bad with Hazard and Matic, even worst without both).

Mourinho fanatic detected.

You are losing your reason.

Line up from a dead man walking.

Eh...no. Gary Cahill was never the 1st choice. He wasn't the 1st choice for RDM and Benitez. He became Mourinho 1st choice after 10 matches of PL 2013/14 season. Being Mourinho 1st choice doesn't mean that much these days, since the defense he created is a big joke. Despite David Luiz woeful performances he can produce at times, I think few managers around would play Cahill instead of Luiz. I also believe your memory is not that good for a football fan. DL best performances playing as a DM actually came when Mourinho was the manager. He played superb matches against Liverpool, City and Arsenal. Call me crazy, and I know many people won't agree with that, but I'm still not convinced Matic is really that better than Luiz as a DM. Any manager with decent balls and that can really teach players different things, would turn Luiz into one of the best DM around.

After Jose's press conference, the question is: when will The Special One get the axe? Its clear he completely lost the squad. Saying in a press conference that the problem is the players, and refusing to share responsability is far from a good message to send to your squad. Jose is doomed and he won't be a Chelsea manager next season.

hahahahaha

its clear you both are same person.

Sacking Jose now might be a bad idea. To other side, I have no doubt the club made a HUGE mistake giving him that contract extention. For em its clear people running the club don't know what they are doing. Real Madrid did the same thing with Jose, gave hime a contract extension after 2 seasons, only to sack him 10 months later.