Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho settled his score against his former club Chelsea on Easter Sunday, and avenged a lopsided defeat that his club suffered earlier this season in October. He accomplished this with a masterpiece of tactical brilliance, where he kept coaching ’em up every step of the way, fighting hard the entire way.
He gave a lot of interesting answers in his post match press conference (you can watch the video and read some transcripts from the session at this link) after the 2-0 victory that kept United’s hopes for a top four finish very much alive.
Mourinho lost the first meeting against his former club in October very badly at Stamford Bridge. United lost again 1-0 in the FA Cup quarterfinals last month In that match, the Red Devils were reduced to playing with 10 men.
This time though, Mourinho made the adjustments and figured it out. The Portugese explained his tactics:
“I want to say I was convinced even before the cup that controlling the two players that played behind Diego [Costa] — sometimes Hazard, sometimes Hazard-Pedro — controlling the position of these two players, and controlling the full-backs because they go really deep with two wide men, would create them lots of problems.”
“And I repeat the same: They are phenomenal in counter-attack, and when they have the ball it’s more difficult for them and when they have the ball we are compact and when they try to play counter-attack we were always in control of these link positions.”
“Diego is very dangerous but the two link positions are the two positions we have to control. We did that at Stamford Bridge when we played with 11, with 10 it was more difficult and today we control.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and NBC Chicago.com, contributes to Chicago Tribune.com, Bold, WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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