Chapter 35: Group attack

Simon Grayson and his team left London with three points from Stamford Bridge Stadium, but the shock this game brought to English football was just beginning.

In the media's opinion, there is no suspense about the English Premier League championship this season. Manchester United has become the "Red Devils" who swept the English football world again. The 19-win 19 games and 57 points made all competitors feel desperate. Chelsea, the second-ranked one, is 14 points behind them. In Liverpool, Tottenham and Tottenham have only 39 and 38 points. How can these teams catch up?

Manchester United's huge advantage has almost made them lock in the championship early, and no one is interested in this anymore.

What everyone is really interested in now is to see how many goals Shaq can score this season. A violent midfielder who regards goals as grass, scored 58 goals in 28 games, with an average of more than two goals per game. This kid has already brought people an extremely shock last season. His performance this season is even better. How many goals he can score next and how many championship trophys can help Manchester United win. This is the topic that the media is really interested in.

Of course, Mourinho's comments on the game after the game also had a significant impact: "In fact, we have found a way to defeat Manchester United, but we failed. The reason is that our defense line is not mobile enough. The flexibility of defensive players is very important when playing against teams like Manchester United! In addition... we took the lead early in the first half, but Shaq has indeed become the best player on the planet. His consecutive goals allowed Manchester United to complete the score reversal, and his hat trick in this game really influenced the result of the game. I believe that any team can have a player like Shaq, they are qualified to compete for the championship!"

Mourinho's words still gave his colleagues some inspiration. They also discovered that when facing Manchester United, if you use traditional central defenders with outstanding heading skills and rigid positioning, the effect will be relatively poor. Manchester United's offensive players Shaq, Rooney, and Ganso are all very flexible offensive players. In this way, using a central defender with sufficient flexibility to play against Manchester United is a way out.

While the outside world is still struggling to curb Manchester United's offense and what kind of signings should be made to have a glimmer of hope when facing the "Red Devils", Simon Grayson has already won another game with his disciples.

In the third round of the FA Cup on January 3, Manchester United played with two goals from Shaq and Ganso's goal, and defeated Oldham in a "thrilling" 3:2 away. The thrilling score was just because Oldham scored a goal at the last moment.

Afterwards, the "Young Guards" suddenly announced that their head coach Van Gaal had resigned from the Leeds United head coach due to poor record, but his replacement was a famous figure... Michelle Laudrupp.

The reason for Van Gaal's dismissal was that Leeds United fans made trouble, and the reason for the fans made trouble was that the Netherlands was desperate to clean up the team's "four championships" team. When Kevin Vogt was driven away by the Netherlands on loan at the end of December, Leeds United fans were completely angry.

It would be fine if you Van Gaal could lead the team to achieve good results. The club has invested up to 90 million pounds in the transfer market. You can even lead the defending champion to sixth place. Who can resist this?

New coach Lauderup is a well-deserved superstar in his player age. He once won the Serie A championship for Juventus, but only Barcelona and Real Madrid won the La Liga championship five times.

After becoming a football coach, Lauderup served as an assistant coach of the Denmark national team, and then coached Bronderby, Swansea and other teams. Although his coaching performance was not very good, he was attracted by Bielhof. He believed that he had played in Barcelona, ​​which had a very similar tactical style to the "Youth Guards", for many years, and had a deep study of the "tiki-taka" tactics, so he directly replaced the famous Dutch coach Van Gaal, and maybe another Guardiola was born!

Before Laudrup could prove himself in the "Youth Guards", the "Red Devils" had already won the 20th Premier League victory this season. They relied on Rooney's wonderful shots from three players in 71 minutes away, defeating Swansea 1:0.

Simon Grayson immediately realized some problems after winning two consecutive games. After holding a coaching staff meeting, everyone carefully studied the two games between Manchester United and Oldham and Swansea, the coaching staff came up with an amazing result... Manchester United is facing unprecedented difficulties.

Since Manchester United played away against Chelsea a few days ago, a new round of tactical research on Manchester United has begun to blow up. Professionals in English football have begun to figure out what kind of tactics can curb Manchester United's performance and have the opportunity to defeat the arrogant "Red Devils".

