Tiredness or tactics..

[╫rue Blue 47]

sometimes i think the problem is because mourinho is too conservative

and when we do that, thats the time our team play very average

yes, our midfielder is still poor

but mourinho still struggle to make some constant progress to improve how to make our 3 amigos play better

just reliant to individual brilliance, sometimes to play combination play our attacking player even looks clueless,

the only player not look hopeless to being a threat is only hazard

why willian, alwasy cut inside, almost every game i see that, ffs

this is willian stupidity or mou instruction , if yes mourinho just weird

make it even worse, our fullback barely making overlap,

and about azpilicueta by keep playing him on the left side, is just waste his attacking support

[Jase 43,479]

We have one of the best squads in the England. Tiredness shouldn't be a factor

But, rotation is not the best of Mourinho's strong points. He do tend to sick with a certain line-up. Not necessarily a bad thing but things do get pretty tight at later part of the season.

Bring back Benitez!

[xPetrCechx 13,570]

WHY mou try to keep the 1-0 always?! like vs WBA and GALA.... why not continue attacking?!

[Styles 9,790]

When you go years without proper tactics that only rely on individual brilliance - defending (UCL whole defensive line), creating (Mata for two years) or scoring important goals (Drogba) you gamble a few things. But tactically we were very poor for 3-4 years now. I disagree we don't have world class players (I HATE that expression to start with).

I won't quote the whole thing but tactically we are still poor. Mourinho has made us a better pressing and counter-attacking team but that is just common sense football. Every top team does that already but they have more than that in their locker. We've been so bad for the last 3 years that this looks like the best thing since sliced bread but really it's just ordinary football.

[The only place to be 11,313]

I think it's a combination of things that gravitate around those two.

When you go years without proper tactics that only rely on individual brilliance - defending (UCL whole defensive line), creating (Mata for two years) or scoring important goals (Drogba) you gamble a few things. But tactically we were very poor for 3-4 years now. I disagree we don't have world class players (I HATE that expression to start with).

We have some very high class players - that make mistakes just like any others. Cech is still one of the top goalies in the world, our defense is one of the best, especially Terry/Cahill partnership this year. But then you look at midfield and attack and we have four kind of players: promising young talents, players over their peak struggling physically and technically at points, flops and players not good enough. Ramires, Mikel, Lampard, Willian, Hazard, Oscar, Schurrle, Torres, Eto'o and Ba all fit one (or more) of those categories... Then we've got Matic and Salah this winter. I don't want to rate Salah now, I predict he'll have a very challenging season comes next year, so let's give the kid a couple of years to adapt. It can't be worse than Ramires when he's first arrived here and I find a lot of similarities in their style, although they play in different positions, but I expect something as bad as that.

So the players (the ones who were already here) go years (or months for players who arrived last season) without a strong and well defined tactical plan. We used to get a new manager at every breath Abramovich took so there was no stability, and they just kept changing tactics. It's so much easier for the players (the talented ones) to rely on talent rather than on tactics. Their talent comes natural and effortless many times, but tactics demand a lot of hard work. I'm not saying those guys weren't working hard the last few years, but can anyone honestly compare what was demanded from them then by all the wannabes coaches we had and what Mourinho demands? Just look at Mata. Rely on his talent is much easier than make a lot of sacrifices, concessions and double your work on the pitch. That alone, regardless of the tactics Mourinho chooses already causes an impact physically. The training sessions are harder (many players said it throughout the years, Drogba said it just this week), Mourinho is fiercer than many and demands a lot in general and then you add the tactics.

Mourinho is using what is imo the most demanding, exhausting, all-consuming tactics, which is counter-attacked combined with high pressure (high in the amount and in the zone in the pitch). So not only those guys are working now more than they were used to, they're asked more from their manager, but they also 'play' more. They run more, they tackle more, they pursue and chase more the ball and the opponents. It's no wonder most of them look like The Walking Dead - Footie Edition.

I really, really, really, really (did I say how much I really?) dislike it when people just throw words like 'they're paid millions, they're professional athletes, they only play twice a week and many weeks only once, that's all they do, they only trained the whole week'. The only way I can accept that is if you've been a professional football player, played in a top team and can testify about what you went through, otherwise it's just a bunch of assumptions from people who think modern football is a cake walk because the players are paid so much money.

I know in person some retired professional Brazilian footballers such as Silas - a striker who's played the 80's and the 90's - some of you may know. Marquinhos - a defender who played in Brazil, a few Flamengo players (including Zico, but Zico is from a different time) and many, many, many volleyball players I had a chance to talk to some of those guys about football. It's not as easy as you think. So people come here and say 'but we had a week's rest, but player X hasn't played two matches, but we have depth, blah, blah, blah'. Silas became a manager a few years ago and he's talked about physical recovery with a group of us some time ago (we used to go to the same church0. It's insane. Those guys get dumped into tubes filled with ice, after hot showers, get a lot of massages, some get some injections to recover muscles and articulations. And they deal with a crazy amount of pain. Silas said that after 5-6 months of competition, most of those guys are playing in pain... and then someone says 'but he had a week's rest'.

The human body has its limitations and professional modern sports became way too demanding. It's so easy for us, glorified couch potatoes that may at most go to the gym, play some footie, tennis or even golf a few times a week (no longer than 90 minutes) come here and say tiredness is an excuse. Some players deal better with that, some teams win more easily and the matches are less demanding, some tactics (like the ones we had in the past) are softer, but at the end of the day modern sports keep 'evolving' as if the human body followed the technology and players were robocops, part machine, part human. Modern medicine, physiotherapy and other areas help to body to endure more than it could 50 years ago, but I wonder where the end of this will be.

