Exactly. Do you think One of those buses Chelsea parked was the one they decorated to commemorate their C L win in 2007. Oh wait .....
Brentan Rodgers
- Thread starter The Neviller
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No. This is the sort of thing manager after manager comes out with when Mourinho does this to them, and yet it keeps on happening. There's a reason for that: he is employing an effective and thought-out strategy, and they are failing to recognise and tackle it, preferring to hide behind the 'their football was just too negative for us, what can you do?' attitude.
1. Only 8 shots on target out of 26 shots is a poor return. The reason: Liverpool couldn't find a way through, and were forced to optimistically shoot from difficult, long-ranged positions.
2. Of those 8 shots on target, most offered very little threat for the same reasons.
3. Yes, Schwarzer had some saves to make. But the goalkeeper is also part of the plan: he knew that he wouldn't have to deal with breakaway attacks from Sterling, Suarez and Sturridge. He knew he'd get plenty of protection from crosses and corners thanks to the likes of Ivanovic, Matic, Azpilicueta etc. He knew that the main threat he'd be dealing with was frustrated shots from range, so he was well-prepared, and dealt with the few dangerous ones very well.
4. This is the key point: Yes, the first goal came from Gerrard slipping. But this excuse is given every time Mourinho plays this approach. 'They only scored because...' Of course the goal has to come from something, and it isn't going to be one of waves and waves of gung-ho attacks. But the fact is that Mourinho knows how to make this approach yield goals. Ultimately the Gerrard error wasn't even needed for Chelsea to win the match because they scored a second, and that one was straight from the Mourinho shut-up-shop textbook:
More and more defensive players are brought on as Chelsea are forced deeper and deeper. They play with less and less attacking intent, but always one fast, clever player introduced with fresh legs in the last half hour - Willian, in this case. With fewer Chelsea attacks, Liverpool become complacent. They camp higher and higher up the pitch in their desperation to get the goal that they feel they are so close to getting. Then Torres comes on fresh and razor sharp in the last ten minutes, and you get to this situation where almost any mistake by the Liverpool players will probably lead to a Chelsea goal. It sounds insane when you say it like that, but it's true, that's the trap Rodgers let his team get caught in. Their defenders have completely abandoned any kind of positioning, because all they've had to do for half an hour is pick up and recycle the ball when Chelsea head it out of danger. Torres and Willian are both almost in line with Liverpool's last line of defence. One error, one bad Liverpool pass or good interception from a Chelsea player - and this is not unlikely because Liverpool are trying to play so fast and in such tight spaces now - and a goal for Chelsea is almost inevitable. Suddenly, two Chelsea players are miles from any defender and the keeper can't do a thing about it.
It happens every single time Mourinho plays this approach. It even happened with the players who learnt this approach under him, when Di Matteo did it against Barca and Bayern. Anyone saying 'Chelsea only won because Gerrard slipped' doesn't have a clue what they've just watched, and isn't paying attention to the pattern.
Chelsea's first goal should have come from than handball pen. Gerrard slip just evened out the luck dippers got there.
Fully agree. Great post.
Had a right spastic yesterday didn't he, only needed the draw and the league would still be in their hands. Both goals conceded because he/they committed into attack too much. They allowed themselves to become frustrated as well, a good comparison to how Chelsea dealt with PSG in the 2nd leg.
The great Barca sides have found it hard to break through when teams sit back like that, you can look at Pep's and Rijkaard's teams who have found it hard to break through. One thing Mourinho specialises in is shutting out top class opponents, very few do it better.
Most of you won't remember 1989 when they were sitting comfortably 1-0 down at Anfield to Arsenal. They were all going " two more minutes lads " to each other and the rest is history. 'twas a marvellous night
I had a hunch they'd lose. Too much pressure to go forward and finish off the league in style at home. And if anything Mourinho putting out a 'weakened' team (code for 'a better suited' team) made their chances of winning even slimmer.
