23 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

To be fair, apart from one half of one match, KDB was consistently poor for Chelsea, too.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing, ain't it?

I remember KDB struggling in friendly games in the pre-season and people were jumping the gun saying he's not ready. 

Nobody had any patience with Salah also who I thought wasn't too bad in his first season, put in a few decent performances, against Stoke & Arsenal for example. Then after that Mourinho just decided not to play him anymore. 

44 minutes ago, Slojo said:

I remember KDB struggling in friendly games in the pre-season and people were jumping the gun saying he's not ready. 

Nobody had any patience with Salah also who I thought wasn't too bad in his first season, put in a few decent performances, against Stoke & Arsenal for example. Then after that Mourinho just decided not to play him anymore. 

I think KDB had a half-decent performance against possibly Hull or somebody, and then was total pants against Swindon, of all teams.  I never saw him do anything outstanding for us, and the rumours were that he had an attitude in training and wanted assurances.  I wasn't sad to see him go then and I don't think that, given what he had shown up until then, it was the wrong decision.

BUT, there are so many people in here who see how he is now and scream at the club for selling him, even though that is with massive hindsight and a great deal of Marxist-style revisionism.

PS - I still think he is nowhere near as good as a lot of people would have you believe, I think his decision-making is not great, he bottles the big games and he goes missing too often for my liking.  Oh, and he's ginger

5 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

I think KDB had a half-decent performance against possibly Hull or somebody, and then was total pants against Swindon, of all teams.  I never saw him do anything outstanding for us, and the rumours were that he had an attitude in training and wanted assurances.  I wasn't sad to see him go then and I don't think that, given what he had shown up until then, it was the wrong decision.

BUT, there are so many people in here who see how he is now and scream at the club for selling him, even though that is with massive hindsight and a great deal of Marxist-style revisionism.

PS - I still think he is nowhere near as good as a lot of people would have you believe, I think his decision-making is not great, he bottles the big games and he goes missing too often for my liking.  Oh, and he's ginger

He got the assist for Oscar also in that Hull game, played a very good ball inside the box with multiple defenders around. 

I've always rated KDB, not just saying that in hindsight, when I just left school I was one of those wannabe child scouts, watching YT videos of footballers thinking I'm a qualified scout. And I used to watch KDB on Genk because there was a lot of noise about him, and he was superb at the age of 17-18, scary actually, he was dominating the Belgian league at that age. Now some players develop some players don't, KDB never really shined at Chelsea but it's not like that's an easy thing to do given the pressure and impatience we've had for young players over the years. 

But we also loaned him out at Bremen and he was superb, he was converted into a central midfielder and played very well. It's one of those things, him going back to Bremen definitely improved him vastly. If he sat on the Chelsea bench for years he probably would've struggled. 

The issue with hindsight and Chelsea fans right now is evident, purely because people are only fussed now that he's scored a winning goal against us. I was pissed when he left in the first place, but it is what it is, onwards and upwards. 

22 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

I think KDB had a half-decent performance against possibly Hull or somebody, and then was total pants against Swindon, of all teams.  I never saw him do anything outstanding for us, and the rumours were that he had an attitude in training and wanted assurances.  I wasn't sad to see him go then and I don't think that, given what he had shown up until then, it was the wrong decision.

BUT, there are so many people in here who see how he is now and scream at the club for selling him, even though that is with massive hindsight and a great deal of Marxist-style revisionism.

PS - I still think he is nowhere near as good as a lot of people would have you believe, I think his decision-making is not great, he bottles the big games and he goes missing too often for my liking.  Oh, and he's ginger

His two goals this season are against us and Arsenal. Both pretty big games. Then two assists against Liverpool and 1 in each game against Napoli. City haven't played any other big games and he's done something in all of them. Add 34 assists in 75 games for City and creating 3 chances a game this season these comments seem a little off the mark. 

