Weakness against pressing play?

[northbank123]

Chelsea have never been sparing in that kind of play against us. Every man and his dog knew Mourinho would set up with loads of men behind the ball, press fast and hard to try and win the ball high up the pitch and then get men flocking forward on the counter. They get men behind the ball knowing that it is very likely to result in a clean sheet and back themselves to score at the other end on the counter or through other means. If they then get one goal up they will close ranks and pick us off on the counter attack.

As piss-poor and negative as they were in the league game at our place had Lampard not hit the bar with that sitter you can bet they'd have seen out a gritty 2-0 or 3-0. Anybody surprised at how they played against us in the 6-0 needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

[turricaned]

Chelsea have never been sparing in that kind of play against us. Every man and his dog knew Mourinho would set up with loads of men behind the ball, press fast and hard to try and win the ball high up the pitch and then get men flocking forward on the counter.
...
Anybody surprised at how they played against us in the 6-0 needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

With respect, that's how Chelsea under Mou played the last time he was in charge, but this season he's been much more cautious - especially against sides that could cause them a problem. The "Noah's Flood memorial" league fixture in December (seriously, I'm surprised I didn't get pneumonia just from loading the car for the journey to my folks) had them sitting waaay further back than they used to, and pressing was rare and tentative by the standards they used to set. Not really surprising, as the old guard don't have the legs they used to. It's been much the same story against the other top contenders, with Liverpool recently in particular being really short-changed by the playing style.

At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea briefly seemed to time-warp back to 2005, and got two past us before we knew what was going on. It got worse...

Incidentally though, I'm pretty sure both teams got at least one shot more-or-less on target in December - Lamps hit the bar and Giroud spun it wide.

[northbank123]

And despite the let-off from Lampard we might well have won that game in December if Wenger hadn't shown undue faith in a striker who is - in the context of top level strikers - a carthorse. Chelsea were without a doubt there to be beaten.

Why on earth would Mourinho change the (undefeated) habit of a lifetime against Wenger? To be honest they could have set up any way they liked and they would have caned us. Tactically even by Wenger's standards it was right right down there with anything I've ever seen. The ironic thing is when we were horrendously overcommitting in the first 10-15 minutes going forward, it wasn't even like we were in a dangerous position where one pass would have opened up the defence. We were on the halfway line for fuck's sake, no sense of risk/reward thinking.

[turricaned]

Why on earth would Mourinho change the (undefeated) habit of a lifetime against Wenger?

Same reason he did the rest of the season - his squad don't have the legs to sustain pressing play the way they used to. As you said, given the way they were so conservative at the home fixture in December, I reckon it could quite easily be forgiven for thinking that we'd be facing more of the same. Mou gambled on a short burst of pressing play being able to get a couple past us in the opening minutes and leaving us in disarray.

Make no mistake, it was a gamble - because while his former protege Brendan Rodgers managed to do exactly that at Anfield, he tried the same thing in the Cup match a week later, failed to get an early goal and ended up losing 2-1 having expended too much of his squad's energy early on, and Rodgers' squad had more energy to burn than Mourinho's this year.