I watched the season review today. At first I was loving it - some the football and the goals were sublime, really really beautiful stuff. Then it just depressed me. Don't get me wrong, I love Jose and I much prefer being 1st to being 2nd, but I'd bloody love to see some of that type of play again. I forgot just how brilliant Crespo was and how good Johnson was going forward too. Hopefully his defensive performance will have improved a lot by the time he comes back, but I definitely welcome his return
Inspired me to go watch it, it was a joy. Crespo, what a player, Mutu sure has a lot of skill himself, shame that didnt work out. And its always said to see Guddy and Duff and JFH, miss those guys.
do you remember that Mutu's goal at Highbury against Arsenal to get us up 1-0 that game? We still lost 2-1 on Reyes brace, but that was a nice goal.
Well they both scored against Arsenal only for us to go down 2-1 and the games were only 6 days apart.
I have to be honest........it all looks better in retrospect. Did we play some wonderful football? Yes, of course. But at the same time, we played some awful and some boring football too. Remember the two legs against Stuttgart? That's about as negative as Mourinho ever was. And, really, its a "best of" compilation - if we did that for this past season you'd really be surprised at the large number of really nice goals we scored. Its all relative.
It is a highlight video, but as a whole, under Mourinho, we play some pretty sh!t football Occasionally playing negative, and usually playing negative are very different.
Once you watch the '06-'07 highlight video, lets see what you say. I don't think the difference is nearly as drastic as people make it out to be. The best one touch stuff we played since Zola was in his pomp was most often in Mourinho's first season when Robben was on his best form.
Difference of opinion then, the only way I can stand the way we play is if we're succesful. We have plenty of exciting players, and a manager who prefers to rope them in to protect one goal leads against inferior oppositon. To finish 2nd? I know I know injuries, United's point total had little to do with our injuries though, nice style there.
Really? You noticed that United only counterrattack anymore, right? United's only style of play is to run at the opposition or hope that Scholes can produce a nice pass for Giggs, Rooney or Ronaldo to run on to. They aren't very good in possession at all. That's why they absolutely hammer mediocre sides who can't cope with their pace and direct running and have a poor record against top sides whether domestically or in Europe. Someone recently posted that Shevchenko would do great with United, which is one of the silliest statements on the planet - he's a player who thrives on possession, something United aren't terribly interested in. For most of the season they've played a variant of the 4-3-3 and were very successful at it. Whereas some of our best games (the game at home against Barcelona), much of our success was built on possession. I think you're far too ready to buy into the press's "United are attractive Chelsea are negative" stuff. If you look at the possession statistics and other statistics over the season, I think you'd be surprised. We're not as negative as you may think - we just sit back and protect leads. This has worked wonderfully when our defense was awesome and when we had fast wingers. But we were terrible on the counter this year (we barely scored any goals on counters this season at all!) which means we had to rely on possession football for the goals. We're not negative. We're efficient and somewhat boring, but those aren't the same thing. (I do agree Mourinho has too much of a tendency to resort to the long ball with Drogba if things aren't working, however.) As for all our exciting players.........they're slow (other than Robben and Cole who were hurt nearly all season)! We have stars in the midfield who have to play a slow possession based game except for Essien. That's why I maintain that with a midfield of: Lampard-Mikel-Essien and a front 3 of Robben, Cole and Drogba we'd play some excellent and attractive football with good results. But that would require all those players to stay healthy and play in midfield (Essien), which hasn't happened at all. There are multiple reasons we finished second (though injuries obviously helped), but to suggest we were "negative" is silly. For all our negativity, we scored the second most goals in the league and that's despite being crap on the counter. How could we have done that if we were so negative?
Because we have the most talent in the league? You said it yourself we sit back and protect leads, when instead we could try and kill the game off. Im just not part of the group who feels we win with this style so everything is fine. With the calibre of players we have it is ludicrous to think that we couldnt win with a different style. Also, Drogba isnt a great goal scorer when he's in the solo role. He does too much work, gets covered regularly by both CBs, and ends up being a battering ram more than anything. I fear if we go back to consistent Drogba+ 2 wingers, we'd be back to relying on Lampard to score all of our goals. We seemingly play 3 or 4 different formations, why not try a boring old 442 ---------Drogba----Sheva Robben---------------------Cole -----------Lamps----Essien I have no problem with slow buildups and possession game, plenty of clubs use it successfully, without resorting to holding back on killing the game off, and most of them dont resort to the amount of longball play we use. And I dont care about what people say, this team is attractive this team is boring, the United point was just an example of a team who plays more attacking, kills off games, and found success with it in the league. You make a fair point about their play in Europe(different comps call for different styles), but they did fine against us(even if we are still more talented, I think so), and beat Pool twice in the league. Im not advocating playing like them, Id just like to see us go out and not be scared to take a 1-0 or 2-1 game and kill it off, we are the most talented well balanced team in England, no reason to play scared(or safe if you prefer that).
No Clan I am with you on that one Johnson is a naturally gifted footballer with great on ball skills. What he lacks in his game, and private life, is a little discipline. He had a great season under Claudio and I was initially a little disappointed when Jose brought Paulo with him. If Jose can work his magic with him like he did with Joe Cole I see big things ahead for Glen. On the other hand if he fails to respond his feet will not touch the floor.