STATS

But Ivan, Cahill, Azpi, Terry have been immense this season, improved performances from last. Hazard has been better, as was Oscar in the first part of the season. These are the players that were doing well to put us in a strong position in December, same players as last term. And challenging. We look more of a team instead of a bunch of players with Hazard and Mata playing their own game up top like we did last.

I agree Schrulle, Willian and especially Matic have been great since new year (Willian more or less from new year), but our performance over the first half was pretty decent.

But we won't know for sure, just giving my judgement having watched every single moment of our games for the past god knows how many years.

Rafa stats showed he started slowly and showed most of his defeat came at the very beginning of his rein as well as the dropped points but look closer.
His final 10 premier games he lost one game playing a weak team so he could play his strong team against Man Utd.
Between the last 10 Premier games he made it to FA Cup semi and final of the UEFA Cup.

It means he had found the formula and did not have to change any approach to win those games with those group of players.

I agree the defence is better throughout the team under jose but going forward Rafa was better. I find it hard to believe he has not got 1 league goal this season.
Do you not find it strange that all the expressive players are struggling under jose?
How can you nurture talent if they are not allowed to express themselves.
I thought Atletico express themselves as individuals and a team once they got the away goal.

sorry I was talking about Luiz getting no goals this season.

I think Atletico has great chance in final.

comment by thessssteam (U19517)
posted 12 minutes ago
I agree the defence is better throughout the team under jose but going forward Rafa was better. I find it hard to believe he has not got 1 league goal this season.
Do you not find it strange that all the expressive players are struggling under jose?
How can you nurture talent if they are not allowed to express themselves.
I thought Atletico express themselves as individuals and a team once they got the away goal.
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Hazard has definitely been expressing himself, as did Oscar at the start. As Hazard has been better than last both attacking and defensive wise, I do not agree with your first statement, that all expressive players are finding it difficult to express themselves, and as he has improved, he is becoming a better player, therefore talent is being nurtured. It was just Mata, who found it difficult to do the team work.

Luiz hasn't really played much in the middle compared to last season, as we have Matic now. And hasn't played much at the back as we have better defenders. But his job is not to score. I believe Terry has scored more than Luiz?It does not mean anything really, defenders go through phases of scoring and not scoring.

Atletico are basically us, but a better team unit where everyone works for the team. I do not know what you mean by expressing themselves? They certainly know how to counter, and park the bus better than us. They also know how to play good football, like we have done against City, Arsenal, Bayern, Liverpool....many teams. People have been jumping on the bandwagon too much with the bus, mostly because of bitterness and hate I guess. We certainly showed how to go froward and score in those games.

Benitez started with one of the worst starts in the Abrom era, similar to the 56% win percentage AVB had after 16 games. He finished the season in the league with a 57% win percentage, averaging 1.96 goals per game, having conceded an average of a goal a game and finishing well of the top.

Mourinho is currently on a 66% win percentage, averaging 1.92 goals per game conceding 0.72 goals per game on average and 2 points of top spot with 2 points to go.

So from that we are scoring slightly less (0.04 less) goals per game on average, but doing much better in defence. And our win rate is a testament to the setup Mourinho has provided us with. So I don't see how Rafa was much better going forward, like I said before it was just some pretty interchanges between Hazard and Mata that made certain moments look good. Our defence suffered because of it.

He done okay in terms of a short term fix, but I think RDM did much better.

Final is going to be a very cagey affair.

If you give Rafa someone elses team he'll do OK

If you let him buy the players he wants he'll build you a great team

They were his players at Liverpool