It's easy to defend Jose Mourinho! The Chelsea boss is not dull... he's brilliant.
by Martin Samuel - Daily Mail

To hear some of the grumbling since Sunday, it would have been possible to believe that, before leaving Liverpool, a flu-ridden Jose Mourinho had licked the palms of his hands and wiped them over every door handle and surface at Anfield. He hadn’t. He had picked players who knew how to defend. What a flipping rotter.

And he will probably do the same again on Wednesday night, even though Chelsea are at home to Atletico Madrid. His team need to score, but that is not the same as needing to play like the Harlem Globetrotters.

Having earned a goalless draw in the first leg, Chelsea are vulnerable to the away goal. Mourinho will set up his team to win, but not necessarily to sweep Madrid from the pitch because, in his position, an open game is particularly dangerous.

If he then progresses, it will mean that he has won back-to-back matches against the league leaders in England and Spain. That isn’t at all dull. That is quite brilliant.
Andre Schurrle was right. Chelsea have not received the credit they deserve this season. They are still in the title race with two games remaining — albeit as outsiders — and are a home win away from reaching the Champions League final. And what is the one word you haven’t heard said about Chelsea this season? Transition.

Mourinho tried to introduce the idea in December when Chelsea were two points off Arsenal in second place and was roundly mocked.

‘We all know that we have just a few players from the winning side of the past,’ he said. ‘We know we have lots of young talent to improve. This is a transitional period and if this was another club with a different profile, everybody would say, “OK, let’s wait and work calmly, the results will come in the near future”. We are not like that. We don’t want to be like that. We want to build, but at the same time we want to fight for titles.’

And that’s what he did. So to bemoan Chelsea’s doggedness at Anfield on Sunday is to undervalue Mourinho’s achievement this season.

Liverpool were in transition under Brendan Rodgers last season and came seventh. A transitional period after Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United has seen the club fall further than anyone anticipated.

Arsenal would appear to have been in transition since 2005, while Andre Villas-Boas was in permanent transition at Chelsea and then Tottenham Hotspur.

Even Manuel Pellegrini, if Manchester City do not go on to win the league, will be excused on the grounds that he had to repair some shattered egos after the tumultuous reign of Roberto Mancini.

Only Mourinho is not allowed breathing space. He talks about his little horses and his words are dismissed as another ruse. Nobody buys the idea of a Mourinho team in transition. Just as nobody buys defence as a valid form of attack.

Rodgers’s assertion that it is easy to coach a team to play like Chelsea was, frankly, ludicrous. If shutting up shop were such a simple exercise, every team at the bottom would do it.

One glance at the weekend’s results proves that defence is not as straightforward at it looks.

Norwich City could have done with not losing at Manchester United and went down by four. The same is true of Cardiff City, beaten 4-0 at Sunderland. And no doubt Felix Magath would have preferred it if his Fulham team had not squandered a 2-0 lead against Hull City.

There have been 356 Premier League matches this season and only 26 have ended in goalless draws. Liverpool have kept three clean sheets in the league since January 28. Defence isn’t easy at all.

Rodgers could not have sent out a team to play like Chelsea on Sunday and not just because he wouldn’t want to. He doesn’t have the players. Not a single member of Liverpool’s back four would get in Chelsea’s team and, with the exception of Jamie Carragher, it is hard to recall a Liverpool player who has regularly hit Chelsea’s defensive standard in 10 years.

Michael Owen put Martin Skrtel in his team of the season recently but that was a generous call. Liverpool have conceded more goals than Crystal Palace and Hull City in this campaign.

There was always the potential for a reckoning against Chelsea.

Liverpool’s scoring record is exceptional this season: 96 goals in 36 games.

After the same number of matches last season, the champions, Manchester United, had 79 goals. They had conceded 37, though, compared to Liverpool’s 46.

In fact, if Liverpool do go on to win the league, they will have shipped more goals than any champions in Premier League history — including those seasons when the title was decided over 42 games.

The top team do not usually let in anywhere near 46 goals — even Manchester United’s 37 in 2012-13 was high and their 45 in 1999-00 was the previous Premier League record.

Chelsea conceded 15 in winning a first title under Mourinho in 2004-05 and only 22 the next year. Even the swashbuckling United gave up only 22 goals in 2007-08 and George Graham’s Arsenal once let in 18 in a triumphant 42-game season.

