The Mourinho Thread

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

After we take the lead we completely abandon the tactics that allowed us to go ahead in the game. Neville is being way too kind to Mourinho when he says it's the players making those decisions themselves. It's almost certainly instructions from the coach; there's no way you go from 55% possession to 25% against a 10-man team without instruction or what happened on Sunday (was it the players who bought on Mikel and took off Hazard etc? No. It was Mourinho.)

This is interesting. I've thought about it and I don't think you can blame this just on one side (Jose or players). Its a combination of the two. We began to be defensive even before Mikel came on.

The reason why Jose is very cautious is because he doesn't believe some of these players and their ability to kill the game. Plenty of our current attacking players tend to keep possesion and keep the ball after taking the lead without even looking at opponent's goal. It is the mentality of a person on the pitch. They're not as brutal as the group we had in Didier, Lamps, Ballack, Essien... You look at Oscar and Willian, especially those two Brazilians, but Hazard sometimes aswell, and they never strike me as true warriors, hungry and determined to kill other big teams. That cannot be coached, you can't go into person's mind while the game is on even if your name is Jose Mourinho, and also its impossible to simulate this kind of situation in training. Hazard actually is getting better at it, that is positive indeed, but others I'm afraid will never make it. I do not think Jose wants to be defending deeply every single time we play a difficult team, I don't think he is happy with it, especially when we concede a goal.

This is why IMO Jose brings on Mikel for Oscar and tries to do it the other way.

[stroey 2,525]

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/9539224/professional-performance-pleases-mourinho-

Post match shrewsbury

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

This is interesting. I've thought about it and I don't think you can blame this just on one side (Jose or players). Its a combination of the two. We began to be defensive even before Mikel came on.

The reason why Jose is very cautious is because he doesn't believe some of these players and their ability to kill the game. Plenty of our current attacking players tend to keep possesion and keep the ball after taking the lead without even looking at opponent's goal. It is the mentality of a person on the pitch. They're not as brutal as the group we had in Didier, Lamps, Ballack, Essien... You look at Oscar and Willian, especially those two Brazilians, but Hazard sometimes aswell, and they never strike me as true warriors, hungry and determined to kill other big teams. That cannot be coached, you can't go into person's mind while the game is on even if your name is Jose Mourinho, and also its impossible to simulate this kind of situation in training. Hazard actually is getting better at it, that is positive indeed, but others I'm afraid will never make it. I do not think Jose wants to be defending deeply every single time we play a difficult team, I don't think he is happy with it, especially when we concede a goal.

This is why IMO Jose brings on Mikel for Oscar and tries to do it the other way.

It's incredibly naive to believe these aren't orders from the manager or this isn't what we practice on the training ground. The team isn't "brutal" yet we've scored over 30+ goals this season. This team has already shown it has more than enough attacking quality to put the opposition to the sword.

Mourinho has always been a ridiculously cautious manager in any club he's managed. Anyone who's followed his career knows that. Look at the way we played against Man City away. You think those weren't tactical orders? Phase 1 was to sit back, drop deep and defend in numbers, Phase 2 was to counter attack with pace and exploit gaps Man City leave behind.

Unfortunately for us, Phase 2 didn't work effectively enough because Pellegrini learnt his lesson from last season's defeat in the league (he actually already learnt it in our 2-0 FA cup loss to them the following week) and had Mangala/Kompany press very high up the pitch in high block, together with the two fullbacks with very tight marking on Costa and our two wingers. The referee was also very lenient and allowed Man City to do a lot of "tactical fouling". We couldn't even come out of half in that game and had to endure wave after wave of City attack.

The average layman thought we "parked" the bus, but we didn't, it was just failed execution of the same plan that worked in our 1-0 win last season at the Etihad, but Pellegrini made adjustments. Some how we scored from a very poor corner by them, but even after that we continued to play the same way vs 10 men! We clearly lacked a plan B.

Neville was just guarding his words so as not to outright blame Mourinho's tactics. Afterall, he just granted him and the paper he writes for (the Telegraph) an hour long interview at The Bridge the other day. The substitution of Oscar for Mikel was meant to communicate a message to the team; To drop back and hold on to what we had.

