The Mourinho Thread

[The Mak 4,459]

I wouls welcome Xavi Alonso personally to partner Lamaprd or Rammy and Rammy could play right side AM with those two .

I think you should stick to praising José/Lampard no matter what, just like in the other 95% of your posts...

[kellzfresh 7,226]

We need width, that's obvious, one of the reasons I was so vocal against Mazacar the moment the lineup was released (there are a few other, or many, didn't count). But we don't need much the fullback overlapping. We need the full back to linkup and to drag players, because as pointed by the guy himself, we have midgets in the attack except for Torres and Ba (all our AMs are short or not tall enough), the overlapping normally brings crosses, something Mourinho said we don't need or use. He's talking about ManCity midgets, but you can't compare Kun to whatever we have here, much less Silva... if we had Aguero we wouldn't have striker issues... so not a good example imo.

So I think Iva and Cole should be more present to link up - which sometimes will include overlap, many times won't and we need them to drag defenders mostly (which is his point 2 and I agree mostly with). Our best chances to score are our AM's and in the rare occasions our strikers do score, they seldom do it by receiving a cross. Torres - despite being injured again - has been running and taking on opponents - even daring to dribble, Eto'o likes to play behind the lines, and he's also better cutting and shooting, so why would we need overlapping as much as the guy stresses? I don't think we do because how many goals have we scored like Schürrle's recently? Also has this guy seen Ivanovic and now even Cole's crosses? I thank God we don't have them overlapping to cross that much because that's the quickest way for us to lose possession.

I think our FB need to take more action in the attack, but I doubt we'll ever see this team having FBs overlapping all the time because it doesn't work for a team like us. I know this is English football and I know this is how they played it probably since the 1800's. Still it's not as effective as it was in modern football and it'll be less effective (or even completely ineffective) if we stick with it. Cutoffs yes, as I suppose those are linkup plays (not familiar with the word to be honest, but from what I gather, it's giving the ball back to the winger or whoever without crossing into the box). So not only we don't have strikers who make good use of crosses, our FB can't cross to save their lives (Azpilicueta isn't much better at it either imo).

So I'd rather have them do what Azpili usually does, which is dragging and linking up, rather than overlapping. The cutoff I welcome if I understand it properly though. One thing he's spot on. We need width and we have with both Willian and Schürrle better than we have with any other players because while they do cut in like Hazard, Mata and Oscar do, they normally go higher than the other three, are faster (maybe except compared to Eden), more direct and exactly what we need now imo.

What i got from the article was that it could be better if the full backs were always bombing forward like arsenal. Mata, oscar and hazard wont be such a big problem if the fullbacks provide the width.

But if they keep on sucking in attack, then we should never play mata, oscar and hazard together

[Phil Driver 503]

I am of course being realistic as to who will be available in January and Alonso believe me is twenty times quicker than Mikel . Watch this space we need reinforcements as Jose has clearly made his mind up as I have that Mikel is not good enough. What can I do if some can not see what Jose and I can see? I would have Alonso in front of Mikel any day he is useless.

[Atlas Lion 1,223]

And funnily enough, part of the reason why the away form is bad is because of Mourinho's negative approach at United and Spurs to begin with. The Everton one was just pure unlucky. On another day, we could have won that one 3/4/5-0 easily.

We gave United much more respect and rightly so given the fact they are league champions and Michael Carrick excels when given space. He wanted to condense that space and not risk exposing it. Think we conceded a fair amount of goals against United that past few seasons and Jose wanted to make sure that didn't happen. We got a point at Old Trafford, only time will tell if that point will be crucial for us.

Spurs are Spurs. Jose despises them just as we fans do and he always approaches the game 'not to lose', which has been proven to work masterfully for him. He is back in a country and league that he has been absent for several years from. He's getting the feel back and I'm sure he will learn from experience as history always shows that Jose always gets the last laugh.

[The Skipper 20,593]

I am of course being realistic as to who will be available in January and Alonso believe me is twenty times quicker than Mikel . Watch this space we need reinforcements as Jose has clearly made his mind up as I have that Mikel is not good enough. What can I do if some can not see what Jose and I can see? I would have Alonso in front of Mikel any day he is useless.

Alonso would also start ahead of Frank.

Alonso would not be bought to play beside Frank, but rather besides Rambo.

[Phil Driver 503]

Well it is a squad game and Alonso would be a great addition ,the one good thing it would do would end Mikel's career at Chelsea as he would crtainly start in front of him.

[Barbara 15,149]

Alonso still was until last season one of the very best in the position imo, playing as a DLP.

Now he has had some physical issues and we should wait to see where he stands, but until last year I can't understand why someone would say he's old or past it. Class is permanent and if there's one thing Alonso has always had is class.

