By Daily Sports on February 14, 2017

It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle ‘too black’. Jose Mourinho, the manager of Manchester United has sought to undermine Chelsea’s title charge by labelling Manager Antonio Conte's Blues as too defensive and pointing to that as the main reason why Chelsea will win the league this season.

Perhaps needless to say, this is classic hypocrisy. The same Mourinho who has so mastered the dark art of bus-parking, a style of play anchored on mass and deep defending and on which most of his trophy-laden career has depended, is now aiming shots at another manager who seems to have succeeded in making Chelsea fans more willing to embrace a more united and promising era, away from the successful but often chaotic years of the self-styled ‘special one’.

It would be interesting to see what the comparative statistical analysis of Mourinho’s Chelsea first year of success and Conte's tenure so far would reveal in terms of ball possession, passing accuracy and tackles made would reveal but this current Chelsea team are far more exciting bunch to watch than the team of Mourinho’s first year in charge. The passing combinations have been beautiful and one cannot argue that Chelsea have played as deeply in defence without offering much upfront as we have seen of Mourinho’s teams over the years.

In terms of successful tactical innovation, the Premier League has certainly witnessed it in Conte's 3-4-3 formation. After giving his boys the benefit of the doubt by allowing them to play with four defenders at the back as they had become generally accustomed to, Conte put his mark on the team after watching them struggle with consecutive losses at home to Liverpool (1-2) and a 0-3 loss to Arsenal at the latter's Emirates stadium.

The 3-4-3 formation of Conte relies most of the time with just two natural mid fielders in N'golo Kante and Nemanja Matic. Then there are three centre backs and two flying wing backs providing ammunition for three strikers. This can hardly be described as a mass-attack and a mass-defense style as we see the wingers bomb up to join the three strikers to make a five man attack when Chelsea have the ball, while the wing backs fall back deep to make Chelsea have five at the back when they need to defend.

All coaches try to stay pragmatic adopting tactics that they are more at home with and one that will not guarantee them a win. Conte is no different the beauty about his game plan is in its innovation in the EPL. He should be praised for that.

We can see what Mourinho is trying to achieve by this subtle ridiculing of Conte’s style. He’s simply trying to unsettle the Italian and draw him into an unnecessary defence of his tactics. The Italian did well to dismiss Mourinho after last Chelsea’s weekend’s draw away at Burnley by rightly stressing that he has no time for such mind games.

Source Daily Sports

Posted February 14, 2017

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