So I look at those human beings and their human bodies and I can understand and believe when Mourinho says Ramires and Oscar have been playing injured and how Terry who we were said to have an 'almost injury' and was supposed to miss a match missed three weeks of football. They're not made of steel and as I said at the beginning, unless you've endured what they do for a few years, don't come here and say tiredness is an excuse as if you were talking about how tired you are after a semester at college or after a few consecutive days working 10h a day in your office. There have also been a lot of TV programs produced about it and I'm sure a few of you already came across them.

They are tired, the tactics settled, but I think physically they're too much for them to handle now, so they're coping. Some matches - the big ones - they naturally have bigger motivation. They know the importance, they bring something from their 'storage' and just deliver an amazing performance. Just yesterday I said I was worried about how far we were in this transition year in terms of completing the transition, but earlier today I was thinking about exactly this and I convinced myself, they're already working 'overtime'. They are already at the end of their breaths because those guys (regardless of the teams they played, as most of our new players in the past couple of years came from softer leagues and managers) aren't used to all this. They;ll get better at it, they'll cope, but let's not forget that despite being awfully rich and getting paid some ridiculous amount of money a week, it does nothing or very little to turn their bodies in the machines some expect them to be.

Had Mourinho picked a softer tactic, I think they'd go through the same exhaustion process, maybe a month down the road (if so) because Mourinho is demanding himself as well as his training sessions. But Mourinho didn't pick a softer tactic, he went with one of the most consuming and the players are running out of gas, making gas stops too often because they can't get their tanks full, only get 10 bucks of it every time they stop. I'm not as worried as I was yesterday (even then it was a slight concern, nothing major) about how far we're in the transition. I think we completed the tactics adaptation in the practical sense of it. Now we're going through the physical part. That's not suppositions and theories, that's physics, biology, physiology and in all honesty, obviousness. But still, anyone here is entitled to disagree and think otherwise, what's obvious to me could make no sense to the next person.

I think I agree with you on the physical side. Players like Oscar and Hazard are young and still maturing so they're going to struggle with the demands, but I think Mourinho is okay with this because what is causing us struggles this year will hopefully make us stronger next year, both mentally and physically. He's pushing some of the players now so that they'll be able to cope with more next season. He keeps on saying that this year is a transition year and he may actually be telling the truth.

Tactically he's got us doing one thing very well (the pressing and countering, although it's more about forcing mistakes and then exploiting the spaces the opposition leaves) so much so that we're top of the league by February. Some people will sniff at that but these things take time. City were already a good team with a solid spine (Hart, Kompany, Toure, Silva, Aguero) and they've added to what was already there but even they have been accused of being soft tactically. Arsenal are the same. Liverpool are in a similar position to us, getting good at one style of football but not being able to adapt to tactics like the ones we used against them.

Mourinho is building for the long-term here. It's not going to be perfect overnight, but what has happened overnight has made us strong again and put us top of the league whilst getting good results against our rivals. It's actually unfortunate that games away to Spurs and United came earlier in the season because we'd probably be looking at beating them in our current state.

And people who think that pressing the ball is simple are rather naive in my view. It's fantastically tough physically, and it requires a great deal of organisation so that all 10 players do their jobs and don't leave gaps in the press. If one or two players run at an opponent, they're going to get mugged off with a simple out ball and then there's space for the opposition to exploit. What was disappointing in the Galatasaray game was the number of times Willian would be the only one pressing in the final third. That to me was tiredness.

[AndersonBLUE 819]

Last night's 2nd half was frustrating. You are right some players look a little jaded but frankly they are a young squad mostly and shouldn't be having any fatigue issues. Don't forget that some of our signings are cup tied (Matic and Salah) so we have to chop and change whenever we play a European game, so Jose probably has to tinker around with tactics for both the league and European games which could also be a factor in the dip in form. Luckily our defense hasn't changed so at least we saw a solid defensive display apart from the corner.

[Sidzeret 2,257]

how is he supposed to get the players used to the tactics and prepare them for the following season if he keeps rotating them?

People were jumping on him until december because no other team rotated as we did, now they're jumping on him because he doesn't rotate. That's right, let's not forget we only had an expected starting ten/eleven in December, which means the players were rotated until them and now the titular players aren't missing matches. So when he's finally found his team he had to give them chemistry and have the tactics settle... it's damaging them physically? Yes, it is. I never said there was a way out of it, it is what it is, but I don't see how he could do things differently, unless he gives up on winning the title - which he and the club won't. If he gave up in the title and focused only on getting his players ready for next season, as a squad, and not only as a team, then he could rotate more. Now, who's willing to accept that?

@MrExcalibur100, I'm infamously known for my huge posts, that wasn't nearly the biggest one I've written here. It's both a blessing and a disgrace and ofc a chance to spout much more shit than others

As far as I know, the prime objective this season is to mold a squad( or a team) for the next season and so on. Any silverware this season is going to be an added bonus. That is exactly what Mourinho has been saying at the pressers for the last few months. If that's the case, he should be rotating the squad every now and then but our front-line have been almost the same ever since we found out best eleven back in december. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

These sort of matches( like Fulham) tend to be the perfect opportunity to rest our tired legs, maybe even get some of the squad players used to the tactics. I'll be surprised if he choose Willian-Oscar-Hazard for this one.