He prepared for this job 5 months in advance behind the scenes, he identified the weak spots and tackled them precisely. More to come for sure... we will be fighting for the title again from next season, maybe even this season if she drop some points.
I'm very impressed and it probably shows that a lot of the signings at Chelsea were made without his approval or were his second or third choice signings. But here he's been able to sign the players he wants and they've made a massive improvement on the team.
Mourinho said it would be easier to replace 22 players than change the mentality of the players. I expect the deadwood to be chopped during the summer with a few drifting off during the January transfer window.
Bailly looks to be our best defender by some distance. Pogba our best midfielder. And Mkhitaryan our best attacking player. I bet if Mourinho were being honest he'd happily replace the majority of our squad, because other than a handful of them, there's a vast amount of room for improvement.
When all the people were calling for his head I said he would need time. You are right, LVG was way too extreme... getting rid of half the team is bad for team spirit and also starts you from scratch, players have to start new friendships and learn who they can trust etc.
He has done very well in not selling and bringing in a few players to form part of a backbone.
He will bring in more top players and truly cement his own team during the summer with the players that don't make the grade being shipped out.
The squad does seem to be (finally) taking shape under him and you can't really fault any of the signings he's made so far, Bailly in particular has been a revelation.
I've been quite critical of Mourinho for several reasons but I do like that he didn't decide to come in and wield the axe when it would've been easy for him to do so. I think one of our biggest mistakes under van Gaal was the way we hemorrhaged players in his first summer without adequately replacing many of them.
Bailley or Stones
Mykytarin or Sane
Pogba or Gundogen
Zlatan or Nolito
Definitely we have done better immediate business. I'm curious to see their Brazilian Attacker... but I'm also curious to see who we will go for in the summer.
