Not with 0 points against City I think. If we can get 2 draws against them though it might be enough if we can win almost all games against the bottom teams as you suggested. Although that is very unlikely. If we can get some wins and draws against the other top teams and 2 draws against City we will have a great chance to win it though.
Jose Mourinho | 2017/18 Assessments | Poll Added
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Not with 0 points against City I think. If we can get 2 draws against them though it might be enough if we can win almost all games against the bottom teams as you suggested. Although that is very unlikely. If we can get some wins and draws against the other top teams and 2 draws against City we will have a great chance to win it though.
Jepp and also due to it suited to play against Liverpool better. We could have then have Martial closer to Lukaku allowing us to have more threat on the counter. Also we could fall deeper on the wings without us being pushed back far too deep with all 11 players. Yesterday we had effectively 2 players on both wings coming far too deep.
It would also have allowed Herrera to press a bit higher with 3 central defenders in the team that he did so well against Chelsea last season.
Mourinho away record against the top 6 since 2015. His absymal performance against them has become a pattern dating almost 3 years ago.
The Arsenal and Tottenham-games last year was when we put EL first though.
Still a terrible record !
That's such a useless infographic. Collate data from a relatively small samples of games that includes his disastrous final season at Chelsea, combine it with his efforts to fix a club profoundly broken by Moyes/Van Gaal (including games he deliberately gave up on, to focus on the Europa league) and, hey presto, you can convince anyone incapable of rational thought that he's a bad manager, incapable of winning difficult away games. What a load of old cock.
Mourinho away record against the top 6 since 2015. His absymal performance against them has become a pattern dating almost 3 years ago.
But he's the ultimate pragmatist. Or something.
As I was saying...
I didn't say it proves he is a bad manager, or is incapable of winning away games. But his recent record does suggest he is extremely defensive in these games (his teams almost never score), and has very little to show for it in terms of points/results. So how is that pragmatic?
But sure, I'm 'incapable of rational thought'. Whatever.
His "recent record" - as I already pointed out - consists of a train-wreck of a season at Chelsea and the initial season of salvage job at United. So if you're drawing any significant conclusions from a small sample of games within those seasons then yes, you're really not being very rational. At all.
Why doesn't his train-wreck season at Chelsea count? Because it's not in his favor?
Funny how last season is now being called a 'salvage job' by the way. I seem to remember many people (including Mourinho himself) talking up our chances to challenge before it started.
Talk about straw grasping and mental gymnastic to justify an awful record dating almost 3 years back.
And downplaying this as a small sample is an utter joke. We're talking about almost 3 years worth of data here, not some small sample.
There are no ways around this, he's been absolutely awful against Top teams away from home which is something that has become very clear. Arbitrarily deciding to exclude his time in his final disastrous year at Chelsea isn't an argument, it just shows someone grasping at straw and trying to be selective on fact in order to suit one's argument.
And downplaying this as a small sample is an utter joke. We're talking about almost 3 years worth of data here, not some small sample.
There are no ways around this, he's been absolutely awful against Top teams away from home which is something that has become very clear. Arbitrarily deciding to exclude his time in his final disastrous year at Chelsea isn't an argument, it just shows someone grasping at straw and trying to be selective on fact in order to suit one's argument.
Damning stuff.
Mourinho away record against the top 6 since 2015. His absymal performance against them has become a pattern dating almost 3 years ago.
Perhaps we should excuse him this season too. But do we really want to see more of this brutal bollocks next season too, when he's no doubt spent another huge chunk of money?
Those stats doesn't necesssarily tell the whole story. Need to look for details of those matches, such as how he actually set his team up and the circumstances at the time. Last season against Arsenal and Spurs, we were focusing solely on the Europa League. Conceded seconds after kickoff against Chelsea, so the game might've turned out differently if that didn't happen.
How about home stats, though?
The players turned on him didn't they?
How about home stats, though?
And if we go further back to 2013 when he returned to England his record is P18 W3 D10 L5 with 2 of his wins against Rogers.
For someone who is called the ultimate pragmatist, one would think he'd have changed his approach after seeing his park the bus tactics not working but he still stubbornly stick to his negative tactics which haven't worked for years.
For someone who is called the ultimate pragmatist, one would think he'd have changed his approach after seeing his park the bus tactics not working but he still stubbornly stick to his negative tactics which haven't worked for years.
Come on now, we're talking about a big sample dating almost 3 years later. I mean how can you pretend his record isn't awful with a straight face?
We can even go further back to 2013 when he made his return to England and his record is still absymal. P18 W3 L5 D10. Now this is 4-5 years back. Are you still gonna come up with excuses and points to looking at all of those in context?
Numbers don't lie. He has an awful record against top teams away from home.