When these people were thinking about Manchester United's tactics, they were just a lot of people yelling at each other. A lot of methods were said but none of them were effective. But this time it was a little different. Because Mourinho's throwing bricks and "setting by example" taught everyone a lesson, letting them see how their team competed with Manchester United. So a group of scattered soldiers had a backbone. When discussing the tactics of defeating Manchester United, there was a general direction, that is, to expand Mourinho's tactical style when playing against Manchester United.

Now every team knows that when playing against Manchester United, you must not defend the opponent's high-altitude balls, but use flexible and maneuverable central defenders who are not very tall to compress the activity space of Manchester United's offensive players.

Therefore, semi-professional teams like Oldham, in the fourth division of England, can score 2:3 with Manchester United at home, and Swansea only lost 0:1. The results of these two games really give people hope to defeat the "Red Devils".

Under the media's exaggeration, Manchester United is now in a situation where they are surrounded by enemies. With everyone arguing about defeating Manchester United, the players are also beginning to bear tremendous pressure.

After meetings with the coaching staff for a continuous discussion, Simon Grayson found a way that he didn't know the result. The first thing was to encourage the players to continue to set records. If a team that has won 30 games and 30 games in various competitions this season is not confident, then these players are really not worthy of staying at Manchester United.

Next, Simon Grayson discussed a new plan to adjust tactics with his coaching staff in the helping system of Lerotale and Zanetti. The "Red Devils" now play the "Solar System Tactics" and the team's tactical style has been fixed. It is unlikely that any major changes will be pursued, but local fine-tuning can still be achieved.

For example, when two full-backs are assisted, they will make more passes to Shaq in the middle, and then strengthen the small cooperation between Shaq and the left and right side players, add some new changes, etc. In addition to these, Simon Grayson also expanded the range of "Little Fat" Rooney's activity. Gansuo on the left is an organizational winger. This player's passes are far more than his shots, so when Shaq is trapped in the opponent's siege, Manchester United's scoring point will be converted to Rooney.

Simon Grayson didn't think about making up for his team. After all, the team is in good condition now. Not to mention that they won all the games, and no player has had major injuries. He finally cleared out Raphael and Fabio brothers. It's not time to replenish the team's lineup.

Manchester United has no moves in the transfer market, but other teams are not idle at all. One transfer transaction after another is constantly announced, including many major transfer transactions, as if all Premier League teams are burning money, among which Tim Sherwood's Tottenham Hotspur is the most crazy.

As soon as the winter transfer window opened, Tottenham Hotspur announced that he had bought Jack Rodwell from Everton for 16.25 million pounds, and then bought Ukrainian midfielder Taras Stepainko from Eindhoven. The 25-year-old Ukrainian midfielder spent 13.5 million pounds to Tottenham Hotspur, and these two deals alone reached 30 million pounds. Tottenham Hotspur is determined to strengthen the team's lineup.

In fact, no wonder Tottenham Hotspur chairman Levi was in a hurry to burn money. Last season, they only won fifth place in the Premier League. This season they could only play in the UEFA Cup. In the summer, Bale was sold to Real Madrid. Although he recovered 75 million pounds, the team's strength also declined. Turning around, they spent 40 million pounds to buy powerful players such as Brian Luis, Madias Johnson, and Gianis. But as Tim Sherwood led the team better, the team has reached fourth place in the standings, Levi was moved to the idea of ​​returning to the Champions League next season.

This is why the move of two major stars such as Jack Rodwell and Taras Stepainko spent another £30 million during the winter transfer period. To exchange one Bale for five strong stars can still ensure that Tottenham Hotspur's overall strength will be further improved. If the team can enter the Champions League next season, the money will be worth it.

In addition to Tottenham Hotspur, the one who is a little crazy is Liverpool, who ranks third. After discovering that Torres Jr. cannot form a forward partner with Suarez, Rodgers spent 13.25 million pounds this time to buy the Korean killer Sun Xingmin from Eindhoven. This typical killer who enters should be able to combine it well with the technical Suarez.
Chapter completed!