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The Mourinho Thread


Steve
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When will the "Rafa did well for us" myth stop ?

Chelsea was 3 points off the top when he came, in the run for winning the Club world cup and in the two english Cups as well. 

He finished 15 POINTS off the champions, that is a disgrace, even we, in this disastrous situation have only 19 points off Arsenal at the moment, I don't think people here realize how bad he coped with the Premier League... 

Won the Europa League, struggling against the likes of Rubin Kazan and needing an injury time winner against the likes of Sparta Prague... We really don't care, we had better objectives, which were mainly qualify for next season champion's league, but also challenge for the title, we lost FA Cup semis, Carling cup semis and CWC final while getting -12 points under him on the league...

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The debate for Europa League only stands today because of the opportunity of that winning it gives you, playing the Champions League. 

That wasn't the case at the time and I celebrated it madly as well, but we were playing really, really bad against teams like Prague and needing injury time winners at home to qualify, doesn't mean it's a "bad win", just means that we were really lucky and that Di Matteo would have probably won it as well. 

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6 minutes ago, Adnane said:

The debate for Europa League only stands today because of the opportunity of that winning it gives you, playing the Champions League. 

That wasn't the case at the time and I celebrated it madly as well, but we were playing really, really bad against teams like Prague and needing injury time winners at home to qualify, doesn't mean it's a "bad win", just means that we were really lucky and that Di Matteo would have probably won it as well. 

Yeah but if it was so easy why don't English clubs win it more consistently? It's one of the reasons I'm against us qualifying for the EL in the first place; long travels coupled with having to play on the Thursday without a Football Association unwilling to help such clubs is a hindrance. Trying to then balance the issues of qualifying for the CL with a top 4 finish was harder than it looked so credit where it's due. Rafa's instructions were to qualify in top 4 and win a trophy or 2.. Which he did.

Let's not forget personnel wise. Signed Demba Ba for £7m in Jan and made the decision to move Luiz from CB to CM & Ivanovic from RB to CB; those 2 moves in particular sparked us actually beginning to win games.

Like I said, I don't like the bloke and hope he never comes back to Chelsea. His campaign started awfully as well, loss to QPR iirc. But by the end he'd done what he came to do and really didn't damage us in any way.

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1 minute ago, Adnane said:

3 points of United when he took the team. 

15 points off the champions in the end of the season.

That's just horrible. 

Agreed, but that season was heading in one direction Rafa or no Rafa. As I said before, I think he stabilised a rocking ship - We'll both agree to the fact we're happy he's gone and never coming back :D

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Just now, Adnane said:

I don't know about that, I think a lot of managers would have done a better job. 

I can't forgive joking about our fans then losing to QPR at home, no, I just can't... :finger:

Tbh I'm not asking you to, neither do I.

It was more on the merits of what he actually did with this team.. Just remember, we didn't have Costa, Fabregas, Matic or even Drogba at this time either. Sturridge had left for Liverpool and we were down to Torres & Ba only. Hell our double pivot in the EL final was Lampard-Luiz, that's a big insight into the shape of our team at that time.

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Mourinho took the same team within 4 points of the champions ( and a couple of dropped points at home on the road ), and to the semis of the CL. 

Not comparing Mourinho to Benitez, the comparison doesn't even stand for me, but saying that he had a bad team, maybe, I'd even say for sure since it showed its limitations afterwards, but he had the team to at least challenge for the title till the last 3-4 games. 

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Just now, Adnane said:

Mourinho took the same team within 4 points of the champions ( and a couple of dropped points at home on the road ), and to the semis of the CL. 

Not comparing Mourinho to Benitez, the comparison doesn't even stand for me, but saying that he had a bad team, maybe, I'd even say for sure since it showed its limitations afterwards, but he had the team to at least challenge for the title till the last 3-4 games. 

I do agree with that.

He should have done better and of course Mourinho is 1,000% the manager Rafa is so it's no surprise what Mourinho did with that team in 2013-14. He could do nothing about the CL though, once Juventus had beaten us in Di Matteo's last game there was no way for us to come back. Rafa actually won the last group game 6-1 remember?

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1 hour ago, Adnane said:

When will the "Rafa did well for us" myth stop ?

Chelsea was 3 points off the top when he came, in the run for winning the Club world cup and in the two english Cups as well. 

He finished 15 POINTS off the champions, that is a disgrace, even we, in this disastrous situation have only 19 points off Arsenal at the moment, I don't think people here realize how bad he coped with the Premier League... 

Won the Europa League, struggling against the likes of Rubin Kazan and needing an injury time winner against the likes of Sparta Prague... We really don't care, we had better objectives, which were mainly qualify for next season champion's league, but also challenge for the title, we lost FA Cup semis, Carling cup semis and CWC final while getting -12 points under him on the league...

Blaming Rafa for falling off United is like blaming Jose for coming in and finishing below Liverpool, United dropped something like ten points during Rafa's whole reign at Chelsea (three of which against us after they won the league), the team we had that season weren't good enough to win the league.

He came in and made us a more solid unit, we were a lot more competitive in the big games (won two draw one vs United, beat Arsenal, drew vs Spurs and Liverpool, did lose to.City tho), he got us consistent results in big games which we lacked since the double season, something as well we know Jose built on.

He also had not a great firstXl to work with never mind depth and got us 3rd place with the bonus of a trophy, he also did it with a record breaking run of fixtures.

Did I like him? Not really, Did I want him full time over Jose's return? God no, would I ever want him back? Defiantly not, but he did a good job under difficult circumstances and deserves credit for that.

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1 minute ago, Pizy said:

Fuck. :(

Was still holding out a glimmer of hope that Mou wouldn return to Madrid. Only one possible destination now. Goddamnit. Next season will be a pain watching José at United.

Imagine the scenes if we go to Old Trafford to face Mourinho and we've got Brendan Rodgers as manager.

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46 minutes ago, Ossie the King said:

Imagine the scenes if we go to Old Trafford to face Mourinho and we've got Brendan Rodgers as manager.

Or Pellegrino.

The worst thing initially will be seeing him sign players he couldn't here. Pretty much no transfer target will be out of reach. Seeing him sign players we've been desperate for here for years will be a gut punch. Think Stones and Pogba will be his two big summer buys.

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