Jose Mourinho

[sausage]

My only concern with JM at this moment in time is that he is focussing on winning the LC and if we were to win it he'll use it as a saviour moment, a sort of you wanted a trophy, I have given you won and you are not satisfied.

Winning the LC would protect his reputation as winning at every club.

I think he and we are capable of more though and I think that is where it is frustrating

On the other hand, winning any trophy may be the catalyst the team needs to establish the next layer of mentality. Even a LC would inevitably be better than another 5 years of ball-tickling.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Apparently there is going to be fireworks in his press conference so what time does it get released?

Says who? Random twitter again?

 

[Gassin's finest]

On the other hand, winning any trophy may be the catalyst the team needs to establish the next layer of mentality. Even a LC would inevitably be better than another 5 years of ball-tickling.

While I'd be delighted with a LC, we said that in 99 and 08

 

[ardiles&villa]

This thread is quite pathetic. Whist I agree we have gone through a bad patch, looking at the table and the fact that we’re still in all comps people wanting him sacked need there heads tested.

 

[kaz Hirai]

We went from Poch a manager who never blames his players and never blames anyone and gives vague answers in interviews
To Jose who always blames his players and gives brutal answer in interviews

The media loves or hates Jose a lot. Every word he says is expanded and extrapolated to various theories its amazing.

Ali did a fancy flick that eventually lead to an equalizer. Jose said he was pissed , Ali shouildnt do that in his role.
Our team played like limp squid against Wolves. Jose pretty much said that.

I mean I dont like the style he plays but seriously these extrapolating and laying the blame on him is kinda much.

What was he suppose to say ? Team played well against wolves and were unfortunate to draw? Its my fault?

When was the last manager that in an interview said he screwed up thats why the team didnt win? I dont recall any manager ever doing that

Its kinda of weird circus we have around Jose

Poch Admits he got Tactics Wrong

 

[eViL]

I see Diego Costa is a free agent..

 

[rossdapep]

Seemed to be in a more 'tense' mood today. With Bale now being out and looking like a bit of mistake, both Vinicius/Lucas not being available for this busy period plus Lo Celso out injured again as well as Ndombele not being fully relied upon, you can understand why. Especially when we need a response.

It's a chance for Bergwijn to get consistent minutes and try to make himself a top pick.

 

[rez9000]

This is a very long post, so I've 'Spoilered' it if people don't want to read through all my ramblings.

Spoiler

now thats a bit disingenuous. for every question mourinho answers honestly he bullshits through 5 more.

That's not the point, though. The point is that even if what you say is true, we can't take anything he says other than at face value. We're not there, we're not in the dressing room, on the touchline, at the training ground. We can't assign motivation because of our own preconceived ideas. And that's what I was bringing up. Let me contrast it with what I believe would have happened if Poch had acted in precisely the same manner as Mourinho, both on the touchline and afterward:

1. it probably wouldn't even have been mentioned on the BBC - in the same way that no broadcaster ever makes a meal out of other managers screaming at their players during a match; watch Sean Dyche next time Burnley play and see just how much he screams and shouts at his players and then try and find any mention of it anywhere; and
2. even if they had mentioned it and Poch had answered in precisely the same way that Mourniho did, I reckon the amount of people rushing to defend the wilting English rose that is Dele could be counted on the fingers of a terminally-clumsy lumberjack.

It's refusing to give Mourinho even an inkling of the benefit of the doubt. Why should this be? Why is he treated so differently? The media you can understand - they're always on the hunt for a story, regardless of how much bullshit it contains. But our own fans? Isn't his aim the same as ours - to bring the club success? So why do so many insist on wanting to beat him with every stick they can lay their hands on?

The way I see this half time waffle is this. IF he did tell the players to attack and then they clearly didn't, then one must ask why. Are they simply not listening to him? Has he lost the players already?
OR is what he said after the game not true? In which case he is throwing the players under the bus, and history tells us that does not end well with Jose teams.
It's either one or the other.

