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Jose Mourinho

How do you feel about Mourinho appointment

  • Excited - silverware here we come baby

    Votes: 666 46.7%
  • Meh - will give him a chance and hope he is successful

    Votes: 468 32.8%
  • Horrified - praying for the day he'll fuck off

    Votes: 292 20.5%

  • Total voters
    1,426

shelfboy68

Well-Known Member
Jun 14, 2008
14,566
19,651
Last night was a poor showing but we won which is the important thing here I personally don't mind whether it's a new, old or an adaptation of an existing style as long as it makes us successful.
I think at some point there will be a game when it all comes together good defending along with quick incisive football, although it's hard to see that right now as we can hardly string a few passes together to keep the pressure off with moura and son struggling up top
 

Locotoro

Prince of Zamunda
Sep 2, 2004
9,328
13,926
Ah okay, apologies.

First of I'd say I was a huge fan of the Real Madrid team that Jose managed, they had an incredible counter attacking team which scored a ridiculous amount.

I think the way we're trying to set up at the moment is to have a system where out of possession we are in a 4-5-1 and in possession we want to have 5 players behind the ball and 5 players in-front of it in the attacking third. We're going at it differently to how Liverpool achieve this who push both fullbacks up and look like this:

Matip Van Dijk
Hendo Fabinho Wijnaldum

Trent Salah Firmino Mane Robertson

And city go for inside FB's but also have the 5-5

Otamendi Laporte
Walker Fernandinho Zinchenko

KDB Silva
Mahrez Aguero Sterling

So we're going trying to achieve the same thing but by having a half and half of Liv/city set up by having the one fullback pushed up, I think what Jose initially wanted with our set up was this:

Sanchez Alder Davies
Lo Celso Ndombele

Aurier Moura Kane Dele Son

So we're trying to get the same set up which is based on stopping teams from being able to counter you with a base from behind and overloading the box and creating width in the final third which I'm a fan of. beyond that I'm a little concerned with just how much we're using Alderweireld to ping balls long, now and then I think it's great but we need to do a better job of keeping possession and working through the middle. The problem I see is that right now we don't have a player to hold the ball up and allow our 2 wingers to play off of which we saw Dele do last night and we know that Kane can do.

Now I'm not sure at this point whether we're purposefully not controlling the play in the middle or it's a case of that against City we were simply up against the better team and against Southampton we didn't have the right personnel and had to play a different formation to compensate. My opinion is that the current style isn't intentional and that our plans are to build a midfield which can dictate the play more but also set up to have the devastating counter attacks that we saw when Jose was at Madrid and Inter and that we've seen Liverpool set up like more recently. I think we will see the best of both worlds where we won't keep possession for possession sake similar to how Spain set up but we also won't keep seeing the same current style of play that we have.

Clearly Jose needs time and the personnel available to set up what he wants but I think we're at an interesting dilemma where he's going to have been impressed with Winks and may consider wanting a trio of Winks/Lo Celso/Ndombele but conversely he loves having his third midfielder be a 8/10 hybrid where they're not afforded the luxury of a 10 in terms of workload and expects them to put in a shift defensively. Dele was seemingly the choice for that but now I wonder whether he will prefer the midfield 3 I mentioned and that makes you wonder where Dele fits if he decides to go with the Bergwijn/Kane/Son set up which suits perfectly his old set ups. Right now I'd for sure be playing Dele in the false 9 whilst Kane is absent.

So right now my opinion is that what we're seeing performance wise isn't great but this isn't going to be the style for long, I think Jose's detractors focus on the style during the bad times and fail to take into account when it's at it's peak. I think we will end up playing through midfield a lot more than people expect and I think we will enjoy the velocity of how we move the ball from back to front where as before we were too laboured with the ball and spent far too much time going sideways as our performances under Poch began to hit the downward trend. If people think we're simply going to be a long ball counter team who gives up possession under Jose then they're going to be pleasantly surprised once we're in full swing in my opinion.

