Mourinho is heading in that direction. He hasn't said that exactly but the sentiment of his interviews is that we especially are being hard done by.
Nah. His complaints have always been about English clubs vs other countries in terms of scheduling. Or vs clubs that aren't playing in Europe at all.
So that's complaints about almost all the other clubs. In fact as we stand right now it's a complaint about every other club except Leicester. That seems very much like Mourinho is suggesting his team is being treated differently to everybody else.
We're in the Europa League. It's a massive inconvenience. Which bothers him.
It was something like "you want us to go to Middlesborough with Nicky Butt boys? What would Sunderland say? Hull City?"It's like me moaning to a homeless guy that I've run out of quinoa (which I have).
It is a real inconvenience, no doubt. But it's not like it has come out of the blue. It's not a new scenario, he should have prepared for that. The fact is that for commercial reasons, the FA will not bend for anyone and should not if we are going to be unbiased. Any English club that is in the EL will face this problem. If you buy oranges, be ready to deal with the seeds.
That's about the way continental clubs are more likely to have games rescheduled by their local associations than English clubs. The PL is uniquely intransigent in this regard. Again, these are facts.
So you're saying you'd rather he moaned less and just got on with it? Me too. Doesn't make his objections any less rational.
No, I'm saying that there isn't anything to moan about. It's more making excuses than moaning imo. It is what it is and always has been.
Must admit that I did have a little snigger when I heard him say this.Anyone else have a childish giggle when they heard Mourinho refer to the U23's as 'Nicky Butt boys'?
He's not alone on this. Some old whiny Scot moaned about it too.
Complaining about fatigue whilst having players in your squad who can't get a game isn't particularly rational. I enjoyed his interview, made me laugh, but not all of it made sense.
Of course it's rational. Assuming he didn't sign those players and doesn't rate them. Which is obviously the case.
He might not rate them for the bigger picture but surely he doesn't think Shaw, Carrick, Fellaini, Schwein and Lingard can't handle Rostov? He's played most of them against better teams so that doesn't stack up. He's spoken favourably of a few of them. Then there's the games he needlessly played the big names or kept them on for the full 90. Mourinho just doesn't want to take any kind of "risk" with his selection. He's always been like that.
he played Lampard for every game for almost 3 years . Eventually even Lampard cracked. In his last spell he continually played Ivanovic who was dreadful but
Yeah exactly. I'm not even a fan of constant rotation, I like consistency in the lineup but he's had plenty of opportunities to rest players. He can't choose not to and then moan about fatigue. A big chunk of this is self inflicted.
3 days. Late kick off leading messy home traveling trip. Arriving at Manchester from London at 4am. That's enough to disrupt resting pattern of regular John for his daily work. Here an entire football team. Why was late kick off? Just because FA wants their money (maximize profit).
Did Conte field a weak team vs us in FA Cup? Look at Tottenham team that last few round in FA Cup. Same with L'pool in semi final in League Cup. We're trying to win it. SAF teams challenging in big competitions so he decided to drop the smaller tournament in order to do that, that counting EL we got into once upon the time. Do we have that benefit in this season. Notice that prior to the Rooney Ronaldo, Rio, Vida, Evra... generation; SAF also fielded strong team in smaller competitions with minor rotation. Co92 players played a lot of games.
He played his strongest possible team in a game which might be our best route to CL football next season. Shocking, right?
But every game is crucial now. Sunday is arguably just as important. Fergie rested players for the Arsenal semi in '99 whilst chasing a treble. Mourinho can't bring himself to do so against Rostov, at home, with an away goal in the bag. When you're that resistant to rotation you can't complain about fatigue.
No different to Sunday-Wednesday with CL.
Debatable. For those of us that believe top 4 is too much of an ask, it isn't. IMO, we sealed our fate last week.
Rostov scores one goal could potentially drag the game into extra time (We was run dried on Monday & had travel problem). We only scored our goal deep into second half. What if we couldn't score at all with playing a weaker team & Rostov leads (possible playing against direct physical team full of energy)? The next day the press would run with Manchester (include City) legends collapsed, which left us & City with top 4 trophy to play for (City to chase a Mickey Mouse cup while we already won 1).
Well, they need to be trusted to play first right?