Sorry, oz, but it's not that binary. What you've done here is posit a false dilemma. It isn't an either/or situation as we can provide many more possibilities that break that supposed (supposed as in made through a supposition) dichotomy. Plus you've posited it on a number of false assertions: In your first sentence, you stated that we didn't attack. What, not at all? Fewer attacks doesn't mean no attack. And the reasons for fewer attacks, even if they can be properly quantified, are subject to myriad factors.

And when you ask whether the players weren't listening or if he has lost the players already, you're once again presenting a false dilemma in saying that those are the only possibilities that exist. But again there are myriad other possibilities - maybe fatigue played a part that day; maybe there was distractions elsewhere. Maybe the lack of fans was preying on some of the players' minds; maybe they had other worries to do with their partners or finances or careers or Covid; maybe they saw the way Newcastle played and became more cautious, or less cautious and so became subject to more turnovers.

I'm not saying these are factors that had an effect, just that they're possibilities and their existence means we can't definitively say what actually happened outside of our direct observation. There are literally thousands of possibilities outside of the idea that Mourinho has 'lost the players' or 'they weren't listening', so much so that we simply can't state what the actuality of the situation was.

We can, however, quite categorically state that we suffered two bullshit decisions, because we have the direct evidence for that assertion right in front of us. And given that it is direct evidence, we can likewise categorically state that it was a direct cause of us dropping two points. You then add in Steve Bruce's comments, specifically him saying, 'we got away with it' when speaking about the fact that his team was given a ridiculous penalty decision (putting aside the decision given for Joelinton's impromptu WWE audition). That is more direct evidence as it comes from someone directly involved in the situation. Anything outside of that is supposition and nothing more. But people are now using it to detract, and speaking in absolute terms as if it's categorically true, when it is, as I've demonstrated, anything but.

I'm reluctant to put it so baldly, and I do apologise, but you've both rather missed the point. As in so many discussions, we often miss the nuance because we see one aspect of it and think 'that's bollocks' and rush to parry that specific part of the statement. I'm not saying either of you have done that, just that there's a nuance that makes up the main point. And I do it myself too, so there's no judgement here - I almost did it myself in this thread earlier after reading just a single sentence of a post that actually aligned with my view but at first glance seemed not to; thankfully, I stopped myself and read it fully.

The point I'm making is not a defence of Mourinho's job performance per se. It's a defence against unfair judgement of his job performance.

I hate to use the word 'agenda' but it's apposite (not the two of you specifically, I'm speaking generally). There is too large a proportion of posters on this board who view everything Mourinho does through a prism of personal dislike. Or who seem wedded to the idea that he has a duty to manage the team's play in a particular way. Or who feel that perceived character flaws or previous failings make him ill-equipped to manage. And as soon as things get sticky, any and all negative outcomes are used to bolster those preconceptions, which in reality have no relevance to the job that he is there to do. But few will stand up and admit error when things go against their preconceptions. That's not to say it doesn't happen - I have great admiration for those who have been honest and given credit where it's been due where previously they detracted.

We have to be rational enough to understand the realities of the situation. Levy did not hire Mourinho to play beautiful football. I doubt if the idea was even discussed in any of their conversations prior to Mourinho's appointment (that's my own belief, by the way, not an assertion). One thing I'm confident in asserting is that nowhere in Mourinho's contract do the words 'beautiful football', 'attractive', 'entertaining' (or any of the other vague things people are shrieking about currently) appear.

He was hired to win football matches. That is what he is there to do. He's not here to entertain us, he's not here to make us feel warm and gooey inside, he's not here to stroke any of the players' egos; and no chairman would insist that one of the manager's key performance indicators would be to win every match against so-called 'lesser' teams. Mourinho will have specific objectives but single matches or even sequences of matches won't be one of them.

So if we lose or draw a match, we lose or draw a match. In that instance, it's doesn't contribute to his overall objectives. That's all it is. Now, if it happens too much, then he will fail to deliver on his objectives. At which point his employment will be reviewed. Like any other manager in the game (the odd weird sacking notwithstanding).

