Jose Mourinho - The Worst Nightmare for a Purist

[Dorset]

An article appeared in The Guardian last week, written by Louise Taylor, and it attempted to divide Premiership football managers into two distinct and diametrically opposed camps - the Pragmatists and the Purists. Against all expectation, for this particular newspaper with its Mancunian roots, it turned out to be a fascinating read. The rationale of the piece soon emerged and it was, in the wake of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement [cue usual paragraph bordering on idolatry], that the so-called Purists were easily, and with many an elegant flourish, winning this season’s newly-enlivened battle for supremacy, while the Pragmatists were, apart from one warrior-like exception, being put firmly in their proper place by flamboyant, predominantly north-western, betters.

By now, Shed-Enders still maintaining a degree of interest in this topic may well have started to place coaches into camps themselves, much in the same way as I did on reading the article’s preamble. For me, it was almost like making a choice as diverse as Cavalier or Roundhead, except that this time the Puritans were, somewhat ironically, cast in the role of devil-may-care, good guy Cavaliers. No doubt the more astute amongst you will have spotted that Jose, in true Oliver’s [Cromwell, that is] Army tradition, was indeed the round-headed Pragmatist who broke the mould that Ms Taylor soon began shaping into Big Sam, before moving on to fashion the same clay into an equally dour and trenchant Tony Pulis. In her defence, though, I must mention that she had accounted for our boss ’bucking the trend’ towards purism by deeming him to be ‘cleverer and better resourced than the rest, [and had therefore] elevated pragmatism into something so close to an art form that he ranks as a special case.’

My immediate reaction to such contrived pigeonholing was to raise an Ancelotti eyebrow over its sheer eccentricity, but by this point in the article I had already seen and choked over glowing tributes paid by Ms Taylor to several purist ’pass and move visionaries who stand by their principles and are prospering’, namely Brendan Rodgers, Roberto Martinez, Gus Poyet, Manuel Pellegrini, Mauricio Pochettino and, yes you’ve guessed it, the purer-than-pure high priest of purity, Arsene Wenger. Astonishingly, even David Moyes got a guarded invitation to join this elite band, once he no longer had to ‘experiment’ with pragmatism and could put to one side the ‘fire-fighting and attempting to achieve reasonable short-term results to properly address the need for a defined ethos.’ Louise then hinted that this is likely to happen, bearing in mind that ‘Moyes's Everton have at times played some pleasing enough football’. Clearly, those wise men at Old Trafford saw the same quality fighting to express itself in this wily Scot - the reluctant pragmatist crying out to be a born-again purist once the heat dies down - and therefore they hired him. With chameleon-like talent such as this on the market, no wonder Jose never even got a look in!!

Apparently, according to Ms Taylor, Alan Pardew and Paul Lambert also live in this kind of halfway house with Moyes, a broad church in the writer’s view and one that has yet to convert either completely into ‘a new-found faith and the sort of defined vision that has sustained Wenger for decades.’ Personally, I’d breathe a sigh of relief over that one if I was in their shoes right now, especially as full indoctrination seems to involve immersing oneself in 6-0 hammerings, with the Frenchman’s Old Testament version of the faith insisting that you give yourself over to it entirely, renouncing all thoughts of occasional tactical switches, match-winning substitutions, or cursory glances at what the opposition might be doing throughout 90 minutes football.

Indeed, should these purgatorial purists be thinking about becoming fully-fledged and Orthodox like Monsieur Wenger, it might be advisable for them to take a quick look at the strictest of interpretations [definitions] of the word, and I’ll offer one here, just to be helpful…

A person who has very strong ideas about what is correct or acceptable and who usually opposes changes to traditional methods and practices

If you ask me, this sounds a lot like somebody who might be a tad too set in their ways for their own good, and, if you asked any of the current Premiership managers, I’m sure they would all agree. Except one, that is, but in all honesty, despite [finally] being exposed as the stubborn puritanical zealot every competent tactician always knew him to be, Wenger should not be made to carry the can of contrition all on his own. Not so much a makeover, more of a fawn-over, really. Groomed for the head purist role, you might say. For years encouraged in his fanatical belief by a Media so enthralled by Arsenal’s passing game that they, a respected (?) body of journalists, seemingly lost all sense of reality when describing it. Now, forced by circumstance and a Premiership table that doesn’t lie, these so-called experts have finally found the time and inclination to remove the sycophantic scales from their own eyes and have started to find fault where none dare exist before. There isn’t a name for this, but you could call it [Not] Finding Religion.

And just imagine, on his return, how astonished Jose must have been to find that the Gunner’s passing game was still being lauded as the purest-of-the-pure in terms of beauty and attraction, yet it remained as ineffectual as it ever was, right back when he started dismantling it from the 2004 fixtures onwards. How sweet the weekend’s humiliation must have been for him, and how damning for those journalists, who have so buttressed this purist with blinkered propaganda they now have to acknowledge the frailties and write responsibly [and in most cases for the very first time] about the beauty of Chelsea’s game, whilst at the same time demolishing a cravenly-built image once worshipped as unique.

