The Young Lion

As the defending champion of the Premier League, Millwall's summer signings have naturally attracted widespread attention.

However, judging from the signing process announced by the club, fans of the crazy lions are numb.

We are really Wang Xiaoer's New Year: a year is worse than a year!

I wonder how beautiful Aldridge was when he first took charge of the team. The Premier League became the team with the highest transfer expenses in the entire England that summer. More than 10 million pounds were smashed out, which greatly inspired people.

But in the next two years, either only two or three people will be bought, or they will simply transfer to the market with zero investment. Looking at this year as the defending champion and financially ample, after all, the new Premier League broadcast contract has soared, and the team will play the Champions League. The financial resources are tumbling, not to mention that Stam and Phillips contributed a huge sum of 18 million pounds to the club after they left the team.

No one thought that Millwall, who was not rich in money, actually spent less than 3 million pounds in the first team transfer in the summer!

Duff 2 million, Good Johnson is free, Van der Med is free, and Klose is £100,000.

If Aldridge is new to take over this team, the dogs must be scolded by the fans.

However, everyone seems to be used to living like this. In the media street interviews, fans responded to this lightly. They were neither disappointed nor satisfied with the club’s recruitment work.

At the press conference, the reporters chased Aldridge in desperation and wanted more news material.

Richard of the "Daily Mail" asked directly: "Will Millwall introduce players next?"

In fact, Millwall introduced a lot of players in the summer, but they all reported to the youth team. This kind of recruitment, Fleet Street does not pay attention at all. The teams in England will supplement the youth team in the summer. The young faces come and go too More, who is interested in caring about these "children"? Unless it is the young players who performed exceptionally well in the Youth League and the Youth FA Cup this season, they will additionally appear on the news page of mainstream newspapers.

Aldridge leaned back in his chair and said quietly: “Milwall’s transfer door has been officially closed this season, no players will leave, and no first team players will be introduced.”

The reporters immediately looked at each other.

They are all anxious for Millwall!

Richard said anxiously: "Compared to the investment of other strong teams in the Premier League in the summer, isn't Millwall worried about the competitiveness of the new season? To be honest, Millwall's investment has even invested in other strong teams. The fractions are not comparable."

Facing this problem, Aldridge fell into a silence.

In addition to the introduction of Stam, Manchester United also introduced Sheringham in the summer. The transfer market has invested about 20 million pounds.

Liverpool’s lineup was strong enough, and tinkering cost five million pounds to bring in five players. Friedel, Dundee, Riddle, free Staunton and Goodnesson’s £150,000 transfer fee fell. Not worth mentioning.

The most eye-catching is the London team, one by one spending money like running water.

Tottenham successively introduced Roman Vega, David Ginola, Les Ferdinand, Jose Dominguez, and it took £8 million to take away two main players from Newcastle United, plus The other two players, Tottenham invested nearly 15 million pounds in the summer.

Tottenham's rival, Arsenal, Wenger has great expectations for his first full coaching season. In the summer transfer market, the Arsenal board also generously waived, except for the transfer of several young players under a million pounds. , Wenger brought Emmanuel Petit from his former club Ligue 1 champion Monaco last season, and Luis Boamot from Lisbon. The most notable transfer was Wenger from Ajax brought Peter Pan Ovimas to Highbury, worth 7 million pounds, Arsenal has also spent more than 13 million pounds so far in the summer.

Millwall’s rival, Chelsea, Bates continued the policy of signing the loan with excessive investment in the transfer market. In addition to the transfer of less than one million pounds, Chelsea brought back a young defender Baba Yarrow from Belgium. Huye, French defender Lambert, the high salary of free transfer attracted Poyet, using Bosman's rule to introduce Norwegian high center Flo at a low price of 300,000 pounds. The most important transfer is from Blackburn. I bought back Le Saux, who left four years ago. When he left, the transfer fee for Le Saux was 700,000. Four years later, Chelsea bought it back for 7 million. Chelsea invested about 14 million pounds in the summer.

And these three clubs failed to make up half of the transfer market investment. Among them, Chelsea and Arsenal have invested more than 10 million pounds in the transfer market for two consecutive years. They urgently need the team's record to increase the team's revenue.

Unconsciously, one of Arsenal and Chelsea has the capital to regain its glory, and the other has accumulated strength bit by bit on the road to rise.

The reason for Aldridge's silence is that he has a clear understanding of reality.

The other teams have become stronger, is Millwall just standing still?

Of course not, just looking at the main lineup. Although Millwall has left Stam, other players are still growing and improving. Experience, technology, team understanding, etc., Millwall’s starting 11 should be more than last season. Strong, because they have experienced the baptism of the champion.

But a team is not only composed of 11 starters, it needs to have a substitute that can play a capable substitute.

