The Mourinho Thread

[The Skipper 20,593]

Understandable why we went for a draw considering we've been poor defensively in the last few weeks but it's not the brand of football I want to see from us considering the type of players we have at hand.

It was a good result but I'm not as proud of it as most people seem to be on here. Yes we were at The Emirates, yes we've been poor recently and yes he set us up correct tactically for this game due to those factors but personally I expect more. I was never in the camp that thought we'd not even be able to grab a point at Arsenal either - I believe we could've won.

His subs in the last 20/30 minutes could've won the game as well but they were the wrong ones IMO. I know Hazard was tiring a bit but he was still our most dangerous player at that point and the negativity in those minutes were very annoying - I think it allowed Arsenal to open us up a lot more and we nearly got punished twice (Giroud's miss, Azpi off the line). We could've been looking at a loss easily here so personally I don't get why those last minutes are basically being conveniently ignored by most on here. His subs were really, really bad.

I've given up on us playing the type of football we can this season regardless but I just hope that towards the end of this one that we at least have a solid foundation set to work on.

[bushman 2,043]

Last night, Jose packed the midfield & got it right, once again. Started as 4-3-3, I was worried, then, but immediately it was 4-5-Ferda playing hide & seek.

Arsenal Ramsey, Ozil isolated, well. Walcott pace was gone.

Stupid Wenger did not make any changes to help his tired team. Giroud, Ozil are just about dead, I feel.

Wenger cannot outsmart Jose, has not for 10 games & most likely won´t in a long time. LOL.

If Jose finds first gear, most likely by the end of January, this talented team will click as a group, soon.

Just one top striker, in January.

[Phil Driver 503]

So after shipping goals and points away from home in europe and the league what more were you expecting? more of the same by the sound of it . We have been to easy to play and score against in recent times,we need to get back to clean sheets and conceding 1 goal at most ,especially away from home .

A loss would have been very damaging for us yesterday and a massive boost for Arsenal and Wenger,you even say that Hazard was tired which he was, he had he worked his nuts off ,so that was an obvious one ,Willian was poor and Torres had worked hard as well and had not looked like scoring ,so not really sure what changes could have been made and there was always the possibility that by going for the late win we could have lost and sent Arsenal top of the league,the draw keeps everything nice and tight and continues Jose's record of getting results against our rivals at the top .

You can be sure if the game had been at Stamford Bridge Jose would have gone all out to win it late on , a point at your rivals ground is always a good result and with a little more care on the counter we nick the match. Mourinho has said he needs to work out why we lose matches away from home on a regular basis and give away goals like confetti. It would seem he has worked it out and you have not ,yet.

[yuvala 2,167]

We finally looked like a team, I felt secure, I felt strong.

We should build on that, first learn how to work as a team and not concede and then improve our attack and finishing.

I'm sure if we keep this focus, hunger and determination we can beat any team, especially the shitty teams like Sunderland.

[Sidzeret 2,257]

Exactly. We defended AS A TEAM. All 11 guys getting back and then working their bollocks off to get forward and support the attack. We seemed to want to be first to every ball, be it Mikel's tackle on Arteta or Lampard getting to the knockdown first for a shot.

This was a great foundation that we need to build on. The lack of a clinical striker is all to clear though and we need that threat up front to keep defences honest, but last night's team was the type of team that can scare oppositions.

Also to see us taking a shot at goal just seconds after the opposition attempts one at our end of the pitch just rolls back the years. Amazing counter-attacking football. Too bad we weren't clinical enough to finish our chances.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Assuming this is directed at me so...

So after shipping goals and points away from home in europe and the league what more were you expecting? more of the same by the sound of it . We have been to easy to play and score against in recent times,we need to get back to clean sheets and conceding 1 goal at most ,especially away from home .

If you read my post again you'll see that I understood why we set up the way we did considering our recent performances... I don't know how you missed that since it was the first part of my post.

A loss would have been very damaging for us yesterday and a massive boost for Arsenal and Wenger,you even say that Hazard was tired which he was, he had he worked his nuts off ,so that was an obvious one ,Willian was poor and Torres had worked hard as well and had not looked like scoring ,so not really sure what changes could have been made and there was always the possibility that by going for the late win we could have lost and sent Arsenal top of the league,the draw keeps everything nice and tight and continues Jose's record of getting results against our rivals at the top .

Again, as I said in my post, Giroud takes his chance or Azpi doesn't clear the ball off the line and it would've been a very different result - it wasn't a coincidence that Arsenal started to create their best chances after Mourinho made his subs and made the team even more defensive as we surrendered the ball even more to them. He should've made like for like replacements and kept the shape we had in the first half in my opinion because they created jack all when we played like that, that's why I said his subs were poor.

