dontcallme
SC Supporter
- Mar 18, 2005
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I know right.Imagine comparing George Graham to Jose ?
Like Jose could ever win a title with Michael Thomas, Paul Davis and Perry Groves in his squad.
Jose Mourinho
- Thread starter TwanYid
- Start date
Like Jose could ever win a title with Michael Thomas, Paul Davis and Perry Groves in his squad.
MattPhilpott
Well-Known Member
- May 30, 2013
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- 3,177
Part of me thinks that Joao Sacramento is the man to take over when Jose leaves. He went into this job with a whole new backroom staff, most of which came from Lille.
Sacramento is young and hungry, one of the youngest guys to do his Pro License, and everybody who works with him says he is a remarkable mind and a brilliant coach.
Maybe the plan was to bring Mourinho in, have Sacramento mentor under him for a few years then have him and the rest of the staff stay when he departs.
I personally would be all over this, especially if we can bring in Campos to oversee transfers for him. I think he will honestly be the next big thing!
Sacramento is young and hungry, one of the youngest guys to do his Pro License, and everybody who works with him says he is a remarkable mind and a brilliant coach.
Maybe the plan was to bring Mourinho in, have Sacramento mentor under him for a few years then have him and the rest of the staff stay when he departs.
I personally would be all over this, especially if we can bring in Campos to oversee transfers for him. I think he will honestly be the next big thing!
Metalhead
But that's a debate for another thread.....
- Nov 24, 2013
- 25,391
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The thought did occur to me. The articles that I’ve read do suggest that he’s got an incredible attention to detail.
Wsussexspur
Well-Known Member
- Oct 2, 2007
- 8,918
- 10,176
Think people have to let the Campos link go.. As much as we need him it’s pretty clear it’s certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
Time will tell. I've heard people tout him for a top job again because of what he's done with Leicester. I'd give it a bit of time there and see if he keeps it up. The rest of his career has been good but hardly earth shatteringly brilliant. Allied to the fact he's a massive cock, I think he'll have a limited shelf life before people get fed up of listening to his shit.
If he came here, I'd get behind him like I have with Jose, but I don't like the guy and never will and I'm far from convinced about him (unlike Jose who has a tremendous track record).
I think we can see a semblance of structure on the attacking play now. There are still some round pegs in square holes so to speak, but if we can find the ideal players to fit into those positions, we will look a lot more fluid next season.
C0YS
Just another member
- Jul 9, 2007
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It wasn't trying to be boring though, just couldn't find a way through, because as you say a lot of teams learnt to play against us (namely pin us into our own half, see us struggle to pass it out). We were still damn effective though, and could always rip teams apart on our day, even big teams. Poch tried to change things up with a three man midfield, he had injuries to players like Foyth and Lo Celso who were set to have a key roll this year and was a little naive in the transfer market.
Sometimes I wonder, if Lo Celso was fit from the start Poch might still be in a job. However, we got Mourinho in, which is way more boring. It's not even debatable. But he is a 'winner'. It is unfair to judge him on this season next season is where he will be judged, but there wont be any real attempt at playing 'exciting' stuff and while Jose isn't George Graham there are a lot of question marks whether he knows how to adapt to modern football. He also often is too reactive for me, too scared of the opposition rather than focusing on what we can do well.
If jose has us winning is a big if, and style does matter, it really does. But that's the thing, Jose needs to be judged on results alone, he is not going to have style and pro activeness to save him.
shelfboy68
Well-Known Member
- Jun 14, 2008
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Maybe Jose is trying to get the base of the team sorted first because we have been struggling to defend for two seasons.
Then once we are a bit meaner, he might start to allow the team to be more expansive but so far I'm happy not conceding it builds confidence.
C0YS
Just another member
- Jul 9, 2007
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Mate. It's just looking at how Jose sets up his teams. His teams can be exciting in moments, particularly if you like counter attacking or individual quality. Though it must be said his most exciting teams, were exciting because of the quality of the forward players and Mourinho does, historically, allow attacking players to express themselves. However, his function has always been organisation, structure and solidify the defence. His focus has always been, particularly in big games, how do I prevent the other team playing over showing an attacking approach.
