As Mourinho recently described the title race and its contenders as a horse race, the self proclaimed “little horse” and its counter parts have entered the final stretch of the race. The finish line is in sight with only 10 hurdles left and the eventual outcome is well and truly in our control.
As far as the horses go, the “little horse” isn’t really showing any sign of falling away just yet despite its alleged lack of milk and growth. As for the others…punters who have lodged the bets on backing the Arsenal horse might be considering having it put down, just to avoid the pain of yet another implosion and a familiar pathetic limp over the finish line.
In the North of England, the Manchester stallion will no doubt be feeling some pressure knowing that before they next jump a hurdle, they could be sitting in 4th and 9 points behind the “little horse”. No doubt of course, I would have loved to have been in City’s position this weekend of going to Wembley for a piece of silverware. It will be certainly interesting to see how they last the pace with the accumulation of impending hurdles.
Then of course, there is the dark Scouse horse. Probably an appropriate name considering who the main jockey is. Many people who know me, go to games with me or read anything I scribble will know my passionate dislike for Liverpool…but that’s not to say they shouldn’t be disrespected. They may not go the distance but they will play a part in the race, especially knowing they have home advantage against the 2 other horses.
I think importantly at the moment we’re in the best position at this stage. Now some reading this will probably say that’s a stupid and obvious point. To an extent, it is. However, for most part of the season, as long as you’re in touching distance of the top its not really that important to sit at the top. When it comes down to the last 10 games however, it is truly a massive advantage.
The number 10 represents a clear and short count down. Each week you’re sitting top and the games count down, psychologically to any rival chasing you it’s a hammer blow. It’s one less week to make up points with fewer points to play for.
Arsenal will probably be feeling mentally shattered after losing and seeing us win. City probably won’t pay any attention to it until next week. Nevertheless, we know that in a worse case scenario, we could have 8 games remaining before someone gets near us again. Even then, we’re still in an ideal position. That’s huge mentally for us, and with a coach as psychologically adept as Mourinho, it should only spur us on.
On the psychological side of things, I think our players are slowly becoming comfortable with idea that they do have responsibility for what happens on the pitch.
According to Andre Schurrle (who I’ll discuss shortly), Mourinho said one sentence to the team after a flaccid first half: “That’s your shit, you have to sort it out” In the second half, they did!
In terms of set up in the first half, I don’t think we did anything particularly wrong. Our shape was good and in fairness to Fulham (which you will get from a Magath team) they worked hard to make the supply into Oscar, Hazard and Torres very difficult. As a result, I felt that we relied on going a bit long ball to hit space in the channels…not such a good tactic having played a tough 90 minutes in Turkey barely 3 days before. In this situation, you want to be controlling the ball and waiting for spaces to open. As mentioned, credit to Fulham who did prevent that from happening. The likes of Parker, Sidwell and Richardson did that particularly well, which gave the likes of Hazard, Oscar and Schurrle no room to turn.
So what changed in the second half, especially if Mourinho told his players to sort it?
For me, and I’m not 100% if it did happen, but between them they did make a very significant change. Oscar played much deeper, almost as if the midfield became a 3. This pulled the likes of Parker/Sidwell further up the pitch for when Oscar and Ramires went to get on the ball and within 2 passes via Matic; the players who did the damage, Hazard and Schurrle, just floated off the wider areas into the now larger vacant middle of the pitch. This gave them the option to have a direct run at the young and nervy Fulham Centre half (Burn) or slip in Torres.
It clearly worked. The first goal was created by Hazard coming off one wing to create space for Schurrle to be played in. The second goal was again very similar with Hazard having more space to run into and Schurrle just floated off the wing and finished. The third was much more “route one” but still a clever ball by Torres and movement by Schurrle.
Oscar has been given a bit of stick in recent weeks, and even against Fulham. In my opinion, his role in the second half, dropping deep to create space for others was pivotal. He may not have been as effective on the ball, but off it…very clever. Top marks to whichever player came up with it, considering Mourinho told the players to sort it out and roamed the corridors finding out the Arsenal score.
As mentioned further back, players have to take the responsibility on the pitch and today they did. Hazard and Schurrle showed that they had the ability to go and win a game of football when it was tough. If you have that in the locker then that’s a more than useful weapon to have, as well as the team play and creativity of the manager’s tactics.
Schurrle, who perhaps has been a bit unfortunate with opportunities this season, gave the perfect answer to his critics. It’s one thing to have pace to get 1-on-1’s, it’s another to be stone cold in front of goal. German efficiency at its finest. He has been a credit to this squad because he has never hidden away, always worked hard and in truth, not really let us down.
Torres in the last 2 games since returning to the side has made a significant impact to our pressing play…and then there is Hazard, who is developing a world-class attitude to go with his talent.
That was a big victory against Fulham, easily a banana skin fixture. Next see’s our arch-enemy from North London coming to the Bridge. If we win that, which I expect us to; we can sit back and watch the others graft.
In terms of Tottenham, tactical naivety will be their downfall I feel. Sherwood has gone back to basics with Tottenham, which relies quite a lot on them as individuals as opposed to the team and tactical work. I would think they would try and move the ball as wide as they can to attack our full backs and supply Adebayor as much as possible.
In terms of where we will do the damage, between the lines is a definite. I expect Sherwood to continue playing 2 banks of 4, with a player sitting behind Adebayor. That should give us a fair amount of room for the likes of Oscar and Hazard to slip in to spaces between the lines and do the damage. It will also give us an opportunity to drop someone deeper in midfield to control the game and out number the midfield.
Hopefully we come out of some more pointless international friendlies unscathed and continue the gallop to the finish line. We’ve got the manager for the job…we’ve got the quality in the squad for the job. It’s now down to personality and we’re showing we’ve got it in bucketloads!
UTC
By Liam Hawkes
(@LiamHawkes2)
