Chelsea talking tactics: Jose Mourinho the same in every category

Chelsea again face a Jose Mourinho Premier League team as his topsy turvy post Chelsea career continues. Meet the new Mourinho, same as the old Mourinho.

When Mourinho signed with Tottenham, there was a narrative that this time he has truly changed for real. His time off allowed him to reevaluate his ideas and return as a newer, better version of himself.

That was, of course, pure Mourinho. Nothing has changed. The tactics are roughly the same, the mannerisms are the same, it’s nothing new. A club can take Mourinho in and he will usually start one way before the cracks start to appear.

Tottenham still largely set up in a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 shape. Off the ball, they look to constrict the opponent as they invite them on before countering with blistering speed. Even when they are expected to have most of the ball, they look to stretch the opponent vertically to create more space between the lines to attack at pace.

As always, Mourinho teams are extremely well drilled defensively. Offensively, he still relies on his players to make the right individual decisions. This makes the attack far more fluid than it would be otherwise but it also eventually becomes Mourinho’s greatest weakness.

An attack like that depends on confidence. Back when it was Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, Mourinho was able to criticize them and see them rise to the challenge. Players like that are rarer now and this story has played out at every club since his second Chelsea stint.

He needs his attackers to be confident and trust themselves, but Mourinho’s propensity to criticize players when they make a mistake causes them to fall further into their own hole now. He needs his attack to do well to succeed, but every time he criticizes them for doing poorly, they simply do worse. Eventually it comes to a head and he is sacked.

That’s not to mention the scapegoating. Mourinho seemingly always picks a player or two that seemingly should be playing a ton and he ostracizes them. Whether this is to put his foot down and show he is the boss or it is a marker for other players along the lines of “it can happen to anyone so don’t be the guy” remains to be seen. Since returning to the Premier League, Juan Mata, Paul Pogba, Tanguy Ndombele, and now Dele Alli have all faced the same treatment.

This again leads to the spiraling of Mourinho’s teams when he relies on them to save him. Essentially, he is using them as human shields in situations mostly of his own making. Every time he joins a new club now he acts like he has moved past that, but it is only a matter of time before the next person in line is made an inadvertent martyr to his cause.

None of this is to detract from the fact that Mourinho, even now, is one of the world’s best managers. He simply has a consistent half-life at teams and those signs are already appearing at Tottenham. Even should he defeat Chelsea, it is merely a battle in the war. And Mourinho oh so rarely wins the war anymore.