I'm not necessarily enjoying the performances at the moment but I can see the bigger picture and understand the necessity as we're in a transitional phase over the next 6 months, I'd say us fans would do well to probably just enjoy the results and also the individual players develop such as Lo Celso and Tanganga but also seeing our midfield slowly begin to take shape as people begin to get defined responsibilities such as Winks and how they take to those roles and kick on. I think there's still a lot to enjoy despite the performances and that that will improve come next season.

I would double star this post if I could. 100% assessment.

People should understand JM is not trying to dominate possession, he's even gone so far as to say possession is a disadvantage at times. He wants to win the ball and get it forward without messing around and do Maximum damage. So when the pundits and papers tell us we've been dominated or played poorly we should actually look at what that team did with their possession?

If the league started when JM took over we'd be 3rd in the table on goal difference only 3 points behind city. That's something to bear in mind
 

Cochise

Well-Known Member
Aug 8, 2019
4,763
12,519
Last night for me was as much about the formation as anything else, but Southampton are a good team and were essentially beaten 4-0 purely on the counter by Liverpool. I do agree we should have done better, but after a couple of changes we actually did.

I agree with others in here, scoring from quick transitions and thriving in the chaos is what some of the best teams are doing right now. A well drilled low block is incredibly hard to break down, but ask them to play and spaces appear that a possession based side might not get. The problem with that is that I'm not 100% sure we have the players for it at the moment. Neither Son nor Moura have the best decision making skills, hopefully that improves and some signings in the summer really help.

Interesting as well about Lille 2018/2019. There already does seem to be a couple of familiarities there.
 

wrd

Well-Known Member
Aug 22, 2014
13,603
58,005
I would double star this post if I could. 100% assessment.

People should understand JM is not trying to dominate possession, he's even gone so far as to say possession is a disadvantage at times. He wants to win the ball and get it forward without messing around and do Maximum damage. So when the pundits and papers tell us we've been dominated or played poorly we should actually look at what that team did with their possession?

If the league started when JM took over we'd be 3rd in the table on goal difference only 3 points behind city. That's something to bear in mind

Cheers, Im not a big fan of possesion for possesion sake, Spain in the recent world cup was a prime example, their final 2 games they were suffocating with possesion but lacked that incision, wasn't a shock they got knocked out early despite being so technically brilliant, I didn't enjoy watching them.

I always felt the reason we weren't as good as City and Liverpool was how slow we were when the ball was turned over. Yeah City and Liverpool can dominate a ball similarly to how we did and they have the ability to cut through with that possesion but It's in those turnovers they're so aggressive in how fast they move the ball in those situations, I'd be keen to know the stats on Liverpool scoring from opposition corners in recent seasons.

This is for me the crux of the issue that people have with Jose as you said he feels you can be at a disadvantage with possesion but I've always felt watching his more succesful teams that he didn't mean he purposefully wants a low % possesion percentage but simply when his team has the ball he wants them to be incisive and hes willing to give the ball up in order to firstly attempt that and secondly in order to reset so the team can win the ball back whilst the opposition isn't in their defensive shape and move quickly to take advantage.
 

CowInAComa

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
7,293
18,237
I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until we can actually put a run together with a consistent first team drawn from a full squad.

It hasn't been great so far but I do find the fact he seems to recognise that and provides a reasoned analysis (lack of link players, isolated front two) quite refreshing.

He has firmly put to bed any worries about not playing/signing youngsters or academy kids.
 

VegasII

Well-Known Member
May 14, 2008
9,750
16,670
I think he’s getting more animated on the touch line...I wonder what we’ll see next

1581027415874.gif
 

CowInAComa

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
7,293
18,237
When he arrived we were in turmoil, loitering midtable and dropping like a stone, we had squad disharmony and a bunch of unintegrated new players.

Since then we've turned the results around, got back into champions league contention and qualified for the next round of the CL

Bear in mind that:
- He has largely been without long term key bedrocks of our first team either literally or mentally for the most part ; Hugo, Harry, Eriksen, Rose, Sissoko (Toby?). Imagine losing all of those at any point last season or two and expecting much.
At the same time he has had to integrate almost half a first team to replace/cover them in NDombele, Sess, GLC, Gedson, Tanganga, Bergwijn.
That alone is fucking crazy, even if he had a preseason to transition.

