The Mourinho Thread

[The Skipper 20,609]

Why oh why did he even name drop Boga? More action and less words please Jose.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

The randomness of it just screams PR stunt like you said. Boga just rolled off his tongue out of Nowhere. The interviewer must have been thinking where did that come from Jose.

Yep. What it does is just confuse everyone, the anticipation for RLC getting minutes midweek was incredible. He even let the kid do the presser, I don't understand why. I still, albeit slightly ignorantly, believe Mourinho does want to use these kids.. But he seems too afraid?

[lionsden 4,689]

Well a good read about Chelsea and City academy from G. Neville

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/11289726/Premier-League-academies-must-be-more-than-just-obscene-cosmetic-surgery.html

Gary absolutely hit the nail on the head here with a sledgehammer. here are the highlight from the article.

"Loftus-Cheek was paraded like some kind of exotic creature. Look, an academy player in the first-team! We lined up in the Sky studio excited at the thought of seeing homegrown talent in a Chelsea side. When he played for eight minutes, we showed the highlights of it as a special segment. We were seeing a rare species."

"The moment where the talking has to stop. Academies are not about infrastructure and how many pitches you have. How many gym bikes. It’s about how many players you produce for the first-team. Nothing will demoralise a youth team coach faster than feeling there is no pathway to the first-team squad because off-the-shelf signings are blocking the way."

"We have now reached the time when those Manchester City and Chelsea youth team and academy coaches need the inspiration, the bragging rights. They need to know all their hard work is not in vain, that opportunities exist."

[Stats 7,136]

It was really OTT with the RLC and the way his debut was being built up by the media. It goes to show that either the media don't have faith in Mourinho integrating youth players into a first team or highlights our poor track record in developing young players at the club. The reason I say this is that Arsenal had a younger player than RLC making his debut against Galatasaray named Ainsley Maitland-Niles who is a real talent. You did not hear any of the same hype about him even though he was actually given the chance by Wenger to play much longer on the field then the odd 8 minutes we gave RLC. Like yeah I was pleased to see RLC make his deut but the way it was all built up, you would think he is the second coming of Christ FFS.

[lionsden 4,689]

It was really OTT with the RLC and the way his debut was being built up by the media. It goes to show that either the media don't have faith in Mourinho integrating youth players into a first team or highlights our poor track record in developing young players at the club. The reason I say this is that Arsenal had a younger player than RLC making his debut against Galatasaray named Ainsley Maitland-Niles who is a real talent. You did not hear any of the same hype about him even though he was actually given the chance by Wenger to play much longer on the field then the odd 8 minutes we gave RLC. Like yeah I was pleased to see RLC make his deut but the way it was all built up, you would think he is the second coming of Christ FFS.

Wenger tried to take the shine off our "academy day" but failed. Jose 1-0 Wenger

[Strike 7,474]

Absolutely. Action speaks volumes. Mourinho can say youth integration in any number of different ways he wants but ultimately, I'd rather see the youth players given a chance on the pitch rather than be talked about in the press.

League cup game at Derby tomorrow and Mourinho has belted out "We will pick a strong side" etc.

[Johnny Kills 164]

I'm gonna be honest - I love that we're "ganging up" on Mourinho right now as opposed to just believing in him. His decision to leave out RLC for 82 minutes was laughable at best. His statement of putting out the best team vs Derby is the same. A match vs a championship team - surely we could afford to play just 1 youth surrounded by 10 first teamers, right?

However, that brilliant article by Neville put things into perspective to me. At the absolute worst, we have a top 3 academy in England. It took a while for the club to get to this point. If you look at Mourinho's record, he doesn't integrate youth into his squad. Please don't feed me the BS of "look at how many players he gave their debuts too" because that's EXACTLY the same thing that just happened to RLC. A debut without consistent playing time means fuck all.

Back to my point - this is a new strategy for Mourinho as well. He's also coming to terms with this outlook for the first time in his 14 year career. Neville was talking about how linked the youth team and the first team was, how everything's integrated, he was learning from his experiences etc. Well couldn't you say this was RLC's first major learning experience? Whether the match meant anything or not, players uproot their families just so they can play for a club in the CL. He also had his first presser alongside his manager possibly for the next 10 years. Mourinho's mindset is win at all costs - we know this and love it. It's going to take some trial and error on his part on how to go about it. It's easy for us to sit here and say "ah well he should play player A here for X minutes and player B for X minutes" but it's our league to lose this year and IMO Jose knows that.

[lionsden 4,689]

Absolutely. Action speaks volumes. Mourinho can say youth integration in any number of different ways he wants but ultimately, I'd rather see the youth players given a chance on the pitch rather than be talked about in the press.

League cup game at Derby tomorrow and Mourinho has belted out "We will pick a strong side" etc.

