Tactics - Faster Movement
He has established a firm defence, a firm foundation from which to attack.
A team that let's in a goal has to score two to win, let in two and you have to score three, obviously, which is putting undue pressure on your forward players.
Every goal counts and every goal needs to count.
His strategy is to build a solid defensive side, but one that can quickly transition to attack with flair, pace and accuracy.
That explains the faster ball movement we are seeing from the side now.
What he has always liked is a fast direct wide player with a high work ethic so I would suggest that that is an area he is looking at, particularly with us being linked to wide players.
You can see why he likes Lucas Moura and I'd expect him to work at increasing his goal and assist output.
He has the workrate and the directness Mourinho looks for.
The other aspect he likes in his wide men is an eye for a pass and the ability to play them at the right weight, something we have certainly struggles with in the final third.
There is not much point looking good if your end product isn't there.
Vital to Mourinho's style of play is a speed of attack and an ability to penetrate the defensive line so I'd expect any new wide signings to have the ability to dribble, cross, play long and short passes and the ability to play two touch football.
When you are undertaking coaching you ask players to take responsibility for making penetrating passes, which is why it is frustrating that we have games where everyone is passing the buck.
You move a ball sideways around a penalty area to move the opposition and create a gap, but if you move the ball to slow, then they have time to adjust and close the gaps.
Thus the speed of ball movement is important and that means crisp passing from side to side or drawing a man out to play behind them.
Look at our second goal vs Ipswich Town.
We scored because the Ipswich player you can see on the ball about to play it square, passed the ball too slowly.
He made a long pass from the sideline to beyond the centre of the field and by the time it arrived, a Spurs player was pressing and that all led to the goal.
From there he has two options.
1) Play the ball back to the goalkeeper who will be immediately under pressure.
2) Let the ball run past him and play it away, but with a player closing him down that is risky.
The keeper has to quickly play the ball and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg read what was going to happen, intercepted the pass, the ball went to Dele (who I thought was offside) who played it back to Son to score.
As you can see Dele is offside (unless there is a fast asleep right-back out of shot), however when the ball arrives there are three players between him and the goal.
Should the goal should have been disallowed?
What the Ipswich players have had to do is play reactive football, make instant decisions without knowing who is about them.
The speed of pass would have changed the situation, as would the greater vision I spoke in the teaching Mourinho how to coach article.
Going back to us having the ball around an oppositions penalty area, communication is a key factor, as is looking ahead.
Vision is the important but untrained element of football along with mentality.
I still see people thinking defence is the first objective for a full-back,well they may be the case on a park on a Sunday morning but it isn't usually at Premier League level.
For the last 30 years the game has had attacking full-backs as sides look to play more in the opposition half.
Every team has at least one attacking full-back, almost a winger who can defend, indeed Danny Rose was converted from a winger to be a full-back.
This is Mourinho's thinking for our right-back, an extra attacker who can rush back to defend.
That ties in with the requirements for a wide player with high work rate.
Attacking full-backs can play a major part in goal creation and we have lacked a player who can cross the ball accurately since Kieran Trippier left, apart from Eric Dier but we don't see him on the wing anymore.
Without that, we have to use passing triangles to try and break a defence but we didn't really master that either this season.
The Barcelona youth academy, La Masia, preach receive, pass, move, offer.
Barcelona teams have been built on it but then you compare that to some of our performances, it's like chalk and cheese.
Barcelona players know where and when to run off the ball, that seems to be something we are having to relearn.
We struggle in games where our players stand around in their positions, that suggests a lack of footballing intelligence or simply turning off, not being motivated because it isn't deemed to be a big game.
Again we come back to mentality.
There was certainly more movement against Ipswich than some of the performances we have seen.
I recall Kyle Walker-Peters having space in front of him and not using it but stopping and going backwards, the safe option.
He didn't have enough faith in his own ability to beat a man and indeed I wrote that one-on-one was an area of the game he needed to improve, he couldn't beat a man and cross or pass the ball accurately.
He was too predictable.
Against Ipswich we had the far more skilful Gedson playing there, a player who could beat his man and move the forwards.
That's what Mourinho is looking from that position.
Once in space though we also need to get the ball out to the wings with speed.
Something to keep your eye on when we play at the weekend.
Take a look at this example.
Gedson is wide right and Alderweireld has the ball at the back.
Clear space for Gedson to work in as a result of a narrow defence.
No need to play the ball sideways to then be sent to Gedson or into midfield to wither go backwards and then to Gedson or midfield to Gedson.
Alderweireld does indeed ping the ball out wide rightinto space ahead of Gedson for him to run into.
From here Gedson controls the ball, steadies himself and plays a brilliant ball into the onrushing Son who disappointingly doesn't hit the goal from a few yards.
A cross ike this gives our play an added danger, something Aurier rarely supplied with his hit and miss crossing.
Encouraging that Son was angry he missed it.
The cross, in behind the defence from a deeper position, a bit like Eric Dier used to play them when he was playing right-back, deserved a goal.
1 comment
Your points are totally accurate. For years we've had slow passing and slow movement, which all stems from a slow brain...