The Mourinho Thread

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

I don't remember the exact time but I knew 'park the bus' mode was initiated when the defence just booted the ball back to them without even thinking of countering.

Hmmm... I wonder if the fact we had 6 guys on yellows had anything to do with the tactical switch? How can you be aggressive in winning the ball when the cards are flying left, right and centre? you guys are making a mountain out of a mole hill, seriously.

[Jase 43,479]

I don't remember the exact time but I knew 'park the bus' mode was initiated when the defence just booted the ball back to them without even thinking of countering.

I'm not suggesting we should go gung-ho but if we sit back then we should at least try to counter attack. Continuously giving the ball back to them and dropping deeper and deeper without even thinking of attacking is the most nonsensical approach yet one that we adopt a lot.

But counter attacking can also leave a team open, especially when one loses the ball whether through bad passes or just attacks that didn't come off. With this United game, you can say we dropped off quite a lot but I don't remember them having any meaningful chances and in the end, they needed a bit of help from Phil 'Rubbish' Dowd and our defenders to score, from a set-piece at that.

[The Chels 2,502]

But counter attacking can also leave a team open, especially when one loses the ball whether through bad passes or just attacks that didn't come off. With this United game, you can say we dropped off quite a lot but I don't remember them having any meaningful chances and in the end, they needed a bit of help from Phil 'Rubbish' Dowd and our defenders to score, from a set-piece at that.

Well counter attacks leave you open if you lose possession from them which I guess has been an issue. Against Man City last year our counter attacking was phenomenal yet against them this year it was completely rubbish (save for the Schurrle goal) and against United it was also pretty horrific with the wrong deicision being made left, right and centre. United themselves weren't much of a threat but I'm thinking more towards the Champions League because we won't get away with sitting on 1-0 leads like we have tried to do in the big games this season.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Mourinho's approach when taking the lead is excessively risky though - you're depending on the opposition not taking their chances and on the players/ref not making a mistake. I think most would prefer it if we dominated possession and looked for the second goal or at least completely take the sting out of the game. Perhaps sitting deep would be more understandable if we were looking to invite them on to us and play on the counter, but our counter attacking hasn't been great (poor decision making) and more often than not we just look to boot it back to them when we're 1-0 up. What's the logic behind inviting pressure like that?

Mourinho sometimes tends to think of his players as chess pieces and not footballers. That, IMO, has something to do with Mourinho not being a player himself. It's almost impossible at 1-0 to go from total dominance with the ball, which it was from minute 45-69, to shutting up shop and defending in low-block from 70-90 and expect players to respond accordingly and execute perfectly.

[Kunkka 19]

we make mistake on only one set piece nobody was marking .. fellaini .. is't so tragedy ..

[Tomo 21,681]

You know, if you lead and then close down, you have to keep the lead to win. Simple as that. We couldnt do it twice now and I actualy wonder how many times will Mou try this.

If we kept those leads, we would have 4 more points and it would be tactical masterpiece. But we didnt and Mou is on fault to go this way, but also players because they didnt hold on.

To get such tactics, you need such team. We had such team in 2005. But now we have a team that can attack much better and I dont understand why Mou still relies on defensive tactics after leading. That got us last year several times and already got us twice against manchesters this year. Sure Mou can understand that, no?

But I have feeling he would never try to destroy United, even if given such chance. He would keep it down because of respect or whatever...

Jack Wilshere was openly cheering us on against Napoli in 2012, doesn't mean he has a soft spot for us in general.

Furthermore what has he done to suggest he has a soft spot for United? Saying the best team lost when he beat them? he did the same for Wigan and Paul Jewell once.

He was taking constant digs at them last summer to try and sign Rooney, he likes respects Fergie and LVG yes, but that doesn't translate to liking the club, I admired Henry but couldn't stand the shirt he wore.

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

Credit to Jose for creating this team

[Ze Mario 638]

Thank god some of the posters here did not manage my beloved Chelsea. Its obvious in OT Manu was the team that HAS to win, not us. Mou used that as an advantage seeing Manu so desperate to gain point on their home ground. They will shot a thousand crosses if they have to and actually they really did. I bet my whole life that Mou has already train the players so much to deal with crosses and they did brilliantly through the match. But free kick is a different case. There wasnt our player disturb the passer. Opponent's forward had time and space preparing themselves. Had it been an open play, Im pretty sure we would not concede that late goal. If that was a different or better team I think Mou will use different approach. Because he knew it was slow brain United will do useless crosses and he was confident our players could deal with it. He wont think like that stupid wenger or pep gorilla whom will do a frontal attack even when they lead the score and ended up draw or lose,

[Jase 43,479]

[Fernando 6,375]

I remember when real Madrid fans was complaining about this same issue in the CL semi final they lost to Bayern on penalties.

