Football’s First Defender

Although the 2-2 draw with Juventus in the Champions League interrupted Hiddink’s five-game winning streak since he took office as Chelsea’s “fire fighting” coach, Hiddink is not the kind of person who cares about this kind of record. He needs The team is constantly using the schedule to adjust to the best condition, fighting for the next UEFA Champions League and FA Cup championship!

Although he was very dissatisfied with his team's defensive attitude and defensive enthusiasm in the Champions League, Hiddink was very pleased with his own team's offensive performance!

And as the season enters the second half of the season, Chelsea's lineup has become more and more tidy when the team is most in need of gritted teeth and persistence. The timely return of Malouda and Essien from injury is the best complement to the team's lineup. Chelsea were able to challenge with the most complete lineup in the last two months!

Especially Essien's comeback is particularly critical for Chelsea! After suffering a serious knee injury in the national team at the beginning of the season, after six months of training, Essien has recently resumed systematic training! Although Mikel played hard in the midfield and backcourt for most of the season when Essien was injured, Hiddink is still willing to give Essien the former main midfielder more opportunities! Because Essien has a good ability to play in addition to excellent defense, and only on the defensive end of the contribution, Essien is also slightly stronger than Mikel, covering a larger area, for Chelsea’s defense, it has indeed improved. !

In the weekend's match with the newly promoted local team Manchester City, Essien finally ushered in his first starting opportunity after a serious injury!

In this game, Hiddink adjusted his starting lineup to the 442 formation against the 532 formation that Manchester City has been using in the league. On the one hand, he is defensive and staring at the weakness of Manchester City! On the other hand, it is also necessary to adapt the lineup of the next team! After all, at this stage of the league, Chelsea leads the league fourth Arsenal by nearly 10 points. The previous Champions League team Aston Villa has begun to show signs of decline due to injuries during this period, and has gone downhill. Arsenal just won the last round and surpassed it in the standings to become fourth!

If the fifth place is Aston Villa, it is actually easier for Chelsea to guarantee their Champions League qualification. No one thinks that they can't hold their 11-point advantage with Aston Villa!

In this game, Hiddink, who is committed to training, sent Drogba's partner Anelka's double forward in the forward position! The defensive line and the position of the goalkeeper remained unchanged, while the midfielder sent four generals from Essien, Lampard, Ballack and Deco!

Since taking office, Hiddink has been experimenting with different midfield lineup combinations, hoping to use existing personnel to create a midfield combination that has both offensive and defensive capabilities and has Europe's top strength on both the offensive and defensive ends!

In the face of a weak team, Chelsea can choose the 433 attack formation in order to get more goals faster and with three strikers to attack. But in the Champions League, and the next FA Cup semi-finals, when facing a strong enough opponent, if you need to attack, the formation of 433 is a bit extreme. When facing a strong team, the backcourt leaves a huge margin. The space is not a good thing, Hiddink is actually more inclined to choose the 442 formation when facing tough battles!

Although Chelsea does not have enough reserves of wide players, in the past Mourinho era, Chelsea did not have too many wide range assaulters, usually with a breakthrough hand, and the other wide side was completely advanced by the full back to assist. Pass the ball!

In this regard, even if Hiddink has changed, it is difficult for clever women to cook without rice. They can only follow the old road of Mu Bird, at most slightly change the position of the player in the middle!

Fortunately, there is Yang Feng, a central defender who is good at defending the open air. Hiddink can make the full back attack more forward when necessary, which is a disguised improvement on the offensive end!

In fact, Lampard, Ballack, and Essien, as long as they guarantee their game status, are definitely Hiddink’s inevitable choice for the four midfielders in his heart. As for the other position, simply speaking on both offense and defense, Deco has just joined Chelsea from Barcelona this season. In fact, it is a very suitable candidate, but Deco's physical state and game state are what Hiddink is most worried about!

He doesn't want to delay the team's tactical run-in because of Deco's personal status!

As for Malouda, Joe Cole, Mikel and others, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages, either offensively or defensively. They all have their own characteristics and corresponding tactical effects. They need to be based on their opponents. Or the situation on the field, come to use as a surprise soldier!

For this Manchester City team, Chelsea reluctantly regard it as a sharpening stone for running their lineup!

In fact, although Manchester City has received a huge investment from the Abu Dhabi consortium this season, and also bought a big-name player like Robinho, football is a sport for eleven people, and one or two superstars cannot be as thorough as basketball. Change a team!

