london blue 2 wrote:The only difference between this and van haal is a few better players. Same shit.
Those acting like they were all that coming in were dreaming. Hadn't seen that much of them that impressed me. They escaped with some victories against lesser opponents and of course the usual suspects automatically associated that with "Mourinho-like" when it was more Van Gall-like than anything new under the sun.
The first half they were played off the pitch, and Pep outsmarted Jose with his tactics (fullbacks out wide) and team selection (Jose assuming Pep would not do this and not putting pace that would have hurt us on the wing). They came on in the 2nd half, yes, but they were throwing the kitchen sink at us so Pep countered with Fernando and we almost scored a few times on the counter as a result. If we were "lucky," so were they as their goal was a fluke, and were very close to have scored more in both halves.