[Phil Driver 503]

BluesMaster, on 04 Nov 2013 - 1:15 PM, said: And funnily enough, part of the reason why the away form is bad is because of Mourinho's negative approach at United and Spurs to begin with. The Everton one was just pure unlucky. On another day, we could have won that one 3/4/5-0 easily.

And look at what happened when we went for a very attacking approach at Newcastle .A more defensive side may well have nicked that game 1-0.

[Bir_CFC 3,455]

And funnily enough, part of the reason why the away form is bad is because of Mourinho's negative approach at United and Spurs to begin with. The Everton one was just pure unlucky. On another day, we could have won that one 3/4/5-0 easily.

We gave United much more respect and rightly so given the fact they are league champions and Michael Carrick excels when given space. He wanted to condense that space and not risk exposing it. Think we conceded a fair amount of goals against United that past few seasons and Jose wanted to make sure that didn't happen. We got a point at Old Trafford, only time will tell if that point will be crucial for us.

Spurs are Spurs. Jose despises them just as we fans do and he always approaches the game 'not to lose', which has been proven to work masterfully for him. He is back in a country and league that he has been absent for several years from. He's getting the feel back and I'm sure he will learn from experience as history always shows that Jose always gets the last laugh.

Plus I think the United match came a little too early for us. If it came now I'm sure Jose would have still been compact but would have had better attacking tactics to snatch a win. He didn't know his team now the new United at the time.

[Jase 43,479]

We gave United much more respect and rightly so given the fact they are league champions and Michael Carrick excels when given space. He wanted to condense that space and not risk exposing it. Think we conceded a fair amount of goals against United that past few seasons and Jose wanted to make sure that didn't happen. We got a point at Old Trafford, only time will tell if that point will be crucial for us.

Spurs are Spurs. Jose despises them just as we fans do and he always approaches the game 'not to lose', which has been proven to work masterfully for him. He is back in a country and league that he has been absent for several years from. He's getting the feel back and I'm sure he will learn from experience as history always shows that Jose always gets the last laugh.

Plus I think the United match came a little too early for us. If it came now I'm sure Jose would have still been compact but would have had better attacking tactics to snatch a win. He didn't know his team now the new United at the time.

Fair enough on the United game but, maybe this is on hindsight, one would now question if it was better to take the game to United given how wobbly they looked after that game. What about the Spurs one then?

He started the game with playing Ramires on the RW when we had Schurrle who can play there and arguably execute our counter attacking better but yet the former is used there to just contain Spurs. And you already saw what happened when we took the game to Spurs in the 2nd half. Had we began with that approach, we could have won it. Moreover, Mourinho only changed Ramires's position to the pivot because we were 1-0 down at HT. Had it stayed at 0-0 then, would he have done the same? Doubt it. And as much as we played well then in the 2nd half and managed to get at least a point, funnily enough Mourinho hardly got any stick for starting Ramires on the RW when our previous managers usually got it for doing so and what's worse here is that Mourinho had better options now than say AVB, RDM and Benitez but yet stuck Ramires out wide.

And Cicero, I don't really buy into the reason that because it was Spurs and this 'avoid losing' negative approach adopted by Mourinho has served him well to justify his selection and approach then. It has also came back to bite him.

BluesMaster, on 04 Nov 2013 - 1:15 PM, said: And funnily enough, part of the reason why the away form is bad is because of Mourinho's negative approach at United and Spurs to begin with. The Everton one was just pure unlucky. On another day, we could have won that one 3/4/5-0 easily.

And look at what happened when we went for a very attacking approach at Newcastle .A more defensive side may well have nicked that game 1-0.

That was hardly even a 'very attacking approach' against Newcastle. It was just that players didn't turn up and bottled out of challenges, losing those 50-50s etc and putting ourselves under pressure when we could have avoided it.

[Phil Driver 503]

True but I was referring to MaZaCar being in the team but yes we bottled it at Newcastle in an Arsenal way ,not used to seeing that and dont like it .

[Tomo 21,681]

http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/11545-time-for-avb-to-really-earn-his-money-with-a-huge-statement-against-wolves/

Is Jose going to make a similar statement i was hoping AVB was going to make (after the dire game against Levekusen) this time 2 years back?

[The_Flash 1,144]

It really isn't Jose's fault that after a wonderful month of results they suddenly decided to play *** shut and embarrass everyone . I just worry with just Etoo and Ba left who have one goal between then. Hopefully midfield and defence can get the goals :/

[Blue Traveler 256]

Jose's today press conference:

‘Maybe the worst thing that happened was the easy start. You go there and see lots of space and they don’t press you. They were a bit scared. We hit the post twice. The game was easy to win, we had lots of space to play in the first half, but we were just playing as if the goal would arrive.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2488079/Jose-Mourinho-Chelsea-cursed-November.html#ixzz2jof0aNT9

Always spot on!

