Re: The Football Thread Quote:
Originally Posted by Saanil How do you know this? Has this already been announced? Sorry but I do not follow football news closely hence I may have missed this. I just wanted to check whether 'today's game is last for LVG' is your own personal assessment or this has already become official.
Cheers! |
A little birdie (Twitter) Quote:
Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao Wouldn't want to debate who goes where, but that bit is hardly true at all. Ferguson and Mourinho have starkly contrasting footballing styles, and if United fans find Van Gaal boring, I can't fathom how they'll react to Mourinho's style. He's much more of a win-by-boring-opposition-to-death merchant than anyone else, Van Gaal included.
Mourinho may be a winner and all (his trophy cabinet says so), but exciting he ain't.
He just isn't the type to stay too long anywhere, if his history is any indication. Future subject to change, of course, but doesn't seem likely.
Chelsea's current season suggests otherwise. All well to keep a winning bunch motivated, but this (half) season was his biggest test of motivational mgmt/ skills in a dire situation and the results speak for themselves. I have no love for the horrid Chelsea players for the way they got him (and a few past managers) sacked, but that doesn't take away from his failure as a leader. |
All leaders pass thru bad times in their lives. Jose did now. But he didnt leave. Chelsea fired him. So apparently he didnt get a proper chance to get things right. We cannot say if he could not have fixed the problems at Chelsea (for God sake he had just won them a title last year!). The ease with which clubs like Chelsea,Real etc fire their managers can portray anybody as a failure - Real sacked del Bosque when he had just won a double and now Ancelotti! Chelsea fired their (only) European winning coach!! Its madness really.
As for the comparisons with SAF, well there are lot of misconceptions about SAF, mostly due to lazy reporting and SAF's own doing. Sir Alex really wasnt the most attacking coach around. He had mastered a winning formula in the league when most teams were really poor (and struggling financially as well). United's secret was their absolute dominance of those poor teams - scores like 3-0, 4-0 were quite the norm against those (its another matter now that those teams also have lot of money thanks to the new broadcasting deal of GBP 5b and also rich owners!) On the other hand, against top-8 teams SAF would be quite circumspect - we mostly were set not to lose to those. Against the top coaches SAF's record is rather poor - against Mourinho he won only 3 out of 16 or so games (Only exception is Wenger - who developed some kind of united phobia and was cannon fodder for us mostly). Once City had money power they started beating us rather regularly. Liverpool would regularly beat us, and SAF was always poor against them and the team was always poor against them! Similarly in Europe we were rather poor against top teams, we beat Barca in 2008 by playing negatively but got beaten soundly twice in 2 finals when we tried to play them! We were beaten by Bayern, Real etc. in his last years. By the way, Mourinho's team played quite attacking football at Real. (To quote from Wiki: "On 13 May 2012, Real Madrid defeated Mallorca 4–1, in their last league match of the season which set records for most games won in a La Liga season (32), most away wins (16), most points obtained in any of the top European leagues (100), improving the most goals scored record they already had set earlier (121), and finishing the season with the highest goal difference (+89).[95][96] Real Madrid topped the league 9 points clear of runners-up Barcelona." )
There are many ways in which Mourinho and SAF are similar - both are big personalities - no player in the world is bigger than any of the two. Both have handled the biggest and best players. Both are man motivators primarily (Mourinho is an excellent tactician as well while SAF was just good in this department). Both are charismatic and good at handling and playing media. Both really really good at cleaning up small teams! Both are winners of big trophies. Sir Alex was as impetuous at the same age Mourinho is! For Sir Alex defense was the primary concern always - same for Mourinho. Quote:
Originally Posted by barcalad No. The only ex-Barca figure that City has is Txiki Bergiristain, who was Barca's Sporting Director during the Pep era, and holds the same position at City now. He is the man responsible for all of City's transfer market activities for the last 4 seasons or so. |
Ah OK. I kind of read somewhere there are few people already at City with whom Pep used to work at Barca.
Last edited by joslicx : 28th December 2015 at 20:48.
|