Jose Mourinho

ClintEastwould said:

United fans are laughing at us and anyone who still has any sort of faith in this dinosaur.

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Shadydan said:

I'll admit I thought you were bat-shit crazy when you wrote this at the time but you might just have a point.

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jeremystorey said:

I've been fairly neutral on Jose before he joined us. But I'm a big fan. And was excited when it was announced. Weirdly enough, the last time I had been that excited about a new manager announcement was Harry Redknapp. Couldn't really tell you why. But it seemed like he was the perfect person who was needed at that particular time.

If you want to talk about manager's who have built their success on massive spending... Pep.

I know he is fawned over. And I'm sure he has very good attributes as a manager. However, I will never fully embrace him as some sort of Sir Alex-like figure, until I see him manage a team successfully with less resources.

Barca - gobs of money, and some of the best players in the world.
Bayern - tons of money, in a league where they have no competition. Yes, he did well with them. But again... took over a team that was in their golden period.
Citeh - the richest club in the world, bar none. can throw down 200M if they wanted without blinking an eye.

I'm far more impressed with the likes of Ancelloti. Even before Everton. He has been at rich clubs and not-so-rich clubs and done very well.
Klippty Klopp.... again, greatly admire the guy for everything he has achieved without the same access to resources that the likes of Pep have received. And of course, will always love Poch, for he's another one that who has shown the ability to be successful with less than half the money of the super clubs. And let's not forget the Tinkerman, Claudio Rainieri... what he did with the Foxes was incredible.

So, yes, Jose has been one of those managers backed with a lot of money. Not so much at Porto. And his Inter team had nowhere near the spending power of Chelsea. Yet he killed it with them.

There is a reason why you often hear players speak in such glowing terms about Jose. I think there has to be some truth and merit to what they say.

Agree he can be a right arrogant bugger at times. And I'm really not sure if he has changed since joining us, or we are just more accepting as he's now one of our own. I am not a believer in the notion that people can change fundamentally who they are. They can't. They can certainly learn how to manage undesirable behaviors, but fundamentally, it's nearly impossible for someone's character to completely change.

Jose is what we've needed for a while. A guy that commands respect. Who the players will listen to. Who will turn our nice guy approach around and make us be a bit more bastardly. 'Cos he's right... nice guys don't win.

I believe that this will be a positive experience for everyone involved. I believe he will do some special things with us. And when all is said and done and the history of Jose is written, I'd like to think that he'll look back at his time with us, and say it was his best success and the job he was most proud of.

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mumfordspur said:

I certainly wouldn't fawn over Pep.
I have called him a fraud in the past and I have good reason for doing this.

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Shadydan said:

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dirtyh said:

didn't realise this either (if it's true of course)…..

Friendly reminder that Jose Mourinho has never finished lower than 2nd in his second season at a club.

Porto - 1st
Chelsea - 1st
Inter Milan - 1st
Real Madrid - 1st
Chelsea - 1st
Man Utd - 2nd

Spurs -

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SlumDilla said:

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Hercules said:

Wonder how many who gave me meg and optimistic ratings when I said Josè had developed a new philosophy etc, and approach to his his teams will play. Well now we can see ?

yeh! Yeh! I can hola ? But I can hear some saying ‘Too early?’ COYS!!!

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dirtyh said:

didn't realise this either (if it's true of course)…..

Friendly reminder that Jose Mourinho has never finished lower than 2nd in his second season at a club.

Porto - 1st
Chelsea - 1st
Inter Milan - 1st
Real Madrid - 1st
Chelsea - 1st
Man Utd - 2nd

Spurs -

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Montalbano said:

Son & Kane since Mourinho's arrival.. But Paul Merson said they wouldn't get goals in Mourinho's team!!

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InOffMeLeftShin said:

What I’ve been most impressed about is how Mourinho has adapted to the new players and what we’ve seen from the players on the pitch. We all know Mourinho has used his charm on Levy and got the transfers in that he wanted but he has tinkered a little and found (I’d say stumbled onto in some cases but I’m going to guess that it’s been by design) some really important changes in structure which have completely changed the way we have been playing.

The first game against Everton I was pretty concerned, we were obviously not sharp and miles off our best but we got dominated in midfield and looked pretty clueless on how to do any damage. After that game many fans were questioning why we signed Hojbjerg. He looked a bit ponderous, was getting turned around and caught out of position and bypassed pretty often when trying to press and harry which just left the midfield exposed. We’d assumed Hjobjerg was going to come in and be a defensive shield and mop up/protect Ndombele or Lo Celso and give them freedom but Hojbjerg wants to hunt the ball and it just left us wide open.

Fast forward to Sunday and things have changed a lot. Hojbjerg absolutely dominated Man Utd. Just taking the first 30 minutes when it was 11v11 it was really clear that Hojbjerg’s role has changed. So often in that first period he was dropping deeper in between Sanchez and Dier in our first transition of play, allowing Sanchez and Dier to go wider and Aurier and Reguilon to be much more advanced outlets. It’s brilliant not only because it allows the fullbacks to act more like wingbacks which is obviously where all of our fullbacks are going to benefit but it also plays into Hojbjergs strengths. His passing is really surprising and he likes to be progressive with it, so coming deep allows him to drop away from the opposition midfield and really start us ticking. He then also has a full view of everything in front of him so as he moves forward out of that position he sees where everyone is and is able to then come and hunt the ball from the deeper position

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This is obviously benefitting the fullbacks but it also mirrors what is happening up top. Until the second half of the Southampton game, Kane had looked miles off his best and had barely touched the ball in 2 games. Cue a tactical change which may or may not have been directed by Mourinho but again I’m going to assume it was and we saw Kane dropping much deeper to find space and be creative. He’s an absolute nightmare in that role both when we are dominating the ball, due to him being a great passer, or playing on the counter since he can hold it up and have pace running off him. The central defenders are never going to want to follow him there and if a midfielder tries to pick him up it leaves more space for Tanguy or Lo Celso. It also allows Kane to press from the front which has looked far more natural and we’ve sat off teams much less as a result.

We are going to continue to play the “low block” and we are going to continue to not dominate possession and look for the counter. But how quickly we’ve adapted this style with both Kane and Hojbjerg dropping deeper (and then pushing forward) has completely changed the whole dynamic. I think this “double dipping”, yep just coined that, is going to continue and cause nightmares for opponents. Can’t give Hojbjerg or Kane the space to drop into their respective pockets but also can’t follow them and leave space for Ndombele/Lo Celso in middle or Son/Bale/Lamela/Whoever to expose at the back. Not to mention if you can figure it out by putting an extra man in their our full backs will have acres of space.

It was so consistent against Utd, happened over and over. Fully expect the double dipping to continue and fair play to Mourinho to getting us from looking flat and defensive to dynamic and a real puzzle for opponents to figure out. We’ve not even put our “best 11”out there yet. ?

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Cavehillspur said:

Fuck me, didn't realise Fernandes had scored 25 pens!

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Bruno Fernandes - Penalty goals

This is the detailed penalty statistic of Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United. The statistic shows in detail how many penalties the player took in his career.

www.transfermarkt.co.uk