[Henrique 9,133]

I am of course being realistic as to who will be available in January and Alonso believe me is twenty times quicker than Mikel . Watch this space we need reinforcements as Jose has clearly made his mind up as I have that Mikel is not good enough. What can I do if some can not see what Jose and I can see? I would have Alonso in front of Mikel any day he is useless.

Its a surprise that you are talking about Alonso and not Carrick...

[Henrique 9,133]

It really isn't Jose's fault that after a wonderful month of results they suddenly decided to play *** shut and embarrass everyone . I just worry with just Etoo and Ba left who have one goal between then. Hopefully midfield and defence can get the goals :/

Results usually came after poor games or slow starts. One situation is pretty common this season:

The team have a slow start, then concede a goal in 2nd half. Then Mourinho come up with 3 subs in last 20 minutes, or the team score a goal, and fail to kill off the game, concede the equalizer, then Jose come up with 3 subs. In most games the team needs at least two changes to look good. It means he is selecting the wrong line up most part of the time.

I don't get the "team lacked spirit" thing. This is his jobs after all. If players were lenient in game against Newcastle, of course thats his fault. He must find a way to motivate his players, and get the best out of them. In fact the team lacked an answer to Newcastle tough defensive system. Desire to win has nothing to do with that. Even the game against City was far from a great game, but in general people forget the weakness when the results are positive. Game against Spurs, first half was an one sided match, they had the chance to kill the game. Poor game against MU.

Mourinho team is far from convincing yet. At the moment its really hard to see this team winning the tittle or going too far in UCL. Days ago he said the team was inconsistent in past two seasons. Thats was right, but he is the special one, isn't he? So we can't expect more than AVB and RDM mediocrity?

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Results usually came after poor games or slow starts. One situation is pretty common this season:

The team have a slow start, then concede a goal in 2nd half. Then Mourinho come up with 3 subs in last 20 minutes, or the team score a goal, and fail to kill off the game, concede the equalizer, then Jose come up with 3 subs. In most games the team needs at least two changes to look good. It means he is selecting the wrong line up most part of the time.

Fegurson won 13 EPL titles by making attacking subs in difficult games and converting 1 point to 3. I'll take that from mourinho over benitez putting azpi for ivanovic any day of the week.

I don't get the "team lacked spirit" thing. This is his jobs after all. If players were lenient in game against Newcastle, of course thats his fault. He must find a way to motivate his players, and get the best out of them. In fact the team lacked an answer to Newcastle tough defensive system. Desire to win has nothing to do with that. Even the game against City was far from a great game, but in general people forget the weakness when the results are positive. Game against Spurs, first half was an one sided match, they had the chance to kill the game. Poor game against MU.

Mourinho team is far from convincing yet. At the moment its really hard to see this team winning the tittle or going too far in UCL. Days ago he said the team was inconsistent in past two seasons. Thats was right, but he is the special one, isn't he? So we can't expect more than AVB and RDM mediocrity?

Mourinho did a good job motivating his players for a whole month in october, and they got complacent and thought it was just newcastle and put no energy in that match.(lack of spirit)

Even the stats support the fact that none of our players were willing to fight for 50-50 balls. The fact that oscar had more tackles(5) than (iva, cole, ramires, lampard, mata, hazard) combined(4) says all you need to know about the attitude the players came into that match with. Meaning they just let newcastle run free along the park without tackling them or stopping them.(I'm sure you saw how cole let sisoko run free to almost score and was just strolling back, coach cant stop that terrible attitude during the game)

We hit the bar twice, terry effort was cleared off the line, willian, hazard missed clear cut chances, eto missed 2 open chances. So this match could have gone another way if we were clinical.

But it was so evident that the players were too relaxed in their play, especially in the first half playing exactly like how we did a lot last seasons ("lets just keep passing and the goals will come") naive attitude.

[Special Juan 27,103]

This group is so, so different to what he previously had in his first time here. There is a freshness in the air, I for one won't be annoyed if we don't win the title and I don't expect us too really, this is a new foundation and yes it's a very good one but we have a lot of new players and a new manager. Football fans are impatient, they want things yesterday, and before anyone starts harping on about "Why don't you want us to win the title" I'm not saying that, of course I want us to win the title, more than anything but we have to be grounded.

Let's look at where we are right now- Second in the league, on a great run bar the Newcastle game, in the Capital One Cup after smashing Arsenal away, FA Cup to come and after a shit start to the CL we have turned it around in the CL by smashing Schalke away and Bucharest away. The PL is the league where anyone can beat anyone, already proven. There is a lot to look forward to with CFC right now, people just need to embrace it, be patient and let Jose do his stuff because he will get it right and the machine that once was will rear it's head again, but what I am seeing now is very pleasing.

Just. Be. Patient.