For this game they were a victim of their own recent success.
Had the game been at Stamford Bridge, Liverpool would probably have gotten the point they needed.
For this game they were a victim of their own recent success.
Had the game been at Stamford Bridge, Liverpool would probably have gotten the point they needed.
Good man, Brightonian. Enjoyed reading that.
Incredible that some folk can't see the woods from the trees when it comes to Mourinho. He wouldn't be my first choice to get the job at United, but the man is a master tactician and trusts his players 100%. I love how the media and rival fans fall for every word he says; everyone associated with Liverpool - managers, players and supporters fell hook, line and sinker for his orchestrated guff all last week - whilst behind the dressing-room walls at Cobham, Mourinho was instilling the belief in each and every one of his players that his approach was going to succeed. Players whom the media would label "second-string" are completely and utterly entrusted by Mourinho to go out and get the job done. Tamas Kalas. You haven't played a senior game of football for ten months? Not to worry, son, you'll have the game of your life and Suarez, Sturridge and co. won't get a sniff off you. Ashley Cole. You haven't played regularly in months but I trust you to go out and have two world-class displays in the space of five days.
The players truly and utterly believe and savour every word the man says.
It's simply incredible.
Yeah, I agree all teams get lucky sometimes but they were only winning because of luck in the last few weeks.
Sakho doesn't deserve to be in the probably shit bracket.Any Scousers want to re-visit this little debate now? There was a lot of guff spouted the last time it reared its head...
Iago Aspas?
You didn't address the point I made one bit. You basically just spent a few hundred words explaining to me that parking the bus is an effective tactic. Yeah, no joke it's effective, that's why Greece won a Euros, Inter won every CL they've ever won under Herrera and Mourinho, why Chelsea won a CL. No joke Mourinho's a great manager too, I pointed out the exact same thing in this very thread this morning.
My entire point is that Rodgers still approached the game in the right way. PSG approached the first leg vs Chelsea in Paris the same way and came away winning 3-1 with Mourinho looking a bit silly. Sometimes you park the bus and it doesn't go for you and letting the opponent have all the ball in front of your box results in you conceding three goals. The same thing happened when they lost to City in the FA Cup.
Parking the bus works, that's why Liverpool lost. Because their players couldn't find a way through and missed chances, while individual errors allowed Chelsea to score. That isn't Brendan Rodgers's fault, he approached the game in the same way multiple other big teams who've had good results against Chelsea this season have unfortunately his players performances (not the tactics, Rodgers doesn't control the players with strings while they're on the pitch you know?) weren't good enough, much like Atletico's weren't either. That doesn't mean Rodgers got it wrong.
Any Scousers want to re-visit this little debate now? There was a lot of guff spouted the last time it reared its head...
Iago Aspas?
Rodgers didn't sign most of those players including some of the successful ones like Sturridge (who he didn't want). He's the coach, he isn't the guy behind the transfers.
It's undeniable that Jose did a job on Rodgers yesterday IMO. Throw in the fact Mourinho is also juggling a CL semi final while Brendan has a clean schedule for this game, it's a big big disappointment for the Liverpool manager personally.
Yes. People can go on about it being one match and all. But Chelsea were missing half their team, had a CL game 4 days back and another one in 3 days. Liverpool were at home, in form and win was way more important for them than Chelsea. It could not have gotten easier for them.
He's ground out wins at the start of the season.
He's shown he can blitz teams with goals.
He's played a controlled possession game.
He's played a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-2-1-2, 4-4-2, 3-4-1-2 and probably others.
Your point was that Rodgers approached the game in the right way, and your evidence for that point was 1) the shots on and off target, and 2) the fact that Chelsea relied on Gerrard's error to win the match.