But there's a number of constituencies on the board right now who are adamant in their view that no matter the objective, no matter if it's delivered, no matter if we win something, no matter if we beat this club or lose to that club, MOURINHO IS THE DEVIL (I'm pretty sure I actually saw someone use that very term). Or MOURINHO IS YESTERDAY'S MAN (seen that one too). Or MOURINHO IS ANTI-FOOTBALL (yep, you've guessed it, that's been doing the rounds as well). Or MOURINHO HATES DELE. Or MOURINHO this, and MOURINHO that. But few of them are relevant to his overall job.

And so we descend into a place where a negative outcome that pretty much every neutral at the time agreed was outside of our control is being painted as a specific and exclusive failing on the part of the manager. At the time, there were one or two trying to suggest this, but they were rightly argued against. But now that things are a little tough, huge numbers are jumping on that bandwagon. And the even more egregious attempts to paint a truly domineering destruction of another team as incidental. Again, why? Because when one judges unfairly or irrationally, anything can be twisted to fit the 'agenda'. The quintessence of revisionism.

Or the person who is determined to hate him because of one incident nearly ten years ago. Forget his actual ability, forget his actual success, forget his knowledge, his experience, his attention-to-detail, or what his job actually is. No, no - poking Villanova in the eye is the defining aspect of Mourinho's work and he should be judged on that alone. And additionally, that (admittedly unpleasant) behaviour that happened ten years ago is now being twisted to relate to the utterly-overblown Dele situation.

But hey, maybe it's me. I'm sure that particular SC-buddy has himself or herself led a perfectly faultless, sinless existence, but had they committed an immoral act at some point in the past, I'm equally sure they'd be quite happy for his or her employer to sack them, or for strangers to judge them categorically on the basis of that one incident alone, especially if it had happened many years in the past.

That's the irrationality, that's the problem. This isn't me saying that people have no right to hate, have no right to be critical. Just be rational. But, you know, everyone has the right to be irrational if they like. It's not up to me to say what people can and can't do, even if I could. But they should be rational for their own benefit and for the benefit of the discussion and everyone involved in it. Anyone who doesn't is pretty much doing everyone a disservice, including themselves.

Ideally, our discussions should be within the specific paradigm of Mourinho's role at the club, and his work should be judged based on that, not on other externalities. Obviously, a good conversation will drift and externalities will come in. But they should be treated as digressions, not the main thrust of the conversation. They should be treated as irrelevances, interesting in their way, but not the main aspect of the discussion, which is what Mourinho's job is and how well he is doing it.

His job is to win football matches - that's the primary point. But some are determined to use secondary (or tertiary or even less-relevant) points as primary weapons. Whether the football is pretty is a secondary point, because he's not been hired to deliver pretty football. The softness with which he's been massaging Dele's balls (or not as the case may be) is a secondary point. Him poking an opposition manager in the eye nearly ten years ago is below secondary; him abusing a club doctor four years ago is below secondary, him digging out a preening, self-absorbed, does-the-job-when-he-feels-like-it midfielder or a fat, clumsy lumpen left-back (who incidentally could have broken one of our players legs only a few months ago) while at another club is below secondary.

The primary point is judging whether he is doing the job. I'd argue that sustaining, albeit temporarily, a position at the top of the table, is something that is a credit in the bank. Dropping points to Wolves is a debit, losing to Leicester is a debit. Playing pretty football or dropping to his knees and praising the sacred ground that Dele walks on is neither credit nor debit. Whether the credits outweigh the debits is what should be being discussed, not turning things that are irrelevant into a credit or a debit. Nor is passing unfair judgement by twisting things to fit the narrative of an adamant preconception.

He is being judged far too unfairly - no judgement is 100% fair - and that judgement has been happening from the very beginning, before he was given the opportunity to actually settle into the role. And now that he has become settled, that initial prejudice is colouring everything that happens now. It's continued because some refuse to step out of their knee-jerk, emotional state and judge with reason and rationality. He's not being given the credit he should be because, for some here it's more important that he dug out Fatfuck Luke Shaw (I hate him for that tackle on Moura - what a ****!) or Preening Pogba, that he abused Eva Carneiro or Tito Vilanova, that he doesn't deliver the scintillating football that some seem to believe is their God-given right. That's wrong. Judge him on what he does for the club, nothing else.

