Football feast, starting from the acquisition of European clubs

Chapter 115 Fighting wits and courage
Birmingham, Crystal Palace's opponent in this game, also introduced many good players during this summer transfer period.

Benefiting from Mourinho's purge at Chelsea, Birmingham took the opportunity to pick up a lot of high-quality and cheap players.

These include fast winger Glenn Schall, Dutch defender Melchiot and Finnish striker Forsser.

In addition, they also introduced England international striker Heskey from Liverpool, midfielder Anderton from Tottenham Hotspur, midfielder Izzet from Leicester City, and was allowed to transfer freely by Chen Ran. Former Crystal Palace midfielder Grey.

Coupled with the addition of England international defender Upson in the team, at least from the perspective of paper strength, Birmingham is not a weak team at the mercy of others.

Because after this game, Crystal Palace can have five days of rest, so Chen Ran doesn't need to think about the next game for the time being, and sent all the main players to play.

center tony
Left forward Ronaldo, right back Franck Ribery
DM Yaya Toure, DM Modric, DM Simeone

Left-back Chiellini, Centre-back Gareth Southgate, Centre-back Vidic, Right-back Maicon
goalkeeper cech
Birmingham's head coach Bruce has also studied Chen Ran's tactics carefully. As soon as he saw the main lineup of Crystal Palace, he knew that Chen Ran used a defensive counterattack style of play.

However, Bruce was unmoved at all, and still firmly implemented the bus-positioning tactics he had arranged before the game.

Except for the forward Heskey, who was heavily introduced from Liverpool, to stay in the frontcourt, the other players were arranged by Bruce to defend in his own half.

Birmingham set up a 541 formation from the beginning. In order to guard against Crystal Palace's twin-tower tactics, Bruce simply sent three central defenders directly.

Following the referee's whistle, Chen Ran quickly discovered Bruce's arrangement.

He pinched his eyebrows, feeling helpless in his heart.

Now when these teams meet Crystal Palace, they all shrink back and put on the bus. This is completely the way to treat strong teams.

It is becoming more and more difficult for Crystal Palace to play defensive and counterattack tactics.

Seeing Birmingham's steadfast defense, Chen Ran returned to the bench and sat down.

According to his usual style, any action has to wait until the second half.

However, Chen Ran's habit has been noticed by many interested people, including Bruce from Birmingham.

Seeing Chen Ran's actions, Bruce also breathed a sigh of relief.At least in the first half of the game, Crystal Palace should not launch an offensive.

Since Bruce sent three central defenders early, Chen Ran knew that the opponent must be wary of Crystal Palace's twin towers tactics.

In this case, during the halftime break, Chen Ran did not send Crouch again.

Instead Fabregas replaced Yaya Toure, then pushed Modric to the front midfielder position, and the team switched to Guardiola's tactics.

On the other side, seeing that Chen Ran did not send Crouch, but replaced the Spanish teenager Cesc Fabregas, Bruce immediately felt bad.

This time the Chinese didn't use the twin towers tactics?Then I'm afraid there will be problems with my own arrangement.

In order to deal with Tony and Crouch of the Crystal Palace, as well as the possible emergence of big and tall players such as Ronaldo, the defenders chosen by Bruce are all tall and strong.

These players have no problem defending against headers, but their shortcomings are also obvious, that is, slow speed, slow turning, and lack of flexibility.

But now Chen Ran replaced Cesc Fabregas and pushed Modric to the attacking midfielder position. Obviously, he wanted to adopt a short-pass style of play, which immediately hit the weakness of the Birmingham defender.

Bruce knew something was wrong, and if he didn't make adjustments, something might happen.

So, he immediately called New Zealand international defender Clapham from the bench, and replaced the tall defender Cunningham with him.

Seeing Bruce's substitution, Chen Ran was overjoyed, this guy was finally fooled.

Birmingham's tall central defenders are these three on the field, and there are no big men on the bench.

Now Bruce has replaced one of them with Clapham, who is 175cm tall, which immediately reduces Birmingham's air defense capability a lot.

Chen Ran immediately called Crouch from the bench, and after a simple warm-up, he immediately replaced Modric on the field.

