Mourinho is facing fresh tactical dilemma for Chelsea trip
Defensive set-up may still thwart Sarri’s Blues so United boss will probably stick to his guns
WHEN Manchester United’s internationals returned to Carrington this week, there were fist-bumps and more than a few jokes. You might even say there was a sense of fun.
And why not? All things considered, this has maybe been the best fortnight for the club since April – when they delayed Manchester City’s title party with that 3-2 comeback and then beat Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup semi-final – and that’s not because of the sardonic note that they haven’t played.
The club have instead finally been allowed bask in a good result for more than a few days without another setback, with the stirring nature of the win over Newcastle United stunting the talk about Jose Mourinho’s prospective sacking, and just making everything more serene.
Struggling
It was also a fortnight where so many previously struggling players enjoyed a sense of progress. Anthony Martial was on fire against Newcastle, Marcus Rashford scored so effortlessly against Spain and Luke Shaw signed a significant new contract.
These young attacking players will be on a buzz.
So, what happens next? What happens today at Stamford Bridge?
Does Mourinho go with it, back them and capitalise on it with expressive football… or does he constrain it?
Given his history with Chelsea, as well as the potential cost of any defeat, it seems highly unlikely he’ll take the risk. It’s difficult not to think he’ll at the very least play a countering approach, with Martial at most deployed in the Samuel Eto’o role of auxiliary full-back as much as wide forward.
That’s just Mourinho’s inherent nature and when it comes right down to it, he is perfectly willing to negatively affect a game so as to not negatively affect his reputation.
That is of course the complete opposite of the man now in charge at Chelsea, the man he must outmanoeuvre today.
“Ours is not a sport, but a game,” Maurizio Sarri said at his Stamford Bridge unveiling.
“Anybody who plays a game started doing it as a child for fun, and the child in us must be nurtured because this often makes us the best. So to create play that is fun is the first thing to obtain a style for a high-level squad.”
That is what Sarri has been trying, and already having some success with. Chelsea are not just on a winning run, but on a feel-good run.
There was then that other feel-good story from international week, that anecdote about Jurgen Klopp from Sarri’s interview with ‘Corriero dello Sport’.
“Just 10 minutes earlier, I saw Klopp looking at me with the game going on,” the Italian said of a moment during Liverpool’s recent 1-1 at Chelsea.
“I asked: ‘why are you smiling?’ He replied: ‘Aren’t you having fun?’ I said: ‘So much’ and he added ‘me too’.”
The exchange on the touchline is likely to be rather different for this big-six game, and reflects this great difference about how the game in general is viewed.
There is growing evidence, however, that this emphasis on “fun” is no longer just a transcendent philosophical difference.
It might now feed into what is fundamentally best practice in the modern game.
It barely needs to be said that we are in an era where attacking football prevails, and is rewarded.
Goal averages in the Champions League have gradually gone up in the last decade, with Pep Guardiola’s 2008 appointment at Barcelona and reimagining of pressing-possession football initiating a profound tactical evolution in the sport, to the point last season was the highest-scoring ever.
It is similarly the proactive attacking teams regularly winning the major leagues.
Many might point to the example of France claiming the World Cup with counter-attacking football reminiscent of Mourinho’s best but the international game is now tactically way behind the club game.
That is both down to the limited time coaches have, and the limitations of the coaches, given that all the best managers naturally migrate to the greater rewards of the club game.
That has, in turn, led to greater goal returns in the club game, since the best managers have naturally adapted to the prevailing trends.
Intense pressing, and the energetic excitement it inevitably brings, is the prevailing trend.
The effect of this may go even deeper, since there is growing evidence a willingness to let teams express themselves – and play – fosters a connection with a more exuberant young generation of players.
The relevance here to Mourinho, and players like Martial and Paul Pogba, again barely needs stating.
There is then the cumulative effect of all this: a sense of excitement and enjoyment around entire clubs, that feeds into the stands. It just makes it fun, creates a sense of hope.
That creates some change for Chelsea. This is the expansive football that Roman Abramovich has long wanted, and it is ironic that a configuration of circumstances – not least an apparent inability to get the kind of big-name, big-winning manager than they usually do – has led to what might inadvertently be the Russian owner’s ideal chance. And yet there is still the sense Chelsea are some way off Sarri’s ideal, not quite expressing themselves and interchanging to the level he’d like, not quite pressing with the intensity he like. They’re still on a learning curve, and that could create another irony.
Amid so much talk of fun, it might again be in United’s best interest, in the short term, to sit deep and spoil the game. Chelsea may not be advanced enough yet to get around such a defence. It might just play into Sarri’s hands to let attackers like Martial and Rashford play.
Along such lines, Mourinho would fairly insist there’s no enjoyment or fun like the feeling of winning. It’s just, in the long term, it seems a sense of fun might now be the best route to winning.
Chelsea v Manchester United, Live, Sky Sports, 12.30