And one last thing (I can hear the shouts of 'thank God, he's wrapping up' from here!): we have a duty as fans: to back the manager, regardless of whether we like him personally, whether we think he's playing the way we like, whether we think he still has the ability to do the job. Criticise when due, but not excoriate. Judge performance, yes, but judge personality and use it as a stick to beat the man with, no. And when things go well, be honest and give praise.

 

[@WHL]

I see Diego Costa is a free agent..

Would be a good addition

 

[DiVaio]

Would be a good addition

He wouldnt.

 

[eViL]

Seemed to be in a more 'tense' mood today.

If you're referring to his pre-match; that was directly after the Wolves game.

 

[@WHL]

He wouldnt.

An arsehole Jose likes and someone who might actually retain the ball further up the pitch

 

[Japhet]

Would be a good addition

Which non HG player gets binned to create a space for him?

 

[@WHL]

Which non HG player gets binned to create a space for him?

Take your pick? I’m gonna be honest and say I don’t know who is currently taking all our non HG slots but with January coming I’m sure some will be on the way out so a space can be made

 

[Deleted member 27995]

This is a very long post, so I've 'Spoilered' it if people don't want to read through all my ramblings.

Thanks for this.

I never really articulate my thoughts well enough in a manner in which people won't take offense to how I post (which is my issue, I'm aware my shortness and language will also add to this fact) so this is as about as fair and in depth to be fair on both sides of the Mourinho coin.

Excellent stuff.

 

[DiVaio]

An arsehole Jose likes and someone who might actually retain the ball further up the pitch

Right now, Carlos Vinicius is 5x better than Diego Costa

 

[rez9000]

Thanks for this.

I never really articulate my thoughts well enough in a manner in which people won't take offense to how I post (which is my issue, I'm aware my shortness and language will also add to this fact) so this is as about as fair and in depth to be fair on both sides of the Mourinho coin.

Excellent stuff.

That's very kind of you to say.

 

[@WHL]

Right now, Carlos Vinicius is 5x better than Diego Costa

I’m not getting into this debate, Vinicius has played what 3 games and been out injured for more? Bale constantly injured, Lucas playing like Lucas but yea costa would not improve the team ??

 

[ralphs bald spot]

This is a very long post, so I've 'Spoilered' it if people don't want to read through all my ramblings.

Spoiler

That's not the point, though. The point is that even if what you say is true, we can't take anything he says other than at face value. We're not there, we're not in the dressing room, on the touchline, at the training ground. We can't assign motivation because of our own preconceived ideas. And that's what I was bringing up. Let me contrast it with what I believe would have happened if Poch had acted in precisely the same manner as Mourinho, both on the touchline and afterward:

1. it probably wouldn't even have been mentioned on the BBC - in the same way that no broadcaster ever makes a meal out of other managers screaming at their players during a match; watch Sean Dyche next time Burnley play and see just how much he screams and shouts at his players and then try and find any mention of it anywhere; and
2. even if they had mentioned it and Poch had answered in precisely the same way that Mourniho did, I reckon the amount of people rushing to defend the wilting English rose that is Dele could be counted on the fingers of a terminally-clumsy lumberjack.

It's refusing to give Mourinho even an inkling of the benefit of the doubt. Why should this be? Why is he treated so differently? The media you can understand - they're always on the hunt for a story, regardless of how much bullshit it contains. But our own fans? Isn't his aim the same as ours - to bring the club success? So why do so many insist on wanting to beat him with every stick they can lay their hands on?

Sorry, oz, but it's not that binary. What you've done here is posit a false dilemma. It isn't an either/or situation as we can provide many more possibilities that break that supposed (supposed as in made through a supposition) dichotomy. Plus you've posited it on a number of false assertions: In your first sentence, you stated that we didn't attack. What, not at all? Fewer attacks doesn't mean no attack. And the reasons for fewer attacks, even if they can be properly quantified, are subject to myriad factors.

And when you ask whether the players weren't listening or if he has lost the players already, you're once again presenting a false dilemma in saying that those are the only possibilities that exist. But again there are myriad other possibilities - maybe fatigue played a part that day; maybe there was distractions elsewhere. Maybe the lack of fans was preying on some of the players' minds; maybe they had other worries to do with their partners or finances or careers or Covid; maybe they saw the way Newcastle played and became more cautious, or less cautious and so became subject to more turnovers.

