The thing is, in essence to me, crystal clear and it has to do absolutely with tactics and only that..
Pellegrini's attacking flair style of football, which he exhibited in villareal, is suiting madrid's all-time style and their fans expectations about football..
On the contrary Murinho, may be a master tactician, but the tactics he employs are 1000% defensive, or lets say better "have your back fully covered, and we see what happens upfront". This was perfectly exempified last season in camp Nou and the ultra-defensive positioning of inter on the pitch. Murinho at the post-match conference went on to make an astonishing statement, which sums up some of his views about football: "We didn’t want the ball because we lose our position – I never want to lose position on the pitch so I didn’t want us to have the ball. We gave it away".
Murinho's 'sitting back deep and tight' neccessity was not a problem and was applied with great success in porto (which is a club easily drifted towards whoever is the coach), chelsea (who had not seen a league title for so many years before murinho) and Inter( same case + italian all time defensive style). Given that he had great attackers upfront and his ability he created leathal counter-attacking sides, but able to win weak opponents with just attacking... But i am doubtfull whether this can be applied to MAdrid..
CApello proved efficient with boring,defensive football 3 years ago and yet he was sucked.. Perez has the same mentalite as the average fan of the club, and wants attacking football.
This leaves many question about pellegrini's dismissal and murinho's appointment in the first place and may be leaving murinho himself with questions..
How else could you explain the fact that he denied himslef and gave the game to barcelona with his ludicrous decision to play with such a high defensive line in camp nou ? The man is maybe bothering himself about how is he going to shape madrid..
What we have seen for madrid this year is high line positioning and quick counter-attacking football.
Pellegrini, employed a more possessioning type of football (which was devastating in LA Liga, but prone to cohesive quick sides like Lyon), and IMO had he stayed this year woulb have been much harder for us..
Madrid will definetely not reach 96 points.. They may eliminate Lyon though and go up to a CL semi-final as this style is more efficient in home-away games..
Ok ..
First Jose' Madrid has more possession than Manuel's Madrid
second , Jose didn't employ any defensive tactics with Real this season not even vs Barca, so basing your post based on his history with other previous teams while discussing the current season and with Real doesn't apply .
Third and most important for you , Manuel was sacked not because of his style of the game but his clear failure in all the "Must win " games , that happened in the Copa (scandalous ) ,Vs Barca twice and in the CL along with other "prestigious " games like vs Milan in group stage.
his reactions (or lack of ) from the bench condemned him , we are not facing a normal competition here but a cut throat vs the strongest team in the planet. so losing such crucial games are not acceptable .
add to that through out the season he couldn't establish a style.. we saw 4-5 formation tried until the first defeat than he switch ..compared to the clear ideas' of Jose's 4-2-3-1
If you disregard the classico and even the Copa defeat and go to the game Vs Lyon ... there is no excuse considering the gap between both sides and even than and with such resources Manuel couldn't master a change in Real fortunes despite having 100 % backing of the strong man Valdano .
At the end he had his chances and Valdano protected him several times after the Copa and the CL but the display in Santiago Bernabeu vs Barca was his ticket out.
you could wait for a manager who can improve things but Manuel problem is clearly losing the tactical battle in cut throat games and in that Mourinho is better even with the 5-0 blip
Great post. Mourinho cant establish an "everyone against us" mentality if the fans arent on board with him too, and there are obvious examples which show Madrid fans woudlnt be happy with his style of football.
At the same time though, would they be? Question to Gio, would you rather see Mourinho employ his normal style to Madrid? Winning must surely just be the ultimate goal now, scrap any of the shit that means you have to look good.
At the end of the day, why would you employ a manager who has reached his success employing a certain style, and then force him to change it? If Madrid are smart they'll let Mourinho just do his thing, imo. Which they arent.
You cannot establish an "Us against them " in Madrid not even if u tried cause people and fans know the club popularity in almost every part of Spain and the world and we always had our haters and fans so it's nothing you could sell to Ramos,Iker even the likes of CR who lived here for a year before Jose.. maybe pull it with the new guys and could explain the success of Di Maria and Ozil but not the old guards .
plus it's a case of a club bigger than personal, those who came here came because it's Real Madrid not because it's Jose coaching (probably with the exception of Ricardo ), Mourinho in Madrid case is a plus but not the reason.
Jose style is actually very commendable , they like him in the Bernabeu , he play attacking football and even got praise for his game style from arch-rivals like Cruyff.
getting worked out for his statements doesn't bother anyone .. he is not the first to employ that tactic (see Schuster ) so again it's not biggie .
Jose cannot employ his normal style in Madrid , he knew that the moment he took over, scrap that the moment he was offered the job and he made his wanted list based on 4 attacking players , short passing , counter attacking and defending from the front..
Till Higuain injury we had big success as Higuain pressured the defender than came the injury right before the clasico and even the goals scored decreased dramatically
make no mistake Jose may refer to his tactics in one game or two but as long as it's an exception not a rule and brings success no one will mention it or be bothered by it ..
there is a difference between applying this in a cup must win game and making it your style (similar to what Capello pulled in his first 5 month ) and even than Fabio had to switch on the style in the last 14 games which saw end to end drama back to back till we won the game .
I appreciate some of what Jose is trying to do (not all of it ) but to compare him with Pellegrini is a bad comparison in terms of abilities as a manager... you won't have doubts about people suggesting to give Jose more time 2-3 years .. you know he will deliver sooner or later .. but ask those same people about Manuel and the answer will be the opposite
