- Sep 28, 2013
- 16,163
- 25,473
Possession stats are nothing. They had over 700 passes while we clocked over 300. They did not have many ideas to get through our midfield as Mourinho set up to overload the midfield area without us pressing, so we did not create spaces of opening for them to build up the attack through the middle. Probably a third of those 700+ passes were made between their back 2 & 3, trying to get us to press from front and exploit the spaces that opened up.Is it just me?
The comments I've read seem pretty satisfied with today. How is it possible to be satisfied when.....
- we had 33% possession in a home match
- for the first 75 minutes the only time we competed for the ball was in, or on the edge of, our own box
- they had the time to do exactly what they wanted with the ball with virtually no pressure from us
- the only 'attacking' idea that we had was a hopeful punt upfield
I've read and heard that we deserved a point. Did we fuck. We parked the bus for 75 minutes and only when we were getting desperate (and two subs came on) did we even try to compete higher up the pitch and try to play some football.
Audere est facere?
Not today.
I wasn't too please TBH with us not pressing but I think Mourinho was really urging the front players to resist from pressing them and wreck the shape. But Dele and Lucas did very well in their harassment, allowing us to gain some possession back and scared some shit out of their CBs. On times they failed, both of them got back to shape very diligently. Hence I really disagree to quite a great extent on people's complains of Dele's uselessness. Mourinho knew he is a very smart player. His hardwork is not running 20km per match. His hardwork is understanding the match and play to the gaffer's instruction.
For us to have 10 goals attempt and 4 on target with 33% overall possession all the more showed how probable we were than the scousers in capable of scoring. And the last 30 minutes when we were so close to snatch a point and could even went on to win the game as we swayed the momentum to our side was a testament to how tactically we were better, slightly, in goals expectancy, only to be let down by the final ball.
You can bet with some upgrades and returns of some players, we may only play slightly better in possession football, and that may disappoint you and some others, but we will be very more effective in scoring and winning games. Like the thrashing against Burnley, that to me and some others, are way more exciting.