I've demonstrated that the shots on and off target only support the idea that Rodgers' approach played into Mourinho's hands, so was obviously not 'the right way'. And I've shown that not only does the second goal mean that Chelsea obviously didn't rely on Gerrard's error to win the match, but a goal of that sort was almost inevitable, very much a part of Mourinho's game-plan and made possible, once again, by the fact that Rodgers played right into his hands. Watch that second goal again and, knowing how often Mourinho has engineered exactly that sort of late goal, tell me Rodgers didn't feck up. Where the hell is the defence, the defensive positioning? They've been seduced into completely forgetting about it by the illusion of an impending Liverpool breakthrough.
So tell me how I haven't addressed your point, hmm?
So then, how should Rodgers have played? How does anyone play against the parked bus? I'd love to know how you're smarter than Guardiola, Rodgers, Villanova and the many other people who lose to it.
The real irony is that Liverpool only needed a draw. That's what makes Rodgers so naive in all this, he didn't see the giant banana skin in front of him and blundered straight into it. All he had to do was have his team sit back and play out what would probably have been an extremely tedious 0-0, and the title would still be in their hands.
Pretty obvious fallacy to suggest that unless I'm a better manager than Rodgers I can't point out that he got it wrong. I don't have to know the solution to a problem to see that someone else hasn't got it right.
Formations and styles of play arent quite the same thing. Bayern, as of the last couple of months anyway, have played every formation under the sun but they only play one way.
As for grinding out wins early this season - that was just mediocre form, not quite the same thing. What Chelsea did yesterday was grind out a result.
Show me a game then where someones taken on a top side who are parking the bus. Who applied a hugely different approach and were really successful doing it?
Why? Are you suggesting that Rodgers failed yesterday because it's statistically impossible to overcome the tight defensive strategy? It's never happened in the history of the game? Is that your argument?
No, we generally got a goal and sat back for much of the game. It wasn't poor form.
So you can't? No surprise there then, I'll let you in on a little secret. There's no magic style of football which counters teams who park the bus, especially when it's done by top level teams.
I'm saying there isn't a better way to overcome teams who park the bus than just dominating possession and trying your best to score with a mix of long shots, crossing and trying the thread the ball through the eye of a needle, which is what Liverpool did. If you're unsuccessful then it's not the managers fault, just like it wasn't Rodgers fault yesterday. All he did is exactly what every manager who's ever encountered the park bus has done - Attack them and try and score.
Liverpool failed to do that, but that's the players fault not the fault of Rodgers. If one team is going to sit there and defend like that all you can do is try and score. It's what Guardiola did vs us a few weeks back, what Simeone did last week, what Scolari did vs Greece in 2004, what Heynckes did to Chelsea in the UCL final.
Those are not stupid managers, they're all great managers, some of the best ever but there's no special instructions you can give to players that lets you break through when a world class side is parking the bus. All you can do is try for 90 minutes to keep shooting, keep crossing and keep waiting for the mistake. If there isn't one and nothing works and you don't score that is not the managers fault, it's the players.
When Guardiola went to Chelsea and Iniesta scored in the last minute then Barcelona undid Chelsea and their bus parking failed, but it had nothing to do with Guardiola and everything to do with one of Barcelona's shots finally going in. Chelsea did the exact same number to Barcelona than night that they did to Liverpool and Atletico in a 7 day period, only unlike Liverpool and Atletico one of Barcelona's long shots went in, there wasn't any variation there or anything special they tried.
Good post. One point I want to mention that you didn't really cover in any great detail is that part of the genius that is Jose Mourinho is the conviction with which his players always carry out his tactics down to a tee, and that's why it works so well. Part of it is obviously because he picks players suited for the tactics he lays out, but seeing players who are not necessarily considered defensive minded stay disciplined and only break forward and out of the defensive shape very sparingly really gives you an indication of just how much persuasion he has in regards to his game plans.
And it's not as if it happens every now and then. Think about when they played us at Old Trafford at the start of the season. Or when they played City at the Etihad, where I thought Demba Ba coming on in the 93rd minute or so only to sprint into the box and pick up the near post while defending a corner, and heading the ball out of danger, was a great example of that.
