The theory that Jose Mourinho doesn’t ‘allow’ our players to attack...

Mourinho avoids risk like its the plague. He'd rather be secure in a 0-0 than gamble on trying to go 1-up and potentially falling behind 1-nil.

  • He sets the team a lot deeper
  • Would rather play 2 DM than 2 AM
  • Doesn't seem to believe in his midfielders getting forward to support the attack
  • All players worry about their man 1st rather than having their man worry about them
So even if he coached attacking,boy does he make it hard for his attack to function to its full potential.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Penna
This year Eden Hazard is the best player in the league. Under Mourinho he went a season without scoring and was dropped.

Last year the best player in the league was Salah. When he was breaking through Mourinho questioned his work rate and shipped him out.

The best player for the champions last year was De Bruyne. Didn’t work enough for Mourinho’s system.

We have a player who was formally voted as the worlds best young talent. A player who was at one point the worlds most expensive player in his prime. A player who is the youngest (maybe second youngest) to get 100 premier league goals. All of these players look poor going forward. Our goal scorer at the end yesterday has been one of the best players in the league for years and is now dropped.

There is clearly an issue with Mourinho and getting the most of his attacking players
 
Marcelinho87 said:
Disagree.

I do think he limits our attack and the static movement is down to instruction as they proved yesterday they can pass and move quickly.
Click to expand...

You're right about him putting defensive duties on most players but what bothers me is that when we attack there's the lack of movement. I rarely see our players running in channels, especially the ones that have pace. Mata tries to do it alot but he's pretty much our slowest player. Lukaku stands in one spot and lets the defenders swarm him, Martial stands infront of defence waiting for a ball at his feet. We rarely see overlaps from our full-backs, Sanchez moves alot but he's been so poor and wasteful since he arrived.

Our midfielders rarely enter the penalty box which is 100% on Mourinho but that our attacking players are so static is not. Most teams will play deep in their own half against us, if we don't stirr things around in their half it's really hard to create anything.

Alot of our problems fall on Mourinho, but not all.
 
dmode said:
Tons of super experts here... in Mourinho I trust. :)
Click to expand...
:lol: Yeah why bother thinking/evaluating/analysing at all..in Mourinho I trust. That’s exactly the argument for keeping Jose comes down to - blind trust.
 
Lukaku: "The way we how we did it in 2nd half is the way we should always play football. That's what the fans want to see, that's how we want to play. I don't know why we play like this but at the end of the day we've won the game so we have to move on!"

https://t.co/SrzKSJrnwJ
Click to expand...
Lukaku saying this certainly makes it sound like the tactics are restricting (not to mention it not being the first player to speak out about us not being allowed to attack basically)
 
acnumber9 said:
He isn’t scoring goals from left back is he? If a player performs better under a manager than he did under another then what do you take from it? If you want to criticise for bad form you have to credit for good form.

A manager wants his players to play for the team? Well I’m shocked. What would Alex Ferguson say? Giggs and Beckham never had to work hard defensively.....
Click to expand...

True. Ronaldo was always tracking back for SAF. Working hard and just being stuck in your half marking your opponent is two different things. Mourinho even parked the bus against our LVG team infact he parked the bus against Moyes, had Schurrle upfront lol.

But your right attackers love his tactics.
 
el3mel said:
@Rozay I remember disagreeing with you last year on Lukaku, but you were proven right and now more and more you're starting to become one of my favorite posters to read their posts here. :D
Click to expand...

Why thank you sir, too kind! :)
 
Mainoldo said:
True. Ronaldo was always tracking back for SAF. Working hard and just being stuck in your half marking your opponent is two different things. Mourinho even parked the bus against our LVG team infact he parked the bus against Moyes, had Schurrle upfront lol.

But your right attackers love his tactics.
Click to expand...
Those players have done some job scoring goals from their own halves then. Don’t let pesky facts get in the way of an incoherent ramble.

