Ranieri vs Mourinho??

[heckel]

Well the Serie A is drawing to a close and we find that Claudio the Great has done similar things to Juve as he did with Chelsea in the years before Roman: steered them into CL contention from a weak position (promotion from Serie B) and created a positive atmosphere in the dressing room. In doing this he has had easily the most successful post-Chelsea career out of our recent former managers: it is popular to state that Hoddle, Gullit and Vialli were all better managers for Chelsea and that Ranieri was never going to be a 'winner'. This might be true but the former three are either unemployed or in low-key positions while Ranieri is at the head of one of Europe's top sides, and with the CL £s coming in next season expect Juve to build their squad and be challenging at the summit of the league (maybe he'll be hoping to bring in his best and bravest signing, one Frank Lampard?).

I suggest that those who think Ranieri is a loser closely follow Juve next season, as he is now in charge of a team that he has cultivated, which has the resources to challenge at the top (unlike Chelsea from '01-'03, or Valencia in '04-'05).* If he cannot deliver for Juve and gets the sack next season I'm sure there will smiles all round from the 'Clownio' contingent on the CSR/Shed End. I am a big fan of Claudio: a fine man, refreshingly humble without being righteous (a la Wenger), and a great cultivator of talent. I wish he'd toned down his eccentric team selection process while he was with us, but it is Ranieri's signings and his treatment of the team that gave Mourinho's PL side its formidable backbone (Drogba excepted) so I'll be watching, hoping he conclusively proves his detractors wrong and shows that his way can win big things.

Most enticing is that we might be able to make a comparison between Mourinho and Ranieri IF Mourinho does indeed take over at AC Milan. The teams are in near identical situations. Aging squads, and club hierarchies that are only now emerging from the scandals of '05/'06. Assuming Milan get fourth spot, they'll both be in the CL next season and both will have to go through qualifying.

Ranieri vs Mourinho: Bring it on!!

*I still regard the '03/'04 season as a complete anomaly and one which is impossible to judge Ranieri on. He was under ridiculous pressure from administration that quite literally parachuted into power just as he had established his modus operandi, it was unlikely that he had full control over signings and therefore had the impossible task of juggling an established and steady squad with a weird assortment of new players with a whole plethora of different demands (who the f*ck could cope with JFH, Veron, Crespo and Makalele in the same squad!!), including loyalty to those players who had served him so well in the previous years and the prima donna attitude of some of the incomers.

[just]

Good post Heckel. I'll certainly keep an eye out if JM does take over at AC.

Of course I'll be in Jose's corner, but there'll always be a soft spot in my heart for Ranners.

How can you not a love a guy who finished a Champion's League semi-final away leg with three centre-halves and three centre forwards on the pitch and most of them playing out of position?

[loz]

AC will have that to look forward to under Jose. 1-0 down with 15 to go, send up Nesta as a centre forward!!

As much as I have a soft spot for Ranners I have nothing but contempt for Juve and so I find it hard to hope they do well just for Ranners sake.

[just]

AC will have that to look forward to under Jose. 1-0 down with 15 to go, send up Nesta as a centre forward!!

Yeah but Maldini on the right wing?

[loz]

I know I know, his brain entirely melted that day!! The only argument in his favour is that the ridiculous amount of pressure he was out under by Roman and Kenyon for the best part of half a season led to him being desperate to win the tie on the day (although how he planned to do so in that manner is beyond me)

I do think it there is some hypocrisy around when people argue that the main reason we lost the title last season was because of the breakdown between Roman and Jose (with the finger being firmly pointed at Roman) yet Ranners isn't given quite so much slack for screwing up in just one game when he was treated like a sacrificial pawn for far too long.

[heckel]

How can you not a love a guy who finished a Champion's League semi-final away leg with three centre-halves and three centre forwards on the pitch and most of them playing out of position?

I thought this post might smoke you out. But I ain't gonna bite.

Even if we had won the CL (and we were not far off the final in that second leg) Ranieri's position would have been untenable - the Man wanted 'his own' manager on board, and because he wanted WORLD domination in THREE WEEKS he was singularly unable to see Ranieri's strength as a cultivator of talent and excellent squad manager. I entirely accept that we needed Mourinho to come in to properly start the new regime off with a clean break from the old (as much as I supported Ranieri at the time). Unfortunately karma dictated Roman replaced one of the world's most selfless, adaptable managers with the world's most egotistical, stubborn one.

Hence we now have the world's most thorough-going apparatchick manager. And he's in the final neither Mourinho nor Ranieri could reach!! Roman wins!

Either way, this chapter in our history might yet have an interesting epilogue in the Serie A. Forza Juventus!

[g3.7]

were you at old trafford for the fa cup semi final against liverpool just?

jose started with a geremi at rightback, ferreira in midfield and essien at the top of the diamond. and not one creative midfielder (other than essien, obviously). and this from a man famed for his pre match preparation. it happens, with some luck hopefully we will win in moscow and maybe people will be able to look back on claudio for the good he did, which far outweighs the bad.

[bjd]

Good post Heckel. I'll certainly keep an eye out if JM does take over at AC.

Of course I'll be in Jose's corner, but there'll always be a soft spot in my heart for Ranners.

How can you not a love a guy who finished a Champion's League semi-final away leg with three centre-halves and three centre forwards on the pitch and most of them playing out of position?

Scotty Parker at right back was my personal fave

[glory55]

In Ranners first season he played Dennis Wise at right back for 10-15 mins in the second half against Bradford City.

[just]

Yes, I was at Old Trafford and you are re-writing history there G4.

