Football’s First Defender

Manchester United's injury wave has not yet completely passed. At least the main players such as Ferdinand, Vidic, and Berbatov, the return date is still far away.

However, Ferguson still relies on the existing lineup to bring Manchester United's results this season well. With Chelsea missing a round, Manchester United now occupies the top position with a one-point lead, while Chelsea ranks first. A close second followed.

Ferguson has bled heavily in the summer and is now full of injuries. Manchester United is still the most competitive team in the Premier League, which shows his superb level of coaching.

In this game, Manchester United's starting central defender combination last season, Vidic and Ferdinand continued to truce due to injuries, and they were exempted from the game. In this game, Ferguson chose to use the old to lead the new in the central defender position. His career has been plagued by injuries. The brilliant Wes Brown partnered with the young teenager Jonathan Evans to form the central defense line. The right back is still the hard-hitting right back Evra, and the left back is handed over to O'Shea.

In the midfield, Carrick is still the best choice for the midfielder, but this time, due to Berbatov's injury, Ferguson, who has no forward card to play in his hand, simply played a 451 tactical system.

The three midfielders Carrick and Fletcher can stabilize the team's defense in the middle, and Anderson can charge forward in the middle. It is of course impossible to count on Anderson to organize.

The position of the left midfielder has been handed over to Giggs, who is still young this season, and the right midfielder is Valencia, who has transferred this season and performed extremely well.

The single striker is Rooney Lu, who has been confirmed as the team's new offensive core after Ronaldo left the team this season!

It's just that at the end of Manchester United's defense is the old goalkeeper Van der Sar who is one year older this year. Compared with the young second goalkeeper, Ferguson still chooses to believe that the experience of the old goalkeeper can help the team's defense.

However, as a wealthy team, the defensive ability to lose one goal per game in the league now still seems somewhat insufficient. Although the main reason is the injury of the main central defender, Van der Sar's unstable performance in the goalkeeper position may also be another important reason.

Unlike Manchester United's side, where injuries have devastated the defense, Chelsea's important injury may be Bosingwa, who was injured and needed to rest for 2 months in the last round of the league. Significant growth on both ends of offense and defense, for the offense and defense on the right, Chelsea has not been greatly affected.

Ballack's tough guy attributes exploded as soon as the key games came.

Ballack, who was strained on the national team match day before, returned from injury a week before the match with Manchester United, catching up with this tough battle with Manchester United. After many days of thinking about the choice, Ancelotti still chose the same lineup as he played against Liverpool.

Since today's Manchester United can be regarded as half a remnant, then Chelsea has the capital to continue to play possession, play in the middle, firmly control the rhythm of the game in their own hands, and not give Manchester United a chance to give full play.

"The focus of the twelfth round of the Premier League is naturally a continuation of the peak duel in the Champions League final last season, the direct duel between the blue army Chelsea and the red devil Manchester United!"

"The two teams are the most competitive teams in the Premier League in recent years. Manchester United's three consecutive league championships, for two years they were able to beat Chelsea to win the final championship. Moreover, in the rainy night in Moscow in 2008, Manchester United They beat Chelsea on penalties. In last year's Champions League final, in Rome, Chelsea won again by virtue of their strength, completely shattering Manchester United's hopes of winning the treble and defending the Champions League title, making the pair's mortal enemies in the Premier League, Liang Zi, even deeper!"

"Nowadays, the most noteworthy matchup between giants in the Premier League has changed from the previous double-red meeting to the red-blue matchup between Manchester United and Chelsea. This is the development of Premier League football. A new generation replaces the old."

"Ferguson used 20 years to replace Liverpool's dominance in British football with the Red Devils Manchester United under his rule."

"And now, Chelsea, who have won a Champions League trophy from Manchester United, will also launch a full-line attack on Manchester United, the current Premier League hegemony, on all fronts. This is a direct confrontation between the new king and the old king. It is the new era of the Premier League. Overlord's struggle!"

This round of the game was played at Chelsea's home court, but the away fan area was also sold out this time. Manchester United fans don't care about Chelsea's high ticket prices. The most important thing is to be able to witness this game live. .

Although there were only a few stands of away fans, and the number of Manchester United fans was far less than that of Chelsea fans, the Red Devils fans still sang together before the game, using their collective strength to cheer for the team...

The game officially started, Chelsea started their pre-set ball possession play, but Chelsea's opening three tricks have not yet been played, Manchester United directly launched a frontcourt press...

Although Manchester United played with a disabled team, Ferguson did not intend to completely hand over the initiative on the field during the game.

After privately studying the previous game between Liverpool and Chelsea in detail, Ferguson also understood that the problem of Chelsea's backline not being able to play the ball will be the key to breaking Chelsea's four-midfield advancement strategy.

Manchester United's tactics are exactly the same as Liverpool's previous pressing tactics. All members participate, advance layer by layer, and use individual marking defense to force the football at the feet of Chelsea players to the feet of the central defender or goalkeeper, and then rely on striker Rooney. To force Chelsea to make a pass error, or take the initiative to surrender the ball.

It is also a pressing method that consumes a lot of physical strength and bears certain risks, but in order to obtain the ball and disrupt Chelsea's offensive rhythm, Ferguson believes that the defensive risk borne by the defense is completely worthwhile.

Anyway, at the beginning of the game, the big deal is that when Chelsea really sends a precise long pass from the backcourt, then the defenders will directly foul directly and decisively. It’s just a yellow card. Ferguson believes that his players can control the amount of fouls.

A yellow card, defusing an opponent's dangerous attack, and winning the rhythm control of the opening game for the team, no matter how you say it, it is profitable.

It was very uncomfortable to play, this is the most intuitive feeling for Yang Feng now. In his previous playing experience, Yang Feng has always been a defensive player with his own duties. Even if he controls the ball with his feet or heads the ball down, he will pass it to the nearby teammates immediately and let the teammates unfold. fight back.

But in the face of Manchester United's "mad dog" tactics like Liverpool's, Yang Feng's shots did come under a lot of pressure.

Although Yang Feng can guarantee that there will be no mistakes, Chelsea, which should have the offensive initiative at home, can only choose to drive to the opposite side with a big foot or seek stability because of the ability of the central defenders Yang Feng and Terry to play. In the border situation, a lot of ball possession opportunities were inexplicably lost, which was extremely unfavorable for Chelsea's offensive rhythm.

On the contrary, it was Manchester United who were away. Under the pressure of the frontcourt, there was some taste of anti-guests in the away game. Rooney once caught the ball outside the penalty area and shot directly from a long distance, which posed a great threat to Chelsea's defense.

"There's work to do!"

In Yang Feng's spare time on the court, he also knew that it was because of Terry's play that he gave Liverpool, Manchester United, and even Atletico Madrid the space to play such a big full-court pressing tactic. And if the back line has a strong ability to play the ball, then other teams would not dare to carry out such a large-scale frontcourt pressing action at this time.

Yang Feng also knows that although this kind of full-court pressing is not suitable for other small and medium-sized teams, because their players will not have such a strong tactical execution ability. But in this kind of strong confrontation, whether it is Liverpool, Manchester United today, or even before, Atletico Madrid chose an appropriate frontcourt press at their home court, in order to stop Chelsea. The midfield controls the flow of play.

Therefore, what Yang Feng definitely needs to practice in the future is to hone his passing skills in this kind of game, so that he can pass an excellent pass in such a pressing situation, so that the opponent's pressing will lose in the end. The effect allows Chelsea to directly hit the weakness of the opponent's half!