The Young Lion

"In the same round, Manchester United won Everton 2:0 at home. Ferguson should thank Arsenal for successfully sniping the defending champion. In this way, Manchester United opened a 9-point gap with Millwall. Arsenal despite Winning the game, but there are 10 points away from Manchester United. We have witnessed this scenario last year. It was just a swap of Manchester United and Millwall. The gap between the two teams at that time made the second place desperate. 16 points. I hope Millwall can quickly adjust the state, otherwise it will not make the final round of the Premier League, Millwall will directly watch Manchester United on the home stage to win the championship, Hall once said that if possible, he It will make the ball team welcome opponents who have been crowned champions in advance, but I think he will do his best to avoid this possible situation."

After losing, Aldridge took the initiative to go to Wenger to shake hands. At this time, he probably could understand Wenger's mood. After shaking hands, he didn't say much. He didn't leave in a hurry, but walked to the court and every player. Shaking hands and exchanging, some players were more depressed, and their mood fell to the bottom, and they did not want to talk much.

After the game, the press conference was turbulent. Although there was no intention to find fault, many problems were still very sharp.

Aldridge tried his best to defend the players, especially Barak.

He denied that if Lampard played better than Barack, it was a fact that the German played poorly in this game. The reversed goal was lost because of his mistake in the counterattack and was caught by Vieira Opportunity struck back again, causing Millwall to lose even a draw.

Capdevila’s state after his return from injury was also worrying. The problem of the thickness of Millwall’s lineup was completely exposed. Aldridge tried to interpret the team’s problems with his usual mentality. He thought that the loss was normal and there was no Any team does not lose, especially under such a tight schedule, the team is not in good condition, so it is necessary to take the right medicine. After adjustment, the team will be on the right track again. This will take some time, unless it is all the way down The momentum of suppression is the big problem.

Just before losing to Manchester United and Arsenal, Millwall remained undefeated for several consecutive rounds and performed very well, but the outside world will not be tolerated. Millwall’s glory last season made them the target of this kind of cusp. On the team, many people are holding a good play mentality, don’t want to see Millwall continue to be glorious, and tired of Millwall’s continued success, they want to watch the defending champion grow up and watch this team fall. At the bottom, it was exciting.

The next two weeks are the cup time. Millwall will play two consecutive cup games, one is the FA Cup and the other is the first leg of the League Cup semi-final with Middlesbrough.

Aldridge held a coaching meeting after returning to the club.

In the game against Arsenal, for some time, he reflected.

Because Arsenal are based on defense, they don't give opponents room to attack. In this case, they often encountered in the first half of the season.

Putting the bus is the situation they have encountered the most in the past few months, but when the other side has a large number of people, they contracted for half, Millwall broke through the famine and the opponent counterattacked one or two, two or three.

But Arsenal's counterattack advancement is another way of playing. It is an organized and planned position counterattack. The reason why Aldridge reflected is derived from such Arsenal, which was the original Millwall.

In the first year after the Premier League and the promotion, Millwall played 442, and Larson was a retreat in the double forward. Similar to Bergkamp, ​​the two sides have both speed and breakthrough. They rely on defense to give themselves. Fight for the offensive space and move forward quickly after changing from defense to attack.

This set is the foundation of Millwall's former life, but now it is rarely played in the Premier League. At least they still use this style of play in the Champions League game, but the formation is different.

The reason why they can't play in the Premier League is because the opponents are also defensive. They are defending champions. If they defend, it is estimated that the opponents will be very happy. Everyone will spend time to finish the game, and each of them will be happy.

In terms of mentality, Millwall is a strong man, which has led to the new aid and the teenager also pretentious.

Aldridge and the coaches focused on the growth of several new players for the past six months, and finally found a sad fact.

In addition to their training skills and physical improvement on weekdays, tactical literacy, especially the understanding of Millwall's football philosophy, can't be complimented.

The cause of this fatal flaw was still in the game against Arsenal.

Aldridge found that Goodjohnson had a particularly large loophole in defense. When he switched to other weaker teams, he could not see the problem at all. After all, his opponent’s attack power was limited, but Arsenal was different. Two Side, Pires and Ovimas, the individual soldiers are all powerful.

Good Johansson takes a step slower and will be thrown off the street. A second of hesitation will make the entire defense system vulnerable.

In the offense, whether it is Good Johnson, Duff, or VanderMead, the performance is unsatisfactory, because in the limited playing time, they do the same work: attack, attack, attack...

In the Premier League's competition-oriented field, skills alone are not enough. When their physical confrontation does not say they have the upper hand, even when they are not even close to their opponents, the tough battle is undoubtedly a **** exam for them.