And that's after saying this just a couple of days ago

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/545537/Chelsea-Jose-Mourinho-rest-players-December-football-news

But then again his idea of strong side could just mean the squad players. I don't think anyone can defend him if he starts our key players in this match.

[Jase 43,479]

When the journalists asked Mourinho about his record of promoting players from the academy (can't remember the exact question but it was something along those lines), he defended himself by mentioning Carlos Alberto at Porto, Santon at Inter Milan and Varane at Real Madrid, the three players he brought in from the academy. The funny thing about that was, only Santon was from the youth system while Carlos Alberto and Varane were bought from Fluminese and Lens respectively.

Buying young players and integrating them into the first team can't exactly be considered as 'promoting from the youth academy', can it? Out of the many young players from the academy he gave debut to, Santon was probably only one of the very few who continued to be in the first team after his first senior game. The rest, arguably, were pushed aside and never to be seen much again. If only the journalists had been braver and followed up on that Mourinho response by asking something like this "but those are only three notable players you promoted from the youth academy, what about the rest?".

[pHaRaOn 2,131]

All this Boga "thing" just journalists mishear. Jose never mention Boga. He named Oscar, not Boga.

[lionsden 4,689]

When the journalists asked Mourinho about his record of promoting players from the academy (can't remember the exact question but it was something along those lines), he defended himself by mentioning Carlos Alberto at Porto, Santon at Inter Milan and Varane at Real Madrid, the three players he brought in from the academy. The funny thing about that was, only Santon was from the youth system while Carlos Alberto and Varane were bought from Fluminese and Lens respectively.

Buying young players and integrating them into the first team can't exactly be considered as 'promoting from the youth academy', can it? Out of the many young players from the academy he gave debut to, Santon was probably only one of the very few who continued to be in the first team after his first senior game. The rest, arguably, were pushed aside and never to be seen much again. If only the journalists had been braver and followed up on that Mourinho response by asking something like this "but those are only three notable players you promoted from the youth academy, what about the rest?".

You think the poor journalists want to spend the next 2 hours listening to lectures about lemons, egg, chicken, yolk and little horses?.

[Shane 2,275]

When the journalists asked Mourinho about his record of promoting players from the academy (can't remember the exact question but it was something along those lines), he defended himself by mentioning Carlos Alberto at Porto, Santon at Inter Milan and Varane at Real Madrid, the three players he brought in from the academy. The funny thing about that was, only Santon was from the youth system while Carlos Alberto and Varane were bought from Fluminese and Lens respectively.

Buying young players and integrating them into the first team can't exactly be considered as 'promoting from the youth academy', can it? Out of the many young players from the academy he gave debut to, Santon was probably only one of the very few who continued to be in the first team after his first senior game. The rest, arguably, were pushed aside and never to be seen much again. If only the journalists had been braver and followed up on that Mourinho response by asking something like this "but those are only three notable players you promoted from the youth academy, what about the rest?".

Jose didn't really do it at Inter and Madrid because he wasn't there long enough and the short term results were too important. Especially at Madrid. Its all well and good talking about it in theory, but a top manager isn't going to risk bringing youth players through because they're under pressure for short term results. If a manager starts to intergrate youth players results could slip and in today's footballing world a few bad results and questions are being immediately asked of your job.

This can change with managerial stability. Jose knew he wasn't going to spend long with Inter or Madrid, but obviously see's Chelsea as a long term thing, So promoting youth players is something we'll see more of in the future. We have to give Jose the chance to perfect the first team side before the promoting of youth players becomes a main priority.

[Madmax 9,219]

Jose didn't really do it at Inter and Madrid because he wasn't there long enough and the short term results were too important. Especially at Madrid. Its all well and good talking about it in theory, but a top manager isn't going to risk bringing youth players through because they're under pressure for short term results. If a manager starts to intergrate youth players results could slip and in today's footballing world a few bad results and questions are being immediately asked of your job.

This can change with managerial stability. Jose knew he wasn't going to spend long with Inter or Madrid, but obviously see's Chelsea as a long term thing, So promoting youth players is something we'll see more of in the future. We have to give Jose the chance to perfect the first team side before the promoting of youth players becomes a main priority.

Everyone gets all that and nobody's asking him to start Baker or Boga in place of Willian; nobody's asking for Christensen and Ake to start against Man City. What is puzzling is when he doesn't play anyone from Brown, Baker, Boga or Solanke 48 hours after OT at Shrewsbury, when he sings paeans about RLC only to give him 8 minutes in a dead rubber. That's not down to managerial stability, that's down to managerial will.

[Jase 43,479]

You think the poor journalists want to spend the next 2 hours listening to lectures about lemons, egg, chicken, yolk and little horses?.

Then those lots aren't doing their job properly. Even if Mourinho starts to talk trash if they ask him the question, will be interesting to hear his answer still, given he spoke so proudly about promoting youth, calling it 'Academy Day' etc like he's giving birth or something.

[didierforever 7,349]

WOW!!