Contrast that to what we've looked like under David Moyes this season. He is a manager generally known to set up solid teams that are hard to break through, but we've looked like anything but that throughout the season. I'm convinced the biggest reason for that in fact isn't that David Moyes simply didn't have a clue what he wanted the players to do, but he didn't have enough conviction within the group of players to make them stay true to his tactics.
From what Rodgers said, during the corner two centre backs went up when one should have actually stayed back therefore that was an error. An error that likely would not have happened if the game was still 0-0 (no Gerrard slip) as those defenders only went up because they were losing and so desperate to get the draw.
Watch the first video of Rodgers' interview and from the point of 1.00 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27092978
His reasoning seems to be he wanted only one to go up (they were gambling to try and get something from the game) however another went up also, implying had it been 0-0 then they would not have done that.
That said, I agree with what you are saying. Mourinho came to win and his team would have looked for the goal needed, he would have been proactive in finding a way to make this happen also.
And Rodgers should have spent the week preparing for the parked bus with a plan of patience, the long shots seem to be evidence of no patience on Liverpool's part.
If he had to resort to long shots because there was no way through then this could have been strategically planned, Steven had averaged 1.9 shots this season per game yet in the second half alone he took 8 therefore somebody who has taken more shots (Suarez) should have been the one shooting. This from Gerrard wasn't planned anyway, he just didn't know what else to do. Yet some say he is better than Scholes, but surely somebody on Scholes' level would realise the solution is patience, calmness and trying to create chances not wild shots against a Keeper who has probably trained all week for them.
I'm of the same opinion as yourself.
From Jose Mourinho's wikipedia page:
"Mourinho sought to redefine the role of coach in football by mixing coaching theory with motivational and psychological techniques."
All the media fawning over Mourinho is a bit ridiculous. Chelsea won because one of our players lost his footing - nothing else, unless Mourinho was playing with a vodoo doll in the dugout.
He completely out foxed Brenton. It was a master verses novice performance, brilliant from Mourinho, he asked a lot of questions and Rodgers had none of the answers as reflected by the clear cut scoreline.
Don't have anything to add but just thought I'd say great post, sums it up perfectly. Unfortunately people are too focused on results - if a manager loses his tactics are at fault and if he wins his tactics are perfect, even though it's rarely as clear cut as that. Sometimes they can set up their team right and still lose, I think that's what happened yesterday.
Iniesta got the chance to score that wonder goal because of a mistake on clearance by Essien. If he clears it properly, they in all likelihood they would have seen it out. Every footballing strategy relies on some form of luck, but to make it out as if that is all there is to it is wrong. Chelsea since 04 has always had the best collection of players needed to absorb any kind of pressure and take advantage of any counter. It is not a new strategy and has been used by several teams in footballing history.
All this talk about Mourinho being defensive, but his record against the big teams this season is outstanding. Had he gone attack minded they would have had no chance at that league this season. Same way Liverpool would have no chance playing defensively. He's done the correct thing this season. If you cant beat it, get better.
Besides, Chelsea's away performance at City was one of the best this season.
Besides, Chelsea's away performance at City was one of the best this season.
True. It was also the worst ever referee performance which handed Uefalona a spot in final when Chelsea should have had multiple penalties. It was hardly park the bus. In fact, Chelsea's 2012 attempts are more of park the bus type.
Everyone bloody knew what Mourinho was going to do, but Rodgers still set his team out as if going all guns blazing for the opening half hour was going to work. Rather than sitting back themselves and trying to draw them out, Liverpool pushed higher and higher up the pitch, basically inviting a counter-attack. They didn't even have to win the game; a draw would have been enough.
Rodgers has had one tactic all season. Send them out to sprint around like headless chickens for half an hour, and hope to grab a few goals. They've regularly conceded multiple goals, even against the shite teams. If they get to half time and they aren't in front, they don't have a clue how to approach the second half because they're all too knackered to keep playing the same way.
