That's just it. I don't take what he says as gospel, and I sure as hell don't agree with everything he does (especially if we sell Lusaka) but Mourinho isn't always full of shite. We aren't a great team. We lack options. Mourinho is calling Torres out publicly, which is what it is, but he's taken plenty blame on himself. Im tired of Torres and his fragile ego. He has been given every opportunity to exceed with 4 consecutive managers. He hasn't. Perhaps this is a little push?
I would say we are probably at or near where I expected us to be this season tbh. I thought we would have done a little better in the Domestic Cups but then again I did not expect us to be as close to the League Title as we have been.
I don't know the answer to that. Regardless, we've lost to Villa, Crystal Palace and drawn against West Ham and West Brom, all on the road in 2014. That has been our season in a nutshell. We're consistently inconsistent. Because our strikers struggle, outside of Eto'o, we rely heavily on Hazard. If he's off, we aren't that good.
My final point to make here is. We are a really good box to box team. We are generally better than every team we play from box to box. Where we struggle is in our own box, especially on set pieces and in the opponents box. Willian is great in these instances. He's rubbish in the box. Hazard is our best finisher by a mile but generally has to attack the box from wide, which isn't the best place to score from because you have run across the goal and defenders. A top striker isn't what ails us, but would help alleviate some of our problems. We are shite in front of goal.
Last year we were on 61 points after 32 games played in the PL and in the Europa League at this time (and for quite a while beforehand). It's not the end of the world.
another silver lining is givin the young players in the squad, there have been a lot of good learning experiences over the course of this year that they were always going to need. the question will be how they apply what they learned next year. in the end, we are a better and improving team than the last couple of years. we just need to continue to push on.
The frustration (for me at least) stems from the fact that we've been saying this for what, 4 years? When does the club draw the line, make significant signings in the summer, and head into a season with real confidence. I suppose its going to happen this time around, so we'll see.
Right. My point is we are a great team on 2/3rds of the pitch. We control tempo. We press. We are shite inside both boxes.
I get what you're saying. . .we have a creative young players and they need a little confidence in front of goal - having a Drogba calibre striker to work with would give them all the confidence they would need. The reality is we have a lot of young, creative and promising players. . .Oscar, Williian, Hazard, Azi, Luiz are all still very young. The defence works well because we have some experienced blokes in it. Azi is awesome even at LB. What we need is a leader up front . . .
It was a disappointing result. Had we avoided conceding a goal in the first 5 minutes (and the last 5 minutes for that matter) and with a little luck we could have got a draw. A draw would have been a better result. The performance would still be not good enough. We suffer not having the in-form Matic with us. We need more players showing up on the BIG games. We need some “Invincibles”. We need a few new players. We need to make some adjustments. We need a new striker. Torres is gone in the summer – he may as well be gone now – couldn’t care less if he plays for us again. Torres is dead to me. We have Eto’o, Ba and Schurle to finish up the season with. Secure a top 4 spot and plot for next year. The reality is we have a lot of young, creative and promising players. . . for next season. This season we need a miracle to win the League or the CL.
We've been pretty vulnerable on set pieces lately which used to be a strong suit for us. Some said it earlier but players like Hazard and Willian need to show their greed and start shooting more. They have the skill just not the mentality to go for it.
I think Eden goes for it fairly often…almost had a pretty awesome goal both yesterday and against QPR. One thing that surprised me was the amount check came out to punch the ball, we def didn't look too good on set pieces as you said.
no you're completely right. but we've had some serious changes in squad composition over the past few years. but i don't think it was unreasonable after the league finishes that we've had the last 2 years for jose to come in knowing he has a job to do in building up, not just competing right away. we've slowly had to transition away from the old guard and it's been a painful process (even though we've still won a couple of major trophies) but it was always going to take a bit for the younger guys to come in and really click (and develop the never say die mentality that's needed). if we take care of our needs this summer, which i expect we do, then yea, i think we should be entering a few years of real quality and challenging for trophies. but going into this year, i still think a lot of people were expecting a bit of a transition. and i didn't really expect us to compete for the title the way we have. or in other words i don't think it's been a case of "but this year, this year is the year" for the last 4 years. we've known all along that we'd have to make changes go through that process. and i'd argue that really started AVB's year, so we're only into the 3rd season since that started. winning this year with all the changes made would have been quite a triumph. the problem will be that next year it should really be expected for us to be right there the whole time if not win it. that's a lot of pressure. this year was always going to be a bonus. in my mind at least.
Intersting facts 2008/09 Final host - Rome (Italy) -> 2009/10 Champions - Inter (Italy) 2009/10 Final host - Madrid (Spain) -> 2010/11 Champions - Barcelona (Spain) 2010/11 Final host - London (England) -> 2011/12 Champions - Chelsea (England) 2011/12 Final host - Munich (Germany) -> 2012/13 Champions - Bayern (Germany) 2012/13 Final host - London (England) -> 2013/14 Champions - ??? (England)