LucaAltieri

I was certain they were gone. They had no goals in the team for the longest time. Wickham suddenly turning into Ferenc Puskás was unexpected.

Some crackers, some just blatantly making up the numbers.

Also, NASL is living on borrowed time. Despite being the official second tier according to USSF they refuse to affiliate with MLS and don't consider themselves to be minor league. As a result, USL Pro are making affiliations with MLS teams and MLS teams are fielding their reserves in USL Pro competitions. NASL will eventually be squeezed out. You'll also notice that a lot of the recent MLS expansion talk is around USL sides (Orlando) and NASL sides get overlooked (Cosmos). NASL is screwed due to their own pigheadedness.

I've been getting more and more into USL Pro recently. It's great having so much content available online for all the teams. The non-MLS-affiliated teams are pretty good in their own right and the MLS reserve teams are a good opportunity for player development - something that has been missing from the game. It's good enough to watch but also obscure enough so that the players, coaches, clubs etc are all really accessible via social media. They're growing really quickly, too. St. Louis team announced just today. Sounders likely to enter a team next season.

I agree with most of your first point but the bolded is where I disagree. Against a prime Barcelona or a rampant L'pool it makes sense. But the majority of the time, for the last decade - he's had brilliant tip top players to work with. I wouldn't describe Atletico as some attacking super force either. Your second point is not relevant. I'm not talking about results i'm talking about approach. He gets good results but not good enough considering the approach for me as a fan. 3rd: One important factor you missed out is that Atletico came out in the second half to score a second goal - that attacking approach ended making the second half easy. It wasn't just defending and closing down space. They also did Chelsea twice from training ground team attacks which was impressive. Thiago to Juan Fran, back post finish. Tbf to Chelsea - Atletico are simply a better team. Better drilled. Tactically more adept, they simply play their game better. Individually the Chelsea players probably have more talent - that's it. Mourinho's a great manager. I've never said they've had a terrible season. But it will be a disappointment. For the last decade Chelsea have had the talent to win the league and get to the CL final or pick up some silverware. This is the first time, in some time they've done none. And they've spent £100m for the privilege. I had them down as PL winners at the start of the season. Fair enough. I'd disagree with the bit in bold, personally. They have good attacking options. Mourinho obviously thinks so too since he's trying to buy one of them. A cautious approach was probably justified, imo, but once they went behind they never really looked like getting back into it.

1. He doen't play Barcelona every week - Arsenal, Man United, Atletico Madrid this season for e.g. - none are Barcelona, all 3 games were 0-0. 2. Who picked the team last night? He didn't need to play Terry nor Hazard, nor did he need to bring an off the pace Eto'o on early doors second half. Nobody disagrees he's a great manager & motivator but he's not the all encompassing hero many think he is. If he'd won last night it'd have been a 'tactical masterclass' not seen many people banding that about Simeone who despite what you say didn't really change Atleti's game up that much, just dropped a bit deeper than the norm. You're right he'll probably pick up a couple of pots next season after a couple more major additions, a wiser manager would've done that last summer when Stevie Wonder could see Chelsea needed a striker but it didn't fit his narrative of being the underdog. Not really arguing with any of them. His team selection I point out as a criticism. I'm not arguing he's infallible. And I praised Simeone's approach to the game. He out-Mourinho-ed Mourinho on this occasion, credit where it's due. The 'tactical masterclass' narrative comes from several places. It comes up so frequently because of his record and reputation he has built up over time. Now it's often the go-to lazy platitude in some sections of the media. But over the last 10 years he has earned that reputation.