Attacking player would rather not have to do any defending isn’t the most shocking statement I’ve ever heard. Bye.
 
It really makes sense that a comeback like this happened against Newcastle. Rafa is a manager with a similar mindset. Once Newcastle got the lead he was going to put men behind the ball to protect it.
 
Lukaku is the elephant in the room (but Jose will never sub him as he defends corners).
His missed 1 on 1’s alone have probably cost us 6 points
 
Firstly, Mourinho is not an attacking manager. All the metrics confirm that we don't push forward in numbers the way our rivals do.

Secondly, the fact that the implementation of whatever our attacking plan is supposed to be, is a reflection of the poor coaching and management of man in charge. "Players have poor touch, vision yada yada". It's his team. He's failing with his team. The excuses afforded to Mourinho are laughable.
 
bosnian_red said:
Lukaku saying this certainly makes it sound like the tactics are restricting (not to mention it not being the first player to speak out about us not being allowed to attack basically)
Click to expand...

He is the main problem. He won't move and he can't control the ball and he is always on his back foot.
We started playing well only when Lukaku was shunted out to the right.
 
broccoli said:
Does anyone really believe one of the most successful manager in the history of the game doesn't coach his teams how to attack? Really? What do you know about football?

His Real Madrid side had one of the most complex attacking systems of the time. Teams just couldn't deal with quick overloads in midfield before unleashing a player with space.

What attacking patterns do you see with Spurs for instance? Cross, second ball, rebound to Kane and Son or Lucas Moura beating their man?

People conveniently forget that if the players are not mentally up to it, they can look amateur and like nothing works. See Conte first and second season.
Click to expand...
When a team is poorly managed they look amateur, not mentally up for it and nothing works. That's us and the job Mourinho is currently doing it.

Great effort in making every excuse possible for him, though. He's amazing and it's everyone else's fault that he isn't meeting the mark. Justice for Jose.
 
It’s a bullshit theory. Mourinho is just extremely demanding of his players, but only as demanding as you should be at this level. Our players just can’t execute this consistently, cause they either aren’t good enough or don’t want it enough.
 
Kazi said:
It’s a bullshit theory. Mourinho is just extremely demanding of his players, but only as demanding as you should be at this level. Our players just can’t execute this consistently, cause they either aren’t good enough or don’t want it enough.
Click to expand...

If that was the case Mourinho should have signed players who were good enough and wanted it enough.
 
Marcelinho87 said:
Yes.

Do you think that Mourinho has no input on how we attack?

I believe he likes his men to stick to position and this causes the rigid static attack we currently have.
Click to expand...

I believe he doesn't coach the attackers full stop, I believe he leaves it up to them to figure it out on the pitch, to do it off the cuff, rely on a moment of magic and I believe this clearly doesn't work

To suggest he tells Lukaku not to move though is total and utter bollocks and to suggest he likes players to stick to positions wouldn't explain Sanchez last season always dropping deep and getting in Pogba's way and the likes of Lingard and Mata always coming centrally when they're deployed from the right
 
If Mourinho is an attacking manager then Sarri, Klopp and Guardiola must have two heads. Mourinho is an attacking manager like Conte and Benitez are attacking managers.
Utter nonsense.
 
charlenefan said:
I believe he doesn't coach the attackers full stop, I believe he leaves it up to them to figure it out on the pitch, to do it off the cuff, rely on a moment of magic and I believe this clearly doesn't work

To suggest he tells Lukaku not to move though is total and utter bollocks and to suggest he likes players to stick to positions wouldn't explain Sanchez last season always dropping deep and getting in Pogba's way and the likes of Lingard and Mata always coming centrally when they're deployed from the right
Click to expand...
Former players have said he concentrates on the defending and as you say relies on a moment of genius from his forwards. You have to have a genius to do that.
 
It's not so much about him not 'allowing' our players to attack. I actually have no doubt that he wants us to break and attack significantly faster and with more threat than what we do.

