The Rising Sun

No buses next season. That is all i expect from Jose next season. Nothing wrong in being a little conservative in certain games, just no buses please. I do think he has figured out his squad by now. Lets just see whether he changes his approach to the game when he gets his players next season. Not winning a single trophy playing defensive football is the same as not winning a single trophy playing fantastic football. If we dont win a single trophy playing the way we did this season, and liverpool doesnt win a single trophy playing the way they did, it amounts to the same result. So lets win some trophies playing a bit more positive while keeping only the best bits of our defensive philosophy.

Attacking fluid football. Quick fast paced football. No Buses. No "tactical" wins. Good footballing wins. Striker with 30 goals. Less talk of defensive group responsibility, and more adventure. Jose is good enough to make that possible too. He isnt a one trick pony. Counter attack becoming a part of our play, rather than the sole approach to a game. Lukaku being retained. Courtois No. 1 Choice. Cech kept as no, 2 or sold for good money. 2 Strikers upfront please! Lukaku Cavani No costa!! change in formation. We dont need 2 players sitting deep. Matic alone in that position! Change our image as a Boring, Bland football team. That is also important. Win the League and COC/FA cup double. Youngsters must be integrated in some real way. Good players will eventually stop coming to our Youth academy knowing that no one gets in.

Its been a good season defensively, but a massive failure offensively. We have been able to create a system of counter attack that only works against the big teams, but falters so often against smaller sides. A striker not being WC must be mentioned, and that might change certain dynamics next season. We have become slower paced throughout the game, this season, which is a massive negative. Counter attacks rely on alot of things happening simultaneously, which makes this style wrong as a sole approach to a game. People should be saying we play really good football, and then saying that when we counter attack, we are an unstoppable force. At the moment, Jose's style is to try and be both, an immovable object, and then transition into an unstoppable force on the counter. You cant have both, A bus and a ferrari. OK. Bottomline for me. The questions that will be answered next season are 1. Does Jose even want to play attacking good football 2. Roman wants good football 3. When we come up against a top team, will we always sit back or actually beat them well, not only tactically. Its not wrong in a few games to take a certain approach, but please god, i dont want to watch any more buses being parked, we are a billion pound team, surely we can play footy, to beat someone without buses being involved. That is my only wish. Simply because of that, this season is neither. Benefit of Doubt goes to Jose. Next season, no benefit of doubt. If we keep parking buses, then thats a failure for me.

More coaching in attack as well for next season please!! It was important for us this season to get everyone to become defensively solid in terms of understanding their responsibilities when we lost the ball. That has been accomplished! I would hope that our ENTIRE game approach is not based on only counter attacks, as we do have some amazing footballing players. We can surely do both. This game had many errors of judgement from both manager and players, so we just have to move on. I only hope that we become a little more adventurous in our game, as this style of counter attacking only works against gung ho attacking teams in the PL, but even if we buy a striker, when teams come to SB and park the bus, we will not be able to break them down as we cant counter attack. Tactical tweaking necessary this summer. Roman wants attacking footy, and will get it. Mourinho is still the man to do it.

i sincerely hope we dont buy costa

It was all about the Eto penalty. incredibly stupid tackle. From there it was all downhill

you should be bbc then i guess.

We started off with Major attacking players under roman... Duff Robben drogba Joe cole lampard and co...that time we were hated for our money, Now its our football.

We are hated because we accumulate quality players by buying expensively. then dont play sexy football. We havent brought through any players from our academies, since John Terry, even though we are one of the highest spending clubs in terms of our youth setup. The day we start playing positive football, the world will be singing praises for us, but till the time we play bland footy, neutrals have every right to hate us, and rightly so. Its not like we fans revel in this style, we too are waiting for that change towards sexy football. The fact is that we know it will come eventually, and wait for the final puzzle every season. Rebuilding takes time, but i think at this point, apart from a World class striker. we have all the tools to play good football. Its down to tactics. We choose to play this way, and i cant get my head around it, why. I just hope the "striker" coming in means we will play more positively, in general.

we have earnt it

Wasnt the most pretty game to watch. Nothing wrong in playing a defensive game away, since this is 2 legged CL football. What is disappointing though, is when watching the highlights of the game, we did not have even one attack. That is rubbish. Defensive game - tactics. That is acceptable, but not having a single proper attack the whole game in a CL Semi final is not something we can be proud of. Just Saying!

3-1 atletico . dont know what to expect

Mourinho is surely going to play a 4-4-2 next season, or a 4-1-3-2. I think he has learnt that times have changed from his previous stint at Chelsea. The truth is that your midfield can only do their bit with goals, and that too only for a certain amount of time. Over the season they cant keep doing it. Having only one striker in the team also means that the other striker will not be top class, and is too much of a risk nowdays with injuries, suspensions etc., as the nature of the game has changed from before. Having two world class strikers in your team means one thing : GOALS! Even if one gets injured, the machine keeps moving forward. Add to that, the fact that the midfield will not be under pressure to score all the time, and that keeps them inclined to play for the team, rather than go for stupid solo efforts alot of times , as we have seen later in this season. I truly believe the game has moved forward, and specifically for us, it will benefit us tremendously. Rooney - Costa ? Costa - Lukaku ? Cavani - Costa ? The honest and exciting truth this transfer window will be : what exactly Jose decides to do. There are a good amount of options and a great chance to change our clubs philosophy to move in a different direction. I believe in a 2 striker system and formation will take us up so many notches, its too exciting to think about. 4-1-3-2 allows us to keep the 3 behind the striker the same as we have had, keeping the continuity. Matic owns the Pivot position. Defense is phenomenal already. Its just the 2 upfront. Jose, Please do this!!!!