My ideas on Jose are not shaped by what he has done with us (which before the break looked so far off a Mourinho team it was worrying) but what he has done in his career. The only team you could describe as consistently exciting to watch was Real Madrid, but with those players any team would provide exciting moments. His original Chelsea team were not super terrible to watch either, but that is almost entirely because of the pace and interaction of Duff, Robben and Drogba on the counter attack.
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shelfboy68
Well-Known Member
- Jun 14, 2008
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Agree but he has to work with what he is or will be given, at Madrid, Chelsea or utd he could shop at Harrods but at spurs he will only get to buy at Aldi big difference.
C0YS
Just another member
- Jul 9, 2007
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Mourinho is a good manager largely because he is a good motivator, is good at 'anti-football' working out how to stop the other team playing and knows how to organise a team. If you are hard to beat you will win games. Very simple really.
Attacking wise, yes he works on movement and creating overloads and counter attacking strategies, but early on he was big on giving players a lot of responsibility on interpreting the situation themselves and finding their own solutions to problems that may emerge during a game. He didn't 'overcoach' attackers or give them a set strategy to work on. I can't find the source, but if I remember correctly, a lot of his training drills were essentially we give you 'problem x' and you have to resolve that, rather than having a set strategy. This is really important because teams that look sluggish going forwards often are because the players are overthinking what to do, or persisting with a strategy that is not working.
But, I think Mourinho's proactive 'tactics' are very limited. It is more about learning how to be compact and reacting to the opposition, a past spurs manager who was like this was Ramos. Poch takes a Bielsa-esk systems approach, though he became more pragmatic when things moved on. I think for Poch attitude was always the most important thing, but he also did have a very clear system of playing and often struggled to adapt to in game situations.
One of the main things Poch did was to build from the back, and his whole strategy relied on creating options to play through the field. Once play reached the attackers, we could be deadly as the space opened up for them with overloads and all, so most teams tried to stop us starting attacks from the back. So, part of Poch's problem was people would work out how to play against us, though he would adjust our strategy without ever changing the principles.
Our most successful period under Poch was when we played with a back 3 or with a back 4 that would become a back 3 in possession. The idea was you push the fullbacks forward and they, rather than traditionally midfielders, would link play together. Our attacking players in possession would play very high up and very centrally, often very close to each other. The second midfielder would also position himself between the lines. So, essentially the fullbacks were the outlets that we would attempt to pass to and they then feed the attacking 4 (sometimes via a midfielder), if the fullbacks couldn't find space you would try to find the midfielder, which in theory would be a free man in this circumstance. If they tried to press our defenders in theory space would open up further the pitch, but it is pretty hard to find those free men.
This was the problem, because the CM positions would be outnumbered when building from the back, teams realised that it was much better to press our defence and we would struggle to come out. So Poch changed, and Dier became less useful, as originally he was really playing as a DM/CD hybrid not a pure defensive midfielder. Once we changed, his weaknesses became more exposed (not particularly good at receiving the ball under pressure, not mobile enough to turn into space, though early on at least we still had Dembele who could do both those things very well). Now how we changed, was fairly simple, we stopped bringing the Central midfielder back but we still used fullbacks to build attacks. Technically we had more options, and it was harder to press our defence (though the strategy still remained somewhat effective against us).
The problem now though was our fullbacks became very exposed. Without the extra defender if the fullbacks lost the ball we would be exposed. If we were caught further up, the fullbacks would be exposed. This was an even bigger problem because our main fullbacks were now Davies and Trippier, good fullbacks, but not the quickest. When playing 3 at the back they work well, because the centre backs can go wide and cover the space behind, but now we didn't have that. So this strategy did some things well, some things not so well.