The problem is that whatever he has been doing hasn't been working, but he's largely just kept doing the same thing. Sure, he's changed formations from 4231 to 433 and occasionally something else, but it's obvious we haven't had any real change to our general style of play. We sit off quite deep and let the opposition attack us, and then we want to break and counter-attack them. That isn't working? Let's just move some players around and continue doing the exact same thing. The biggest change we generally do to our style of play is to push Fellaini up high and try to find his head/chest. That's as far as it goes unless we have a situation like against Newcastle where we've got no choice but to throw everything forwards.

We had a similar thing with LVG. He had an idea in his head about what he wanted, and if he'd been able to get that idea to work it would actually have resulted in good football. The problem was threefold. Firstly, he proved unable to get the players we already had working properly within that system. Secondly, he proved unable to buy the right players to make that system work. And thirdly, he proved unable to change to a different system or tactics to get the best out of the players he had.

Mourinho has done better to some extent, but ultimately he is also failing in all three things. Unable to get the best out of the players he started with, unable to buy the right players to get it working (and unable to get the best out of his buys), and with over two years passed hasn't really changed things to improve. You can't fail all aspects. You can get away with failing one or maybe even two. For instance managers like Pep and Klopp seem somewhat unable to change to a different system if what they are doing isn't working, but it appears they ultimately succeed at molding their players to that system (and buying the players to suit) so that it generally works.
 
Rozay said:
Biggest nonsense in my opinion. The likes of Martial, Mata, Rashford and co not showing form because JM doesn’t ‘let them off the leash’. Like, are we just making up facts now?

Yesterday is no testament to an ideal normality. We should NOT typically line up with just one-centre half, Lukaku, Mata, Sanchez, Martial, Fellaini, Pogba on at the same time. That doesn’t mean anything else is negative or defensive.

It’s such a lazy narrative, one of many tbh. Don’t get me wrong, we are not a great attacking side by any stretch, but we are definitely a team that TRIES to attack. We just do it poorly. Players have poor movement, control, decision making, passing etc. Full- backs do attack. Valencia is just useless when he does, for example.

We do line up more cautiously against the bigger sides, which is as much common sense than anything else, but in most games, we definitely try to attack.
Click to expand...

Why does Pogba say that United should "Attack Attack Attack" especially at home at Old Trafford? Because the players keep themselves for attacking?
 
It's just a coincidence most players Mou used to coach happen to score more under different managers/system.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Former players have said he concentrates on the defending and as you say relies on a moment of genius from his forwards. You have to have a genius to do that.
Click to expand...

Indeed, Lukaku for all his apparent studying the game just seems a bit dim and Martial/Rashford and Lingard all bring the inconsistency you expect of younger players. Mhkitaryan/Sanchez were meant to be the ones who brought the spark to the attack and neither have worked
 
Schneckerl said:
It's just a coincidence most players Mou used to coach happen to score more under different managers/system.
Click to expand...

It's not a coincidence no, they're under managers now who coach attacking play

The purpose of this thread though isn't to disprove Mourinho's ability to get the most out of attacking players but to disprove he doesn't allow them to attack
 
It's not a theory but fact.

We always play better when we are behind and have to throw the kitchen sink. Why is that?

We are a front heavy team that plays on the back foot.

When our player starting position is so deep with our wingers playing at full back, our transition is slow af. The attackers are isolated without much support.

Use your eyes.
 
Denis79 said:
You're right about him putting defensive duties on most players but what bothers me is that when we attack there's the lack of movement. I rarely see our players running in channels, especially the ones that have pace. Mata tries to do it alot but he's pretty much our slowest player. Lukaku stands in one spot and lets the defenders swarm him, Martial stands infront of defence waiting for a ball at his feet. We rarely see overlaps from our full-backs, Sanchez moves alot but he's been so poor and wasteful since he arrived.

