Because I think he's a better finisher/more ruthless when a chance comes his way.
It would have been 4 out of 5
Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [14th - 19th August 2015]
- Thread starter Cosimo
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Because I think he's a better finisher/more ruthless when a chance comes his way.
It would have been 4 out of 5
City will probably now play 3 or 4 **** games. Chelsea will just do what United did so successfully, drop points against some of the top four but be more consistent in the other games. I fancy JM more than Pelegrini to be able to do that. To be fair City should be doing that more often, especially this season with the players they have got. I doubt they will though.
I like both teams, would be happy with either winning the league so a close battle would be great.
However much people want to fall over themselves at how great City were (and how bad Chelsea were with a new keeper, that probably wont play again for 20+ top flight games) - a game this early in the season counts for nothing. City are just as likely to throw away stupid points vs a nobody on a Monday night in Jan (or even while trying to do better in their CL group before Xmas) as much as Chelsea are of going on a run of 10 decent wins
Utd scraped through a moderately hard game (vs Spurs) and what should have been one of the easier away games vs Villa playing poorly but getting the points (unlike the first few games last season), Newcastle at home will also probably be edgy and more difficult than it should be - and then whats likely to be three ******* awkward (to say the least) games vs Swansea, Liverpool and Southampton.
The table - all the way through it - is likely to be completely different even by the end of September - its nice to have points on the board (for a change) but its pretty meaningless to read anything more for all sides concerned (well maybe not Sunderland - two reasonably easy games, two losses)
Utd scraped through a moderately hard game (vs Spurs) and what should have been one of the easier away games vs Villa playing poorly but getting the points (unlike the first few games last season), Newcastle at home will also probably be edgy and more difficult than it should be - and then whats likely to be three ******* awkward (to say the least) games vs Swansea, Liverpool and Southampton.
The table - all the way through it - is likely to be completely different even by the end of September - its nice to have points on the board (for a change) but its pretty meaningless to read anything more for all sides concerned (well maybe not Sunderland - two reasonably easy games, two losses)
Not surprised we lost so badly. Didn't win anything pre-season, poor vs swansea and so i was totally prepared to get rekt by Aguero today. We'll sort it out, but i was never convinced we were faves for the title, i thought we'd win it if City did a repeat of last season, but they look strong.
@FrankJH
Meaningless? huh..
If anything, these first 2 weekends have showed that Chelsea have basically stood still doing f all to improve the team, like City did when they won the title a few years back.
City have improved massively this season and with likely additions like Otamendi and De Bruyne to come in.. They'll absolutely steam-roll the league if the likes of Aguero and Silva stay relatively injury free.
United have improved defensively just by having a midfield for once and a RB not named Rafael or Valencia, but their attacking display should be a cause for concern. No cutting edge whatsoever and a lump of a striker who's long past his best by date.
Arsenal are being Arsenal, inconsistent as usual. I don't think they'll do much with that squad.
Meaningless? huh..
If anything, these first 2 weekends have showed that Chelsea have basically stood still doing f all to improve the team, like City did when they won the title a few years back.
City have improved massively this season and with likely additions like Otamendi and De Bruyne to come in.. They'll absolutely steam-roll the league if the likes of Aguero and Silva stay relatively injury free.
United have improved defensively just by having a midfield for once and a RB not named Rafael or Valencia, but their attacking display should be a cause for concern. No cutting edge whatsoever and a lump of a striker who's long past his best by date.
Arsenal are being Arsenal, inconsistent as usual. I don't think they'll do much with that squad.
I don't think today was as significant as the press will make out. City were excellent and Chelsea poor, but I'd back Mourinho to sort it out, and for any team to keep up the standard that City have met for a full season would be stunning. They'll hit a tough period, and how they deal with that will dictate how successful they are.
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Based on what would you back Mourinho to sort it out exactly? Can you name a team in which he's managed for 2+ years where the team continued to improve? Doesn't Mourinho's history suggest that over time his teams back up further and further until they start losing games and lose any attacking edge they had when he joined?
As with most of Mourinho's teams, a cohesive attack he takes over becomes an attack of individuals, moments of brilliance but looking overall disjointed by the time he leaves. He got push out of Chelsea the first time around for taking an offensive team, making them a defensive bore and finally got to a point that they looked noticeably less good before he was pushed out.
I would say this is classic Mourinho, happens at every club he manages and won't be fixed by him. I think they'll improve to a degree with fitness/form, but the overall decline we've seen over the past year will continue has it has in every team I've watched Mourinho manage.
His third year in charge of Chelsea by the end of the year the team managed 5 crap draws in a row throwing away the title, dropping 10 points along with a draw at home to Utd, he was pushed after a crap start to the following season. Frankly the first time around Chelsea were FAR more attacking when he took over, Chelsea have been an overly defensive team as a legacy of Mourinho since he left. I wouldn't be surprised if his turn around from good to defensive and hopeless upfront is quicker this time around as a result.
Literally everyone commented on how crap Chelsea got last year so I'm surprised to see people talk about the first two games as if this is entirely new for the team. The decline was absurdly apparent last year and mentioned by almost everyone. This year just suggests last years slump wasn't temporary. They won games and finished of the title but didn't play well the second half of the year.
