- Jan 17, 2008
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For me I think our major problem is a lack of an attacking philosophy. Mourinho knows how to set up a team to defend but apparently, even when he was at his most successful, a lot of his attacking play was based on allowing his attackers to improvise and express themselves. That's fine when you have world class players and it's 2008, but I don't think that's good enough today.I do agree with this, however the squad appears to have a real confidence issue this season which is also making them look worse than they are too. With the right surgery in the key areas mentioned and a solid gameplan we can be competitive again.
Jose is making mistakes too, I fully agree there, much as Poch did before him this season with his obsession with the diamond. For me Jose needs to stop building our play around Aurier, needs to stop playing favourites with Moura and needs to find a way to thicken up our midfield to support our creaky defence.
Kane, Son and Bergwijn is enough attacking threat to win plenty of games, especially with Lo Celso feeding them. Jose seems to think chucking more attackers on the pitch equals more goal threat these days (maybe a reaction the criticism he received at Utd), but surely having a more solid midfield AND team unit would lead to us getting more chances in a game. Arguably at our peak we often had Kane, Dele and Eriksen as our front three, it's quality not quantity!
I think he is quite unfortunate in that he has inherited a lot of the mental issues, however it also in his remit to build confidence and motivation too.
That may have worked back in the day, but you look at the way teams like Liverpool, City, Bayern and, to a lesser extent, Chelsea, Dortmund, etc move the ball in attacking areas and everything is done with a sense of purpose. Space is exploited, passing moves are rehearsed and there's a genuine intelligence and purpose to everything. We're the polar opposite at the moment - it's all just completely off the cuff. Even compared to teams with half our talent like Brighton, Sheffield United and So'ton, our play style looks dated.