Our midfielders rarely enter the penalty box which is 100% on Mourinho but that our attacking players are so static is not. Most teams will play deep in their own half against us, if we don't stirr things around in their half it's really hard to create anything.

Alot of our problems fall on Mourinho, but not all.
Click to expand...

Totally agree about the lack of movement off the ball. It really frustrates me to see us not stretching opposition defences. We are like statues.

As I mentioned in other threads, at this level you shouldn't need the coach to tell you how to run off the ball; it should be an instinctive football skill to do this but I am quite sure that all the blame will be attributed to the manager by our fans.
 
Mourinho's priorities are being solid and compact. He is very happy to surrender the ball to any team that wants it because his team's are compact. Anyone that fails to acknowledge that those priorities could sometimes hamper attackers is either delusional or a liar.
Mourinho's worst nightmare is his team turning over possession with space behind the ball. Until he is sure that the risk of that is minimised, only then does he worry about the other side of the game. That by definition isn't an attacking coach.
I have no problem with a coach like that. But our problem is that method simply doesn't work for us because all our best and most talented players are on the other side of the pitch.
Klopp is an attacking king coach, Mourinho isn't and there's nothing wrong with that.
 
Again, by saying Mourinho doesn’t restrict us offensively doesn’t mean I think he is offensively effective. The proof is in the pudding on that front.

But the simple, thoughtless word to throw out about our inability to score a lot of goals is ‘defensive’. The ‘experts’ love to trot it out, and it has become his buzzword. By continually saying ‘he just needs to let them attack’, it actually exonerates him from his REAL failing, which is having an effective plan from an offensive perspective. Again, that’s not the same as ‘defensive’. He’s just (typically)’ better at organising a defence than he is an attack, just like Klopp has been (over the years) better at organising an attack than he is at organising a defence. It would still be moronic to claim that he places less value on keeping goals out, however.

I remember the upturn in Shaw’s performances. Many on the caf simplified it as being ‘what happens when JM lets his full back go forward’. Again, it is this type of theory I have issue with. Firstly, it’s a lie, Young and Valencia got forward plenty last season, and secondly, it again implies that Jose actually DOES know how to get our team to attack effectively, if he wants. THAT is what there is no evidence of. Him playing one defender yesterday is NOT the right way to line up if we want to score goals, and our formation was not too defensive in the first half either. We were not struggling due to having no forwards on the pitch, we are just clueless and devoid of ideas in attack.

There is another modern media created implication that it is a negative to be able to defend well, and place value on it. That is also nonsense. We have had as good a defensive record as any team over the last few years. We should not be made to feel dirty or ashamed of that. In fact, we should be proud to defend well. We just need to be far, far better in attack. 2 seasons ago, we drew about 10 games, battering teams, having 25 attempts on goal and only conceding 1 or 2 chances. We ended those games level.

We are a very poor attacking team, but not because our players really want to go out and score goals but Jose won’t let them. Our forwards either miss sitters, cannot dribble effectively (not because they don’t try due to instruction, Rashford actually tries and runs the ball out of play. He is allowed to play well, he just doesn’t), can’t control the ball and have poor movement. They need better coaching in this area for sure, I don’t deny that, but the ‘defensive first’ thing I don’t buy, except for a select few games where Again, any manager with any sense would respect the attacking threat the opposition pose. Arsenal Wenger was a manager who placed no importance on the attacking ability of his opponent, and that is NOT the right way to play football. He was a poor manager for years for this reason.
 
Rozay said:
Again, by saying Mourinho doesn’t restrict us offensively doesn’t mean I think he is offensively effective. The proof is in the pudding on that front.