I'm not saying these are factors that had an effect, just that they're possibilities and their existence means we can't definitively say what actually happened outside of our direct observation. There are literally thousands of possibilities outside of the idea that Mourinho has 'lost the players' or 'they weren't listening', so much so that we simply can't state what the actuality of the situation was.

We can, however, quite categorically state that we suffered two bullshit decisions, because we have the direct evidence for that assertion right in front of us. And given that it is direct evidence, we can likewise categorically state that it was a direct cause of us dropping two points. You then add in Steve Bruce's comments, specifically him saying, 'we got away with it' when speaking about the fact that his team was given a ridiculous penalty decision (putting aside the decision given for Joelinton's impromptu WWE audition). That is more direct evidence as it comes from someone directly involved in the situation. Anything outside of that is supposition and nothing more. But people are now using it to detract, and speaking in absolute terms as if it's categorically true, when it is, as I've demonstrated, anything but.

I'm reluctant to put it so baldly, and I do apologise, but you've both rather missed the point. As in so many discussions, we often miss the nuance because we see one aspect of it and think 'that's bollocks' and rush to parry that specific part of the statement. I'm not saying either of you have done that, just that there's a nuance that makes up the main point. And I do it myself too, so there's no judgement here - I almost did it myself in this thread earlier after reading just a single sentence of a post that actually aligned with my view but at first glance seemed not to; thankfully, I stopped myself and read it fully.

The point I'm making is not a defence of Mourinho's job performance per se. It's a defence against unfair judgement of his job performance.

I hate to use the word 'agenda' but it's apposite (not the two of you specifically, I'm speaking generally). There is too large a proportion of posters on this board who view everything Mourinho does through a prism of personal dislike. Or who seem wedded to the idea that he has a duty to manage the team's play in a particular way. Or who feel that perceived character flaws or previous failings make him ill-equipped to manage. And as soon as things get sticky, any and all negative outcomes are used to bolster those preconceptions, which in reality have no relevance to the job that he is there to do. But few will stand up and admit error when things go against their preconceptions. That's not to say it doesn't happen - I have great admiration for those who have been honest and given credit where it's been due where previously they detracted.

We have to be rational enough to understand the realities of the situation. Levy did not hire Mourinho to play beautiful football. I doubt if the idea was even discussed in any of their conversations prior to Mourinho's appointment (that's my own belief, by the way, not an assertion). One thing I'm confident in asserting is that nowhere in Mourinho's contract do the words 'beautiful football', 'attractive', 'entertaining' (or any of the other vague things people are shrieking about currently) appear.

He was hired to win football matches. That is what he is there to do. He's not here to entertain us, he's not here to make us feel warm and gooey inside, he's not here to stroke any of the players' egos; and no chairman would insist that one of the manager's key performance indicators would be to win every match against so-called 'lesser' teams. Mourinho will have specific objectives but single matches or even sequences of matches won't be one of them.

So if we lose or draw a match, we lose or draw a match. In that instance, it's doesn't contribute to his overall objectives. That's all it is. Now, if it happens too much, then he will fail to deliver on his objectives. At which point his employment will be reviewed. Like any other manager in the game (the odd weird sacking notwithstanding).

But there's a number of constituencies on the board right now who are adamant in their view that no matter the objective, no matter if it's delivered, no matter if we win something, no matter if we beat this club or lose to that club, MOURINHO IS THE DEVIL (I'm pretty sure I actually saw someone use that very term). Or MOURINHO IS YESTERDAY'S MAN (seen that one too). Or MOURINHO IS ANTI-FOOTBALL (yep, you've guessed it, that's been doing the rounds as well). Or MOURINHO HATES DELE. Or MOURINHO this, and MOURINHO that. But few of them are relevant to his overall job.

