Well yeah. It wasn't a masterpiece by any stretch, it was basic stuff. 10 men behind the ball, waiting for an opening or a bit of luck to go their way. We used to do it at OT, Highbury and Stamford Bridge, it works sometimes and is a useful tactic. It's worrying when it becomes your managers style, to be overly pragmatic, but the "football will always win" mentality is what's undone Arsenal over the years, a stubborn stance to not adjust your philosophy at times to do the necessary. Like I said in the other thread, our record against City and Chelsea this season reads: W1 D0 L3. Many of the goals against in those games were on the break, because we didn't shore things up at the back. We've shipped goals against much lesser sides this season for the same reason, so it was always going to cost us somewhere along the line, and that's where.
I'm loathed to give Mourinho credit or fall into the media trap of hailing him a genius, but sometimes the best managers are the ones who utilise the basics well, that's all he did - and it worked. Regardless of the mistake, we pretty much played into Chelsea's hands.