But the simple, thoughtless word to throw out about our inability to score a lot of goals is ‘defensive’. The ‘experts’ love to trot it out, and it has become his buzzword. By continually saying ‘he just needs to let them attack’, it actually exonerates him from his REAL failing, which is having an effective plan from an offensive perspective. Again, that’s not the same as ‘defensive’. He’s just (typically)’ better at organising a defence than he is an attack, just like Klopp has been (over the years) better at organising an attack than he is at organising a defence. It would still be moronic to claim that he places less value on keeping goals out, however.

I remember the upturn in Shaw’s performances. Many on the caf simplified it as being ‘what happens when JM lets his full back go forward’. Again, it is this type of theory I have issue with. Firstly, it’s a lie, Young and Valencia got forward plenty last season, and secondly, it again implies that Jose actually DOES know how to get our team to attack effectively, if he wants. THAT is what there is no evidence of. Him playing one defender yesterday is NOT the right way to line up if we want to score goals, and our formation was not too defensive in the first half either. We were not struggling due to having no forwards on the pitch, we are just clueless and devoid of ideas in attack.

There is another modern media created implication that it is a negative to be able to defend well, and place value on it. That is also nonsense. We have had as good a defensive record as any team over the last few years. We should not be made to feel dirty or ashamed of that. In fact, we should be proud to defend well. We just need to be far, far better in attack. 2 seasons ago, we drew about 10 games, battering teams, having 25 attempts on goal and only conceding 1 or 2 chances. We ended those games level.

We are a very poor attacking team, but not because our players really want to go out and score goals but Jose won’t let them. Our forwards either miss sitters, cannot dribble effectively (not because they don’t try due to instruction, Rashford actually tries and runs the ball out of play. He is allowed to play well, he just doesn’t), can’t control the ball and have poor movement. They need better coaching in this area for sure, I don’t deny that, but the ‘defensive first’ thing I don’t buy, except for a select few games where Again, any manager with any sense would respect the attacking threat the opposition pose. Arsenal Wenger was a manager who placed no importance on the attacking ability of his opponent, and that is NOT the right way to play football. He was a poor manager for years for this reason.
Click to expand...
It is rumoured we do not practice attacking drills at all. He just leaves them to it. So do the players ever practice off their own backs? Probably not. It is a recipe for disaster. As they say, practice makes perfect.
 
Adisa said:
Mourinho's priorities are being solid and compact. He is very happy to surrender the ball to any team that wants it because his team's are compact. Anyone that fails to acknowledge that those priorities could sometimes hamper attackers is either delusional or a liar.
Mourinho's worst nightmare is his team turning over possession with space behind the ball. Until he is sure that the risk of that is minimised, only then does he worry about the other side of the game. That by definition isn't an attacking coach.
I have no problem with a coach like that. But our problem is that method simply doesn't work for us because all our best and most talented players are on the other side of the pitch.
Klopp is an attacking king coach, Mourinho isn't and there's nothing wrong with that.
Click to expand...

Yet his team has far more of the ball for most of the games, and lesser teams manage to do equal or more damage to our ‘compact and organised unit’ with far less of the ball?
 
DomesticTadpole said:
It is rumoured we do not practice attacking drills at all. He just leaves them to it. So do the players ever practice off their own backs? Probably not. It is a recipe for disaster. As they say, practice makes perfect.
Click to expand...

This is a failing on his part. In fact, watching us it looks very much like we don’t practice attacking drills.

As I have said, not attacking well is not the same as being defensive. It means we do not attack well.
 
Buster15 said:
Totally agree about the lack of movement off the ball. It really frustrates me to see us not stretching opposition defences. We are like statues.

As I mentioned in other threads, at this level you shouldn't need the coach to tell you how to run off the ball; it should be an instinctive football skill to do this but I am quite sure that all the blame will be attributed to the manager by our fans.
Click to expand...

But, at this level you can not rely on just instincts especially with the advances of opposition scouting.
 
Wish people wouldn't bring RAWK up as they do not let you criticise the team. That is why this is such a popular forum. That is why there are so many Liverpool fans on here. We let everyone have their say.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.