I don't think the fact that we got a draw justifies his subs at all since as I said before, Arsenal created their best chances when we altered our shape because of those subs.

You can be sure if the game had been at Stamford Bridge Jose would have gone all out to win it late on , a point at your rivals ground is always a good result and with a little more care on the counter we nick the match. Mourinho has said he needs to work out why we lose matches away from home on a regular basis and give away goals like confetti. It would seem he has worked it out and you have not ,yet.

The problem has never been about conceding against big teams. It's conceding plentiful goals against teams that we should be beating that has been the problem. Not sure how you can use this game, the result or the way we set up tactically in this game as proof that Jose has worked out how to stop conceding goals against the lesser teams that we should be beating...

Are you seriously suggesting that we should set up this conservatively and play for draws against teams like Stoke, Sunderland etc?

[Sidzeret 2,257]

:tophat:

[Phil Driver 503]

Assuming this is directed at me so...

If you read my post again you'll see that I understood why we set up the way we did considering our recent performances... I don't know how you missed that since it was the first part of my post.

Again, as I said in my post, Giroud takes his chance or Azpi doesn't clear the ball off the line and it would've been a very different result - it wasn't a coincidence that Arsenal started to create their best chances after Mourinho made his subs and made the team even more defensive as we surrendered the ball even more to them. He should've made like for like replacements and kept the shape we had in the first half in my opinion because they created jack all when we played like that, that's why I said his subs were poor.

I don't think the fact that we got a draw justifies his subs at all since as I said before, Arsenal created their best chances when we altered our shape because of those subs.

The problem has never been about conceding against big teams. It's conceding plentiful goals against teams that we should be beating that has been the problem. Not sure how you can use this game, the result or the way we set up tactically in this game as proof that Jose has worked out how to stop conceding goals against the lesser teams that we should be beating...

Are you seriously suggesting that we should set up this conservatively and play for draws against teams like Stoke, Sunderland etc?

If you only want me to read the first line ,leave it at that ,I read the whole post.

Jose has worked out that we are far to offensive when playing away from home ,even at places like Stoke and Sunderland and are shipping goals and unable to hold onto leads ,the reason we do not concede more against the big teams (as you put it) is that we play more like we did at Arsenal ,as I said Jose has worked it out ,you obviously have not,yet.

Yes I am saying we should do more to protect leads in matches like at Stoke,rather than come away with nothing when we have the game won .

I think 4-3-3 will serve us well,especially away from home and we will not be so eratic and easy to play against as shown last night .

Your idea of subs may well have left us short when the home team look to press in the final minutes and they may well have scored the winner rather then Chelsea players defending well and us taking a draw as shown at Stoke, a game we should have 3 points from.

[The Skipper 20,593]

If you only want me to read the first line ,leave it at that ,I read the whole post.

Jose has worked out that we are far to offensive when playing away from home ,even at places like Stoke and Sunderland and are shipping goals and unable to hold onto leads ,the reason we do not concede more against the big teams (as you put it) is that we play more like we did at Arsenal ,as I said Jose has worked it out ,you obviously have not,yet.

Yes I am saying we should do more to protect leads in matches like at Stoke,rather than come away with nothing when we have the game won .

I think 4-3-3 will serve us well,especially away from home and we will not be so eratic and easy to play against as shown last night .

Your idea of subs may well have left us short when the home team look to press in the final minutes and they may well have scored the winner rather then Chelsea players defending well and us taking a draw as shown at Stoke, a game we should have 3 points from.

We've *tried* to be offensive and it hasn't worked. Most of the time we look clueless going forward especially when we have a lot of the ball in possession. Against bigger teams it's understandable why we play more conservatively as we obviously have a bigger threat to face but against smaller teams we should be taking the initiative. Jose's "offensive" (or whatever you might call it) system that he's tried to implement here hasn't allowed us to do so, so obviously we reverting to the style of football he knows best - counter attacking football - but our squad isn't really set up as such.

You're also getting it twisted - I didn't say we should go all out attack like we did against Stoke; going an all out attacking 4-4-2 would've been suicidal. All I was asking for was that Jose kept the same system we implemented in the first half and just brought on like for like replacements instead of going even more defensively. The initial system was still solid enough to get a result (i.e. the draw) and I doubt Arsenal would've created the chances they did; but it could've also increased our chances of perhaps nicking a winner. Instead of bringing Luiz on for Torres he should've just brought on a forward.

[Weckerz 3,781]

Gotta agree with the Skipper here tbh, José's 4-3-3 was spot on but there was no reason to sub both Hazard and Willian and especially a striker for a CB. That's just throwing the towel, while I felt we had several decent chances to get a goal.