So, Poch tried to develop something new to put into place this season. what exactly is hard to say. But I believe that his line up was going to look something like this
Lloris
Foyth (Aurier) Toby (Sanchez) Verts (Foyth/Dier) Rose (Davies)
Winks (Dier)
Lo Celso (Sissoko) Ndombele (Dele)
Moura (Lamela) Kane (Son) Son (Dele)
We tried playing variations of this a few times, but it didn't work, and rumours are the players were not happy with it. If all the players were fit though, it might have worked a lot better. Now I think the idea was Winks would mainly be there for transition, building from the back if you like, which he was doing before. The solution to the fullback issue was to have two tenacious box to box midfielders, with the idea being that in defence they would support the flanks. The problem was it didn't work and our fullbacks would be even more exposed and Winks was pretty isolated in building from the back. Similarly there were issues in that we didn't have another attacking midfielder to take the space that playing from the back gives you, and less runs from deep as an out ball for Toby. I think the two box to box players were being asked to do a lot of work, too much work and considering that in reality it would often be Eriksen and Dele filling those positions, who weren't very good at that kind of roll and were limited offensively doing so, instead of Lo Celso, Ndombele (who probably couldn't really do the roll anyway) or Sissoko. If it was Lo Celso and Sissoko it might have worked but without quick and defensively sound fullbacks it was always going to be an issue particularly as our ageing centre backs were not able to cover effectively. Similarly, with the midfield being asked to do a lot of covering I think it was hard to create a cohesive unit in attack. What ended up happening is our midfield and defence would pulled all over the place and massive gaps would emerge behind the fullbacks and in front of the back four.
In the end Poch was going back and forth between 4-3-3 and 4-5-1 and this created even more confusion and it was a bit of a mess. If Poch did have the right players fit and ready it might of been way more successful, though to put it simply, under Poch the central defence (and a deep CDM) are the teams playmakers, not the midfielders and I am not sure if that works in a 4-3-3. Because the point of a 4-3-3 is to dominate the middle of the park. So, I think you can play it as a passing team that uses the midfield more or as a counter attacking or pressing team that wants to win the ball in the middle. But, maybe with adjustments it could have worked and Poch needed to think of new solutions, it just didn't work be it through not having the right players, demanding too much from central midfielders, just being a tactical incompatible with how we built attacks or simply not having the time. Poch's stubbornness didn't help, but it does feel a shame that he was never really given a chance to make it work with the right players.
These problems won't be the case for Jose as he doesn't have this patient approach and is adaptable to the needs of each match. But, Poch teams could have games with a lot of passing, seemingly going nowhere, but the idea was to build attacks, it was not a defensive manoeuvre of possession keeping (like is applied by Del Bosque's Spain for example). Jose will not do that, a solid team which is adaptable to different situations is a winning team for Jose. For Poch a winning team is a brave confident team that is focused on themselves not what the opposition throws at them. One is a principally attacking proactive philosophy (regardless of entertainment, defensive football can be entertaining too!) the other is principally a reactive defensive strategy (can't call it a philosophy). Basically we cannot expect to see much attacking football, even if there might be some entertainment on how we might play in the future (I found the first 70 mins or so against west ham mildly entertaining, but then at 1-0 and it was all game management and get one on the counter).
Attacking wise, yes he works on movement and creating overloads and counter attacking strategies, but early on he was big on giving players a lot of responsibility on interpreting the situation themselves and finding their own solutions to problems that may emerge during a game. He didn't 'overcoach' attackers or give them a set strategy to work on. I can't find the source, but if I remember correctly, a lot of his training drills were essentially we give you 'problem x' and you have to resolve that, rather than having a set strategy. This is really important because teams that look sluggish going forwards often are because the players are overthinking what to do, or persisting with a strategy that is not working.
But, I think Mourinho's proactive 'tactics' are very limited. It is more about learning how to be compact and reacting to the opposition, a past spurs manager who was like this was Ramos. Poch takes a Bielsa-esk systems approach, though he became more pragmatic when things moved on. I think for Poch attitude was always the most important thing, but he also did have a very clear system of playing and often struggled to adapt to in game situations.
One of the main things Poch did was to build from the back, and his whole strategy relied on creating options to play through the field. Once play reached the attackers, we could be deadly as the space opened up for them with overloads and all, so most teams tried to stop us starting attacks from the back. So, part of Poch's problem was people would work out how to play against us, though he would adjust our strategy without ever changing the principles.
Our most successful period under Poch was when we played with a back 3 or with a back 4 that would become a back 3 in possession. The idea was you push the fullbacks forward and they, rather than traditionally midfielders, would link play together. Our attacking players in possession would play very high up and very centrally, often very close to each other. The second midfielder would also position himself between the lines. So, essentially the fullbacks were the outlets that we would attempt to pass to and they then feed the attacking 4 (sometimes via a midfielder), if the fullbacks couldn't find space you would try to find the midfielder, which in theory would be a free man in this circumstance. If they tried to press our defenders in theory space would open up further the pitch, but it is pretty hard to find those free men.
