Closed Real Madrid 3-1 Chelsea

[Bir_CFC 3,455]

Mourinho on Madrid match:

“This was a friendly, so there was no celebrations when we won friendlies, and no dramas because we lost,”

“We could see the difference in approach from both teams. They have been here for three days, they are preparing for this match.:

“I know they have trained once a day and I know one of those days was a recovery session."

“They play with their best team for the first minute and they made their first change when it was 3-1. We had a completely different approach. I need to see my players. I need to make conclusions.”

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Composure isn't that easily transferable. You can ask for some pointers but in the end it takes time and experience. The more Hazard will get into these 1 on 1 situations the better he'll get at them.

How quickly he improves is completely up to him though.

Yea your right. But hazard should try to finese the shot instead of just kicking it and hoping for luck.

Anyways I watched the match again so I think jose used this match to try different tactical variations.

First half summary.

In the first half, he tried the 4-3-3 but he used ramires, lamps and MVG. Ramires and lampard were lost on who was the more attacking player of the two so there was so much inbalance in the first half.

Player analysis.

Ramires lost a few balls and failed to continue following marcelo before he scored. But take nothing away from his sublime finish.

Oscar was forced to play on the wings where we know he's not good, I'm sure mourinho has seen that too first hand.

Ivanovic at right back was there to face the physicality of ronaldo so he didn't attack much because of that. But his passing was very bad, he and cahill reminded me of why we should not sell david luiz. Every single time they kicked the ball in the sky and couldn't pick out any pass longer than 6 yards shocking. A major reason we were horrible in the first half was because of this.

Ashely cole was our best defender

MVG was bad in the early minutes but he grew into the game with nice tackles. He was a little short attacking wise though.

Lampard was bad, but mourinho wanted to speed up his match fitness in a high class friendly so that's that.

Lukaku was bad with his runs, but he wasn't helped by the confusing midfield we tried to play. Hazard was invisible in the first half, but on closer look I thought they marked him very closely.

Second half summary

This was a much better half. We went back to the usual 4-2-3-1 formation. With moses and hazard in the wings and KDB in the center. We were pressing well and we became better than madrid till the 70th minute when KDB was moved to the pivot. But the goal ronaldo scored was their first chance in the half but ivanovic was found guilty of allowing isco too much room to cross as usual and JT didn't even attempt to jump for the ball. Ronaldo was too fast for any of the DM to follow him and he came from the wing to the center so the cross was actually what we failed to stop defensively

Player anaysis

Ivanovic was bad till he got into the center back position

Cahill and cole were average with azpi.

Ramires and MVG were perfect in the 2nd half

Moses had an energy we lacked in the attack from oscar but his decision making in the final third was bad.

Hazard came to life in this half till he got tired in the last 20mins. He dissapeared when KDB was told to sit in the pivot.

KDB was magnificent at first and he provided extra intensity and spreading passes especialy when behind torres. But when jose moved him to the pivot, he was bad.

Torres was actualy good. His linkup play was great, and he was making good runs actually. Maybe it was because of the improved overall midfield but he looked better than most pple thought.

Essien was good with more controll in the midfield but was no where to be found when madrid countered us a couple of times, since his partner in the pivot(KDB) was a more attacking player, I expected essien to put a better defensive duty. He was bad in that aspect but his passing foward was good.

So in summary Mourinho tried new things in this match and got his answers.

The best formation he got was the 2nd half one. But he also learned that KDB was bad in the pivot and oscar was bad in the wings. I hope he also learned that iva is a better CB than cahill and is not a good right back.

I'm happy we played this match, a lot of his tactical questions were answered.

Edited August 8, 2013 by kellzfresh

[Atlas Lion 1,223]

Mourinho on Madrid match:

“This was a friendly, so there was no celebrations when we won friendlies, and no dramas because we lost,”

“We could see the difference in approach from both teams. They have been here for three days, they are preparing for this match.:

“I know they have trained once a day and I know one of those days was a recovery session."

“They play with their best team for the first minute and they made their first change when it was 3-1. We had a completely different approach. I need to see my players. I need to make conclusions.”

And that was exactly the case.

Yesterday's match was just in reality a training session and testing certain aspects. The fact Madrid went into this match with some personal vendetta against Mourinho is bar none hilarious ,

Edited August 9, 2013 by Cicero

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

Yea your right. But hazard should try to finese the shot instead of just kicking it and hoping for luck.

Well imo Hazard does 2 things wrong in his one on one:

1) He makes the wrong decision. He goes for the power shot while Casillas was about 2 metres away.

He should have tried to either chip it to the far corner or run past Casillas to the right (Hazard's right) and slot it in.

2) He's too transparent when he finishes. He doesn't do anything to wrongfoot the goalkeeper.

No worries though Hazard already acknowledged in multiple interviews (this preseason) that his main working point is his finishing.

So i'm pretty sure Hazard already told Mourinho about it and if he didn't Mourinho knwos now and they'll definitely work on it.

[nono 791]

Sounds like excuses from Mourinho. We were just outclassed.

[Kojo 4,676]

Cahill is a good consistent centre back, but he's far from the best.

I remember last season against Yaya Toure when City beat us 2-0, that was some of the worst defending I've ever seen, he gave him so much space it was just insane. He didn't close him down quick enough.

He's an excellent tackler, very good in the air, and such a confident player, but he does lack certain intelligence, not common sense though. He lacks the sort of thing which makes the top centre backs so hard to play against, he's not as clever. The world class centre backs are very intelligent players, they know what to do and how to come up against opponents at the right time. Cahill does not, that's why he will make those 6-7 mistakes a season, because he does lack that certain quality.

He's a very good centre back though people, lets not get ahead of ourselves and say that Cahill isn't good enough. This is the man who has made those amazing last ditch tackles in the last minute, anyone remember the tackle on Van Persie in the last minute? The one against Spurs? he's a very good player and where lucky that he's done so good. 7 million is an absolute fucking bargain that's all I can say.

[Strike 7,251]

^ Also the tackle in stoppage time of the Europa League final

Gary's excellent in the 'backs-to-the-wall' last ditch defending stuff but struggles when attackers have lot of space to run into behind him.

[TrippingStep 336]

Well imo Hazard does 2 things wrong in his one on one:

1) He makes the wrong decision. He goes for the power shot while Casillas was about 2 metres away.

He should have tried to either chip it to the far corner or run past Casillas to the right (Hazard's right) and slot it in.

2) He's too transparent when he finishes. He doesn't do anything to wrongfoot the goalkeeper.

No worries though Hazard already acknowledged in multiple interviews (this preseason) that his main working point is his finishing.

So i'm pretty sure Hazard already told Mourinho about it and if he didn't Mourinho knwos now and they'll definitely work on it.

For me he should have chip to the far corner.

The second one, there was two real defenders coming back very quicky.

[Milan 17,859]

[Sidzeret 2,257]

Seriously, Ramires is easily our best 1 on 1 finisher and it's not even close. Unbelievable composure.

Torres is also impressive in that aspect..He had given s some memorable 1-on-1 finishes especially in big matches. Hazard must work on dat.

[Zoro 151]

Arbeloa is an absolute cunt.