And so we descend into a place where a negative outcome that pretty much every neutral at the time agreed was outside of our control is being painted as a specific and exclusive failing on the part of the manager. At the time, there were one or two trying to suggest this, but they were rightly argued against. But now that things are a little tough, huge numbers are jumping on that bandwagon. And the even more egregious attempts to paint a truly domineering destruction of another team as incidental. Again, why? Because when one judges unfairly or irrationally, anything can be twisted to fit the 'agenda'. The quintessence of revisionism.

Or the person who is determined to hate him because of one incident nearly ten years ago. Forget his actual ability, forget his actual success, forget his knowledge, his experience, his attention-to-detail, or what his job actually is. No, no - poking Villanova in the eye is the defining aspect of Mourinho's work and he should be judged on that alone. And additionally, that (admittedly unpleasant) behaviour that happened ten years ago is now being twisted to relate to the utterly-overblown Dele situation.

But hey, maybe it's me. I'm sure that particular SC-buddy has himself or herself led a perfectly faultless, sinless existence, but had they committed an immoral act at some point in the past, I'm equally sure they'd be quite happy for his or her employer to sack them, or for strangers to judge them categorically on the basis of that one incident alone, especially if it had happened many years in the past.

That's the irrationality, that's the problem. This isn't me saying that people have no right to hate, have no right to be critical. Just be rational. But, you know, everyone has the right to be irrational if they like. It's not up to me to say what people can and can't do, even if I could. But they should be rational for their own benefit and for the benefit of the discussion and everyone involved in it. Anyone who doesn't is pretty much doing everyone a disservice, including themselves.

Ideally, our discussions should be within the specific paradigm of Mourinho's role at the club, and his work should be judged based on that, not on other externalities. Obviously, a good conversation will drift and externalities will come in. But they should be treated as digressions, not the main thrust of the conversation. They should be treated as irrelevances, interesting in their way, but not the main aspect of the discussion, which is what Mourinho's job is and how well he is doing it.

His job is to win football matches - that's the primary point. But some are determined to use secondary (or tertiary or even less-relevant) points as primary weapons. Whether the football is pretty is a secondary point, because he's not been hired to deliver pretty football. The softness with which he's been massaging Dele's balls (or not as the case may be) is a secondary point. Him poking an opposition manager in the eye nearly ten years ago is below secondary; him abusing a club doctor four years ago is below secondary, him digging out a preening, self-absorbed, does-the-job-when-he-feels-like-it midfielder or a fat, clumsy lumpen left-back (who incidentally could have broken one of our players legs only a few months ago) while at another club is below secondary.

The primary point is judging whether he is doing the job. I'd argue that sustaining, albeit temporarily, a position at the top of the table, is something that is a credit in the bank. Dropping points to Wolves is a debit, losing to Leicester is a debit. Playing pretty football or dropping to his knees and praising the sacred ground that Dele walks on is neither credit nor debit. Whether the credits outweigh the debits is what should be being discussed, not turning things that are irrelevant into a credit or a debit. Nor is passing unfair judgement by twisting things to fit the narrative of an adamant preconception.

He is being judged far too unfairly - no judgement is 100% fair - and that judgement has been happening from the very beginning, before he was given the opportunity to actually settle into the role. And now that he has become settled, that initial prejudice is colouring everything that happens now. It's continued because some refuse to step out of their knee-jerk, emotional state and judge with reason and rationality. He's not being given the credit he should be because, for some here it's more important that he dug out Fatfuck Luke Shaw (I hate him for that tackle on Moura - what a ****!) or Preening Pogba, that he abused Eva Carneiro or Tito Vilanova, that he doesn't deliver the scintillating football that some seem to believe is their God-given right. That's wrong. Judge him on what he does for the club, nothing else.

And one last thing (I can hear the shouts of 'thank God, he's wrapping up' from here!): we have a duty as fans: to back the manager, regardless of whether we like him personally, whether we think he's playing the way we like, whether we think he still has the ability to do the job. Criticise when due, but not excoriate. Judge performance, yes, but judge personality and use it as a stick to beat the man with, no. And when things go well, be honest and give praise.

?
is there a kindle edition available ?

 

[rez9000]

?
is there a kindle edition available ?

Are you asking if there's an electronic version of an electronic piece of text???