Come on, those sort of incidents will be given 0 times in 1000 games.
It's a penalty if you go by the book.
A case of selective memory I guess. There is in average probably one foul off the ball in the penalty area per game and I've never seen them given.
No, it would be suddenly interpreting the rules in a weird way.
Reality sometimes is stupid ... unfair or whatever you might call it but at the end it is the only reality.
They are not the only team that does that though. Barcelona under Guardiola used to do that regularly in the opposition half to stop counter-attacks and his Bayern do that a lot now too. City do it in games also and I remember Wenger complaining about it after the game (the fixture back in September) when it was used against his team. Madrid have done it over the years too and I remember them doing it during that run of consecutive victories earlier this season.
I knew people would say this. The only game I can think of where the praise was OTT for De Gea was the Arsenal away game. All those saves were pretty routine yet apparently he had a blinder. De Gea was harshly criticised when he first joined whereas Courtois has people falling over themselves to praise him ever since he arrived in England despite the fact he has done very little. Our game against Chelsea in October was really bizarre. He made a few catches unopposed underneath his crossbar and Gary Neville was saying how dominant he was. He got MOTM even though he only made one decent save.Believe me, I haven't touched a play station in about 10 years. It's not about whether it was the right decision or not, it was just an example to sum up what Mourinho is all about. His approach is always safety first no matter what the situation. It results in highly efficient teams who barely ever lose. I just feel that if you have the finances, status and profile of a big team, you owe your fans a bit more than efficiency. It is of course fine on the occasional game but with Mourinho it is his go to plan whenever things are slightly tight, it's a bit small time as far as I'm concerned which I believe Chelsea are not and should not be satisfied with.
And their away record in the CL under Guardiola wasn't so great. Sometimes teams in great form that are playing great football can make away ties look easy (like Madrid last year and Bayern the year before) but in general caution is sometimes necessary. That said I do think Mourinho is too defensive for his own good sometimes and while it has gained him success, I also think it has cost him at times (I think being defensive this season cost him victories against United and City away and almost vs Liverpool away where they dominated most of the match but late on started defending deep and as a result Liverpool grew in confidence and started creating more and should have had a penalty late on). Some of his great triumphs have actually come from being risky and going for the kill (like his Inter beating Barcelona 3-1 and when his Madrid team beat Barcelona 2-1 at the Nou Camp to seal the title in 2012, his instructions were that if Barcelona got the equaliser to keep attacking and go for the winner and that is exactly what happened).
