As the Blues erased a one goal deficit to beat Southampton 3-1 at Stamford bridge, all the fans couldn’t help but notice that Jose Mourinho is second to no one in tactical battles and that he is master minding a winning plan here. It was all in all a tactical battle between Southampton’s Mauricio Pochetino and Jose Mourinho in Sunday’s kick-off. It the end it was no surprise to see who came out on top with the all important three points.

When asked about the greatness of the Portuguese manager, many fans and pundits claim that his charisma and his man management skills are the keys to his success. There is another quality that has lead his introduction into the world of management as a young talented coach: analyzing of an opponent and Tactical masterpiece.

On Sunday, we saw exactly just that as Mourinho made an influx of changes to the whole system of the Blues to overturn a shocking lead from just 14 seconds into a 3-1 win against Pochetino’s men. Jose noticed that Southampton’s defense played a high line with their central midfielders pressing high to prevent Chelsea from creating opportunities. That lead to Jose bringing in Demba Ba to Essien who had a yellow early on.

That changed the formation to 4-4-2 and prevented their center backs to not be comfortable in their style of building from the back. Southampton then started plying long balls to heir strikers which Gary Cahill and John Terry dealt with incredibly well with strong ariel presence. Southampton couldn’t play their preferred style of play in the second half and were presented with a situation ‘they couldn’t coup with’ as Jose perfectly explained.

Jose on his decision to switch to 4-4-2:
‘We were losing and not producing enough so I wanted to give the opponent new problem. They like to play out from the back and they stopped building from long which allowed us to play in their half and to start creating chances. You can say the first two goals were set pieces, but they arrive and accumulate because we were so dominant. There were some good individual performances but collectively we deserved the three points in a match that was a must-win because we knew three title contenders lost points before us.’

That was a an absolute brilliant piece of tactical sharpness and awareness by Jose. Captain John Terry also managed to score his 34th goal on his 400th appearances for the Blues in the premier league.

After this great result, our focus shifts to the midweek game against Sunderland. Jose will likely select a strong side against Sunderland to get a comfortable win and ease the squad’s confidence in an influx of the 8 remaining games during December which could possibly shape up the season for Jose’s homecoming season.

As a result of an injury to Oscar who had to go off in the 41st minute of the game against Southampton, Juan Mata is set to retain his place in the starting line-up. The Spaniard who was linked with a move away from Stamford Bridge this January delivered once again when called upon with a strong performance against Southampton. He was a constant threat going forward and he also assisted John Terry’s goal.

So lets hope that we get the all important 3 points this Wednesday against Sunderland and close the gap on top of the table. Thanks for reading and make sure you comment below to let us know what you think about Jose’s tactical brilliance, our Southampton performance, Juan Mata, etc.