[Tomo 21,681]

"If Baker and Izzy Brown aren't playing for England in 3 or 4 years, I will consider myself a failure"

Gives them a combined total of 0 minutes against 4th tier opposition while half the squad is injured or completely exhausted. It's okay though, because with our great experienced players we forced the said fourth tier opposition to score an own goal.

A cup tie away from home against a lower league side is always a banana skin.

We had Ake, Zouma and Christensen on, this is Shrewsburys biggest game since probably we faced them last time, that slone makes it tricky, you only need to look at Arsenal at Valley Parade two years ago, or few years back Crewe took United to extra time then Southend did them the round after or even our own experiences at Brentford and Barnsley.

Yes it would have been nice and romantic for us to play all the under 21s and won 4-0, but in reality if we played those 3 to go with the 3 teenagers already on, we could quite well have lost.

[The Chels 2,502]

Mourinho has always been a ridiculously cautious manager in any club he's managed. Anyone who's followed his career knows that.

Particularly in the semifinals of the CL. If he went for it a bit more I think it's very likely he'd have at least 3 CLs by now, if not more.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

To butress the points I was making. Caution was evident in the Arsenal game with the Mikel sub for Schurrle around the 60 min mark. We were playing on the counter throughout the 2nd half. Same in the United games we're still banging on about.

The difference between Jose first time and now is that his caution is so far only restricted to the really big games unlike before when it was 1-0 and shut up shop. It's no surprise we've been really drab attack wise vs Arsenal, Man United and Man City apart from some moments of individual brilliance. The players seem afraid to express themselves and that's not all down to the players alone.

Against the smaller teams, we're really playing with total freedom and laying down the gauntlet, attacking with numbers and being ruthless.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Particularly in the semifinals of the CL. If he went for it a bit more I think it's very likely he'd have at least 3 CLs by now, if not more.

I was literally about to include the exact same thing in my post but left it out. There's no reason why those Liverpool vs Chelsea battles should have been so closely contested. We just had comfortably more quality and talent than they did. But Benitez was happy to play Mourinho at his own game. Sit back, defend and play on the counter.

When Hiddink came and went for it more against them, we smashed them.

[Tomo 21,681]

I was literally about to include the exact same thing in my post but left it out. There's no reason why those Liverpool vs Chelsea battles should have been so closely contested. We just had comfortably more quality and talent than they did. But Benitez was happy to play Mourinho at his own game. Sit back, defend and play on the counter.

When Hiddink came and went for it more against them, we smashed them.

Benitez is in his element in one of knockout games, not only us he masterminded wins against Juve, Real, Arsenal, Inter. That's why I was gutted we got knocked out in group stage just after he took over, I think we could have had a genuine stab at retaining the CL with him.

Hiddink outsmarted him at Anfield but Rafa came back fighting at The Bridge and nearly turned it round.

[didierforever 7,349]

Did I read someone cribbing about baker and briwn?

So giving zouma, christensen and ake 90 minutes each is not enough? He should probably have put in a u-20 team.

Hopeless cribbing. Embarassing.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

.

[robdog 2,084]

Benitez is in his element in one of knockout games

Then why is Napoli playing in the Europa Liga? Sorry, I am not buying that

[Tomo 21,681]

Then why is Napoli playing in the Europa Liga? Sorry, I am not buying that

Because he hasn't done great with Napoli.

When he was at Liverpool the general consensus was he underachieved in the league but seemed to get his team tactically sound in CL knockout games, which is why the scum had a consistent CL record during him, bar the last season.

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

I like everything Jose said after the match. He knows what he is doing, teams are in good spirit. I couldn't ask for more. Qphaha and November cursed should be no problem.

[lionsden 4,689]

I agree with the argument against Jose. His inability to learn from his previous mistakes and overly cautious approach is rather annoying i.e giving quality opposition the ball and inviting intense pressure in closing minutes is a stupidly risky strategy that relies on sheer luck and complete concentration from the entire defence/team and the worst part is when it backfires (like it did against united) there's an air of inevitability about it, you can see it coming.