 

46 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

I think KDB had a half-decent performance against possibly Hull or somebody, and then was total pants against Swindon, of all teams.  I never saw him do anything outstanding for us, and the rumours were that he had an attitude in training and wanted assurances.  I wasn't sad to see him go then and I don't think that, given what he had shown up until then, it was the wrong decision.

BUT, there are so many people in here who see how he is now and scream at the club for selling him, even though that is with massive hindsight and a great deal of Marxist-style revisionism.

PS - I still think he is nowhere near as good as a lot of people would have you believe, I think his decision-making is not great, he bottles the big games and he goes missing too often for my liking.  Oh, and he's ginger

I can see both sides. He wasn't brilliant for us but then he really wasn't given that many chances. Many of us were saying (or at least hoping) that he would be Lampard's successor and f**k me how we could do with him in the squad now - to strengthen us and weaken City. He has been a big-game bottler but not any more - seems to be getting better by the week.

I hope the club have learnt from this (and other mistakes). Rather than sign players when they are too young and not ready to gamble on, we should wait and pick them up at 21/22 when they have proved themselves - like we did with Hazard. We will be ridiculed for letting KDB go until someone makes a worse decision at some point.

 

That's as may be @Nibs but he was given as many chances as his performances (and, presumably, his performances in training) warranted, and he was basically pants.  I was hoping when he arrived that he would live up to the hype, but he never did.  Given the evidence at the time, I don't believe that the club made a mistake in getting rid.  They maybe made a mistake in buying him in the first place when he was not mature enough to achieve his potential, but all clubs do that all the time, and sometimes it comes off.

I think it's quite easy for him to look quite good at the moment, given the state of the City team, but other than us, they haven't really played a top top team yet (possibly Napoli, but I'm not sure about that).  KDB should never have scored against us, some of our lads were frightened to take a yellow card as he ran past them.  Other than that, he did a lot of running around, and loads of lovely triangles in safe areas.  I was more impressed by David Silva in that game, if I'm honest

I've been watching Salah a bit this season and he has missed a lot of chances until last weekend. I recall at SB there was little end product too. Maybe he has turned a corner or maybe not.

Re JM, I'm not sure he has a balanced squad. There does not seem to be natural width and he is playing an ageing Ashley Young at LB. Valencia on the right is fast and strong yet does not cross well.

He might have the idea of attacking down the middle using Pogba's strength to launch attacks and perhaps feed Miki-T yet like us their injuries have likely restricted their progress. Miki-T looks lost just now.

There is no doubt he is still a top manager and we see that by him prioritising the Europa Cup last season and winning it to get into the CL when they had a bad defensive injury crisis. 

For me it will be interesting to see what Utd's playing style is once he has Pogba back, he has said he needs another window and perhaps he now wants good attacking wide players which would make sense.

 

 

I agree that hindsight is a great thing and am not detracting the points made about our former players as those are all solid points. I just feel that with the glut of youth AMs we had then, Jose chose Oscar and then bought Willian looking for short term success when he could have gave chances and had patience with some of our young players, we could have KdB or Salah right now. Jose let go of KdB, Schurrle, Mata and Salah then he brought in Willian then Cuadrado then Pedro because after selling our AMs, we lacked someone that could be a threat on our right side? It's weird and in this respect I suspect that Jose can't really guide or coach young players anymore and he prefers those that has a high foundation, peaks early or finished articles. We went from having a hopeful crop of around 8 AMs to 3 then we lacked depth in that department prompting us to buy 2 more.

Our players haven't really improved in a sense under Jose, they were more effective at getting results, that's for sure. (Not to discredit his achievements with us though, he did what we asked of him in terms of winning football matches)

Contrast this with Conte's style where you can see our players slowly go from strength to strength. A pity about Nate and Ake as I think they could both be useful right now but they both needed time to develop their game and careers and displacing any of our current defenders and midfielders would've been difficult. Could've really used Nate and RLC in some of the previous games tho.

TL;DR imo Jose isn't really a good manager for creative youth players. 

On 08/11/2017 at 08:52, Nibs said:

 

I actually think the opposite. Mourinho s big on psychology and I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Shaking all our players hands before the game - trying to get into their heads and take a bit of the "fight" out of them. 

