The Mourinho Thread

[OhForAGreavsie 6,065]

8 games to go, with 3 of them against big teams. Jose's records against big teams are very impressive, so I'm confident about it. With City most likely will drop more points, even if we draw against Arsenal, I don't think it is a problem.

We have two more matches before we go to the Emirates. If we win both of those we will be at least 10 points ahead of Arsenal with 6 six games remaining. If so we'll have more of less taken the result of that game out of the equation. We have to guard against allowing the trip to Islington to become more important than it needs to be.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,065]

maybe not everytime. but it wont be a stretch if i say most of the times. moreover, like u said, he is our best no.10.

he has put in performances like city away last season which was one of the best counter attacking displays i have ever seen. also, his defensive nounce is without a doubt wonderful.

lets just hope that jose does what is best for the team, which at this very moment is definitely dropping oscar.

To be clear, I'm saying that I do not share the opinion that Oscar plays well early in the season then runs out of steam. He's just as limited in August and September as he is at any other time in my opinion.

I don't believe that Willian has shown my feeling to be right. Despite his limitations, Oscar has often proved the better option and, amid his struggles, has managed to make more happen from the ten than Willian has. When, as on Saturday, Willian adds some productivity to his game, he puts Oscar in the shade, but he just hasn't done that often enough.

I think this last point is the core disagreement between us. Willian always looks better with his greater pace, better dribbling and more eye catching skils, but, in my opinion, he seldom actually does better. As I see it, neither of these two is the answer for our team going forward. Next weekend however I'd go with Willian as you suggest.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,065]

Our win at stoke would have looked very convincing had Adam not scored that 65yd goal. We played lovely football, stayed in possession, played incisive passes. We looked like last years' Chelsea again, and this would have been spotted had he not scored that stunner. Not to mention he shouldn't have had the opportunity because Hazard was hacked down for the pass that lead to the goal.

If we won at Stoke then Charlie Adam scored from a lot more than 65 yards!

I agree with you though, we were better. This was the most enjoyable performance we've produced for a while. That said, I don't think either of us would argue with anyone who believes there is still plenty of room for improvement.

[Blue Colored Sky 1,807]

He says that he doesn't want to do something different, in relation to off form midfield trio, and go into unknown in April.

He took off second striker as soon as we scored - to play things as safe as possible.

He now doesn't want to think of Zouma in defence, instead he opts for a "safe" option.

He says that he can't give a minute to RLC, who is build like a tank, "to protect" him.

He reacts to Cuadrado miss like if that was crucial miss to define the season and shows way more than his discontent.

I just see he has huge monkey on his back right now. A big, big one. Plays according to his "winning formula" recipe.

I'm sure more could have been done in relation to the long term project but I see I am harsh on him when I see this man, our boss, being under such pressure ... I don't know. To reiterate this again, due to the past months, I want this title more to build from that than I want the title itself.

[CurlyHairLikeLuiz 1,625]

He says that he doesn't want to do something different, in relation to off form midfield trio, and go into unknown in April.

He took off second striker as soon as we scored - to play things as safe as possible.

He now doesn't want to think of Zouma in defence, instead he opts for a "safe" option.

He says that he can't give a minute to RLC, who is build like a tank, "to protect" him.

He reacts to Cuadrado miss like if that was crucial miss to define the season and shows way more than his discontent.

I just see he has huge monkey on his back right now. A big, big one. Plays according to his "winning formula" recipe.

I'm sure more could have been done in relation to the long term project but I see I am harsh on him when I see this man, our boss, being under such pressure ... I don't know. To reiterate this again, due to the past months, I want this title more to build from that than I want the title itself.

GC has looked solid enough the last few games, Cuadrado needs adaption and if he can survive Stoke he can survived damned near anything, it's all about conditioning. Truth be told I think the only reason he hasn'tt played RLC is because he's not yet sure how it would impact his system, don't forget, breaking into the first team at Ruben's age is an impressive feat.

If we won at Stoke then Charlie Adam scored from a lot more than 65 yards!

I agree with you though, we were better. This was the most enjoyable performance we've produced for a while. That said, I don't think either of us would argue with anyone who believes there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The worst bit is that I had to read your post about 5 times before I actually realised what you were saying, lol.