The fact remains he spent 50 million to take the club from 8th to 7th. It took an extra season before his coaching and recruitment started to pay off. The starting point only works against Rodgers in this line of argument. Getting from 8th to 7th is a lot easier than getting from 3rd to a trophy. Different standards are being applied to the two managers. Torres was shit towards the end of his time at Liverpool. He was shit at Chelsea under other managers. He has been shit for Spain. He's done. Eto'o is 32 and was brought to Chelsea after two seasons in Russia. We're not talking about the same player as Eto'o in 2009. I like Ba, personally. But he's not going to win you a title on his own. All teams slip up against opposition they should be beating. Liverpool have lost to Hull, Southampton, & Man United. They dropped points against the Mackems, Swansea, Newcastle... it happens whatever approach you happen to take. Again, different standards being applied to the two managers. The only reason Mourinho gets shit for it is because we've come to expect more from him.

Both great examples. And if you look at his record, statistically, he performs way above what you might expect. His home record (everywhere) is amazing. His record against top clubs is impressive. Through the normal ebb and flow of football, with luck, refereeing decisions, individual brilliance, individual errors, and all the other variables that are hard to control he shouldn't have anywhere near the record he does against other top teams. They're teams capable of winning games and he does a great job of getting results. On the surface you might say he "should" be getting results against top teams, but so consistently? He's great at what he does and I don't find it boring.

First: There's an art to what Jose does too. You're just not into it. Going up against the best attacking teams in the world and nullifying them isn't easy. If you're playing against Barca who have, at the time, probably the best player in the world, you're not going to beat them by out-attacking them. You need to nullify their strong points and exploit their weaknesses. You can't just set out your team, play to your strengths, and ignore what the other team offers. You'll get beat. Mourinho takes that approach to the majority of games that he plays and for good reason. Second: Even the best teams in the world will slip up. No team goes a season winning every game that they "should" win. Part of the beauty of football is that on the day everyone has their chance. The approach Mourinho, and Pep, and Ancelotti, and Rafa, etc all take is to minimize how much of that is down to luck. Pep does it through trying to control possession. Mourinho does it through trying to eliminate attacking space. Different approaches but essentially working on the same problem: leaving as little as possible to chance. More often than not, it works. But it's never going to work 100% of the time. It doesn't matter how expensive the players on the pitch happen to be. Atletico played a good game. They nullified Chelsea much more effectively than Chelsea did them. The amount of balls Atletico cut out or blocked in the final 3rd was impressive. They scouted Chelsea well and defended the right areas beautifully. Conversely, I think Chelsea's team selection was off. Three players coming back from injury played major roles in the loss. Hazard couldn't do much against the tight defence and was responsible for at least one of the goals. Terry should have done better for the 3rd. Eto'o gave away a penalty. All the while, Chelsea's in form striker was on the bench. Had Ba come on instead of Eto'o then maybe he doesn't give away a penalty. Had Terry's header gone in instead of hitting the post then perhaps right now Mourinho is getting praise for grinding out another result. Chelsea "should" have won on paper. But games aren't played on paper. Mourinho has made a career out of getting results he shouldn't have had. Against Atletico it happened against him. That's football. Any suggestion that it somehow makes Mourinho a failure this season doesn't make sense to me. He's still a great manager, is still in the title race at this late stage (although he may argue otherwise), and made a Champions League semi, which no other English team managed to do this year. Not a terrible first season.

If you spend 50m and don't bring home the league title at the first attempt then you're a disaster. Let's ignore Brendan Rodgers having a 50m net spend in his first season with Liverpool then finishing 7th place in the league, out of both cups in the 4th round, and out of the Europa League in the round of 32. Chelsea's 50m is different and should have brought them silverware. Anything less is total failure. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Liverpool were not a CL level club when Rodgers took over nor did they win the CL 2 years ago. Exactly, completely different starting points. Not champions league quality but they were coming off the back of a couple of season where they'd invested 160m. The fact that they were still shit despite spending all that money was just a delightful aside. Regardless, the point remains that Rodgers spent 50m and managed drag Liverpool from a lowly 8th to a lofty 7th place the following season. No one is going to argue that's a great return on investment. However, given time to put his team together Liverpool are now doing great. Mourinho will get the time too and it's next season he should be judged. Rodgers is evidence of that.

