Player motivation

A(nother) fecking loss, in contrast to our result against Porto in the midweek. And the two games were poles apart. Against Porto we looked bright, creative and dominant. Against Leicester we looked like a youth team, minus the energy. Now, how can this happen?

Could be that Porto were totally crap. Or that Leicester were great. Or both. And I do believe there was an element of these. Porto especially were really poor, reminded me a little of us this year

Could be that it's Jose's tactics for the prem. We do look markedly worse in our league games, and often improve when we go behind, as we start to actually attack. Last night for example, between 2-0 and 2-1 we actually started to create CHANCES, elusive buggers they are. And that irritates the plss outta me, that we are capable of doing it but never do. I do think that Jose has to take a lot of blame for this, his cautious reputation doing him no favours. And trying to still play these players back into form is inexcusable.

Could be a motivation question. The players still want to showcase themselves on a CL platform, but no longer are playing for the manager on a weekly basis. This is the one I wanted to focus a bit more on/rant more about.

What a crap excuse that is. Playing for the manager. As if there's no other reason to give 100%. What about your teammates, the fans, the club who pays the wages? Nowadays we don't even demand a player's loyalty. But surely we should demand professionalism and effort while fulfilling the most important part of your contractual duties?

Hazard coming off last night. Sure, maybe he was injured. But I really doubt it. He has in the main personified my last complaint this season. Can you blame it on Mourinho's defensive nature? Maybe a bit. But Hazard isn't an inanimate object - he has a large amount of control over his mindset and actions and to pass the buck upwards is disingenuous. I don't think that the manager should be responsible for providing the motivation to his players. The money and stadium full of fans should provide plenty of motivation. And if you can't do it for them, can't you do it for yourself?

Seems like more than one of our players has a weak character. Now it's not easy to be strong when you're compared to the great team first assembled under Mou. But there is a goddamn middle ground, and we don't currently occupy it.

Everyone to blame, from top to bottom. But if the players don't want to play for Mourinho, that's symptomatic of a huge problem, a problem which the manager is a part of but also which extends far beyond him. Some of our players are behaving like total khunts.