In the end it worked but what if those 2 great chances for Giroud went in and we lose 2-0?

[edetarod 2,155]

Gotta agree with the Skipper here tbh, José's 4-3-3 was spot on but there was no reason to sub both Hazard and Willian and especially a striker for a CB. That's just throwing the towel, while I felt we had several decent chances to get a goal.

In the end it worked but what if those 2 great chances for Giroud went in and we lose 2-0?

the problem is we don't usually nick games in a late stage, we lose them

major difference between the rest of European top teams and us

[HD3D 1,038]

Arsenal had its first shot on target at minute 85 whereas Chelsea had at least 5 near-goal chances, yet Chelsea faces the criticism from these football "experts". This is unbelievable.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2528708/ADRIAN-DURHAM-Chelseas-anti-football-win-title.html

[Weckerz 3,781]

Arsenal had its first shot on target at minute 85 whereas Chelsea had at least 5 near-goal chances, yet Chelsea faces the criticism from these football "experts". This is unbelievable.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2528708/ADRIAN-DURHAM-Chelseas-anti-football-win-title.html

Cringeworthy, but nothing new, the world hates Chelsea. It actually enhances the satisfaction when we get results.

[robdog 2,084]

Still can't believe people blame Jose for a draw.

"They like to cry, that's tradition," - Jose Mourinho

[Barbara 15,149]

Understandable why we went for a draw considering we've been poor defensively in the last few weeks but it's not the brand of football I want to see from us considering the type of players we have at hand.

It was a good result but I'm not as proud of it as most people seem to be on here. Yes we were at The Emirates, yes we've been poor recently and yes he set us up correct tactically for this game due to those factors but personally I expect more. I was never in the camp that thought we'd not even be able to grab a point at Arsenal either - I believe we could've won.

His subs in the last 20/30 minutes could've won the game as well but they were the wrong ones IMO. I know Hazard was tiring a bit but he was still our most dangerous player at that point and the negativity in those minutes were very annoying - I think it allowed Arsenal to open us up a lot more and we nearly got punished twice (Giroud's miss, Azpi off the line). We could've been looking at a loss easily here so personally I don't get why those last minutes are basically being conveniently ignored by most on here. His subs were really, really bad.

I've given up on us playing the type of football we can this season regardless but I just hope that towards the end of this one that we at least have a solid foundation set to work on.

Who could have filled Hazard's shoes in the second better than André? I may agree that Mata instead of Oscar (despite the fact that it would compromise the defensive aspect as Willian's work-rate was immense and all of us know Mata doesn't come even close), but the only player we had to lead our counter-attacks with dribbles and pace (that was what Hazard was doing so well) was Schürrle. André didn't have a good match imo, he was disconnected from the play. Oscar is still in terrible form and added nothing to our attack. I think Mourinho simply didn't predict how bad (or at least how non-factor) the subs were. Watch Hazard's last minutes before the sub. He wasn't going for the plays anymore, he was tired. The match he was supposed the rest, he played about 40 minutes (against Sunderland).

I honestly can't find anything to complain from Mourinho's part, although I was very unsatisfied with both André's and especially Oscar's performances. Oscar seems burnt out, not sure if as a consequence of the injury or because the matches finally piled up. He wasn't playing that well even before the injury. Both Willian and Hazard were immense helping Iva and Azpili and also the pivot. Somehow André and Oscar couldn't keep even that. They were nothing special (far from it) offensively, but defensively they weren't much better. Oscar is sort of expected, he's been playing terribly lately, but André was playing well in his last matches. So I get why Mourinho did it, but I can't blame him when his players didn't turn up. I'm sure he didn't ask them to be sloppy, unfocused and disconnected from play...

And I think it's very naive of you to think that Arsenal would continue to be passive as the end of the game approached. Any team at home will take a last sprint at the end of match to try to win it. They started to grow before the subs, after them they had their best chances as expected. I'm not sure Azpili's clearance would have been a goal. I've seen that play at least 10 times and I'm still not convinced, although absolutely thankful he was there to make sure it didn't go in.

[Beirut_Blues 306]

Arsenal had its first shot on target at minute 85 whereas Chelsea had at least 5 near-goal chances, yet Chelsea faces the criticism from these football "experts". This is unbelievable.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2528708/ADRIAN-DURHAM-Chelseas-anti-football-win-title.html

This guy is just anti-Chelsea...what a fool.

[chelseathebest 150]

I wouldn't play Arsenal the way Mourinho did.

I think that Arsenal are just shite vs big teams and we should have used it.

I just hope that these 2 points won't be missed in the end.

[Blue Warrior 109]

The team that goes on a winning run(8-10 games) will be celebrating in May. We still have Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal at home so our destiny is still in our own hands.