In the conference room, Benitez continued to point out the mistakes of the players in the game on the big TV screen. The other coaches took it very seriously. A large part of their work was aimed at the mistakes of the players in the game. And let them improve.

Aldridge swam away, and after a long time, Aldridge knocked on the table suddenly, and everyone looked at him.

"I think the rotation strategy we developed in the first half of the season was wrong."

"Are you going to make the main lineup go all the way to the league to close the point gap? Aldrich, it is also dangerous to do this, because no matter the league or the Champions League, it is more than six months of events, you must make sure The overall sustainability of the team, once the physical distribution is unreasonable, then in the last 1/3 and 1/4 of the season when the most need to exert force, the team may already be at the end of the crossbow!

Jenson frowned and offered his own opinion.

Craig also supported Jenson, saying: "Our rotation strategy for the past three seasons is correct, which not only guarantees the results, but also improves the young players."

Aldrich waved his hand: "No, I'm not saying there is a problem with the rotation, but that, er, there was a directional error based on the opponent's rotation."

Everyone was confused, not understanding what he was talking about.

Aldridge stood up and walked to the blank blackboard, writing a series of numbers.

Pointing to 1-14, said: "Before the season, we will eliminate the intensity of the game and the impact of injuries. We will let the main lineup face the first two teams we have divided, which is what we think of the upstream team and the midstream. Team, their standings are probably between 1-14, and the remaining 15-20 will be handed over to the bench, right?"

Everyone nodded.

Aldridge continued: "In general awareness, the 15-20 team is definitely not as good as the 1-14 team, so we are letting the weaker bench lineup play the weaker Premier League team. That’s right. But we overlooked the fact that we are the Premier League champions! Even the 15-20 team, they will choose tactical conservative for a draw for points, and we substitute players and The lack of excellent ability to attack and attack, which directly leads to a result? That is, players such as Van der Mede and Duff who have speed and skill cannot play their advantages in the game, nor can they exercise their defensive awareness, They rarely stand the test of the opponent's violent offense. They have been in the offensive offensive offensive offense, but the offense has been messed up. The defense cannot be practiced in the game. This is the biggest problem! We made a directional error!"

The coaches looked at each other, and found the question raised by Aldridge somewhat surprising.

Isn’t it normal to change any of the giants’ teams and let the substitutes play the underdogs when they need to rotate?

However, many giants simply lost sight of the weak and faced the game in a "Tian Ji horse racing" way of thinking.

Millwall did this in the first half of the season.

Benitez asked with a deep face, "How do you think you should adjust?"

Aldridge wiped the tactical board clean and wrote a series of numbers on it again.

"The teams of 1-8 and 15-20, the strongest and weakest teams in the Premier League, are handed over to the main lineup. The former is the top contest, the latter is the main attack and the battle is more certain, which can maximize the avoidance of losing points. The rest, the 9-14 team, is handed over to the bench!"

"That way, our bench lineup is not dominant in strength, or even completely at a disadvantage."

Aldrich said firmly: "So we have to adjust our tactics and play in the bench. We have to play conservatively and let the opponent attack, so that we can train the defensive ability of the newcomers and improve their team's defensive awareness. At the same time, we are playing On the basis of defensive counterattack, they can also exert their advantages, making them more and more confident and steadily improving."

"But if the opponent is also conservative? Like Tottenham, we sent a substitute lineup at White Hart Lane, but the opponent is still satisfied with a draw."

Aldrich spread his hands and said: "So, we have to let our opponents know that we will be on the young lineup and spread the news before the game. Of course, this is my task. I have to play psychological warfare with the opponents. "

Benitez asked curiously: "What are you going to do?"

"Like I said, announce the starting list in advance, and then wait for the opponent's reaction, we have a group of children in the eyes of the other party to play the game, the other party is still embarrassed to defend? As I said, the 9-14 Premier League ball Team, they are carefree, the pressure for relegation is not so great, and they are further involved in the European war and are limited by their ability. They are just looking forward to a breakthrough in the domestic cup, so in the league, they can’t commit themselves without even dignity. The average age of opponents is less than 23 years old, are they embarrassed to be conservative? Do their fans agree? The wrong direction of our strategy is that the weakest team is actually the best able to give up everything and try to stay in the Premier League. Yes, so if we want to strive for points as much as possible and also train young players, we must change this strategy."

The coaches nodded after looking at each other. They had to say that they thought that Aldridge made sense.

The midstream team played Millwall's backup lineup. At least he couldn't make a mistake. He also encountered Millwall's main lineup. The opponent's deadline was also blameless. The strength of the team was huge. But if the bench lineup is still dead, this If it is impossible to say, the pressure of public opinion will be very great.

The coaches began to re-develop the rotation strategy according to the schedule. When Aldridge is trying his best to adjust the team's status, the winter transfer market is making waves again!