We struggled against teams that parked the bus and defended deep and compact, that’s usually the small teams but happened to be Chelsea yesterday, they played exactly like the smaller teams we struggle against (not a criticism, it’s very smart from them).
What’s our tactical issue when our entire team is sat in their half but can’t break them down? What should Mou do differently? The issue is that our players don’t have the movement or quality to break teams down, it’s as simple as that. I welcome anyone to suggest what different tactic we can use against a team with 11 players parked right in front of their goal. We don’t have width because we don’t have wingers, even when we play wingers it’s just Martial who runs toward the box and sees 4 players ahead of him and turns to pass or fails to cross. We don’t have the players who make late runs into the box like Delle Alli who can unsettle a defence and get on the end of good passes. We don’t have players who can play quick football in tight spaces, God knows Sanchez tries and Lingard is ok at it but no one else really can do it.
You can blame the recruitment sure, but you can’t say it’s not the players fault. Mourinho can be blamed for a lot of things, game against Sevilla for sure. But when he comes up against a packed defence I just don’t understand what people see that is his fault. When literally our entire team is in their half and everyone apart from our cbs is in their final third, it’s not like Mou is parking the bus. If you think he’s purposely telling them to pass slowly and not make runs that’s stupid, Mou knows how we need to play but we don’t have the players to do it. We don’t have Sane or Sterling, Salah or Firmino. We didn’t even have Lukaku for most of that game who’s like the onlyyyy striker who creates space in our team.