FC Barcelona and former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez reflected on the loss to Chelsea FC last season in the infamous Steven Gerrard “slip” match and claims that a Blues player he spoke with had misgivings about the tactics employed by Jose Mourinho. Suarez claims that in this conversation he had with the unnamed Chelsea FC player, said player told him that he only followed his manager’s tactics because that was the only way he would be on the pitch.
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While all that sounds completely unbelievable, it is a nice little story that Luis Suarez has cooked up to help sell some more copies of his new autobiography. The most important thing about football is winning and that is exactly what Chelsea FC did when they made that trip to Anfield to help end Liverpool’s title charge.
Luis Suarez on Chelsea FC’s tactics on that day at Anfield:
"“The only thing I didn’t like was the way that they wasted time from the very start. I was asking myself: ‘Why are they doing this from the first minute?’ Wait, didn’t you just say you didn’t mind when a coach plays the way he likes? It’s been a whole pause for air, but make up your mind already. I even asked one of their players. ‘What do you want me to do? If he makes us play like this, I have to play like this. What else can I do? If I don’t, I won’t play. What would you do?’”“We had gone into the game knowing that a draw was good for us. With the atmosphere at Anfield, with the fact that we had just beaten [Manchester] City, our attitude remained the same: we wanted to win. But we were conscious of the fact that with a draw we were still ahead of everyone. What I didn’t expect was for them to play for the draw. It’s true that they won the game but I am convinced that without that stroke of luck, they would not have scored.”“Mourinho knew: if you waste time, if you break it up from the very start, they’re going to get frustrated, they’re going to play a bit more crazily, they’ll do anything. They pulled us out of our normal routine. And, of course, we never imagined the slip and that was what truly made it hard for us. Nor did they. You can’t plan for a player to slip.”Source: The Guardian"
Luis Suarez expressed confusion with Jose Mourinho’s tactics but then later says that he understood why they were deployed. Mourinho was trying to slow down Luis Suarez and the Liverpool attack and frustrate them in to making a mistake and that is exactly what they did. Rather than playing the game with Chelsea and playing for the draw which would have effectively given them the title, Luis Suarez and Liverpool pushed forward like mad men and were left exposed when their captain made a mistake.
Rather than just staying within the parameters of the match and adjusting their tactics, they chose to be arrogant and tried to push too far forward against a side that was set up to defend and counter attack. Mourinho’s tactics worked precisely as intended and Luis Suarez should be pointing the finger at his own manager for not making the adjustments necessary to at least get a point from this match.
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