The team's style of play has also changed from Guardiola to Southgate.

On the other hand, when Bruce saw Chen Ran rushing Crouch to warm up, he knew that things were going to be bad, and he might be fooled.

"Fxxxk!"

This Chinese man is too cunning.

Bruce glared at Chen Ran in the distance.

But now he doesn't have a tall guard to replace, and there is no way to make up for it.

How to do?
Just when Bruce was hesitating, the Crystal Palace's offensive had already started.

Because Birmingham still retains Husky on the field, Chen Ran didn't do as much as he did against West Bromwich Albion in the previous game.

He just pushed the two full-backs Chiellini and Maicon up, while the two centre-backs stayed behind to guard Heskey.

Even so, crosses from the two wingers began to be sent to Birmingham's penalty area.

The twin-tower combination of Tony and Crouch finally showed its due power.

One shot after another began to threaten the Birmingham goal guarded by Taylor.

Bruce on the sidelines turned around in a hurry.

He knew that if the Crystal Palace was allowed to bombard like this, Birmingham's gate would fall sooner or later.

There is a saying called "go to the doctor in a hurry", Bruce's eyes inadvertently caught Husky who was doing nothing in the frontcourt, and suddenly had an idea.

"Emile!"

Bruce yelled and gestured, and called Husky over.

"Don't stay in the front right now. Go back to our penalty area, and you will be responsible for grabbing headers. Understand?"

"Okay, boss."

Husky also knew that the team was in a difficult situation. After receiving Bruce's order, he immediately ran to his own penalty area.

On the other side, Chen Ran, who saw Bruce's every move on the sidelines, immediately understood Bruce's intentions.

This is to use the center back as a center back.

Chen Ran thought that this guy Bruce must have messed up.

If he left Husky in front, he still had some scruples and dared not attack with all his strength.

Hey, now I'm embarrassed.

So, Chen Ran called Southgate over from the sidelines.

"Gareth, like the last game against West Brom, you sent Vidic and Chiellini to head the ball in the Birmingham box and you stayed to defend the counter-attack. Understand? "

"Understood, boss."

Not long after seeing that Heskey had just returned to his penalty area, Vidic and Chiellini of Crystal Palace also followed suit.

This time, Bruce was dumbfounded.

He found that he seemed to have made another stupid trick.

Husky's return to defense certainly added a high point for the header, but at the same time it attracted two high points for Crystal Palace.

Calculated in this way, not only did Birmingham's defensive thickness not be enhanced, but it also allowed Crystal Palace to attack more points.

This special meow is not worth the candle.

Just when Bruce wanted Heskey to go back to playing forward again, Crystal Palace had already broken through the goal guarded by Taylor.

This time it was Cristiano Ronaldo. After receiving a pass from Fabregas, he dribbled the ball along the left flank and sent a high-quality cross into Birmingham's penalty area.

At this time, the Birmingham restricted area was full of elders.

Birmingham's defenders, strictly following Bruce's arrangement, carried out a man-to-man defense against several big and tall players in Crystal Palace.

However, due to Cunningham's end, the one assigned to mark Chiellini now happens to be Clapham who just came on.

187cm to 175cm, Chiellini is completely crushed.

And the ball just fell into the area where Chiellini was.

As a result, Chiellini easily grabbed the spot, a beautiful lion flicked his head, and the ball headed into the Birmingham goal guarded by Taylor.

"Goal"

After a battle of wits, Crystal Palace finally broke the deadlock on the field, leading Birmingham 1-0.

Seeing the scene where the Crystal Palace players embraced and celebrated together, Bruce really wanted to slap himself hard.

Because of his successive stunned moves, Crystal Palace scored a goal.According to Chen Ran's tactical style, Crystal Palace will definitely retreat to play a defensive counterattack next.

With Birmingham's strength, Bruce himself has no confidence in trying to get the score back.

Sure enough, after Crystal Palace took the lead, Chen Ran immediately called on the players to take the initiative to withdraw their formation and start defending.

This move not only made Bruce hate his teeth itchy.Even the reporters in the stands were wailing.

