Mourinho’s Monday Night Master Class

Or maybe it should be:

'Mourinho’s Manchester City Massacre'

You may think a 1-0 score line doesn’t justify the use of the word ‘massacre’, but few of the statistics of this game are a true reflection of the scale of the victory. 

Looking at the numbers, any neutral would be excused for thinking that Chelsea had parked the bus and nicked a lucky goal on the counter attack.  When I first saw the line up before the game, with six defenders in the eleven man starting line-up, I too thought that Mourinho may have reverted to the Sam Allerdyce 19^th Century tactics in order to tame the Manchester City beast that has been ravaging any Premiership side that dares set boot on the Etihad turf.  City had won their previous 11 league fixtures at home and had not gone without scoring at the Etihad since November 2010.

Aside from the opening 20 minutes of the match, I can honestly say Chelsea was the better side (yes Manuel Pellegrini, the best team DID win), playing with solid and purposeful defence, as well as energetic and penetrative offense.  Nemanja Matic, who had his first league start on his return to Chelsea, managed the perfect balance of cautious protection and assertive attacking. The Serbian not only effectively neutralised the threat of the prolific giant Ivorian midfielder, Yaya Toure, but he also nearly doubled Chelsea’s goal tally when his long range shot rattled the bar (he was not the only one to play chopsticks with the goal posts, Cahill’s header and Samuel Eto’o’s strike also clattered the bar).   Although Matic was awarded ‘Man of the Match’, the accolade could have been given to a handful of Chelsea players: Gary Cahill threw everything and the kitchen sink at the 2011/12 League Champions; Eden Hazard impressed as always but did so with a new found belief;  Willian ran his Brazilian socks off with even a little more vigour (if possible) than his fellow countryman Ramires;  Petr Cech  made two tumultuous saves;  Azpilicueta made the immensely dynamic Jesus Navas look pedestrian at times; Branislav Ivanovic scored a thundering centre forward goal with his left boot from 25 yards out as well as throwing his marigolds at Cahill’s kitchen sink;  David Luiz played an uncharacteristically  controlled game, shadowing the dangerous David Silva; Eto’o put in a shift and JT conducted the eleven man band to play the perfect Mourinho symphony.   

The much hailed Portugese tactician, who masterminded the unexpected defeat of ‘the best attacking team in the world’, played down his role in a post-match press conference when he insisted that ‘Billy the masseur’ had given the team talk in Manchester before the game – when asked what Billy had said, Jose laughed saying he hadn’t understood a word of the Scottish shouting but the players must have as they had applauded the 'Billy rant'.  Perhaps Jose could have put Billy and his ‘team talk’ in a cab to nearby Old Trafford in order to assist the masseur's fellow Scot David Moyes, who is in need of some inspiration – even with the return of Rooney and Van Persie from injury and the addition of Juan Mata, Stoke city managed to defeat United for the first time in 30 years.

Enough with the Moyes bashing!  Going back to our glorious victory, I am embarrassed to admit I have not been so euphoric about a win since our Champions League campaign under Roberto Di Matteo.

My younger daughter’s Spanish boyfriend (who is now living with us and already complaining about the standard of ironing of his shirts – must admit that my busy schedule as a football fan means I have no time for ironing, so I sent his shirts out to be ironed!!!) has just pointed out to me that Swansea City have sacked their League Cup winning manager, Michael Laudrup – I am sorry it didn’t work out for the Dane – some say Swansea’s European campaign was the undoing of him – all I know is that in the last few weeks he has been looking like a broken man – I hope this is just a blip in his managerial career and not the beginning of the end.  Maybe in two days  time the club may reinstate him – isn’t that what Leeds did with Mcdermott?