FOR me, the first thing Mourinho should do is to reorganize his team from the back, as if I never said so before. At least half of the back four are malfunctioning at the moment. Mou has to send the influential duo of captain John Terry and his assistant Branislav Ivanovic on at least two-week all-expense paid holiday in the Caribbeans to clear their head.
In their place Cesar Azpilicueta should move back to his natural right full-back position leaving room at the left for new signing Baba Ibrahim and youthful Kurt Zuma at the centre. Yes, these boys will make mistakes, but who cares since the Special One himself has tacitly conceded the league cannot be won again, though he assured a Top 4 finish was still within their reach. Time will tell.
Chelsea can’t buy their way out of this current predicament as January is still some three months away. Yet, they need to start amassing points or even the “sure” Top 4 finish could become a mirage. So the man to dig them out of this hole is the same person who put them there in the first place, Mou. I mean it wouldn’t make any sense to sack him now, which is probably why he unwisely dared the club to dispense with his services.
It’s good he has a fortnight to ponder a way out of this mess, thanks to the coming international break. And for me, Chelsea will need to start from avoiding defeat first, a tactic which Mou is a world-acclaimed master, rather than start looking to win matches at least to regain their battered confidence.
I’m not in any way insinuating that Chelsea’s problems start and end with Terry and Iva, no. But as Mou himself will tell anybody, his impressive success stories were written boldly on solid defending. And given his backline has conceded at least two goals in seven of eight league matches this season, the odd one being the contentious 2-0 win against Arsenal, the rebuilding work has to start from the back.
Stop leaking goals and the Blues would start winning matches, climbing the table, slowly but steadilly.
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