If Liverpool now win the title, even if they do not pick the ball out of the net again, they will still have conceded more times than any champion team since Derby County in 1974-75 (49 in 42 games). So they were always at risk against a manager who could spot a weakness a mile away — particularly one which was painted bright red.

Stop Liverpool scoring and there is a good chance of a win because their defence will concede. That is a fact.

Do you know how many Premier League teams have scored against Liverpool this season? All bar Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United.

So Mourinho really didn’t need the brains of Stephen Hawking to work out his tactics. Liverpool are front-loaded. Defend and wait for the opening.

That is what he did. He didn’t park two buses. He played Liverpool as all teams should. Attack without caution and they will kill you. Frustrate them, keep it tight and, chances are, their defence won’t hold up.
Tottenham and Arsenal are fragile, too, but do not have Liverpool’s potency in attack.

Mourinho approached matches against those clubs in a completely different way. Clearly, he had greater respect for Liverpool’s forwards.

‘That’s not football,’ cried an irate Liverpool fan at Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck as it became obvious the presumed procession to a first title of the Premier League era had hit a pothole in the road.

But it is. It just isn’t the football that, ideally, wins titles. Then again, neither is conceding 46 goals.
Liverpool are just as flawed as Chelsea, but in a way that makes better football matches.

To the neutral, Cardiff City 3 Liverpool 6 is a fabulous spectacle. To Mourinho, to borrow his phrase, it is a hockey score; and a clue where the weakness lies.

What if everyone played Mourinho’s game? Everyone won’t. It’s hard. It requires top-quality defenders and the margin for error is minute. One mistake in the last minute against Atletico Madrid and the whole evening would have come to naught. The same will be true tonight if Chelsea are leading by a single goal.

So Mourinho plays it far from safe. He walks a tightrope in many of his biggest matches. No transition and no safety net. The mistake is thinking it is easy being him.

F*cking brilliant article that I hope makes everyone here comes to their senses about some of their thoughts about Mourinho, Chelsea, other teams, and other football 'ethics' in general.

Amen.

Chelsea have had a considerably talented squad in the last 10-15 years. Their defense has been particularly impressive. Featuring the likes of Terry, Carvalho, Cole and Belletti, (throw in Cech in there too), there's no surprise that Carragher is the only L'pool defender in recent years who would break into the CFC defense.

Birilliant indeed! Just interested why he subbed Eto in so early? Why didn't he tell Hazard to pick up the run after the first goal?

It would've been a better read had this person written in a more neutral manner. An example would be that he compares Chelsea's transition to Liverpool's, which I think is much more ludicrous than anything Brendan said that day.

Anyway, I personally think Brendan's quibbles is as meaningless as this article. The main idea of the article is, in general, a good point but anything could have happened that day, period.

But I wouldn't be complaining had it not been for the time wasting. I've always defended Chelsea, or any other team that gets criticized for winning. I've endlessly praised their CL win, but time wasting to this degree is boring and something I feel like I can criticize.

Exactly what happened today against Atletico... small error from defense ... we lost the game when they equalized ... team started to play more open and desperate ... Disappointed but still proud because I did not expect Chelsea come this far in Champions League .

Marcus don't need to complain :P, Pep lost 4-0 and took all the blame.

anyways can anyone fill me in on whats this article is about (didn't read it, too long)

Maybe Eden Hazard should read the article as well.

"Chelea is not made to play football. We're good on the counter, a little bit like Real against Bayern."

"Often, I'm asked to do it all by myself and it's not easy. It was a complicated game. It will be a lesson for us regarding next year."

well simeone did it all by himself, props to this guy. We can say now that he is part of the elite of european managers

I just thought of another example: France from 1998-2002.

They managed to win relying upon excellent defense, with just Zidane and a lone forward to score the goals. How many 1-0 victories did they have?

See, the precedent for this goes back as long as football has been around.

@fredtilson

His words were taken out of context . If you speak french watch it in french .

He meant possessional football is not our thing .

@waynerooney

It was fully Peps fault . Not players . ( also this is my view about Pep , but I think he keeps his gentlemen face for public but in reality he is far from it )

@lodatz

Ooh yeah spot on example ! 2006 as well . To me france sort of reminded me of Chelsea . Just some similarity .

And Italian team played Catenaccio football too until 2006 .

Eidur Gudjohnsen about his first conversation with Jose during an interview today. Shows you how clever Mourinho can be.