Here's the top 6 mini league away points gained from last season:
LIVERPOOL 9pts
CHELSEA 4pts
CITY 4pts
TOTTENHAM 2pts
UNITED 2pts
ARSENAL 1pt
Liverpool, were the only team to get more than 4, yet it didn't stop Chelsea winning the league or Spurs and City finishing ahead of them. The fact is that points from games away from home against the top 6 teams are only 13% of the total points available to win. If we can pick up 4 or 5 of them this year, that's plenty. It's not really that big of an issue if we are winning the games against the lower teams regularly enough, which we are this season.
He's only lost five though (and two of those were "thrown" because of the EL).
The question should rather be, do you NEED to win the away games against the top teams? Mourinho's only target is to win the league itself - and if he feels the best course of action is to make sure you don't lose away to your closest rivals then so be it.
Edit: See @shaky's post.
Based on that you could say it is more important to not lose away game at top 6 rival than to win it.
He won the league in the 5-3 season. Granted the City and Chelsea results are shocking, but the Arsenal and Spurs games were around the time we went basically all in for the EL. Not saying it's good but it's not as bad as it looks.
Mourinho away record against the top 6 since 2015. His absymal performance against them has become a pattern dating almost 3 years ago.
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Any other manager in world football would be rightly slated. The stat in itself does not suggest that José is a terrible because it's not the case. But for a big name manager managing a big club, if not the biggest, it is a damning stat and is worth the concern. I struggle to see how anyone can say give excuses or take this as acceptable.
Mourinho away record against the top 6 since 2015. His absymal performance against them has become a pattern dating almost 3 years ago.
I really do hope that this run ended last week.
Here's an even bigger sample if you want. Mourinho 17 years in management, 8 league titles across 4 countries. He knows what he's doing. His job isn't to please everybody. His job is to win things and his methods clearly work.
I think it's a very interesting discussion. I don't believe that anyone doubts that you can get away with losing/drawing in big games provided you destroy the other teams (you'll at least finish in the top four). I think it's just the manner in which it occurs has bugged people, rightly or wrongly.
For the Liverpool match on Saturday, my main concern was that it was (in my opinion) over as soon as Liverpool scored. If Can scores in the second half, that's the game over. United offered nothing and while that might not be fair to blame Mourinho on, it's a bit concerning. It's concerning because it's been seen before (City away last season is a good example). I cannot say that I share this view that United were comfortable. It's very easy to say that after the match - I don't think it's true at all.
Stop talking sense, you'll end the thread!
Indeed. Points gained in home matches against the top 6 teams are going to amount to far more, so if we can deny our opponents 2 points in their home matches against us, we are doing a grand job!Based on that you could say it is more important to not lose away game at top 6 rival than to win it.
But that's the thing though, nowadays you HAVE to win some big away games to win the league. This Mourinho tactic worked in the past because we had a top 4 therefore he had more chances to pick points elsewhere. But it's not the case anymore.
The competition is bigger now, we don't have a top 4 anymore but top 6 and we've seen our rivals are able to pick points in big away games. City themselves are looking very good and I'm afraid Mourinho would have to alter his approach in big away games as to win rather than not lose first in order for us to win the title.
It's a cliche but we just have to wait and see.. It's unlikely that City will be able to keep up their current form though! Next big away match is in about a month, let's see where they are at then.
Yep. You can use statistics to prove anything, forty percent of all people know that.
Seriously though, stats without context are meaningless.
I'm afraid that won't be enough this season. From the look of things City are intent on picking up points away from home against the big sides and are also not letting go of smacking the smaller sides.
The way things are shaping up, it's important that we score couple of wins against the big sides away from home. We just HAVE to.
I don't think the approach was bad on Saturday, the performance wasn't great though but that was more down to individual errors than tactics. I would have far more faith in a manger like Mourinho's ability to change things if we fell behind than someone like Klopp's. If either team had gone 1-0 down, Liverpool would have had greater trouble in coming up with a plan B.
Come on guys. "Stats without context", that is almost 3 years worth of stats. Most of the context people would try to come up with would likely be ridiculous excuses to deflect from a very simple and obvious fact which is Mourinho record and approach against big sides away from home doesn't work.
We can even stretch this 5 years back and his record is still mediocre.
Five years ago he was in Madrid!
And this doesn't bode well for our champions league prospects in any foreseeable future. In there you have to play the big boys at some points and with Mourinho's record there isn't much to look forward to.
I haven't checked yet but his record in the CL in the past 5 or so years since returning to England is probably mediocre to average.
I haven't checked yet but his record in the CL in the past 5 or so years since returning to England is probably mediocre to average.
When he returned to Chelsea in 2013, that's almost 5 years now.
4 years and two months.
I apologise if I'm asking for too much, but may you please make a similar stat for the mini 6 Home record.
How can anyone just dismiss nearly three years of results? As stats go I'd say it covers a much bigger period of time than you usually get.
Agree the big 6 has changed things.
However I don't think Mourinho was always been like this. Definitely got more defensive as time has passed. Meanwhile the quality of his teams has fallen. Not sure the two things together make this approach workable.
Chelsea only beat City away from home last year. Lost to us and Spurs. Not particularly great.
Spot on.
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