Reborn Liverpool

Chapter 375 The Ninth Round of the Premier League

In the ninth round of the Premier League, Liverpool beat Huddersfield 5-0 away. Manchester City, Tottenham and Arsenal were not far behind and defeated their respective opponents one after another.

Manchester City kept pace with Liverpool's victory with a 5-0 home win over Burnley at the Etihad Stadium.

Aguero took the lead, Bernardo expanded the score, Fernandinho passed the shot, Mahrez and Sane added the icing on the cake.

Manchester City maintained a complete victory at home in the league and kept their second catch-up position.

Tottenham beat West Ham 1-0 in the away game. In the 44th minute, Sissoko cut into the right side of the penalty area and made a cross. Lamela scored with a header from the edge of the penalty area.

Tottenham have also started their winning streak in the league, making the situation in the top six of the Premier League more intense.

Arsenal beat Crest City 3-1 at home at the Emirates Stadium, Bellerin scored an own goal, Ozil passed a shot, and Aubameyang, who came off the bench, scored twice.

Arsenal continued their 7-game winning streak in the league, while winning 10 consecutive victories in all competitions.

The highlight of the ninth round is Manchester United's visit to Stamford Bridge. There are 3 highlights of this battle:

One is the strong dialogue between the Premier League giants, which has always been the focus of much attention.

The second is Mourinho's return visit to his old club, which was not very pleasant, and he has a taste of revenge in his heart.

The third is how the madman, who is on the verge of collapse, will line up his troops in this field, and strive to escape from the hands of the Jagged Blue Army.

At 10:20 on October 12th, the focus of the 30th round of the Premier League was at Stamford Bridge. In the end, Manchester United drew 9-2 with Chelsea in the away game. Rudiger took the lead, Martial scored twice, and Barkley was 2th. minutes to equalize.

Such a result naturally dissatisfied many people, but the process of the game was surprisingly exciting.

Barkley scored an equalizer in the 96th minute. Chelsea's second assistant coach Marco Ianni celebrated wildly in front of the Manchester United bench.

Then the kick-off was resumed, and the players on the two sides almost broke out in conflict. After the game, Mourinho entered the field and raised 3 fingers before leaving.

The meaning of Mourinho raising three fingers after the game is obvious, that is to say, "I have three Premier League champions!"

Although it is already the afterglow of the desperate madman in the past, Mourinho still showed the demeanor of a famous coach in the tactical arrangement and on-the-spot command of this game.

Manchester United challenged Chelsea in an away game. The two sides fought fiercely for 97 minutes. Manchester United finally drew with Chelsea 2-2.

Although from the statistics, it seems that the Red Devils were crushed by the Blues, but fans who have watched the game know that the absolute chances of the two sides are actually similar.

Manchester United almost let Chelsea play the most uncomfortable game since the beginning of the new season. Mourinho used his deformed bus to make it impossible for Sarri's passing football to be used, and almost knocked Chelsea down.

Mourinho did not deploy three physical midfielders and blindly defended. Neither Fred nor Fellaini started. In addition, on the two wings, there are Rashford and Martial with very strong assault capabilities.

Manchester United and Chelsea fought in the midfield. Although Chelsea had 63% possession of the ball, most of them were in the backcourt. There were not many effective forward passes, and even few of them were able to reach Manchester United. In the restricted area.

Data can sometimes be deceiving!
According to OPTA statistics, Chelsea's ball possession rate is nearly 63%, while Manchester United's is 37%. Chelsea has as many as 21 shots and 6 shots on target, while Manchester United has only 7 shots and 4 shots on target.

But in fact, most of the Blues' shots were mainly long-range shots, which were not particularly threatening. On the contrary, Manchester United's 7 shots were much more threatening.

Judging from the heat map of the game, the two sides were caught in a fight in the midfield.

In the past, when Manchester United faced BIG6 teams away, Mourinho always focused on defense, increasing the number of defenders and voluntarily giving up the midfield.

But in this game, Mourinho vowed to compete with his opponent in the midfield. Chelsea's previous smooth short pass simply couldn't be played out.

Chelsea's real threatening offense comes from set kicks and high balls from the wing, which actually shows the success of Mourinho's tactics.

Even Chelsea coach Sarri admitted after the game that the team did not play the style he wanted, and there were too many long passes and crosses in the game.

In fact, Chelsea's two goals also took advantage of the opportunity of set kicks. The previous sharp short pass penetration almost disappeared.

So why did the Blues change the way they play football?

