I agree with you, Klaus, but I didn't mention Coq/Matic because some would have it otherwise.

At least some people (Klaus, etc) admit that there is a gulf in class between the quality of the players. I hate it when I keep seeing people saying the difference between us and Chelsea is a healthy squad. Both City and United have arguably better players than us - certainly much better compensated, and there's typically a correlation. For Chelsea, the squad quality helps, but being able to bring this squad together to win consistently is an incredible feat. Chelsea were unstoppable in the last two months. They must have 34 of their last possible 42 points, and doing so with typically low scoring games. You've seen from the frustrations we have had with our own team that coaching a coherent defense is actually a tough task. You can't count on individual brilliance as we do with Sanchez.

Beyond defense, he's really able to get players to commit themselves. The turnaround he's gotten from Hazard following an ultimatum 12 months ago is impressive. Hazard could have gone the way of many AMs with potential in this league. Instead he's picked himself up and turned into the best player in the league. This was not a given a year ago after many lackadaisical displays.

Additionally, he's had real clarity of purpose with both of his Chelsea teams. Yes, he has had the money, but so have many other managers in the league - e.g., van Gaal, Pellegrini, etc. He's only put together the most coherent team in the league and made it work as both an attacking juggernaut in the first half of the season and then as a defensive wall in the second half of the season without his lead striker.

It's a pity he's such a weirdo because as a coach, he's the finest we have in this league.

I don't credit him with much of Hazards form. I think he's just a top player with the right mentality.

He's a top class defensive coach though. Its why it was obvious all season, even when they were in great attacking form that he would revert back to a negative style as soon as he felt vulnerable. Thats just his way. He's completely turned around Terrys career. A couple of years ago if someone told you Terry was going to be the best centre half of the season in 14/15 you'd have been laughed at because he looked so past it. Mourinho has played his defence to Terrys strengths though.

Its also amazing how they've managed to play most of the same players all season without too much burnout or injury.

Mourinho is a quality manager, without question, but I'm not having the Hazard praise. That kid has always been someone with a good attitude and team ethic, he was never just a lazy primadonna. He was always going to have to step up a little on that front with a move to one of the big sides, with other players as good or better than him in the team, but I think he'd have done that naturally anyway.

Also, genuinely believe John Terry is a large part of why that defence is so good. Mourinho's defence was never as good at Madrid without a figure like Terry organising them, and I think it will deteriorate massively at Chelsea when Terry can't do it anymore, despite Mourinho still being very good at organising a team to stop opponents scoring

I think he, also, has a large number of decent players (eg Oscar, Mata, De Bruyne, etc) mourinhoed into shit performances.

Chelsea's squad is pretty mediocre (as is Arsenal's) and that showed in the CL.

Personally don't rate Hazard as highly as everyone else. He's a great player but not in the elite bracket for me.

Penalty merchant too

he came in saying he'll transform torres back to world class, he got rid of him in a season. just an opportunistic shit. you wouldn't have heard the end of it if torres was gonna get better. hazard was already quite good. mourinho is a piece of shit. heinous, vile, shitster.

Hazard was already a top player by 2012 at Lilles and was destined for the top wherever he ended up as long as it wasn't barcelona or real madrid.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Personally don't rate Hazard as highly as everyone else. He's a great player but not in the elite bracket for me.

Penalty merchant too

Who was the one who said he had a poor season this year? 😆

Honestly though, Mourinho had nothing to do with his form. He's just an excellent player and it was utterly obvious when he was at Lille.

You lot are unbelievable- Hazard Hazard Hazard best player in the league!
But when it suits you its Ozil Ozil Ozil!
Players obviously look better in systems that are tailored for them so it's not helpful comparing us player for player, imo our lot are just as talented as theirs.

@ Rex. Coq/Matic sounds like some sort of cheap vibrator.
@ Claudius, Wages do not always correlate with output and performance ie being among the best players Falcao and Van Persie anyone?
@ Qs, I think Mourinho's defensive style reduces injuries, when you're holding your positions there's definitely less twisting and turning at speed.

Reiterating your view that we have just as good players as Chelsea just makes you wrong one more time.

Go home and play with your Coq/Matic.

This is Hazard's best season so Mourinho should get credit for developing him over the last two seasons. 