Geremi was at right back. What was wrong with that? That was his best position IMO. Ferriera was in front of him. Wouldn't have been my choice because as I have said before Paulo has all the attacking flair of Phil Neville, but he is right sided and he had played there before. Here's what Jose said about it:

"(On team selection) For me Ferreira was a midfielder when I met him at Porto, I made him into a right back but that was his first position and I play the same team that I have for the last three matches.

In the game I watched Essien was not at the tip of a diamond formation. We didn't play a diamond. We used a 4-1-3-2 for the first half. We had Maka in front of the back four with Essien, Lamps and PF deployed across midfield, Crespo and Drogba up top.

I grant you it didn't work and Jose got the tactics wrong for that first half as we had very little width, (he did change it second half with the introduction of Robben, Duff and Cole), but it's not exactly comparable with Huth at right back and Jimmy on the right wing is it?

[loz]

I remember that as well GLory. Not really any different from playing Essien at right back which is something I never want to see us do again (but I am sure we will). I can sometimes accept it if we are chasing a game but to actually start a game with Essien at right back is a hideous waste of his talent and also taking a big gamble by not playing an orthodox full back.

[just]

(who the f*ck could cope with JFH, Veron, Crespo and Makalele in the same squad

Jose Mourinho did! With ease.

He booted Jimmy out the door before he had even took his coat off. Off-loaded the baldy, flicky sh*te guy as quick as he could back to the land of Alice bands. Recognized the quality in Crespo and tried to get him to stay. And got Maka back to being the star he always was.

And after that................ he won the league.

[heckel]

All you've done is confirm my point just! It took a new man coming in to be able to make a clean break with the past, as he had no link to the pre-Roman squad and therefore, unlike Ranieri, did not have to deal with two separate bodies of players.

Anyway, I only posted this because we might have the chance to assess objectively the difference btwn our last two managers and I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome.

[g3.7]

Yes, I was at Old Trafford and you are re-writing history there G4.

Geremi was at right back. What was wrong with that? That was his best position IMO. Ferriera was in front of him. Wouldn't have been my choice because as I have said before Paulo has all the attacking flair of Phil Neville, but he is right sided and he had played there before. Here's what Jose said about it:

"(On team selection) For me Ferreira was a midfielder when I met him at Porto, I made him into a right back but that was his first position and I play the same team that I have for the last three matches.

In the game I watched Essien was not at the tip of a diamond formation. We didn't play a diamond. We used a 4-1-3-2 for the first half. We had Maka in front of the back four with Essien, Lamps and PF deployed across midfield, Crespo and Drogba up top.

I grant you it didn't work and Jose got the tactics wrong for that first half as we had very little width, (he did change it second half with the introduction of Robben, Duff and Cole), but it's not exactly comparable with Huth at right back and Jimmy on the right wing is it?

firstly, 4132 and 41212... there was never much difference when jose was here- I saw essien at the top of the diamond, you didn't. hardly rewriting history.

paulo ferreira- even if he did play in midfield (and was that wide right or as a central midfielder as he played at old trafford?), to play him there in the fa cup semi final,having never used him there before (he did use him against a lower league side at home once though) was madness.

picking geremi at rightback was not necessarily out of the ordinary although I don't remember him playing there too often for us in that position for us that season, and watching harry kewell of all people show him up as a midfielder playing out of position (while the obvious solution, with no subs needed was to switch paulo and geremi) was painful.

incidentally, I think jimmy may have been a right winger at some stage- maybe when he was in portugal. not sure about this one though.

as for huth- well he was never in a million years right back material. quite what claudio was doing there I have no idea. again, quite what jose was doing when he started him away to bayern munich (the game where joe cole had to put in 452 last ditch tackles to cover for him) I also have no answer for.

[heckel]

Geremi was at right back. What was wrong with that? That was his best position IMO.

I grant you it didn't work and Jose got the tactics wrong for that first half as we had very little width [...] but it's not exactly comparable with Huth at right back ...?

Ranieri is not the only one who used Huth as right back. Remember this game against Bayern? The one in which we conceded late goals to take us to the brink of CL elimination?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2005 ... atch.sport

He used the same trick in the first leg:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2005 ... nute.sport

"66 min: Chelsea sub: Johnson off, Huth on"

And who was an unused sub that day?

"Subs: Cudicini, Smertin, Geremi, Forssell, Huth, Tiago, Nuno Morais."

Uh oh...

Also, to add to my last post: why was Mourinho's third season relatively unsuccessful? Might it have been that he had two players in Ballack and Shevchenko, at least one of whom it is unlikely he signed, that he had trouble integrating into a fairly tightly knit squad? That he had an administration that was interfering with team affairs over his head, and that this frustrated him and made him lash out, and sometimes make rash decisions to 'prove' them wrong?

[heckel]

Wait a minute! Who was in the crowd that day watching Huth slug his way up and down that right wing?

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7635&p=117885#p117885

Lordy lord!

[just]

Monaco.

Chelsea substitution. Scott Parker.............. right back replaced by Robert Huth............... right back.

I was at that game as well.

JFH - right wing

Baldy slap head guy (not fit and didn't want to play) put on the left side of midfield.

Crespo - er??? No-one has ever worked that one out.

From the Telegraph:

"Unsettled by some bizarre second-half tinkering by Claudio Ranieri, which saw Hernan Crespo operating in right midfield, Chelsea lost their shape last night and allowed 10-man Monaco to seize the initiative at the halfway stage of this Champions League semi-final".

In the post match words of JT.............. "what the f**k was that?"

Jose's third season? The loss of our two first choice centre backs and our first choice keeper for prolonged periods?

Don't get me wrong Heckel. I know Jose made mistakes. But I always felt he had a plan. A method. I never had that feeling with Ranieri. I believe the players felt the same.