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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

topper

Well-Known Member
Jan 27, 2008
3,806
16,254
What’s really funny about this so called ‘park the bus’ philosophy Jose has is that he actually coined the phrase after Chelsea drew with us and he was complaining about our negative tactics. Maybe it was always meant to be.
He did after a Santini defensive master class at the Bridge for a 0-0
 

Ionman34

SC Supporter
Jun 1, 2011
7,182
16,793
Sort of, but Liverpool became better by not being as attacking and becoming very solid. Honestly, Klopp's reputation protects them a bit, but their success of the last two seasons has coincided with them becoming much more compact and much less exciting. Liverpool are very good at grinding out 1-0 wins against opposition that in the past they would have drew against and that's a major part of their success. Tightening their defence and turing loses into draws and draws into wins. This team doesn't blow teams away anywhere near as much as the liverpools of the past. There solid defence is what has won them the title not their attacking prowess.

Internationally you have teams like Real Madrid, who play largely in a very structured way that relies on creating a solid base for their attacking players who have dominated the champions league with that approach. While Juventus seem to have regressed by changing to a more attacking approach this season instead of having the balanced flexible game by game approach of Allegri.

Now attacking football tends to dominate. It makes sense, because that is what you tend to be doing most of the time, but most successful attacking teams tend to be made out of much better players, and I think we would have one something by now if we were able to at least change the way we play in particular games. I'm thinking Chelsea last year, the champions league final as well might have been a different story if we bought Llorente on earlier and played a bit more directly. I love Poch and wish he was still our manager but this was a big hindrance in being able to win things. Too much faith in his system, and not being Barca or Man city.

The teams who have won the league in the UK apart from the clubs which are clearly better players are not that attacking, but more balanced. Chelsea in 16/17 a Conte team which was not defensive, far from it. But balanced, namely solid defense, quick direct play supported by suberb attacking movement, this is how Conte plays. All about off the ball movement, but on the basis of a solid defence which is able to create super quick transitions from deep direct balls from the defence. Leicester city, speedy counter attacking based on a solid defensive unit and balls over the top from deep. Chelsea again, Mourinho. Atletico Madrid won a title on the basis of super compact brave defending (actually isn't that bad too watch as every big game would be filled with last ditch defending, energetic counter attacks, not built on pace, but built on taking people on one on one).

The last non-big money team to win the league with attacking play was Dortmund in Germany, at that was some time ago. They won because the system they played, no one new how to react to it. There is a reason that both Klopp and Poch stopped playing this super pressing game, because teams learnt how to play through the press a lot better, though most successful teams now press at points of the game, not all the time.

As Klopp said in 2018:

“Last year, our big strength was high pressing, and then when the opponents didn’t play football, it was like, ‘sorry’,” Klopp told the Telegraph.

“You cannot win only with offensive football, it’s not possible. Because you are open and the pitch was too big for that.

“You need to be organised and, on the other side, you need to create. I would love to see us do that a little bit better.”


Klopp's realisation that this pressing style left too open, and focusing on defensive organisation was the turning point for liverpool. It transformed the team from being exciting and able to take on any team and dominate them into a team who regularly were able to win games regardless of the opposition. When Klopp played us in the CL final, they got a lucky first goal and then sat compact (not deep) with minimal press in an attempt to contain us, stop us playing from the back, and it worked incredibly well. But it was super negative, they made no attempt to attack us, and the team now is reliant on having the best defensive unit in England, possibly in Europe. A strong defense backed up by a fundamentally, hard working, defensive midfield three, and the most underrated player in the world, Fabinho who allows them to control games with the ball and protect the back four expertly without the ball.

Poch, never went far enough, he stopped non-stopped pressing but we never had enough diversity, he never really experimented with keeping us compact, the only times we really did so were through particular circumstances, but we were never really very good at holding onto 1 goal leads. In fact sometimes we would be in a safer position with us chasing the game late on rather than trying to hold onto a slender lead. Again, Poch was a massive success and deserved more patience but if he lost the players, what can you do? But we did need to be more flexible.

Now Jose's potential problems are not that he is a 'reactive' coach (I'm going to say this rather than defensive as I think that confuses thing). It's that his instinctive style of playing, normally deep, compact and little pressure on the ball, is considered outdated. Pressing is a vital part of football these days and even lower table teams tend to play with a relatively higher line. Even defensive teams don't play so close to their goal anymore, more try and stay super compact but still fairly high up the pitch, the fear of balls over the top needs to be countered with putting pressure on the ball (and this works against any player who isn't called De Bruyne).

Now I'm not going to pretend I fully understand why this is the fashion, probably makes it easier to counter attack, being further away from goal will protect the team from giving cheap penalties or being undone by a long ranged shot etc. The popularity of pressing came as a reaction to possession based football and this kind of shifted the nature of play to this point. High line as well makes it harder for teams to pass through you as there is less space to pass into. Possession based teams are not so common anymore, so maybe playing deeper might work again. These things go in cycles, and I am sure Jose Mourinho has thought how to adapt to these.

The current thing he is trying to do is quite clearly making us hard to beat. This seems to be what he has really worked on over the break, and this break has saved our season from being a complete disaster. Champions League or not a good run of results will raise moral that we will be capable of doing something next season. Clean sheets will raise confidence too. We have been playing the last two games deep and compact. In a real post-inter Mourinho way. We didn't do this before, possibly because Mourinho didn't feel he had the ability to change too much, but I think this created a team with no identity, instead of the team with an identity that wasn't working under poch. Now this new identity we are trying to create is 'solid' and that is important for now.