They also might have actually had a better chance at scoring had Stevie Me not shat himself after falling over. One of the most unprofessional performances I've seen from a captain, especially one so often lauded for his leadership ability. Clearly wanted to be the hero again, but rather than actually playing football he was too busy fantasising about ticking a boo.
There might not be a sure fire way to beat a world class team that's set out not to lose, but not losing would have suited Liverpool down to the ground. Rodgers played right into Mourinho's hands, and while we're all going to piss ourselves over Gerrard's slip, if Liverpool don't win the league, it'll be down to Rodgers and his tactical naivety.
Rodgers has had one tactic all season. Send them out to sprint around like headless chickens for half an hour, and hope to grab a few goals. They've regularly conceded multiple goals, even against the shite teams. If they get to half time and they aren't in front, they don't have a clue how to approach the second half because they're all too knackered to keep playing the same way.
They also might have actually had a better chance at scoring had Stevie Me not shat himself after falling over. One of the most unprofessional performances I've seen from a captain, especially one so often lauded for his leadership ability. Clearly wanted to be the hero again, but rather than actually playing football he was too busy fantasising about ticking a boo.
There might not be a sure fire way to beat a world class team that's set out not to lose, but not losing would have suited Liverpool down to the ground. Rodgers played right into Mourinho's hands, and while we're all going to piss ourselves over Gerrard's slip, if Liverpool don't win the league, it'll be down to Rodgers and his tactical naivety.
You seem to be suggesting Rodgers spent much of the week preparing strategies to counter the parked bus / buses.
- I'm not sure why he would instruct a player that has averaged 1.9 shots per game (Gerrard) to take 8 long shots in the second half alone when perhaps a player who has taken far more shots this season (Suarez) would be suited to the role. If this was not the gameplan he should have put a stop to it immediately when his player deviated from the gameplan.
- Also, I'm not sure why he would ask for crossing when that's what the Chelsea team were expected but instead just patiently pass it around the box trying to lure the opposition out of position. He needed only a draw however if it is so he was risking the title (losing the game) so he could win then I do not think that was the right decision.
- I'm also not sure why he would not have prepared his players to deal with the frustration tactics on a psychological level, something that in my personal opinion affected Liverpool's rhythm.
- Furthermore, in a game where Liverpool needed only a draw, I'm not sure why he didn't employ a form of provocative possession where he would pass the ball much further back forcing Chelsea out of position, baiting their defence, knowing a draw is enough therefore such a tactic is enough also.
I got the impression Rodgers wanted to attack against a tactic designed to absorb such an attack and create chances on the counter and from set pieces. Schurrle forced a top save from Mignolet and Kalas should have scored from a corner. Had Ba actually flicked the many balls up to him into the channels then one of the wide men were waiting ready to pounce, flying down an exposed flank. Mourinho also set up to win, Rodgers, with his tactic, seemed to attack water with fire considering Jose needed the win but Brendan merely the draw.
I personally think he could have prepared the team a little bit better. Mourinho's men carried his instructions out to the letter, now either Liverpool also did and so Rodgers must accept some fault for not giving the right instructions or Liverpool did not where also Rodgers must accept he hasn't drilled his team to be as disciplined as Jose's.
Please understand I am not saying Rodgers didn't do everything he possibly could to prepare the team for the game because I did not observe his preparations. I do think however, tactically, playing more defensive should have been the plan in the event the team were to be faced with a parked bus, considering only a draw was needed. It did appear to me that Liverpool tried to play as they always do however Chelsea kept breaking up play and frustrating them preventing momentum from building.
It annoys me that his name is still spelt incorrectly in the thread title.
Yes.
Riveting response Detroit.
Nah, it's entirely apt:
Rodgers said:
It was 0-0 with very few chances on either side after half an hour wasn't it? Chelsea didn't look like creating anything to me, maybe hope to get lucky with a long throw but Liverpool were very comfortable until the slip.
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