I hate Mourinho football though. He drills his teams really well defensively but I can't stand him or anything he stands for. It is easier to get a team to sit back and defend well than it's to get the players to attack with verve. 

He does what he does really well but a lot of other managers do it but without great defenders and great midfielders at their disposal. 

Rohit wrote:

This is Hazard's best season so Mourinho should get credit for developing him over the last two seasons. 

I hate Mourinho football though. He drills his teams really well defensively but I can't stand him or anything he stands for. It is easier to get a team to sit back and defend well than it's to get the players to attack with verve. 

He does what he does really well but a lot of other managers do it but without great defenders and great midfielders at their disposal. 

Leaving Mouriho's personality aside for a minute-

Well then you would have hated Arsenal 1986-1995 Rohit, because thats what George Graham did with us in that era.

And its not easy to sit back and defend it takes real organisation and discipline and despite numerous rule changes over the years to make it even harder it still remains a very important tactic, no matter how good a team is there will be times when they will have to soak up pressure we don't play Hull City every week.
Football is much better as a spectacle when you have two teams and two managers matching wits in a chess match than a clownish comedy of errors with cheap goals scored constantly.
It becomes little better than basketball then.

This isn't an attack on Mourinho because he does what he thinks will guarantee results, which should be a manager's number one priority and certainly if I was willing to invest millions of pounds into a club, my first port of call would be Mourinho.

But I don't buy the admiration for the way his team approach games because they can and have shown glimpses of playing scintillating football but those spells tend to be in the opening weeks of the season, when he can afford to be brave. As soon as the wind turns a little south, he's the first to batten down the hatches and make every game he plays a turgid, cagey affair.

I think comparing him to George Graham is unfair, by all accounts the Arsenal team back then had a shoestring budget and predominately had to live within their means. Chelsea are one of the most financial well off clubs in Europe and have one of the best group of footballers in the world. Despite that, they are easily the most defensive and dour team in European football. I was watching Juventus – Real the other night and even Juventus, arguably the most ‘pragmatic’ of all the top clubs, started the game on the front foot and actually tore at Madrid – despite Madrid being notoriously lethal on counter attacks. As soon as Juventus went a goal up, with 15 minutes to go, they shut up shop and effectively killed the game by going for 5 at the back.

I think that’s when football becomes chess – that constant balance between attack and defence, when tactics start being interesting. Playing 11 men behind the ball and sucking the intensity out of the game on the other hand, does not impress me.

I can’t argue that it’s an effective way of getting results, but just as we accuse Wenger of being needlessly frugal with the money he has at his disposal, I think Mourinho is equally frugal with the talent he has. I don’t think it’s an achievement to park the bus, it’s not unique or the by-product of talent or ingenuity. Half the clubs at the bottom of the premier league execute it in the same manner, the differences is that they don’t have Terry, Courtois, Ivanovic, Matic and Cahill. Not that many can replicate the football that this very same Chelsea team showed between September to November.

I'm just glad that that the rest of Europe don't view football the way Mourinho does.

I think Hazard hasn't fulfilled his potential and is getting over praised because Chelsea won the league.

Agree with Mirth's post. If you want to admire a great defensive coach look at Simeone, his whole backline cost as much as Chelsea paid for Filipe Luis and his defence is better than Mourinho's plus they play better football when they attack.

rayman - I don't think, in general, Hazard has been any better than Sanchez or any of the others that were up for the top PFA award. But most big games this season he has done something memorable. And that's what sets him apart from the rest. It's not just ok to put in a tidy, creative performance. Ozil's flicks will be forgotten by all but the Arsenal fans, everyone will remember Hazard skipping past our defence at Stamford bridge though. 

Hazard does seem to have incredible potential. I'd loosely guess in terms of ability its between him and Ozil for having the most talent in the league. Nice to have these sorts of players in the English leagues now.

As for stylishly losing V boringly winning - just read a surprisingly decent article in the evening standard talking about sport in general. Made comparisons between Mayweather, Chelsea and Toulon. Can't seem to find it on their website though.