Now, Jose will always be largly a reactive manager. Namely, he will look at the opposition and think how can we beat them. You will see us letting the likes of Wolves keep possession, and sometimes I worry. I got very annoyed in how we played against Chelsea, because for me we had to take them on, play on front foot and expose their defence, rather than being scared of what they can do, but that is how Jose plays. However, I suspect we will see more work in the future on how to build quick attacks and more work in the transition next season. This might be a bit different than the Jose of Man utd, but the one positive thing in the last two games is we really need at the moment to focus on defensive organisation, even if next season we play to play like peak Barcelona (we won't, we will probably become a well organised defensive counter attacking side with some room for offensive improvisation).

We need to build confidence, clean sheets breed confidence and creates a stronger player mentality as well. If players feel confident of being able to defend, it will allow forward players to know that even one or two good attacks could bag us the points, and allow us to transfer to various different game by game strategies with the confidence that we will be hard to beat, even if you end up playing a more open game. The feeling of being defensively strong will make defenders more decisive and have less doubts. A positive mentality like that can have effects that last years (btw, post-Mourinho teams tend to do very well long term, and the identity persists well after he's left)
Great post.
 

Ledley's Right Foot

Well-Known Member
Jun 18, 2012
338
743
what did he say? He didn't want to be in it?

He said in the press conference that in a new season, if we didn't make the champions League he would be disappointed but this season, given how far behind we were when he arrived and all the injury problems we've had, if we only made the Europa League he would be ok. He Still wants champions League this season but recognises that it's not in our hands no matter how good our results.

Sack him now ??

Edit: hope the sarcasm is obvious ?
 

hughy

I'm SUPER cereal.
Nov 18, 2007
31,842
56,935
I don't think what he says is wrong at all. Really he's just saying what everyone is thinking.

We're thick as shit if we ever thought he was going to come in, click his fingers and everything would be OK. If we don't get CL football that's because it was lost before Christmas, not since.
 

rossdapep

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2011
21,907
78,646
Let me tell you about our reputation in Europe and across the world.

When I speak to people, and some of those are football people, and I tell them I'm a spurs fan the general response includes the following...

- Nice club
- Good team
- Unbelievable stadium and facilities (someone who played in it said that to me)

followed shortly by either
- but they don't win
or
- the club don't have ambition to win

Let's hope Jose can change that but I am sick and tired of hearing about that.

Yes I'd like to enjoy the football but this club need to start to win because we'll always have that reputation and players will see us as a stepping stone.
 

spursfan77

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2005
46,680
104,957
Some interesting bits in here. The bit about playing now is good practice for installing ideas for next season, like we’ve mentioned on here, is a good one.

Im sure the negative nellies will find something wrong but he seems to be positive and trying to install confidence in the squad.


Would qualifying for the Europa League be so bad? - No. If you tell me I start the season with zero points like everyone else and at the end of the season I am not in a Champions League spot I would say disappointing. If I put myself in my day one and where the team was and everything that happens I would say I would not be disappointed because the situation was incredible. But we are going to fight until we can, until it is mathematically impossible.

One objective is points on the table but we cannot forget that one objective is working for the future, working for next season. This is not a waste of time for us. It doesn’t matter how we end the season, to know the players, to work with the players, to make decisions to improve the team step by step in certain areas I think is also very important for us.

We just want to play and see where we are at the end of the season. When the season finishes we know a couple of weeks later we are starting pre-season for the next season and then is the moment to say everyone has the same points let's go and fight.


What do you have to do to catch Liverpool next season? - First of all congratulations, it is obvious to everyone connected to Liverpool Football Club, not just the coaches, the players but everyone at the club. Congratulations, it is time for them to enjoy after so long.

The numbers don't let you lie, of course they deserved. From a long, long, time, when I was trying to be a pundit that I told already in November I think that they were going to be champions. I think what they did is what you have to do. Which is when you trust a manager, you trust. And it doesn't matter how you do in your first season, it doesn't matter how you do in your second season, you keep working because you believe in him so you keep working together. So if the results in the first seasons are not good, you improve.

If the results in the second season are not good you keep improving, and you go to the third season, you go the fourth and of course when the manager is good, and the structure behind is good, and when they manage to do a collective work like they did the results arrive. So I think it's a great example for people that think in football everything is done in one week, one month or one year. So I double my compliments to them exactly because of the profile and the way they accepted it was a project, well done.
 

Yiddo1982

Well-Known Member
Jul 4, 2006
2,602
6,333
Anyone notice what Jose wore for the first time today?

Funny that.....



6D77C024-E5DD-4749-B8AA-22A51DD96E1B.png
 

bubble07

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2004
22,959
29,896
He said in the press conference that in a new season, if we didn't make the champions League he would be disappointed but this season, given how far behind we were when he arrived and all the injury problems we've had, if we only made the Europa League he would be ok. He Still wants champions League this season but recognises that it's not in our hands no matter how good our results.

Sack him now ??

Edit: hope the sarcasm is obvious ?

Perfectly fine comments
 

dtxspurs

Welcome to the Good Life
Dec 28, 2017
11,234
46,574
I don't think what he says is wrong at all. Really he's just saying what everyone is thinking.

We're thick as shit if we ever thought he was going to come in, click his fingers and everything would be OK. If we don't get CL football that's because it was lost before Christmas, not since.
Disagree. We were actually fewer points out of 5th when he started than we are right now.

Injuries did happen of course but we should have played better than we were.
 

hughy

I'm SUPER cereal.
Nov 18, 2007
31,842
56,935
Disagree. We were actually fewer points out of 5th when he started than we are right now.

Injuries did happen of course but we should have played better than we were.
The other teams around us were far worse at that time as well though. Let's not forget how piss poor Chelsea and United were up until around Christmas.

Besides that, it was clear that from January last year we were a shadow of our former selves. The absolute shambles that 2019 was in terms of our league form has to take a lot of blame for us not getting CL football this year.
 
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