If you spend 50m and don't bring home the league title at the first attempt then you're a disaster. Let's ignore Brendan Rodgers having a 50m net spend in his first season with Liverpool then finishing 7th place in the league, out of both cups in the 4th round, and out of the Europa League in the round of 32. Chelsea's 50m is different and should have brought them silverware. Anything less is total failure. Are you chelping at me? I didn't fucking say anything. http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m298/europawpw/Capture.jpg No... I mean, I could. If you want. I should probably ask my wife first. I mean, yeah. Sure?

If you spend 50m and don't bring home the league title at the first attempt then you're a disaster. Let's ignore Brendan Rodgers having a 50m net spend in his first season with Liverpool then finishing 7th place in the league, out of both cups in the 4th round, and out of the Europa League in the round of 32. Chelsea's 50m is different and should have brought them silverware. Anything less is total failure.

And the people wielding them would be idiots.

They have, though. Last season they finished 3rd and won the Europa League with a manager none of their cuntish fans wanted. I don't think he's done an awful job, just a poor one, fwiw. Wait a minute. You think going to semi finals in Champions League is an achievement worse than winning the Europa League? Or it is a wind up? Ronaldo was claiming that during Mourinhos first season with Madrid as well. Apparently finishing runner up in the La Liga, winning the Copa Del Rey and losing in the Champions League semi finals was a step backwards from finishing runner up in the La Liga, getting knocked out 4-1 by a 3rd division team in the Copa Del Rey and getting knocked out in the Round of 16 by Lyon in the Champions League. Well, no, none of that's remotely true, but I'll play along. I think all I ever said after Mourinho's first, underwhelming, season at Real is that they were far more watchable, and accumulated more points in the league with Pellegrini and the swap was a daft decision. It was, by the way. Anyway, Real have the best of the best managing them now while Mourinho's finishing 3rd with Chelsea and bitching about referees hurting them by audaciously giving penalties to the opposition. Things are as they should be. I am suprised you don't like Mourinho Ronaldo. Seems like he is cut from the same pompous cloth you are. In fact, I can't envision anyone on the planet that matches Mourinho's bloated self-importance and warped sense of reality as well as yourself. I think what angers Ronaldo is that Mourinho gets lauded for it while people just call him out on it. Because Mourinho has other things he contributes.

It happens when you know what you're talking about. You should try it.

I said before the game that the fitness of Chelsea's returning players could prove decisive. I forgot about Eto'o being injured, but him, Hazard, and Terry were all involved in the goals they gave up. Ba should have been on the pitch from the start, too. Bad team selection, in my opinion.

nah Yeah, first season back, Champions' League semi-final and still in the title race with a few games to go. Fucking disaster, like. Not won anything or looked like winning anything with one of the most expensive squads in the world. See Rodgers' first season at Liverpool.

nah Yeah, first season back, Champions' League semi-final and still in the title race with a few games to go. Fucking disaster, like.

Atletico have done well here. Not so much in the goals, they were equally as much Chelsea being sloppy, but more with the way they've cancelled out Chelsea. With the exception of set pieces Chelsea have looked pretty toothless. Atletico have been cutting out passes and blocking shots left and right - that wasn't heroics, they did their scouting well. They knew where Chelsea were going to put the ball before Chelsea did. They did well. Deserve their win.

Eto'o comes on and immediately gives away a penalty. Two goals in half an hour isn't impossible but not looking good for Chelsea now.

Second striker on the pitch for the Chelsea.

Whaaat? This is why. As long as they are not 2 goals in the lead, they're just one goal away from OUT. Yup. There was no fucking way Chelsea were just calling it at day at 1-0. Moot point now anyway.

That goal doesn't change the game at all. Chelsea still need another.

When Chelsea are in possession Atletico are getting 10 players behind the ball. So negative. Anti-football cunts.

Looking forward to Chelsea - Altletico. It's going to be a close one. If Terry and Hazard play then their respective levels of fitness might be the deciding factor. I'm not sure that half fit they offer anything over the backup.