There are other less risky ways to see out a (big) game or any game for that matter like pressurizing the opponent higher up the pitch, closing down passing lanes which forces the opposition into punting the ball forward or going back to the GK, time wasting and keeping possession of the ball which can only happen with high pressing and pushing bodies forward and most often that not, closing stages of the match is the best time to induce the final, killer blow when the opponent are extremely vulnerable at the back due to committing men forward in chase of the equalizing or winning goal. instead of defending like a pussy, get in their faces and go for the jugular either that or keep posession of the ball and waste as much time as possible and stop them from transitioning the ball into areas that can hurt us.

I was hoping he would have learned his lesson against Bayern in the super cup.

[chelseafc9010 224]

The 6-3 at Everton was a mistake, Mikel was warming up already at 2-1, Jose was going to try and rely on a 1 goal difference again with over 30 mins to go. Also @MrExcallibur100 the match at the Etihad was completely different this season than last season. This season we was very cautious and basically parked the bus. Last season, I don't know what happened, maybe Jose took something before the game? But our team attacked and took the game to City, we actually dominated them in their own stadium and won.

[Rom2013 446]

Did I read someone cribbing about baker and briwn?

So giving zouma, christensen and ake 90 minutes each is not enough? He should probably have put in a u-20 team.

Hopeless cribbing. Embarassing.

It's not. They think we have in the younger team the new Maradona.

By the way... the other squads give a lot of oportinities to their young players.Here are the starting elevens of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool in this competition.

Arsenal 1-2 Southampton

David Ospina, Calum Chambers, Héctor Bellerín, Isaac Hayden, Francis Coquelin, Tomás Rosicky, Jack Wilshere, Abou Diaby, Alexis Sánchez, Joel Campbell, Lukas Podolski

(3 players under 21)

Liverpool 2-2 Middlesbrough

Simon Mignolet, Javier Manquillo, Kolo Touré, Mamadou Sakho, José Enrique, Lucas Leiva, Adam Lallana, Marković, Jordan Rossiter, Raheem Sterling, Rickie Lambert

4 players under 21 (2 of them already stablished players)

Liverpool 2-1 Swansea

Brad Jones, Glen Johnson, Javier Manquillo, Kolo Touré, Dejan Lovren, Lucas Leiva, Philippe Coutinho, Jordan Henderson, Lazar Marković, Rickie Lambert, Fabio Borini

(2 players under 21, 1 of them cost 22M£)

MK Dons 4-0 Manchester United

David de Gea, Jonny Evans, Michael Keane, Reece James, Marnick Vermijl, Saidy Janko, Kagawa, Anderson, Nick Powell, Chicharito Hernández, Danny Welbeck

( 3 players under 21 and 2 more that are 21/22 years old and not stablished players).

Manchester City 7-0 Sheff Wed

Caballero, Sagna, Kolarov, Mangala, Demichelis, Fernandinho, Lampard, Y Touré, Milner, Jesús Navas, Dzeko

(0 under 21 players)

------

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

correct me if I'm wrong but Chelsea have the best record overall in Europe right now, right?

This crusade against the Special One is laughable... 9 games played and a near perfect record in the toughest league, the only blemishes occurred in the dying seconds of two tough games.

Wow some Chelsea supporters don't know how good they have it, bitching, moaning and complaining about a manager who has us undefeated and playing some incredible football. This is where the love of video games has ruined the reality of football. When you play Football Manager you can save your progress and if you lose reload the game and try again, this 'redo as many times until you get it right' style of game play has warped a lot of peoples minds.

Jose knows what he's doing people, you are making yourselves look like idiots complaining about two draws in an undefeated season. Not one loss in roughly 15 games played, that is incredible and the manager deserves a ton of credit for it.

Nothing but respect for Jose Mourinho!

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Gary Neville is an intelligent analyst

In that entire segment he spoke of how Chelsea sat off and didn't go for the kill but then showed 2 or 3 scenarios where we did look positive but couldn't find that telling ball. He said we stopped pressing and showed a segment where we pressed better than we did in the first half.

Its all nitpicking, he says we invited them onto us but isn't that precisely what counter attacking teams do?

I'm not at all bothered by our tactics, certain games call for certain tactics and while he focussed on the drop off in position he didn't speak at all about the average position Utd took up. They weren't hurting us at all... We had chances to kill it and couldn't find the final ball big deal.