[xPetrCechx 13,570]

[Joker10 946]

First: The Champions League is the most important trophy in football but it's not the best way to measure the quality of a team. For example in 2004, if you put those 32 teams in a League, Porto with luck would be 6th or 7th in the table, the same for Liverpool in 2005... they would have a lot less chances to win it because they had no quality for that. About the quality of Porto I would bet that all the team of Porto cost less than half the value Madrid paid for FIgo at that time. I think the playoffs of the NBA are played in the best of seven which gives some regularity to the thing, anyway the best way to measure a team is a League not the playoff system... anyone that follows football knows that the Barcelona of 2010 was impossible to beat in a League by any team in the world at that time, they were clearly the best team and they lost to Inter. This leads us to another thing... you can garantee you will fight for the League title, but you can't do it with the Champions League. For exampe we are a lot better this season, PSG seemed to be with problems... last season we won against them... this season we lost. If we were in the French League we would be CHampions by now with the lack of quality PSG showed this season and last season probably we wouldn't. The CHampions League will be always a long term project for a team, even if you are clearly the best team in the world there is a big probability of not winning the title.

You are right that Porto side would not do well in this hypothetical league against the best competitions, but that does not take away anything from their CL victory or make them inferior to any of those teams. Again it only proves that Porto is not the best team based on the league criteria, but they def proved they are the best team in the playoff criteria.

7-5-3-1 games it doesn't matter in American sports, the best team is determined after playing the best of the best. The NFL playoff are decided by one game. No one ever remembers who had the best record in the regular season.

I obviously bring up the American sports format not because i think it is superior, i just to show you my belief. And that is that the "best team" is subjective, it is all relative based on what criteria you use. You can only conclude that the team that won the league, was the best team based on that criteira and same goes for the CL. No format is superior to one another.

I am glad we agree that the CL is bigger then league.

Second: We are at least the 4th team in terms of net spending (the real indicator of financial investment) in the League in the last 2 seasons, but still we are the best team in the country and the team that improved the most. And here we have a lot of problems... If we don't start spending, we can't fight with Manchester United in the future regularly, We need a new stadium TODAY.We need to close the financial gap to United and other giants in Europe or we will have problems to fight for the Champions League and the League. Mourinho is in a club with a lot of issues, in a period where other teams have better finantial possibilities and still he is winning titles.

Net spending is not a good formula, because it gets very complicated if we go down that road.

1. You have to go back more then the past 2 seasons before Mou got here, since the players he sold did not grow out of tree. Also Mou had no decision in those players being purchased since he was at Madrid. How should he get credited for their sales, since he never purchased them? Just like he can't be blamed for their purchase.

2. Players have resale value. Mou brought in a lot of established players. say hypothetically in 3 years a new managers comes in and does not rate Cesc, Matic, Costa, and Willian. He wants to bring in his own players to fit his system, just like Mou sold players he did not rate. It wouldn't be fair to use net spending for that manager, since it is not his fault the previous manager(Mou) bought in a lot of established players with little resale value. Because those players i mentioned would have little resale value.

I don't see the logic of using resale value just because Mou landed on a goldmine, he sold a lot of young players who did have a very high resale value. I can think of many other reasons why it would be quite falty to use net spending, but i am getting a headache just thinking about all the implications. Lets use the amount of money Mou has spent.

Third: Almost all the sells you say Mourinho did in this team were inevitable because of our financial problems. The club had/has a structural deficit and we needed to sell every season 2 or 3 good players to balance that. You can think it would be good to have Mata, KdB and David Luiz... but we would need to sell Lukaku, Hazard and Azpi... or Ramires, Courtois and Oscar... or ... What really matters is that we have today a better team than the mess we had 2 seasons ago, we are the best team in the country with virtually no net spending in the team, and the other teams spent more than us and we improved more than them...

Those two years of mess as how you look at it. In those two years before Mou took over Chelsea made a change in their transfer policy, we brought in a lot of young players keeping in mind the future of the club. Those two years of mess laid the foundation for this team btw. The situation Mou inherited and the situation we were in after Carlo sacking is completely different. It is not fair to only look at the results before Mou but also look at the big pictuare, those two years before him was a huge and much needed rebuilding process. In two years we had an old and aging squad, and turned it around filled it with a lot of young and talented squad.

I just refuse to belive this premise that Mou inhertied some shit team and lacks financial resources. It maybe my blue tinted glasses but i firmly believe that Chelsea is the best managerial job in England. That is what Mou inherited tbh.

[Joker10 946]

Writing that post has made me reminisce about the AVB years and the manager. I was firmly behind his sacking at the time, and i probably wouldn't change a thing since we did win the CL under RDM.

But now i realize my view of him was kinda unfair, and can appreciate of what a difficult assignment he had and the sitution he was in. He was in a wrong place and in a unwinable situation.

[communicate 2,703]

You are right that Porto side would not do well in this hypothetical league against the best competitions, but that does not take away anything from their CL victory or make them inferior to any of those teams. Again it only proves that Porto is not the best team based on the league criteria, but they def proved they are the best team in the playoff criteria.

