Mourinho - the new dead man walking

Mourinho: a dead-man-walking

Chelsea were very poor against Leicester on Monday night. Mourinho obviously got his tactics totally wrong and there was a lack of desire to press properly in defence. It was all very odd because these are things Mourinho usually does so well.

Firstly the tactics, Diego Costa had a rotten game because Leicester (like every other team in the league) have learned to wind him up and get him frustrated. It's easy to do because he seemingly has the mental fortitude and patience of a ten-year-old. He couldn't hold the ball up and couldn't do anything really, so he needed help. But Mourinho didn't bring on Remy as a second striker until the 66th minute, he should have made the change much, much earlier. Chelsea also consistently failed to get the ball out wide and put crosses into the box for Mr. Sulky. When they did start making overlaps out wide and putting crosses in in the last twenty minutes they looked much more dangerous. But why didn't they do that before?

Even more worryingly for Chelsea is they often didn't put pressure on the ball properly letting Leicester play in front of them instead. The goals they conceded both came from the kind of shoddy, embarrassing defending you would expect from a bottom five team. Ivanovic in particular was awful, he kept dropping off Albrighton coming towards him and then getting caught out by the cross away and over his head. But it's not a big surprise because he's been awful all season. So why hasn't Mourinho just dropped him?

Ivanovic was as embarrassing as a premature ejaculation, but he wasn't the only culprit by far. My view is that some Chelsea players weren't playing for Mourinho. Too many of them were too slow to press the ball allowing Leicester players to pick out a pass, too many dropped off runners driving forward into the box. There's no other explanation for it.

Chelsea were absolutely abysmal, yet the world's most arrogant manager seemed clueless in what to do about it. That doesn't bode well for the future.

Ranieri is achieving redemption; if he can get Leicester City into the top four he will be the special one, but Mourinho is looking increasingly like a dead man walking.