-Every good result seems to result in a bunch of injuries/suspensions meaning we can never get any momentum/rest/consistency.


All of this he took on half way through a season when we were mentally at rock bottom with no time to train or think. Yet, results for the most part have been good. I would go a far and say that in the cold light of day the fact that we are right back in contention bearing in mind what a shitstorm he has been fighting through that he is massively overachieving.

So while The football is teeth grindingly bad for sure at the moment I honestly think there are genuine mitigating circumstances that he can justificably point to for it , therefore there are genuinely no complaints from me. (and lets be honest there was some fairly decent football at least at the beginning).

Im looking forward to seeing what he can do when the wind turns in our favour.
 

Gb160

Well done boys. Good process
Jun 20, 2012
23,646
93,315
When he arrived we were in turmoil, loitering midtable and dropping like a stone, we had squad disharmony and a bunch of unintegrated new players.

Since then we've turned the results around, got back into champions league contention and qualified for the next round of the CL

Bear in mind that:
- He has largely been without long term key bedrocks of our first team either literally or mentally for the most part ; Hugo, Harry, Eriksen, Rose, Sissoko (Toby?). Imagine losing all of those at any point last season or two and expecting much.
At the same time he has had to integrate almost half a first team to replace/cover them in NDombele, Sess, GLC, Gedson, Tanganga, Bergwijn.
That alone is fucking crazy, even if he had a preseason to transition.

-Every good result seems to result in a bunch of injuries/suspensions meaning we can never get any momentum/rest/consistency.


All of this he took on half way through a season when we were mentally at rock bottom with no time to train or think. Yet, results for the most part have been good. I would go a far and say that in the cold light of day the fact that we are right back in contention bearing in mind what a shitstorm he has been fighting through that he is massively overachieving.

So while The football is teeth grindingly bad for sure at the moment I honestly think there are genuine mitigating circumstances that he can justificably point to for it , therefore there are genuinely no complaints from me. (and lets be honest there was some fairly decent football at least at the beginning).

Im looking forward to seeing what he can do when the wind turns in our favour.
Spot on, although loads of our fans seem unable to apply any form of context to our current situation.
Bad football = Bad manager is as far as many of them get, unable or unwilling to grasp that this is very likely just a temporary stage we find ourselves in.
 

fishhhandaricecake

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2018
18,702
46,941
It seems you are determined to be proven right in your views. Well time will tell. I do not agree with your views on this, but we will see
I think he’s done well but I don’t see a new style of football, he’s always had 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 as plan A And a low block and counter as plan B in the bigger games.
 

fishhhandaricecake

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2018
18,702
46,941
I know he plays up to it and over exaggerates our issues a bit but I do really like how he does call them out and mention them whereas poch would be all cloak and daggers and not make any sense, I think poch missed a trick where if when times were tougher like this season he’d just been a bit more honest in the media and interviews then it would’ve helped team morale a bit.

Anyways as Pep once said “in this room(media room), Jose is the f***ing boss, no one is better” ?
 

spids

Well-Known Member
Jul 19, 2015
6,647
27,841
The time to judge him is next Christmas, after a full pre-season and summer transfer window. If we're challenging in the top 3 then he will have done well. If not he won't.
 

gavspur

Well-Known Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,255
8,686
If he manages to get us top 4, and a good cup run, that’s a pretty impressive start his career with us considering how bad we were and the injuries he’s had to deal with. Next season will be where we can really judge him.
 

SirHarryHotspur

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2017
5,006
7,430
Let's give Jose a chance and see how things go when we get players fit and a settled formation now that Eriksen and Rose have gone. We have such exciting pacy players in Sonny, Lucas, Ryan , Steven and Gedson is he going to stifle all that attacking instinct, hopefully not .
If we get more football like the last two goals , Dele linking up with Lucas for the 2nd and then Gedson , Dele and Sonny for the 3rd I'm happy to put up with some boring bits.
 
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