7-5-3-1 games it doesn't matter in American sports, the best team is determined after playing the best of the best. The NFL playoff are decided by one game. No one ever remembers who had the best record in the regular season.

I obviously bring up the American sports format not because i think it is superior, i just to show you my belief. And that is that the "best team" is subjective, it is all relative based on what criteria you use. You can only conclude that the team that won the league, was the best team based on that criteira and same goes for the CL. No format is superior to one another.

I am glad we agree that the CL is bigger then league.

Net spending is not a good formula, because it gets very complicated if we go down that road.

1. You have to go back more then the past 2 seasons before Mou got here, since the players he sold did not grow out of tree. Also Mou had no decision in those players being purchased since he was at Madrid. How should he get credited for their sales, since he never purchased them? Just like he can't be blamed for their purchase.

2. Players have resale value. Mou brought in a lot of established players. say hypothetically in 3 years a new managers comes in and does not rate Cesc, Matic, Costa, and Willian. He wants to bring in his own players to fit his system, just like Mou sold players he did not rate. It wouldn't be fair to use net spending for that manager, since it is not his fault the previous manager(Mou) bought in a lot of established players with little resale value. Because those players i mentioned would have little resale value.

I don't see the logic of using resale value just because Mou landed on a goldmine, he sold a lot of young players who did have a very high resale value. I can think of many other reasons why it would be quite falty to use net spending, but i am getting a headache just thinking about all the implications. Lets use the amount of money Mou has spent.

Those two years of mess as how you look at it. In those two years before Mou took over Chelsea made a change in their transfer policy, we brought in a lot of young players keeping in mind the future of the club. Those two years of mess laid the foundation for this team btw. The situation Mou inherited and the situation we were in after Carlo sacking is completely different. It is not fair to only look at the results before Mou but also look at the big pictuare, those two years before him was a huge and much needed rebuilding process. In two years we had an old and aging squad, and turned it around filled it with a lot of young and talented squad.

I just refuse to belive this premise that Mou inhertied some shit team and lacks financial resources. It maybe my blue tinted glasses but i firmly believe that Chelsea is the best managerial job in England. That is what Mou inherited tbh.

Very good post. We got a very healthy profit from the sale of Luiz, mata, kdb and lukaku . I think you can easily argue none of their value were enhanced by Mourinho.

Unless you have been a manager for a team for like 10 years or so ala Wenger, net spending is not a good barometer

Imo this season Mou had done ok.

-I expect us to compete for championship in epl, we are on course of winning it. He has done extremely well. Of course you can say our rival are just so bad this season.

-I don't put too much value on capital cup. But it is a trophy.

-Disappointing UCL exit. We were outplayed twice by Psg and imo Mou was outcoached by blanc

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Net spending is not a good formula, because it gets very complicated if we go down that road.

1. You have to go back more then the past 2 seasons before Mou got here, since the players he sold did not grow out of tree. Also Mou had no decision in those players being purchased since he was at Madrid. How should he get credited for their sales, since he never purchased them? Just like he can't be blamed for their purchase.

2. Players have resale value. Mou brought in a lot of established players. say hypothetically in 3 years a new managers comes in and does not rate Cesc, Matic, Costa, and Willian. He wants to bring in his own players to fit his system, just like Mou sold players he did not rate. It wouldn't be fair to use net spending for that manager, since it is not his fault the previous manager(Mou) bought in a lot of established players with little resale value. Because those players i mentioned would have little resale value.

I don't see the logic of using resale value just because Mou landed on a goldmine, he sold a lot of young players who did have a very high resale value. I can think of many other reasons why it would be quite falty to use net spending, but i am getting a headache just thinking about all the implications. Lets use the amount of money Mou has spent.

Those two years of mess as how you look at it. In those two years before Mou took over Chelsea made a change in their transfer policy, we brought in a lot of young players keeping in mind the future of the club. Those two years of mess laid the foundation for this team btw. The situation Mou inherited and the situation we were in after Carlo sacking is completely different. It is not fair to only look at the results before Mou but also look at the big pictuare, those two years before him was a huge and much needed rebuilding process. In two years we had an old and aging squad, and turned it around filled it with a lot of young and talented squad.

I just refuse to belive this premise that Mou inhertied some shit team and lacks financial resources. It maybe my blue tinted glasses but i firmly believe that Chelsea is the best managerial job in England. That is what Mou inherited tbh.

You are judging based on the value of players we had before Mourinho came. That team which Mourinho inherited that didn't grow out of a tree would have been competing with Liverpool for 4th place judging by the 75points tally we got that season.

