That Chelsea team had just monstered the best Barcelona team of all time and got edged out thanks to one of the worst refereeing performances ever. They’d been in the CL final a year before and would be again a few years later. They won the title the season after. If they weren’t the best team in Europe they were certainly one of the best and were playing extremely well.
Wigan could have been 5-0 down in the first half of that cup final and won thanks to a header from a corner. Great win, taking nothing away from them, but nothing about their approach was going for a win, if Aguero wore the right boots that day they would have been leathered out of sight.
Martinez took it to big teams away from home and in big moments? Which ones? The only top team he beat away from home in the league was Moyes’ United and when you watch that game back we were actually quite lucky to win that.
Saying sin miedo doesn’t mean anything in a press conference if you turn out the exact same results that the bloke saying knife to a gunfight does. We got 72 points because a very good Moyes squad had Lukaku McCarthy and Barry added to it alongside Stones and Barkley. The fact we then came 11th twice with that group shows that just saying you’re playing with no fear gets you nowhere.
Give the manager multiple good players to compete with the top teams in the league rather than continuously asking them to outperform them with lesser players. They won’t, regardless of their philosophy, as the last 30 years have shown.