Thankfully it didn't work!

 

I imagine our coaching staff told our players to expect handshakes from Mourinho as they entered the pitch. Remember, he's done it before, when he was with Inter. I'm sure our players knew what to expect, I'm sure JT told them last season prior to our game against them. They knew the handshakes were coming.

 

When you think of all the preparation that goes into it these days, all the scouting, all the analysis. They knew. They knew.

 

They tell our boys, "Listen, Mourinho's going to be all pally with you before the game. Why? Because he wants to win. He's only being pally because he thinks it will give him an edge. He thinks it will soften you up. He thinks you're idiots."

 

So, he does as expected and our boys think, "He thinks I'm an idiot does he? I'll show him."

 

It's poor psychology Nibsybibsy, on the part of Jose. It's so transparent. The first time, okay, it works, nobody sees it coming. After that, everybody can see it coming a mile off. He's an idiot for even trying it. He's insulting their intelligence and they know it.

 

Incidentally, during the warm-up he was hugging and joking around with Willian, a player he's supposedly tried to nick off us, and a player who's out of the team at the moment. Given the rumours flying around the club, about rumblings in the camp, Jose was taking his chances, which is easy to do when you're manager of Man Utd, as you know it's a very desirable club for a lot of players. I can't think of another manager that would make such a public show of trying to undermine our manager and cosy up with one of our players, but that's Jose for you. He's shown no class towards Chelsea since he joined Utd which is poor given the support he got from the fans. Remember last season, when he had a pop at Conte after we'd battered them. He was trying to throw his weight around, trying to show Conte who the boss was, he was trying to demean our manager, because he has a problem with him, because he has a problem with our club.

 

Well I've got a problem when somebody treats our club or our manager with contempt, and boy was I glad we gave his team a footballing lesson.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11128359/manchester-united-boss-jose-mourinho-hits-out-at-england-over-treatment-of-phil-jones

Having a moan because one of his players got injured playing international and Drinkwater didn’t join the England squad. Has he not seen the players we’ve lost to international football lately?

I'm not shocked, so I wouldn't get too wound up by it. He used to do this when he managed us and I found it annoying. He's already saying the United job is hard because other teams have had more transition than he has, except for Chelsea and City who had a manager appointed the same time he came to United, oh and Jose one of them won the league. 

He says anything to distract from defeats, either that or he's completely lost it and he's a bitter old man, could be a bit of both which I think it is. I don't expect Jose to be consistent in what he says, I don't expect him to be fair, that's not Jose Mourinho, that never was Jose Mourinho. He's definitely gotten worse over the years and certainly not for the good kind either, I think he got ridiculously bitter when he joined Real Madrid and started getting a real challenge against the mighty Barcelona. He actually made Pep Guardiola who is also a bitter twat look like a great samaritan, some of the things he did and said about the bloke. 

It is what it is, quite frankly he's not as good as what I used to think he is, his football is outdated, the United fans will soon realise that also. 

This must be fake. Jose never complains about injuries. 

1 hour ago, Munkworth said:

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11128359/manchester-united-boss-jose-mourinho-hits-out-at-england-over-treatment-of-phil-jones

Having a moan because one of his players got injured playing international and Drinkwater didn’t join the England squad. Has he not seen the players we’ve lost to international football lately?

 

Typical Jose performance... Sat back to get a draw in the 2nd half and got punished. No imagination whatsoever in that team. 

I know we're all upset City scored in the 96th minute, but just imagine Jose's face when it went in.

 

That should cheer you up.

12 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

I know we're all upset City scored in the 96th minute, but just imagine Jose's face when it went in.

 

That should cheer you up.

Not really . I had the same face when that went in..  FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK..  I really wanted us to defend our title but i guess we have to pay for a bad summer (Transfers)

I read the first 10 or so pages of this thread and my word, i would have had a field day if i was on here at the time. The sheer amount of excuses for Jose and his involvement in that all time collapse makes even the worst excuses for Torres look somewhat passible 

The Jose dominance at United while we flickered into mediocrity like a few predicted (and one actually wanted to happen ) hasn't exactly worked out has it?