Mourinho inherited a team which was fighting for top 4 like Liverpool till the last day and eventually came 3rd in the league with 75points.

He's turned them into title challengers in his first season with 2 games left (82points, 4 points behind the title) and is about to win two trophies in the second season including the league we last won 5 years ago with a net spend of around 20mil.

If that's not progress then I'm lost

[OhForAGreavsie 6,065]

Writing that post has made me reminisce about the AVB years and the manager. I was firmly behind his sacking at the time, and i probably wouldn't change a thing since we did win the CL under RDM.

But now i realize my view of him was kinda unfair, and can appreciate of what a difficult assignment he had and the sitution he was in. He was in a wrong place and in a unwinable situation.

This is good to read. The bloke was asked to perform an impossible task. He made man management mistakes, that's clear, but I never felt he deserved the lack of respect shown to him by Chelsea fans.

Disagree with virtually everything else you've said in this thread recently by the way. I'm not expecting to read in a couple of years that you've changed your mind about these too, but I live in hope.

[didierforever 7,349]

Net spending is not a good formula, because it gets very complicated if we go down that road.

1. You have to go back more then the past 2 seasons before Mou got here, since the players he sold did not grow out of tree. Also Mou had no decision in those players being purchased since he was at Madrid. How should he get credited for their sales, since he never purchased them? Just like he can't be blamed for their purchase.

2. Players have resale value. Mou brought in a lot of established players. say hypothetically in 3 years a new managers comes in and does not rate Cesc, Matic, Costa, and Willian. He wants to bring in his own players to fit his system, just like Mou sold players he did not rate. It wouldn't be fair to use net spending for that manager, since it is not his fault the previous manager(Mou) bought in a lot of established players with little resale value. Because those players i mentioned would have little resale value.

I don't see the logic of using resale value just because Mou landed on a goldmine, he sold a lot of young players who did have a very high resale value. I can think of many other reasons why it would be quite falty to use net spending, but i am getting a headache just thinking about all the implications. Lets use the amount of money Mou has spent.

what?

you do understand that jose is replacing those players that he is selling. jose replaced mata,kdb, luiz, torres, etc etc, with the players that he has bought. if he had thought that these players were good enough, he would not have had to "SPEND" that money. so i am sorry, but just counting the money "SPENT" makes no sense to me whatsoever.

i mean zouma in for luiz was as direct a replacement as their could possibly be. luiz was sold for 50mil and zouma brought in for 11 mil, so its a pretty okay to say that we made 39 mil and got a better CB for our system of play. so i just dont understand how we can only include the "spent" and neglect the "sold".

in short, jose has spent a total of 45mil pounds since coming here in 4 transfer windows and taken a barely qualifying for CL team to a comfortably PL-winning team.

[sainttourist 68]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/managers/jose-mourinho/11519921/Jose-Mourinho-I-have-a-problem.-Im-getting-better-at-everything.html

good read.

[Fernando 6,585]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/managers/jose-mourinho/11519921/Jose-Mourinho-I-have-a-problem.-Im-getting-better-at-everything.html

good read.

Needs to get better at being not so negative in bigger games.

Because it's always predictable how we set up.

When he can start surprising us then he indeed will have gotten better.

Right now he's just a shadow of his former self. Nothing more nothing less.

[supporter 3,088]

Jose`s project has different stages. The main objective of Jose when he return with us is that Chelsea regained the hegemony of English football, and now we are the masters of English football and when (hopefully) win Premier League this year we will have recovered this hegemony.

Next year we must seek the hegemony in Europe. I am sure that the next year we will continue this great trend of Jose`s project and next year we will fight to recover the hegemony in Europe.

The trend of Jose is completely positive. Day after day we have better numbers. That great information revelead by xPetrCechx revealed regarding our evolution in Premier Leauge demonstrates this change.. To build a big project we need calm and support in good times and support much more in bad times.

It was a shame that we had to play against PSG in Champions League. If we had had the lucky of Real Madrid or Bayern the story would be different ...

For me Jose is doing a fabulous job. Perhaps his only mistake was certain approaches in big games. But the rest is being perfect. We have recovered our identity and the hegemony of English football. Having Jose with us is a beautiful dream.

For me the main problem of certain conservative approaches in big games is that each our defeat is a global drama and it seems that everything we have done before is rubbish. The anxiety that surrounds us is sometimes suffocating.

Hopefully we win Premier League this season to take away this anxiety and to play calmer without the anxiety by the need to win trophies.

I'm sure that for the games against Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool Jose will surprise us with their approaches. He is the best strategist in the world capable to surprise the best teams. I trust Jose.

Regards.