This was the problem, because the CM positions would be outnumbered when building from the back, teams realised that it was much better to press our defence and we would struggle to come out. So Poch changed, and Dier became less useful, as originally he was really playing as a DM/CD hybrid not a pure defensive midfielder. Once we changed, his weaknesses became more exposed (not particularly good at receiving the ball under pressure, not mobile enough to turn into space, though early on at least we still had Dembele who could do both those things very well). Now how we changed, was fairly simple, we stopped bringing the Central midfielder back but we still used fullbacks to build attacks. Technically we had more options, and it was harder to press our defence (though the strategy still remained somewhat effective against us).
The problem now though was our fullbacks became very exposed. Without the extra defender if the fullbacks lost the ball we would be exposed. If we were caught further up, the fullbacks would be exposed. This was an even bigger problem because our main fullbacks were now Davies and Trippier, good fullbacks, but not the quickest. When playing 3 at the back they work well, because the centre backs can go wide and cover the space behind, but now we didn't have that. So this strategy did some things well, some things not so well.
So, Poch tried to develop something new to put into place this season. what exactly is hard to say. But I believe that his line up was going to look something like this
Lloris
Foyth (Aurier) Toby (Sanchez) Verts (Foyth/Dier) Rose (Davies)
Winks (Dier)
Lo Celso (Sissoko) Ndombele (Dele)
Moura (Lamela) Kane (Son) Son (Dele)
In the end Poch was going back and forth between 4-3-3 and 4-5-1 and this created even more confusion and it was a bit of a mess. If Poch did have the right players fit and ready it might of been way more successful, though to put it simply, under Poch the central defence (and a deep CDM) are the teams playmakers, not the midfielders and I am not sure if that works in a 4-3-3. Because the point of a 4-3-3 is to dominate the middle of the park. So, I think you can play it as a passing team that uses the midfield more or as a counter attacking or pressing team that wants to win the ball in the middle. But, maybe with adjustments it could have worked and Poch needed to think of new solutions, it just didn't work be it through not having the right players, demanding too much from central midfielders, just being a tactical incompatible with how we built attacks or simply not having the time. Poch's stubbornness didn't help, but it does feel a shame that he was never really given a chance to make it work with the right players.
These problems won't be the case for Jose as he doesn't have this patient approach and is adaptable to the needs of each match. But, Poch teams could have games with a lot of passing, seemingly going nowhere, but the idea was to build attacks, it was not a defensive manoeuvre of possession keeping (like is applied by Del Bosque's Spain for example). Jose will not do that, a solid team which is adaptable to different situations is a winning team for Jose. For Poch a winning team is a brave confident team that is focused on themselves not what the opposition throws at them. One is a principally attacking proactive philosophy (regardless of entertainment, defensive football can be entertaining too!) the other is principally a reactive defensive strategy (can't call it a philosophy). Basically we cannot expect to see much attacking football, even if there might be some entertainment on how we might play in the future (I found the first 70 mins or so against west ham mildly entertaining, but then at 1-0 and it was all game management and get one on the counter).
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shelfmonkey
Weird is different, different is interesting.
- Mar 21, 2007
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Haven't seen any evidence yet to back that up.
danielneeds
Kick-Ass
- May 5, 2004
- 24,181
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There’s a massive difference between being good on coaching courses and managing a PL club, though. You need such incredible confidence, leaderships abilities and thick skin to operate at that rarified level. At the moment the jury’s out.
spursfan77
Well-Known Member
- Aug 13, 2005
- 46,680
- 104,957
In terms of us turning a corner under Mourinho, I don’t think we are there yet because the players haven’t won my trust back. They’ve let us, the manager and themselves down too many times over the last couple of years in games. If though, they can show the same application and ability to follow instructions that they obviously have in the games since the restart, over the next three games in six days, then I’ll believe things will be different. The reason for this is that it is a lot of matches in a short space of time so there will have to be rotation. Will all the squad be able to do it as well as the majority of the starters have so far. Does Mourinho have faith in those he hasn’t selected so far? Minimal rotation will show us he doesn’t, which I think will happen and also it will be a good indication of those players he wants to keep and those he will want to move on in the next transfer window.