Edited November 29, 20178 yr by Argo

16 minutes ago, The Don Antonio said:

Not really . I had the same face when that went in..  FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK..  I really wanted us to defend our title but i guess we have to pay for a bad summer (Transfers)

I'm not sure how many more players we'd need to keep up with them. They're making it look simple atm. No shame in finishing behind them

9 minutes ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

I'm not sure how many more players we'd need to keep up with them. They're making it look simple atm. No shame in finishing behind them

Honestly they could have dropped 4 points in their last 2 games but i guess fortune favors the brave and pep has been brave with his tactics.  he is just playing for wins f**k draws. He even plyed for a win at  the bridge. 

1 hour ago, The Don Antonio said:

Honestly they could have dropped 4 points in their last 2 games but i guess fortune favors the brave and pep has been brave with his tactics.  he is just playing for wins f**k draws. He even plyed for a win at  the bridge. 

He always plays to win. It would take 2 or 3 absolute class players for us to be level with them on points or talent. They've spent like half a billion on new players for two summers on top of the 300m worth of players they already had and still scraped by in a few games. 

Shows how hard it is to win in England with everyone gunning for you and how much quality/luck they have depending on how you look at it. I find no shame in finishing top 4 anymore, especially with 2 Manc clubs trying to buy a title. 

Edited November 30, 20178 yr by TheChelseaBlues

2 hours ago, The Don Antonio said:

Not really . I had the same face when that went in..  FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK..  I really wanted us to defend our title but i guess we have to pay for a bad summer (Transfers)

The injury crisis at the beginning of the season is the issue not, Conte's transfer failings. 

4 hours ago, Argo said:

I read the first 10 or so pages of this thread and my word, i would have had a field day if i was on here at the time. The sheer amount of excuses for Jose and his involvement in that all time collapse makes even the worst excuses for Torres look somewhat passible 

The Jose dominance at United while we flickered into mediocrity like a few predicted (and one actually wanted to happen ) hasn't exactly worked out has it?

Went back and read the first few pages, hilarious :)

4 hours ago, ashwin said:

Went back and read the first few pages, hilarious :)

The narrative of how we ruined our 1 chance of stability had me spitting out my drink, saying sacking Jose is chucking away a chance of stability is like divorcing David Moyes and saying you have blown your one chance to be with a play boy model.

8 hours ago, Argo said:

I read the first 10 or so pages of this thread and my word, i would have had a field day if i was on here at the time. The sheer amount of excuses for Jose and his involvement in that all time collapse makes even the worst excuses for Torres look somewhat passible 

The Jose dominance at United while we flickered into mediocrity like a few predicted (and one actually wanted to happen ) hasn't exactly worked out has it?

Blaming everything on Jose could also be seen as an excuse? 

I don't think the comments are even bad actually, we were angry at the board and that was completely rational because at Chelsea we've had this pattern of always sacking managers once they go through one sour patch. 

1 minute ago, Slojo said:

Blaming everything on Jose could also be seen as an excuse? 

I don't think the comments are even bad actually, we were angry at the board and that was completely rational because at Chelsea we've had this pattern of always sacking managers once they go through one sour patch. 

Some were allright but others were truly ridiculous. And this went beyond a bad patch, any manager in world football would/should be sweating for their jib under similar circumstances, even Fergie.

4 minutes ago, Argo said:

Some were allright but others were truly ridiculous. And this went beyond a bad patch, any manager in world football would/should be sweating for their jib under similar circumstances, even Fergie.

Fergie had some very rough patches at United, he even went through a weird one in 2012 when Yakubu scored a hattrick at Old Trafford and United just couldn't stop losing games. 

Incomparable to Mourinho situation, it's just a fact any manager who has a bad patch here will be sacked, it's how it is. Conte hasn't had one thankfully.