Mourinho haunted by the ghost of Chelsea’s past
Much has been discussed on the strange scenario at Chelsea this season. They’re not playing well. I think part of the reason is the players Mourinho has offloaded in recent seasons. Juan Mata was a luxury player surplus to requirements. Let United have him. Petr Cech was so much past it that he was allowed to go to Arsenal. Kevin de Bruyne never even got a break and played only 132 minutes for Chelsea. An astonishing oversight by Mourinho as de Bruyne has been fantastic since leaving Chelsea, be it for Werder Bremen, Wolfsburg, the Belgium national team or Man City. It would be interesting to see how Chelsea would do at the moment had they not sold these players.Added to all this, Mourinho hasn’t replaced Frank Lampard and his 10-15 goals a season from midfield. Yes they got away with it last season, but that was a strange season were City were poor, United in transition, Liverpool poor and Arsenal only good for half a season. This is not the case this season.
What it comes down to, is that decisions Mourinho made almost two seasons ago are starting to haunt him now.
Under-performing players
Lot’s of players not performing this season but who is the biggest underperformers so far?Depay, Hazard, Terry, Fabregas, Ivanovic, Falcao, Kompany, Rooney, Kane. Who’s your pick?
For my money the top three is Fabregas, Ivanovic and Rooney but if I had to pick the one I think is furthest from where I thought he would be I’d go for Fabregas. He isn’t getting the stick he deserves IMO.
West Brom worries
What do people think so far? After 9 games in, you’d think we’d be in a position to know our best team – but I don’t think we, or the coaching staff do either. I agree in some way with Pulis about the disruptive influence of the Transfer window and the international breaks. Yet another in 3 games. The Saido saga is now behind us thankfully. After the win vs Sunderland hoping we can kick on now, and get a result from Carrow Rd where we do not normally do too well…Moving Lescott on for me was a good piece of business. Since January, I thought his legs had gone. He makes up for that in his natural ability and reading of the game, but against anyone quicker than my nan, he was struggling. Jonny Evans has genuinely surprised me. Cracking signing so far.
Credit to Peace for pulling the plug on any sale of the Club, early enough in the summer. It could have been much worse.
Talking of the summer, who of the summer signings have impressed or depressed? I’m admittedly disappointed with Chester. Hull’s player of the year? I didnt notice him much for them last year. Maybe he, like most players, just needs a run of games. But I wasn’t impressed with Pulis’ open criticism of him after his defensive efforts vs Everton.
It seems we cant play both Mclean n Mcmanaman in the same side. Mclean certainly does more leg work defensively which is why he’s getting more game time just lately under TP. Callum however is certainly exciting to watch going forward and someone defenders are genuinely wary of. Where is Gnabry going to feature?
Can we play Yacob and Fletcher together, or does it further hinder fans’ desire for more attacking intent?
Rondon is simply not getting enough chances. The guy needs a goal, but unless he gets a nick off a free kick or a corner, chances are not being provided anywhere near as often as they should be. Lambert hasn’t setthe world alight when he’s been given time either (albeit sparsely used).
Anyway, a bit of discussion for starters there…. and we haven’t even got on to TP’s tactics yet.
Cringeworthy commentators
Can only make a midweek game once in a bluemoon due to work commitments and so had to endure BT Sport coverage of the match last night. Getting away from their begrudging praise when things go well and overly harsh criticism when we are up against it, the standard of comment is also shockingly low! The commentator actually said last night: “the referee tonight is perfectly able to judge any meaty challenges – he’s a part time butcher” and apparently Navas looks for Sevilla’s results every week, and talking about KDB they basically quoted what Mourinho had said about him with absolutely no balance, just stated Mourinho’s nonsense as fact.Arsenal’s new philosophy?
The performance against Bayern Munich showed what our strength actually is, and how capable we can be. Wenger is so obsessed against playing possession football, when the truth is we are not even the masters of it when we play against the top sides.We might have won against Barcelona and Bayern, but we never played better than them on the day. Against Man united recently, they had more possession against us. Point I’m making is our strength has been found out – Pressing with 100 % concentration and counterattack.This is how we can become the best. I was so impressed with the result, because we beat currently the best team in the world IMO, a team who won 12 games in a row. It requires something special to do that. Well done Wenger,but you have to start making us getting these types of results rather than controlling the game to “look better”.
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