There is no "narrative", nor am I trying to "legitimise" anything. I am merely interested in looking at what has actually happened and not whitewashing history.
Yes, Chelsea finished 10th. But I think everyone agrees that last season was a complete anomaly, a statistical outlier. It remains a mystery to many.
But if you take that aside, in the two seasons prior, Chelsea were third and first, and the third place finish was a very close one in which you were in the title race throughout. The team had grown accustomed to challenging for the title, and had actually won the title, with exactly the same core of players such as Courtois, Costa, Hazard, Fabregas, Willian, Matic etc. The only real additions to the team this season were Alonso and Kante. So it is not like Conte inherited a mid table side who had no prior experience of challenging for the title.
Mourinho on the other hand inherited a UTD side that had finished 7th, 4th and 5th, with no involvement in any title races in the prior 3 years. The core of the team had to be rebuilt, with new additions such as Mhkitaryan, Bailly, Pogba and Zlatan, all of whom are key elements of the "new" UTD team.
Yes, Conte changed Chelsea's formation and all that. But is that really so groundbreaking? Or is it just receiving a lot of attention because the team finished in a false position last season and the contrasting optics are especially visible even though, looking at the last 4 seasons (including this one) linearly, what is actually happening is that last season was an anomaly, and Chelsea are simply returning back to how they normally would have been anyway?
Guardiola changes formation regularly from game to game, but because City didn't finish 10th last season, maybe it isn't getting that much attention as compared to Conte?
Like it or not, Conte has inherited a ready made title challenging squad, that actually did win the title (albeit one that had a horrific blip). He made them win again, but all he has done is restored them back to their "normal" level - he isn't making them play at a higher level. It's not like he is leading the league with Leicester or anything. And who built the foundations of this title challenging squad? It was none other than Jose - majority of Conte's key players were signed by him.
You may not like it but it's the truth - not some conspiracy "narrative" that has been hatched to legitimise Mourinho.
Its not too much of a mystery why chelsea finished 10th last season. The idea that the main reason (some say only!) Is because the players downed tools is just lazy.
The title winning defence of the year before was Ivanovic-Cahill-Terry-Azpi. The wingers were expected to come back back almost as wingbacks as the fullbacks essentially tucked in to a 4 man cb line when we didn't have the ball. Terry and Cahill were heavily protected.
Last year, Jose tried to play football like we did at the start of the title winning season until December. When matic was on fire and Fabregas was running matches with Costa and Hazard. The 5-2 loss to spurs changed everything. Defensively, the team became so nervous afterwards and the entire league campaign afterwards was based on essentially having 4cbs and wingers than tracked back as fullbacks. Oh, and then give the ball to hazard and hope we win the game. That was the pattern from January onwards.
When Mourinho tried to play the more expansive football pre Spurs loss, a few major differences occured overnight. Ivanovic did not age well and seemed to be one of those players who decline almost overnight. Cahill was no longer protected with many players around him, neither was Terry who were playing a surprisingly high line at the start of 15/16 because of how much higher the team was playing. Without Hazard tracking back, Azpi had to leave Terry's side and deal with winger and fullback.
Matic hadnt played a decent game since he almost had his leg broken in the Burnley match the year before, the main thing which suffered was his tackling. Fabregas seemed to go the similar route to ivanovic in that he just couldn't keep up with the leagues midfielders. The Man city game at the bridge showed just how easily somewhat speedy players could walk through the midfield last season.
Our defence and midfield was a shambles. A mix of players who were not physically up to playing premier league football when they werent sitting deep without the ball and then countering into space. It didn't help that the club had a mini tour right after the season finished and then started pre season witha two week break. Players like Costa and Hazard came back fat.
For the most part i dont blame Mourinho. He was very unlucky to have a number of first team players he relied upon to become physically useless or have some weird mental block (matic). But he was far from blameless and showed some of his shortcomings as a manger.
Though he was unlucky not to get the players we wanted in the summer (Pogba and Stones) it would have been just a shambles with stones anyway and there is nothing to suggest Pohba would have helped the defensive problems in any meaningful way. His misuse of Felipe luis was so stupid. He sold him back to atletico after only giving him a handful of games and didnt target a replacement. When Ivanovic went awol, he couldn't move azpi there because he had a lb. So he had to play the young Brazilian winger there at times!
He didnt know how to stop the confidence slide the players went through, his main tool has always been confrontational, to light a fire in their belly. This looked pretty quickly to be a situation where that won't work but thats all Mourinho knows. When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
But the biggest drawback he has is that he simply isn't the best at coaching a team to play better possession football. Dont get me wrong, he can play attacking football, but mostly it ia direct football which kills teams. Our build up play was pathetic last year, they had slide so much down the confidence slide they seemed to be scared of the football. They over thought and second guessed every touch. What was needed was someone who could work specifically on build up play, but Mourinho didn't seem to have any idea on how to do that. He was even been on record as saying that the team that wins is the one that makes the least mistakes which underlines how focused he is on counter attacking football. Honestly, if you were to have the managers of the top 6 teams coach a pub team for a week to improve their build up play, Mourinho would come up last by a mile. But that shouldn't be a huge problem for a top premier league team. Give him good players that already have most of the tools and he'll win trophies baring all of the unlucky stars like last year aligning.
Sorry for the long post, but last year really grinds my gears!!
and has more protection. Luiz has time on the ball and is away from the action where he makes mistakes. Hazard doesnt need to track the fullback. Kante gets to play the position he did att Leicester. Pedro gets to be closer to Costa as Moses has fullback. Attacking players stay dangerous, defensive players stay solid. You had nothing like this with th 4231! The performances and results have been night and day largely down to what the formation has done for the players.