In this regard, Millwall is lacking. Audrich also admitted that if players such as Van der Med and Duff are sent to the game, the expectations in their hearts must be very low. Most of them are mainly training, and they cannot be used for performance requirements. Increase the pressure on them, the effect of the adventure is basically zero.

With a sigh, Aldridge spread his hands and said: "Well, you all think that Millwall's recruitment work is not good, so please help me, I have ten million pounds here, you tell me, I should go Who should I buy? I hope this is a professional discussion, not a bluff and a mess. You said some of the names that come to Millwall can make my team stronger, or these players can quickly integrate into Millwall Tactical system."

When asked by Aldrich, the reporters were speechless.

Everyone showed a pensive look and thought carefully, maybe what Aldridge said, it is not that they do not have the money to buy people, but the famous stars, they may not be easy to use.

In Millwall's tactical system, many characters are elusive.

The organization of the front waist has been greatly weakened. The winger is not like a winger, and the center is not standing. Although the full-back assists are not new, but a full-back who can attack and defend can be so easy to find?

To say which link is the weakest, it must be the goalkeeper.

But Bout is still young and his performance is stable.

You can only say that he can't make more world-class saves, but he is more stable than his predecessor Keller, and occasionally can surprise you. This is already very good. The Premier League has no Golden Gloves yet, but Boutley last season Overcoming Schmeichel, Seaman, James and other well-recognized excellent goalkeepers to become the best goalkeeper in the Premier League, his strength has also been affirmed, but he does not have such a big reputation, which leads to the impression that he is not particularly strong.

The reporters could not answer the question from Aldridge.

Accused Millwall of bad aid, but they could not give particularly good advice.

Most of them have a strange feeling, even if Ovimas is given to Millwall, Ovimas is stronger, but he seems to be unable to replace Shevchenko's winger position, even if he takes the most powerful Ronaldo. Replacing Trezeguet, you may also feel that Millwall is not necessarily stronger.

This is the problem of the combination of the player's style and the team's technical and tactical system. It has nothing to do with the player's strength. It is a question of the overall integrity of the puzzle.

Because Millwall's tactical concept is different, the style of the team created by Aldridge is very different from the mainstream, which directly leads to the special requirements of the players he needs.

Like Orviemas, is he strong? Aldridge will say: Very strong!

But even if he gave Odrich an Ovimas for free, he would think it was a hot potato.

How long does it take to change his habit of holding the ball down? How long did it take him to integrate into the tactical system, passing instead of excessive dribbling? In addition, at the winger's position, he should be able to train the outscraping point closer to the goal breaking ability.

Half a season, a season? Or longer?

Aldridge didn't know, especially this kind of player is already a star.

It's like being in a relationship and issuing a good card: you are excellent, but we are not suitable.

Because of this, Aldridge also has a headache. He can’t find a substitute to fight for, and can only give young players more opportunities. Anyway, buying other seemingly capable players also needs a short period of time to blend in and integrate. .

So he basically will not consider players over the age of 23, because after the age of 23, most players' technical ability and playing habits have been unable to make greater changes, training is just to maintain the state, better, also because of experience The raising of consciousness.

The reporters finally frowned and got up to leave the table.

One by one seems to be in a heavy mood, they are thinking about the same problem.

Is Millwall really amazing?

The stars who are famous outside haven't really been able to play football with them?

How special is the tactical system created by Aldridge...

The four rookie players were dumbfounded, which was really a memorable press conference.

The head coach of our family told the reporters directly.

Although this is not the fierce verbal confrontation of tongue warriors, the gang of reporters came happily and left with a lot of thoughts. It seemed that after an ideological baptism, Aldridge’s image in the hearts of these four players seemed Plump a bit.

The next day, Leo Training Base.

After the expansion, there was a brand new building, which almost doubled the size of the training hotel they stayed in the past three years.

The first team members walked out of the building in training jerseys with a joke.

Aldridge chatted with several coaches on the sidelines.

Mullensteen and Moniz were particularly excited today. After returning from their holiday in the Netherlands, they found that the club had so many good seedlings, which made them crazy.

For example, Vicente, speed and foot skills are already very good at the age of 16, coaches at a glance know that it is a material that can be made.

This is enough for Mullensteen and Moniz, the former is the technical director, the latter is the technical coach, they have to develop different training programs according to the characteristics of the players, so after the two chatted with Aldridge for a while It is necessary to go to the youth team to observe the players, and only after a period of observation can the corresponding technical training program be studied.

"Hey, wait a minute, you come here first, there are four players here that you need to focus on training."

Mullenstin trot halfway back and smiled: "Okay, wait for us to come again."

After that, he and Moniz ran to the youth team...