Yet sadly, the hacks in this country will never go overboard in their praise of us, these days even preferring to embrace the German template that is Bayern Munich and their newly-acquired purist, Pep Guardiola. In the past at Barca, his stylistic love-ins with Arsene sustained the two against Jose’s wolfish tactics and kept him well away from the door marked ’Keep Ball’, as opposed to ’Keep Out’. Especially in Spain, where the slightest tap on a player, encourages the referee to say ’who’s that?’, before asking the inevitable question ’and is it time I opened [the game] up by taking the opposition down to ten men?’. This is why Pep didn’t pop over here to continue his career. Too scared to challenge Jose on his own patch (the bear pit that is the Premiership aligned to our dislike of the dive) and sensing the eventual quantitative easing out of tiki-taka in Spain, he chose instead to embrace a comfort blanket at Bayern, duvet-sized and backed by fanatical support, described brilliantly by another Guardian scribe, Barney Ronay, as follows:-

“Somehow, though, Bayern seem the most boisterously expansionist of all the mega-clubs. There is a bullish kind of energy around the place, to the extent that simply entering the Allianz Arena is to find yourself subjected to a garrulous, personable, all-pervading kind of Bayern-overload. Bayern's fans have a chant where the two ends of the stadium just chant "Bayern! Bayern! Bayern! Bayern!" at each other incessantly and this must be what it feels like sometimes to be a football supporter in Germany, where Bayern are the hand on your shoulder, the voice in your ears, the knot of asphyxiating Bayern-flavoured mulch in your throat as you wake from Bayern-shaped dreams in your Bayern-shaded bed and open your mouth to scream only to find all that comes out is Bayern! Bayern! Bayern! Bayern!â€

Well, you can’t blame Pep, can you? Who wouldn’t want such backing with battles to come against an archenemy? But Bayern could never be described as a purist team in the making, nor will they morph into one under the tutelage of Guardiola. They will remain as pragmatic as ever, in terms of Taylor-ed pigeonholing - a powerhouse club led by [what we must all assume is] a converted purist. And I’m guessing Pep realised he had to convert to compete, whereas Wenger could never compromise, and Jose knew it. Others, like Louise Taylor, are still experiencing difficulty ‘coming out’ into the full glare of public admission, inventing for themselves, and hiding in the midst of, what amounts to a ’group hug’ of purists, where a manager like Wenger can cuddle with the best of them and perhaps even claim seniority status over whoever emerges as the Media‘s new kingpin. This will prove difficult if he turns out to be his successor, a definite possibility as the Emirates hierarchy ponder whether to stick, twist or Klopp their way towards a not-quite-so puritanical future.

Because purism, in its purest form, is easy to bring down at the highest level. 6-0 easy, in fact. Just ask Arsene. He’s not fooling anybody anymore…. he knows for sure.

[mad_mac]

Another good read as always, Dorset.

 

What gets me the most, with the love in for Arsenal's "4th place trophy" style of play, is the lack of respect anyone gets for beating it.  We win 6-0 and the press talk about how poor Arsenal happened to be that day (or in our case, how the wrongly administered red card  was the turning point in the game - despite half our goal tally already reached at that point).  So I think this will lead jounralists to clamber and pigeonhole managers in some way so it makes sense to them.

 

Same thing in the CL Final in 2012.  We are the underdogs, in their stadium, with vital players missing.  And we executed our strategy well and won the cup on the crap shoot that is penalties.  No "well done Chelsea!" or "What an achievement!"  Nope, all we heard was "lucky lucky Chelsea!" or "Smash and grab tactics."  In the words of Rodney Dangerfield we "get's no respect!"

[jack_super_class]

The media have talked more about Utd beating West Ham, Rooney goal and Arsenal sending off than they did discussing our 6-0 win against Arsenal.It was one of the biggest games of the season, an important match for the title and we win 6-0 and we barley got any praise.I can imagine if Arsenal won 6-0 against us they would be praising Wenger etc.

 

Not only that but when you go on the BBC football website these days every blog is about Man Utd, i mean literally all of them.

[Sloth]

The media have talked more about Utd beating West Ham, Rooney goal and Arsenal sending off than they did discussing our 6-0 win against Arsenal.It was one of the biggest games of the season, an important match for the title and we win 6-0 and we barley got any praise.I can imagine if Arsenal won 6-0 against us they would be praising Wenger etc.

 

Not only that but when you go on the BBC football website these days every blog is about Man Utd, i mean literally all of them.

 

The Gibbs red card was also the only talking point. It was a silly thing that happened but it wasn't a terrible mistake that affected the game. In fact it wouldn't have made any difference at all because the red card is a red card, yet somehow this is one of the main points for refereeing inconsistency.

 

I mean there is refereeing consistency, look at Chris Foy, look at how many times he consistently f**ks us up every game.

[jack_super_class]

Agreed and also some people said it wasn't a red card because the shot was going wide. However Chamberlain doesn't know its going wide so its the intent that makes it a red card surely?.

 

Maybe im wrong.

[ForeverCarefree]

There is no "right" or "wrong" way to play football in my eyes there is only winning and losing.

All the tika-taka and false 9's in the world are no compensation for good old fashioned winning.

[Spierbal]

The way I see it there are no real purists in the strictest sense. Obviously some are more than others. Even the uber purist Wenger has adapted and based on this season and not on his entire tenure they do play differently. Its less expansive and more willing to grind, for large spell while they were at the top of the league it wasn't freeflowing and more defensive than the typical Arsenal we've become accustomed with. If you look only at the game against Tottenham, they were pleased to sit back and hold the lead. Once people are classified in one group it seems very difficult to break free from it. Another of the so called purist in Rodgers has transformed liverpool for the better by moving away from his usual pass to death style he had at Swansea to a more counter attacking style. So it has to be ever changing and tinkering otherwise you will be left behind. 

 

It will be interesting to see what will happen at Chelsea come the summer, if we solve our strikers issue by signing one world class forward and bring back lukaku potentially would Mourinho revert back to a more possesion based game? Personally I would hope not. If I remember it was the Sunderland defeat in the Capital One cup that prompted Jose to change back to a more pragmatic approach. We've got a quite a summer in store for us Chelsea fans one way or the other.