"It's like this again. As soon as he takes the lead, he shrinks back and plays a defensive counterattack. This Hua nationality really has no pursuit."

"Hehe, that's how smart they are. It doesn't matter whether they play well or badly, they still get three points. If that's the case, why don't you choose a safer and less labor-saving tactic? That Huaguo person understands it very well."

"Hey, if this continues, it is really possible for that Chinese man to win the Premier League championship this season."

"Who said it wasn't? That Chinese man's tactical style is so cautious, not to mention winning the Crystal Palace, even a tie is not easy."

"It seems that we can only pin our hopes on those few strong teams."

"How about we jointly publish an article condemning this kind of utilitarian football?"

"Is it useful? I guess that Huaguo will not pay attention to our manuscript at all."

"Whether it's useful or not, it doesn't take much effort to try anyway. The big deal is that it's useless, and the manuscript fee will not be less anyway."

"That's right. As long as I can cause trouble for that Huaguo person, I think I can give it a try."

"All right, count me in."

"And I."

Before the game here is over, those reporters are already planning to make trouble for Chen Ran.

However, now Chen Ran is engrossed in the game, how can he care about those boring reporters?
As soon as Crystal Palace took the initiative to withdraw, Bruce immediately ordered a full-scale counterattack.

What makes him smarter than Bryan Robson is that he always keeps forward Husky on the field.

Therefore, with this big black center as the fulcrum, Birmingham's offensive still has a certain threat.

Unfortunately, it was only a threat.

Until the end, Birmingham did not break through the goal guarded by Petr Cech.

In the end, when the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game, Crystal Palace scored with Chiellini's header and beat Birmingham 1-0 away.

While winning eleven consecutive Premier League victories, it also brought Chen Ran a winning bonus of 200 million euros.

In the rest of the round, upsets followed.

First of all, Arsenal broke a big upset. They were tied 18:2 by No.2 Southampton at their home court.

After losing to Manchester United in the last round, Arsenal have not won two consecutive games.

With Crystal Palace continuing its winning streak, the point gap between Arsenal and Crystal Palace has been further widened.

And another giant team, Manchester United, did not take advantage of the victory to pursue after just beating Arsenal in the last game. Instead, they were defeated by Portsmouth 2-0 in the away game, which became another big upset in this round of the Premier League.

Besides, Liverpool also failed to win this round and was tied 2:2 by Blackburn in the away game.

You must know that Blackburn is now ranked No. 20 in the Premier League, which is the last.

Blackburn's situation this season is extremely bad, so Liverpool did not win the game, which can be said to be the third upset of this round of the Premier League.

Among the strong teams in this round of the Premier League, the only relatively normal team is Chelsea led by Mourinho.They beat West Bromwich Albion 4:1 in the away game, taking the opportunity to close the points gap with No.2 Arsenal.

After the No. 11 rounds of the Premier League, Crystal Palace ranked first with 33 points in all eleven games, Arsenal ranked second with 26 points with eight wins, two draws and one loss, and Chelsea ranked second with 25 points with eight wins, one draw and two losses three.

Crystal Palace's No.1 lead was further consolidated, but the competition for second and third places became more intense.

After the game, England's media will naturally not let go of such a lively event.

"Crystal Palace won eleven consecutive victories, unstoppable."

"That Chinese man continued Crystal Palace's winning streak with pragmatic tactics."

"Does the extraordinary record of Crystal Palace indicate that the utilitarian football tactics of the Chinese will become popular in football?"

"Will an overly pragmatic tactical approach kill the vitality of football?"

"Arsenal's game is pleasing to watch, but the points gap between them and Crystal Palace is constantly widening."

"It is worth noting that Chelsea, who are closely following Arsenal, their coach Mourinho also adopted a pragmatic defensive counterattack strategy."

"It would be a tragedy for football if the Premier League title was won by Crystal Palace this season."

Meow, the sorrow of god TM football!

When the little fat man showed Chen Ran the media reports collected after the game, Chen Ran was laughed out of anger.

These reporters are not happy every day if they don't make trouble for themselves, right?

He even said that if Crystal Palace won the championship, it would be the tragedy of football?

What a grandson!
(End of this chapter)