I brush achievements in football

The other two teams that originally participated in the Europa League were eliminated in the group stage. Manchester United and Manchester City fell from the Champions League. As a result, they were also eliminated in the quarter-finals. Southampton. Zizi became the only team still playing in the Europa League.

Coincidentally, in the Champions League, Arsenal was also eliminated by Milan, and it was Chelsea, which performed poorly this season, who was still fighting in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

All of a sudden, the fans of the Premier League began to feel a little anxious. The dominance of the Premier League teams has declined significantly in recent years. In the past three seasons, the Champions League champion Barcelona won two Inter Milan and one, but what about the Europa League?If Southampton hadn't won the Europa League last season, then the last Premier League team to win the Europa League dates back to Liverpool in the 00-01 season!

Although the gold content of the Europa League has dropped a lot because the strong teams now have to play in the Champions League, it has also allowed teams that are almost in the league to win a lot of Europa League championships, but the Premier League team In the Europa League, only Southampton was left early, which is still very depressing.

Not to mention that Chelsea is the only team in the Champions League that has performed poorly in the league this season.

Is it up to Southampton and Chelsea to maintain the honor of the Premier League in European competitions?

Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, what are you doing!

And Tottenham... oh, Tottenham have no European games to play this year.

In short, while the media in England praised the performance of Southampton and Chelsea, they also gave other strong teams a bad meal. Poor Tottenham really got shot while lying down!

Regarding this, Ji Ya and Chelsea's new coach Di Matteo certainly will not jump out to spread hatred, and they both appear to be particularly low-key.

Southampton's opponents in the next round have finally started to become stronger-their opponent is Schalke Zero Four. This team performed well in the Champions League last season, but their performance in the league has declined and they can only play in the Europa League. the match of.

"We have to be careful with this team, they are the first strong team we have encountered in the Europa League this season." Ji Ya warned the players.

The players nodded one after another. They were very clear about this. After all, compared with Southampton, Schalke [-] is a veteran and strong team, and they have performed quite well in recent years.

However, Southampton, who has fully recovered, will perform very well in the next performance.

They first defeated Fulham with a clean [-]-[-] in the away game, and then returned home to beat Everton [-]-[-]. The two games were not very smooth, but everyone was surprised to find that with the addition of two European games In the Fed Cup match, Southampton has kept seven clean sheets!

Is this still the Southampton team that scored a lot in the front and lost a lot in the back?

"Our defense has been strengthening, haven't you noticed? Since the offense can't let us solve the problem well, then we will strengthen the defense. Less goals conceded means more goals." Ji Ya said in an interview Time said with a smile.

The reporters were a little speechless, but Southampton's defense has been really good recently. Even when they encountered strong opponents like Manchester City and Everton, they didn't concede the ball. It is really difficult to do this.

After studying the performance of these seven games, the media came to a conclusion. In addition to Southampton adopting more ball possession tactics and reducing the possibility of losing the ball, the biggest factor is Southampton. Dunton's goalkeeper Navas, and the two central defenders Lovren and Fonte performed top-notch!

In these seven games, Navas averaged more than five effective saves per game, while Lovren made 90.00 steals per game, and his header success rate was as high as [-]%. This kind of data is completely top-notch Only Zhongwei has data.

As for Wundt, his performance is also very good, but his statistics are not as eye-catching as the other two.

To put it bluntly on defense, the performance of central defenders and goalkeepers can determine a great degree of performance. Southampton's defense is so good now, and it has a lot to do with the performance of the defenders.

Since this is the case, there is no surprise. There are always good and bad times for players, and the same line of defense is sometimes rock-solid, and sometimes it is tofu.

The same is true for forwards. There is a period of time when the gods descend to the earth, and there is a period of depression.

Everyone is used to it!

However, the recent improvement in Southampton's state has made people start to sigh. Ji Ya's adjustment of the team's state is still very good. It is better to improve at this stage of impact than to start to decline at this time.

In the last two rounds, although Arsenal started the four-game competition mode and won consecutive victories, they have surpassed Tottenham, which has performed poorly recently, but they are still seven points behind them. As long as Southampton does not perform too badly in the remaining eight games, they can keep The top four are not a big problem - Tottenham are already ten points behind them.

Now let's see if Southampton can do what Sevilla did before, which is to defend the Europa League...

Since the beginning of the new century, only Sevilla has defended the Europa League, and in the last century, only Real Madrid has defended the title in the two seasons of 84-85 and 85-86. In the 90s, although Inter Milan won the UEFA Cup three times, however They have never successfully defended their title.

If Southampton can do this, it will be the third team in the history of the Europa League to do this!

"Schalke 23 is actually a relatively young team...Although there are veteran players like Raul, their main players are still relatively young. The two main central defenders Hewedes and Papadopoulos 19. One is only [-] years old, and the main midfielder is Draxler. If Raul, Huntelaar and Farfan are not young, they can really be regarded as a youth army. But Compared with last season, they lost their main goalkeeper Neuer. Although Hildebrand is also an excellent goalkeeper, he is still a lot worse than Neuer, so this game... we are away Attack!" Ji Ya said on the training ground.

The players froze for a moment—didn't we not concede in seven games?It's an away game again. Isn't it right to play a defensive counterattack and get a better result?

Ji Ya's words made them suddenly realize...

"You all think this way, and Schalke [-] must also think the same way, so we launched a fierce attack in the away game, so we caught them by surprise!" Ji Ya said.

The players nodded one after another. This is indeed the truth. After all, tactics must be taken by surprise, and Southampton is not playing a tactic that they don't know, but a tactic that they are good at.

At the stage of the quarter-finals, there are not many games that can have such deceptive tactics. If they appear, they must be seized!