All we want is a better brand of football. Jose is experienced enough and a great manager. It is not that he can not play such football, but simply whether he will want to play that brand of exciting footy vs an efficient style. I hope its the former next season. Who said we cant win the league playing some sexy stuff?

It doesn't matter if you don't agree. It doesn't change the deeper reality of the issue

ok

agree to disagree then. azpi pen was a ref blunder. Not ours IMO.

"We were better and unlucky this whole season" I think we havent been great this whole season, but have mostly managed the wins, and points. I dont think we lost because we got unlucky today, even at 1-1 we didnt do enough to win it.

Glorious opportunities missed - yes we had 2 penalties - not really. Those were mostly shouts in desperation rather than any proper foul being commited. Keep in mind Ramires should have been off early, so we got lucky

That was well deserved. If Mourinho plans to play such football in todays day and age and expect to win titles, glad he is being proved wrong this season rather than next. He must start coaching players on how to play quick, entertaining, creative football. Being solid at the back and scoring 1 goal a game, sometimes 2 is not sexy, its quite embarrassing for a club which spent 100's of millions, bought the best talent around for attacking. and then telling them to be solid and compact. Congratulations Sunderland. no matter how tough it gets, no matter how inferior your players are, you are trying to play good football under your new manager, and that does yield results. Well played. As for us. Players should be ashamed , manager too.

I hope we see good football next season. Have been saying this all along, but most fans only care about 3 points nowdays. This will be the biggest test for Mourinho in the summer, and i fear if he buys costa, we arent changing our boring style much, just getting a guy who can finish and bag 3 points, without really playing entertaining football. Please prove me wrong. Im really tired of this seasons boring performances, bar a few good games. We hardly even counter attack anymore. Hazard used to make the games interesting to watch because he is positive and takes on players. The rest of them most of the time seem lost for ideas unless an opponent makes a mistake, or we have a great curler finish. Last soooooo many games ive read the stats, all with 30 shots, 3 on target. This is not a striker problem alone, it is bigger than that. And this is not a transition season, it is just a season without a good striker. We have transitioned, and last season was the culmination of that change with hazard oscar azpi settling in. It would have been a tragedy for football if we won the PL this season playing the way we have, for the most part. There would have been no pride in winning, no boasting. Liverpool and BR deserve it. dont know why people cant appreciate good football and give them the respect and admiration they have earnt. Yes there will be a media wankfest when they win, so what, it will die down. Request for next season : Jose, please take a leaf from BR's book and lets actually play good football. rather than this efficient, we got the result, thats all that matters mode of football. Not this style next season please. It is embarassing. However, The CL is a different monster, and we have played tactically well and with more heart as the games are one offs.

I think the chances of a draw vs Liverpool are 50% loss vs Liverpool are 30% Win vs Liverpool are 20% Certainly going to be a tough game. Dont think City will win the title regardless of this result though. The will drop atleast 2 points.

wont courtois only have a year left on his contract if we loan him to atletico again next season. I remember there being some sort of ruling that if a player is not played by the parent club for a certain amount of time, certain amount of appearances, they can buy out their contract before its expiry. Not sure on that one, however. point being that if we loan him again, and he doesnt sign a contract extension, which is likely, we will lose out bigtime on his transfer fee. Unless, ofcourse we are selling him to atletico and getting costa.

Oscar is a really intelligent player, no doubt. I really think at some time in his career he will become world class, but probably in the DP position, being the attacking element sitting along a Defensive DP like Matic. Then he can spread the game and control it, and score a few goals as well. The reason i make such an assumption is that i feel he isnt fast enough to be a world class offensive front midfielder. He is an intelligent player who sees a pass, and sees the move while it is beginning to make that final incisive pass. He can hustle and tackle. That all makes for a fantastic link up player for transition and control rather than an all out forward player like the hazards of this world. Not certain about this thought though, This was somewhat a breakout season for him, and next season should be the final indicator of where exactly he is going to play for the rest of his career. In the game against Swansea for instance, even when they had 10 men, we simply couldnt make a transition which felt fluid, until oscar came on, picked the ball deep and orchestrated. The moment that change happened, every one ahead of him seemed to know what to do, and how to play 1-2's, thereby creating a systematic approach to attack, rather than the haphazard rubbish we watched in the first half. I would personally love to watch a DP of Oscar Matic, with the front 3 ahead being Hazard Willian and Salah with Cavani Upfront. That would be devastating. Or a 4-4-2 with Hazard Oscar Matic Willian/salah with Cavani Lukaku upfront.

Well i hope one day comes where we win the league, and do so proudly, playing attractive football. Southampton have similar aged players, so do Everton, and to some extent Liverpool. We have been transitioning for too long now, and we still play the same football, the only difference is that with Mourinho, we eek out wins.