Mourinho's treatment of Blind was disgraceful!
It was inevitable, though, wasn't it? You know, with his physique. Still, after an impressive season prior, he could've gave the Smalling-Blind combo a run. I don't think they played together once. Unless it was in a 3, that was.
Completely agree with this - Daley and Smalling was the best defensive pairing post-Fergie, yet Mourinho binned him because he was a Van Gaal player. Moronic.
I'd say they were our best since Rio-Vidic for sure. They complimented eachother superbly.
He sold Blind for absolutely no reason - he was actually defensively the reason we won the Europa & just binned him after everyone came back from Injury.
He was my MOTM in the final. Against Ajax, it was one of the few times under José we looked amazing defensively and Blind was at the forefront of that.
Players are good & yet they will be binned for random reasons such as work rate or mentality or just being different to him. Lindelöf then replaced him doing a worse job.
People were likewise fooled in to thinking that Perisic was wanted to play LWB whilst Martial plays as a striker - he was bought in to purely drop Martial because he is just not a Jose player like Blind was.
What happens when perisic doesn't come? Sanchez becomes available and drops Martial in arguably his best form. If Sanchez did well here Martial would be out.
Whilst every manager has favorites & a type of football - the fact that he was willing to get rid of Blind & Martial - shows to me that he prioritises strength & height & physical tenacity more so than pure technical ability & intelligence.
Can't disagree with any of that.
Blind is on another planet to Lindelof. He mucked in, genuinely defended well and was actually good with the ball. It was one thing that Van Gaal got right.
This bloke is shocking at defending and it was visible from his very first pre-season. You know a proper defender when you see one (or at least you should). Lindelof needs binned while we can still make some money back.
Car crash signing.
Completely agree. Not only was Blind a much better defender (even against big CFs he used his intelligence to stay one step ahead of them so his physique was never really an issue), he was also twice the player on the ball Lindelof is. He was just better at everything, really.
Also,
@The holy trinity 68 no one blames Lindelof for the result. It's just, to me anyway, a pain watching him start alongside Smalling when we had a player who was not only better, but had a proven understanding with Smalling yet was never given the chance to play alongside him for a run despite it being our best CB combo in yonks.