As with most of Mourinho's teams, a cohesive attack he takes over becomes an attack of individuals, moments of brilliance but looking overall disjointed by the time he leaves. He got push out of Chelsea the first time around for taking an offensive team, making them a defensive bore and finally got to a point that they looked noticeably less good before he was pushed out.
I would say this is classic Mourinho, happens at every club he manages and won't be fixed by him. I think they'll improve to a degree with fitness/form, but the overall decline we've seen over the past year will continue has it has in every team I've watched Mourinho manage.
His third year in charge of Chelsea by the end of the year the team managed 5 crap draws in a row throwing away the title, dropping 10 points along with a draw at home to Utd, he was pushed after a crap start to the following season. Frankly the first time around Chelsea were FAR more attacking when he took over, Chelsea have been an overly defensive team as a legacy of Mourinho since he left. I wouldn't be surprised if his turn around from good to defensive and hopeless upfront is quicker this time around as a result.
Literally everyone commented on how crap Chelsea got last year so I'm surprised to see people talk about the first two games as if this is entirely new for the team. The decline was absurdly apparent last year and mentioned by almost everyone. This year just suggests last years slump wasn't temporary. They won games and finished of the title but didn't play well the second half of the year.
Chelsea are still capable of steam-roller'ing 3/4 of the league - MAYBE if they continue to drop points over the next month or so they may find it difficult but that's not exactly a given
City haven't improved massively at all, they had one very good result today and a very predictable result vs a very average WBA side a week ago. Not exactly anything to shout from the rooftops unless they do this through the winter also and are consistently like this until then.
Rooney isn't that bad yet, of course its a concern but he can still turn it round - and it doesn't look as though Utd have finished in the market yet by the sounds of things (even if they are making it more difficult for themselves un-necessarily)
I think it's obvious Chelsea are going through a defensive rejig more than anything, 2 players are above 30. They need to bring Azpilicueta in at the right, a fast left back to help Hazard, which they are doing. It's going to interesting to see who the cbs will be over the course of the season?
regards to good football, you can only really expect a title winning team to win and play well like 40% of the time, premiership is harder as well because of the competition, Barca, Bayern might have done more in the past because of the lob sided league. There are going to be games which you have to scrap through.
Ian Rush would be a good example too. His all round game also wasn't as good as many but if the ball came to him in a goalscoring position, you'd bet money on it hitting the back of the net
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None of which addresses my points.
Chelsea's defence may be reorganised this year, but signing one defender won't see massive changes and we don't even know how good he'll be. £20mil for a left back playing for a not particularly strong club screams of the current massive overpaying for anyone that is going on.
More importantly the last part. Champions don't always play well, there are always games you'll have to grind out however that isn't what we are talking about with Chelsea. What you are talking about is over a season having randomly bad games throughout the season, but having good games throughout the season. Few if any teams manage 95% great performances, but few champions manage to play dismal football for one entire half of a season. That is the difference, Chelsea didn't have the odd bad game last year, they started off offensively strong and regressed throughout the entire year, the last 3-4 months they looked horrible repeatedly.
But again the main point of my post was, Mourinho's teams ALL do this, every time. He takes over and the team gets progressively worse offensively, more defensive and overall less good. Happened at Chelsea, happened at Inter, happened at Real where people constantly talk about how their offence frequently doesn't link together. Without Ronaldo that offence would be a disaster.
Every team he leaves also tends to go through a recovery period to some degree. In Chelsea's case they spent year struggling to find consistent offensive balance and a lasting legacy has been Chelsea have been overly defensive due to the style Mourinho instilled on the spine of the team that stayed there for so long. Every manager that came in after Mourinho was effectively tasked with improving the offence and breaking the defensive mentality of the squad.
If Mourinho does this at every club, has done it previously at Chelsea, if the team clearly regressed over last season to be almost two different teams, why do people believe he'll turn it around. Maybe a more pertinent question is, which overly defensive side with a misfiring offence has he turned around previously? He's fixed a poor defence repeatedly, I've never seen him improve an offence so why do would anyone believe he'll suddenly do that now?
Lallana starting for us I wanted firminho to really even In his 10 min spell he was more involved than lallana last week :/ I still see Lovren over sakho, it's come out since that is what Rodgers prefers so I await the back lash if he is as terrible as last season 
anyway that being said we should still beat Bournemouth so bring it on! Hope Benteke has a good game again
anyway that being said we should still beat Bournemouth so bring it on! Hope Benteke has a good game again
Gary Neville is not happy!
Not got pre match on yet but what he moaning about now? I'm guessing our team choice
haha Rodgers looking like a waiter on that Sky team sheet.
Sunderland's defending, in particular Kaboul.
Sunderland's defending, in particular Kaboul.
haha Rodgers looking like a waiter on that Sky team sheet.
Sunderland's defending, in particular Kaboul.
Do they even have a defence, Newcastle were particularly crap at defence this weekend too
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Don't worry, Sakho's breastfeeding apparently.