Arsenal can forget about Mourinho´s moan! by Sam P
After Arsenal beat Chelsea 1-0 at Wembley to lift the Community Shield yesterday, we all knew that their manager Jose Mourinho would have something to say about the game other than simply congratulating the Gunners on a good game. He did not disappoint of course although there was not much he could in the way of blaming the officials or saying that we were lucky in some way.
So Jose reverted to type and tried to have a dig at Arsene Wenger about our tactics, as reported by the BBC, implying that Arsenal had been very negative, abandoning our lofty football principles while his brave troops had actually tried to play entertaining football and had actually deserved to win.
He said, “We were the best team. We had more initiative, we controlled the game by having ball possession. Arsenal defended with 10 players, they put everybody in front of their own line and they had good organisation, congratulations to them.
“They had a couple of chances in counter attacks but we had ours in organised football. They played their game tactically and found themselves one goal in front without any reason.
“This season the Premier League title is very difficult but it is very difficult for everyone. The way other teams are spending they have big power in the hands while we are the same as last season. And with that we are going to try.”
While Wenger admitted that we did defend a bit more than usual, he declared that this was because we were defending a lead and had that mental block of beating Chelsea in our minds. And although we did do that, the stats do not support the claim by Mourinho. 57 to 43 percent possession is nothing really, especially when you look at the low possession that Chelsea often have in the big games when they only use counter attacking tactics. They had less than 30 percent of the ball against Man United last season and that was at home.
So yes Arsenal did what we had to do but to suggest that we just had 10 men behind the ball, scored one breakaway goal and then parked the bus is as ridiculous as it is laughable. We had five shots on target to their two, the same amount of corners and just three fewer attempts in total. Does that sound like 10 men behind the ball to you?