Since Manchester City was just a Premier League lift team before, the foundation is really not strong. There are no top players and stars. If you want to develop into a giant, you still need to continue to invest heavily in the next few seasons. The top players in the positions replace some of the mediocre players in the current team, in order to have a place in the Premier League and the big powers!

In Yang Feng’s knowledge, Robinho and Sabaletta are familiar with this Manchester City’s current starting lineup. As for the next few seasons, Manchester City’s main goalkeeper, the English goalkeeper, will play in the Premier League. The best candidate for the absolute background emperor, Joe Hart, who has to be slapped by anyone, is still honestly acting as a substitute goalkeeper at this time!

During the game, Chelsea, sitting at Stamford Bridge at home, faced the slightly conservative Manchester City team. They did not rush to attack as soon as they came up. Instead, they began to familiarize themselves with the attacking routines involving Essien by patiently conducting the ball. How do four midfielders coordinate between offense and defense!

Although the running-in level of this lineup is not enough, it is more than enough to suppress this slightly civilian Manchester City team at home!

The first game of Essien's starting game after his comeback brought surprises to the team!

Although Essien has always been famous in world football for his outstanding defensive ability, his ability to handle the ball is actually not bad! It's just that its offensive strength is concealed by its world's top-level defensive ability!

Just like the Chelsea midfielder's thigh Kanter later, Essien can also do well in different tactical systems. He can not only rely on excellent defensive ability, be a full-time defensive midfielder, but also join the offensive system when necessary. In, complete the task of playing the ball and even hitting the goal!

In Manchester City’s five-back defense, when Chelsea’s frontcourt players were guarded, Essien’s postponed position turned out to be an unattended person!

Essien took the team's big advantage on the scene anyway, and directly took the ball and took a long shot!

As a result, Manchester City's five-back defensive system, in the 20 minutes halftime, although limiting many of Chelsea's offensive players, but it was directly broken by Essien's long shot!

Essien, who has to score a few goals for the team every season, takes Manchester City for the first goal this season!

The next game may be the exhaustion of double matches for a week, or the four Chelsea midfielders really need to run in for a period of time to cultivate a tacit understanding, but Chelsea's offense after the lead has become somewhat flat!

Of course, there is a big reason for the offensive problem. The opponent has the world's top winger Robinho, which makes Chelsea's full-backs firmly nailed to the defensive position and dare not go forward and participate in the offense. , Just in case Robinho is not given too many opportunities!

Due to the full-time defense of full-backs, even if Manchester City's defensive team successfully completed the defense in the center, it is difficult to pass the ball to Robinho's feet!

Normal high ball passes, long passes, it is difficult to pass Yang Feng's defense, most of them are directly controlled by Yang Feng or cleared out!

And the pass on the ground ~www.NovelMTL.com~ Robinho has to face the double interception of Chelsea full-backs and midfielders!

After the whole game, Robinho barely took the ball and appeared in the core danger zone of Chelsea! For this kind of situation where there is only one absolute core on the offensive end, Chelsea's defense of the bronze wall and iron wall is enough to firmly limit it to death!

During the match, Yang Feng had only one close direct dialogue with Robinho, which was at the end of the first half!

The opponent's counterattack long pass, this time it finally passed a pass outside of Yang Feng's control. Robinho took advantage of his speed, got it on the wing, and waded directly past Ashley who was in charge of defending him. Cole, break straight forward to face Yang Feng!

Although Yang Feng did watch a lot of Robinho’s offensive videos and learned a lot about Robinho’s extraordinary ways, he still looked a little embarrassed when facing Robinho directly!

The Brazilian's arbitrary offensive method, the offensive method chosen is really unexpected. Yang Feng's defensive judgment on his can't keep up with Robinho's rhythm at all!

A series of cycling actions proved that he was worthy of the title of a cycling boy, and then after a certain action, he suddenly accelerated in disguise, making Yang Feng unable to successfully defend 1v1! Fortunately, Yang Feng is not fighting alone. Due to the insufficient number of attackers invested by Manchester City, Yang Feng only needs to block for a while, and his teammates can rush to help him defend!

Although Robinho passed Yang Feng in the end, his route was also seen through. Terry who was driven over directly shoveled the football!

In the end, this match was not related to the league rankings. Chelsea, who was sitting at home, won the victory with a score of 1 to 0!

Chelsea's hot state continues!