Yeah he fluked the La Liga, Uefa Cup and Champions League titles

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I get what you're saying...............

but at the time, a lot of people were stating Jose "stumbled on to 4 3 3 with Eidur up front in his 1st season.

So when Rafa's Liverpool used to consistently outplay Mourinho's Chelsea, functioning the far better of the two teams on the day, that was down to luck yes?

I think you're the one who is confused. So Mourinho never tinkered? So Mourinho never used trial and error, but always just got it right first time, by intuition I assume you're suggesting?

We cannot succeed without failure, it's how we learn. There is no binary distinction as you suggest, the top managers make the same mistakes the rest do, the difference is they learn from them.

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"Yeah he fluked the La Liga, Uefa Cup and Champions League titles"

What has he done recently? He oversaw Liverpool's descent into mid-table mediocrity, then dismantled Euro and Italian champs Inter within a matter of months, blaming both of those situations on club owners not backing him. People keep stating that he's got a good record, but it's actually a very mixed record, full of very high peaks, and very low valleys.

What he's doing at Chelsea seems to have no particular method to it. Rafa rotates for the sake of rotating, sometimes fielding strong teams against weak teams (in some cases, he does this following a bad result, indicating that he's intimidated), and fielding weak or erratically arranged teams against relatively strong teams. He experiments a lot, which I actually like, but sometimes, he makes makes too many changes in one go. Some of his subs are perplexing, like the continual use of Ba as a very late sub (almost as a time-wasting substitution). Maybe managers can go over the hill, similar to the way that players do at a certain point.

Rafa's Liverpool consistently outplay Jose's Chelsea? WTF are you remembering?

"So Mourinho never tinkered? So Mourinho never used trial and error, but always just got it right first time, by intuition I assume you're suggesting?"

Of course he tinkered. I don't mean to come off as suggesting a binary distinction. However, one can make changes by analysis, by intuition, because one is forced to do so (i.e. matters of player availability), to rest players, or haphazardly. Rafa appears to have less method than previous managers we've had: there's less continuity from game to game than with previous managers, there are often too many changes in one game, and some actions are baffling. It's well documented that Rafa's tinkering at Inter alienated players at that team, and possibly contributed to their decline in results. Chelsea's not nearly at that point, but I suspect that if Rafa had a permanent appointment, we might get there; thus, I'm hoping that with Guardiala off the radar, our directors are exploring available options.

I don't think Rafa is a tinkerer or gambler, you have to understand that he has just little time and his overall aim is to win games as well as to bring back torres to form, thats an important part of his assignment, so you shouldn't blame him for persisting with the donkey

"We cannot succeed without failure, it's how we learn."

40-degree day, that is brilliant. I love it!