The beauty of having an eight day break before these games is that he can select the teams (injuries withstanding) ahead of them and knowing how methodical Mourinho is can prepare each team accordingly. I believe he will have an idea who is to play in each game now if he is as much of a planner as we are led to believe.
The beauty of having an eight day break before these games is that he can select the teams (injuries withstanding) ahead of them and knowing how methodical Mourinho is can prepare each team accordingly. I believe he will have an idea who is to play in each game now if he is as much of a planner as we are led to believe.
fishhhandaricecake
Well-Known Member
- Nov 15, 2018
- 19,096
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Good analysis mate and agree with a lot of this although you say we won’t see much attacking football under Jose well I’m not so sure because I think he’s trying to make us solid and organised first and then will work more on attacking patterns of play and with a few additions in summer this would be more effective. I still think back to his 2nd time at Chelsea and the team that won the league was something like the below and they had a fair few high scoring games and played some decent stuff, ivanoic and fabregas and Costa were key to the way he played and same with us Aurier(or ideally a new RB) and Lo Celso and kane will be the keys. This is also why a back up to kane is so crucial as he is one of 3 key cogs in Jose’s machine.
joses Chelsea team that won the title and played most similarly to how he is trying to get us to play was;
courtious - lloris = fine
ivanovic - Aurier = could do with upgrading
Cahill - Sanchez = fine
Terry - dier = fine
Azpiliquetta - Davies = could do with upgrading
matic - Sissoko = could do with upgrading or getting ndombele fit and on side or buy hoyjberg
fabregas - Lo celso = fine
willian - bergweign/Lucas = ok
Oscar - dele/Lamela = could do with upgrading imo
Hazard - son/?? - could do with extra cover
costa - kane = fine but need cover
So to me it’s quite clear we have a talented squad with a lot of potential to play the way Jose did to win the PL only 6 seasons ago and is trying to get us to play this way but ideally we need to:
•upgrade RB
•upgrade LB
•new DM
•new AM
•back up ST
If we get all of that I think we’d be right up there with anyone tbh but if we only get 3 then I’d say priority has to be: RB, DM and back up striker but really we need another quality AM as well.
COYS
stonebrow
Well-Known Member
- Jun 28, 2012
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Were we not told (by Herc i believe) that Jose had reflected during his time out of management and had a new game plan/strategy on how he would take things forward?
danielneeds
Kick-Ass
- May 5, 2004
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A lot of bristle and BS. He may tinker with shapes and suchforth but at his core Jose will not change. Possession is pointless, the opposition is at its most vulnerable to counterattacks; these are all ingrained in him as a manger and we will not change now.
C0YS
Just another member
- Jul 9, 2007
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Goals is not the same as attacking football, and attacking football is not the same as entertaining football. This was not an attack minded team. Jose rarely sets up his team to attack. He sets them to be defensive and counter attacking, you can get a lot of goals counter attacking.
Also, that Jose team wouldn't win the league now and 'upgrading' players is a very reductive way of thinking about them and Ndombele (or Sissoko for that matter) are nothing like Matic, and I on't see Lo Celso and N'dombele as compatible in a midfield two, they were clearly bought for a midfield 3 in mind.
fishhhandaricecake
Well-Known Member
- Nov 15, 2018
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Well mabye a few tweaks and adding Sacramento is that but he was hardly ever going to flip is very successful brand of football to suddenly rock up and play like peps teams was he.
fishhhandaricecake
Well-Known Member
- Nov 15, 2018
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Fair enough each to their own and it wasn’t meant to be a like for like comparison exactly as the players are slightly different but it was more the quality comparison of each player I was going for and ok mabye that team wouldnt win the League now but tbh not many teams would as this Liverpool team and the last 2 seasons man.citys teams are almost perfect and easily the best and most Consistent two Teams to win the league, but hopefully klopps lpool will eventually regress to a more normal points per game level as peps city have come down to this season, that then gives us all hope.
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