The reason also lies in the targeted deployment of Mourinho's midfield:

Matic, Pogba and Mata are constantly pressing by running, and after grabbing the ball, there is another point of exit in the frontcourt, that is Mata, he can control the ball very well, so as not to grab the ball Possession of the ball is lost immediately after the ball is dropped.

The excellent running ability of Rashford and Martial on the two wings also put a lot of pressure on Chelsea on both ends of the offense and defense.

Mourinho's targeted arrangement completely disrupted Chelsea's rhythm. In addition, the success of Mourinho's tactics is the restriction on Hazard.

We all know that in the past Hazard was often able to decide the game through his personal ability, but today Hazard is very sluggish throughout the game.

Manchester United did not give Hazard too many opportunities to get the ball, nor did he have room to break through, locking him up completely.

This is rare in Chelsea this season. Mourinho is absolutely commendable on this point. Last season, Manchester United also did a good job defending against players with outstanding personal abilities such as Salah and Hazard. quite in place.

The media called Mourinho's tactics an "improved version of the bus", which means that Mourinho should try his best to strengthen his offensive performance while ensuring defense, instead of blindly defending.

Judging from the last two games, Manchester United's offense has improved significantly. The team has scored 2 goals in the last two games.

Many people say that Mourinho's set is outdated, and now is the era of passing and controlling football.

Manchester City, Chelsea and Barcelona all play in this style, but in fact Mourinho's tactical level has never declined:
When facing the middle and lower teams, he will send Fellaini, because that simple and crude style of play really works;

But against a possession-based team like Chelsea, Mourinho will adapt.

Use a completely different tactic.This can reflect the tactical level of the coach.

Chelsea, who only lost to Liverpool in the new season in the away game, was unanimously looked down upon by the British media before the game, Manchester United and Mourinho's campaign is still surprising.

Although it is a pity to concede a goal in stoppage time, the team has obvious signs of recovery and is on an upward path. Such a Manchester United is full of hope.

The reason why Zhang Mai continues to pay attention to Mourinho is precisely because Mourinho's tactical command ability has always been at the forefront of the world's advanced level.

But Mourinho's self-centered emotional intelligence system does not change, and it is destined to be impossible to persist in a veteran giant like Manchester United!
Sure enough, Mourinho did not change his true nature as a madman, and began to spout again after the game:
Manchester United played against Chelsea. The Red Devils failed to withstand the pressure at the last moment and were equalized by Chelsea.

After the game, Manchester United coach Mourinho seemed a little unconvinced with the result. In his opinion, Manchester United was the better team, and the result of the draw was terrible.

"We're the best team on the pitch. If you say before the game it's good to get a point at Stamford Bridge it's because you think it's difficult to win here. But after the game the way the team played, It was a bad result for us and a great result for them. We controlled Chelsea's bursts, Hazard and Jorginho were well controlled."

Mourinho said:
"After leading 2-1, we had the chance to score the third goal, we were the best team, we were calm and controlled the game. I hope every referee gives it like Mike Dean Six minutes of stoppage time, I don't know where it came from. We've been playing hard and there's no time wasted."

"Whether it's corners, zones or man-to-man, every player knows which player to guard and where to stand. I'm happy with everything except the result, which was bad for us result."

"Overall it was a good game, the result was bad for us, but that's football. I think we were the better team, even when we were behind in the first half. The result was against us. It's not fair, we conceded two goals from set-pieces, but it's also a means and has to be defended."

The only advantage of Mourinho's remarks is that he did not spray his own players. On the contrary, he also praised Martial by name. He said:
"Martial is improving, he's doing different things than before. He's more complete than before, but he needs to continue to improve, he has huge talent and he wants to improve. As a group, the performance of the team really good."

Mourinho's characteristic is that when the team is under pressure, he is very good at protecting his players.

But when he had conflicts with the players, Mourinho hadn't learned to control his emotions at this time.

However, can Mourinho, who is born to only pursue victory, win forever?
How to gather the cohesion of the team in adversity, and how to deal with the relationship between the thorny players and the team?

Only when Mourinho learns to lower himself first and listen to the opinions of others, can he really put himself in the highest leadership position of the team and win.

"Unconvinced by the draw and questioning the referee's stoppage time" is a good thing, at least it can alleviate Manchester United's sense of loss caused by the draw.

But how to condense Manchester United's current loose sand into one ball, Mourinho's road has just begun.

Zhang Mai is extremely pessimistic about Mourinho's prospects at Manchester United, but Zhang Mai still looks forward to Mourinho's transformation after encountering setbacks.

(End of this chapter)