That they was dominating the game and instead of killing it he made defensive substitute and allowed the opponent back in.

Now I understand why they was like that.

Mourinho needs to be a bit more ruthless.

I'm not a person that blames the ref like many people do here. It's just something childless to do because the reality is that if we kill the opponent no mistake from the ref will touch us.

Just like in the semi's of cl against Barcelona where ovrebo was very bad against us, all I can think of is that if we was more ruthless and bury our chances we would have won.

[bababoom 4,478]

Drogba was on his last legs, Oscar wasn't having his best game and Willian was doing his usual thing, I wasn't confident that another goal was coming tbh.. We should have won the match as well, Ivan shouldn't have fouled ADM and we most definitely should have defended the FK better... oh well, a possible 23 points out of 27 isn't bad at all especially when you consider we have already played United, City and Everton away and Arsenal at home. We're now six points clear of City, so let's be a bit more positive around here.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Mourinho sometimes tends to think of his players as chess pieces and not footballers. That, IMO, has something to do with Mourinho not being a player himself. It's almost impossible at 1-0 to go from total dominance with the ball, which it was from minute 45-69, to shutting up shop and defending in low-block from 70-90 and expect players to respond accordingly and execute perfectly.

But they did execute that perfectly. It was just lack of defensive organization on a (non-existent) FK in 94th minute after one of our players was (wrongly) sent off.

If Iva was still on we most like would have defender the FK. But since Iva was sent off, the players were still trying to work out who is to mark who. Cahill let Fellaini (who was originally Iva's man but he was covering for him) slip and young inexperienced Zouma was ball watching and let RVP to the ball first. Simple as.

[LAB 1,030]

Jose brings Mikel too soon this time imo. Other than that he did well at HT talk apparently and the red card wasn't his fault. Bright side is that, hey, we are unbeaten @ Manchester.

[GodZola 630]

Mikel cost us the game.... Interesting theory here.

hahahhaha

Perhaps if you took some time to read & digest my post then you would understand that I didn't blame Mikel I actually put that at José door - comprehend? Good grief!

As for the other comments on here that José can't do right for wrong, well we were in total control of that game until he went negative again & brought on a DM, we weren't playing open expansive football & going gung ho leaving spaces in behind for them to exploit, chances are we would of scored a second if he had not decided to make a change, Utd like City & Shalke before them took the initiative, we were then playing infront of our own 18 yard box as opposed to theirs, just a matter of time before they scored.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

The conclusion of the United game should only be this one : We are the next PL winners, and we have our winning mentality back with the consistency that made us what we are today.

[Rom2013 446]

You know, if you lead and then close down, you have to keep the lead to win. Simple as that. We couldnt do it twice now and I actualy wonder how many times will Mou try this.

If we kept those leads, we would have 4 more points and it would be tactical masterpiece. But we didnt and Mou is on fault to go this way, but also players because they didnt hold on.

To get such tactics, you need such team. We had such team in 2005. But now we have a team that can attack much better and I dont understand why Mou still relies on defensive tactics after leading. That got us last year several times and already got us twice against manchesters this year. Sure Mou can understand that, no?

But I have feeling he would never try to destroy United, even if given such chance. He would keep it down because of respect or whatever...

And we did it against Arsenal this season, Liverpool last season, 2 times against Manchester City last season... and many others. The thing here is... we ddn't win. Because we played worst against Liverpool in Anfield but we won and because of that it was increadible. Yesterday we played better and had a draw in the last minute and it was a disgrace. Last season Chelsea was the better team in the games between title contenders... I don't understand what are you saying about last season.

[iseah100 5,612]

Drogba was on his last legs, Oscar wasn't having his best game and Willian was doing his usual thing, I wasn't confident that another goal was coming tbh.. We should have won the match as well, Ivan shouldn't have fouled ADM and we most definitely should have defended the FK better... oh well, a possible 23 points out of 27 isn't bad at all especially when you consider we have already played United, City and Everton away and Arsenal at home. We're now six points clear of City, so let's be a bit more positive around here.

THIS. And the way we are handling the smaller clubs; Palace, Swansea, Leicester, Burnley, etc I'm okay with it.

It'll be interesting to see how we play Liverpool . Will Mou show them the same respect?

[Jase 43,479]

Imagine the furore if Mourinho did this...

https://vine.co/v/OhLYiq6eKLF

https://vine.co/v/OhLVjZYVIv2