Haven't read the whole article but I think the Mayweather - Chelsea comparison is a lazy one. Mayweather for one isn't as boring to watch, also it's his natural game as he has a top class defence but is unable to knock his opponents out.
If he was a brawler (which is usually associated with an entertaining boxer) he would have been Zab Judah level at best so you can't fault him, Chelsea on the other hand could play brilliant football if they wanted to as they have the players necessary for it but that would require their manager being anything but a gutless piece of shit.

Fair enough, don't know anything about boxing. Just thought the idea of comparing across different sports was interesting, e.g. The Gooch V Gower comment holds some weight. 

We don't have many winners now so hard to think of biases that we might have, but maybe Andy Murray is one. I think his style is quite boring but he manages to stay competitive and nobody seems to comment on it. 

General Mirth wrote:

This isn't an attack on Mourinho because he does what he thinks will guarantee results, which should be a manager's number one priority and certainly if I was willing to invest millions of pounds into a club, my first port of call would be Mourinho.

But I don't buy the admiration for the way his team approach games because they can and have shown glimpses of playing scintillating football but those spells tend to be in the opening weeks of the season, when he can afford to be brave. As soon as the wind turns a little south, he's the first to batten down the hatches and make every game he plays a turgid, cagey affair.

I think comparing him to George Graham is unfair, by all accounts the Arsenal team back then had a shoestring budget and predominately had to live within their means. Chelsea are one of the most financial well off clubs in Europe and have one of the best group of footballers in the world. Despite that, they are easily the most defensive and dour team in European football. I was watching Juventus – Real the other night and even Juventus, arguably the most ‘pragmatic’ of all the top clubs, started the game on the front foot and actually tore at Madrid – despite Madrid being notoriously lethal on counter attacks. As soon as Juventus went a goal up, with 15 minutes to go, they shut up shop and effectively killed the game by going for 5 at the back.

I think that’s when football becomes chess – that constant balance between attack and defence, when tactics start being interesting. Playing 11 men behind the ball and sucking the intensity out of the game on the other hand, does not impress me.

I can’t argue that it’s an effective way of getting results, but just as we accuse Wenger of being needlessly frugal with the money he has at his disposal, I think Mourinho is equally frugal with the talent he has. I don’t think it’s an achievement to park the bus, it’s not unique or the by-product of talent or ingenuity. Half the clubs at the bottom of the premier league execute it in the same manner, the differences is that they don’t have Terry, Courtois, Ivanovic, Matic and Cahill. Not that many can replicate the football that this very same Chelsea team showed between September to November.

I'm just glad that that the rest of Europe don't view football the way Mourinho does.

We were in about the same position as regards purchasing power as we are now, Man Utd Liverpool always spent big with Arsenal always being tightfisted.
Mourinho plays the season how he plays games- To a tempo- They ramp it up when necessary and they back off when necessary.
This is much more sensible than say Wenger trying to reach an impossible unattainable level all the time.
When it works its very entertaining but its not sustainably over a whole season.
Mourinho's style is unfashionable these days I'll grant you though.

jones wrote:

Agree with Mirth's post. If you want to admire a great defensive coach look at Simeone, his whole backline cost as much as Chelsea paid for Filipe Luis and his defence is better than Mourinho's plus they play better football when they attack.

I agree, I'd love Simeone to replace Wenger.

19 days later

"We respect the winners. Despite we beat them twice they deserve to be the winners. And despite we beat them twice the team in second deserved to be second."

What a dick. Had to stop watching after that.

Oh, all of the Chelsky New Media crew and ChelskyTV are about as classless as they come.

Enough about Chelsea, Gunners time to shine!

*post needs an apostrophe.

Going to be a tasty Community shield. :drool:

Who will you be rooting for?

Did ye see the interview with him on their tour when he was asked if he had a message for Wenger after getting the most FA Cups record. Couldn't even must up a "congratulations". He's a classless cunt. No decent, self respecting club would have him as manager.

There's no need to take that out in the public.

Unless he wants attention for himself. But he's not that kind of a man, is he?

Ruben Loftus-Cheek!

Is that his real name? 😆

I don't feel I can do justice to this, it requires deft Dulesquian handling.

He is a moron. Why would you ever want to throw a 19 year old kid under the bus in public like that? I don't doubt that Moron is right in his assessment, but whatever happened to having a quiet chat to the bloke after he subbed him?

He can go join all the other young players whose career never took off under Mourinho.