The Young Lion

The British people have entered the Christmas holiday, but the Premier League is in full swing. Highbury is full of seats, and there is a carnival atmosphere. The Gunners fans do not forget to satirize Millwall at this time.

Millwall was shrouded in scandal, and the aftermath was not over. Many Gunners fans in the stands played slogans to mock Millwall, such as depicting the mad lion as a messy club

Hey Andy, the defending champions seem to be in big trouble, don't you?

Maybe, they lost to Manchester United, they were opened six points behind, and there was a scandal in the team. Hall has punished the perpetrators. It seems ruthless. Three rising England stars are at least Not going to be at the top level for a month, maybe it's a good opportunity for them to reflect.

I think Hall still has his reasons for doing this. One is to protect the players. Letting those players appear on the pitch at this time will inevitably be ridiculed and criticized by the public. The other is discipline. Lampard, Ferdinand , Mills, these are the main players of England's national youth team. If all goes well, they will also be the main players of the national team in the future. For such players, the head coach should be stricter. It depends on whether the three players can think It worked out, and hopefully they don't develop a grudge against the manager.

Judging from the current news, there should be no. The three players trained with the reserve team and had played a reserve league game with the Arsenal reserve team earlier. They performed well and helped the Millwall reserve team to win A big win, just don't know if such a big win will bring good luck to the Millwall first team.

Since Arsenal's defeat at the Lion's Den Stadium at the beginning of the season, Wenger quickly adjusted the team and did not overuse young players in an aggressive manner. After a period of adaptation, Arsenal's record is good. There is a 10-point gap, but only 4 points away from Millwall. At the same time, it also leaves behind Liverpool, Chelsea, Leeds United and other strong teams. In this way, Arsenal will have a chance to compete for the runner-up and enter the Champions League next season.

Yeah, especially with Millwall having a very tough schedule in the next few months, the downside for Millwall is that they have a worrisome squad size and, to be honest, their summer signings are aimed at the future. , but they cannot guarantee the current results, and in the second half of the season, they will play a lot more games than Arsenal. In addition to the FA Cup, they will have two League Cup semi-finals next month. One more League Cup final, and before the start of the Champions League knockout round, Millwall will play two UEFA Super Cup matches with Dortmund. The situation is getting more difficult.”

Aldridge and Wenger talked a little more on the sidelines. Wenger didn't expect that Millwall would have such a mess at this time. Arsenal are waiting for work and are in excellent form. Today's game will definitely be more important to Arsenal. favorable.

Aldrich did not dwell on the party incident,

The two quickly returned to their positions, waiting for the start of the game.

Millwall's lineup is not complete, and he would have given Schneider a rest today, but Mills went to the reserve team, so Schneider had to drag his tired body to fight hard.

Larsson and Nedved are expected to return after this game. Aldridge doesn't like to compress the players' timetable very tightly. The two attend the Ballon d'Or and at the same time it is so close to Christmas. Let them have a good rest on vacation and recharge their batteries for the second half of the season, so as not to rush back and forth for training and may not be able to perform better, especially since Larson's attendance rate throughout 1997 was very high, and he traveled with the team in the north and south. It's time to schedule his rest more loosely, and Nedved is no different.

Ballack, who is in average form, replaced Lampard in the last game. After the age of 21, Ballack's technical ability has tended to be finalized. The rest is to accumulate game experience, strengthen his physical fitness and improve his ability to adjust his state. A few days ago, when his state fell into a trough, Aldridge asked him to rest. It was not yet the planned comeback time, and Ballack's state has not yet returned to the best, but today he can only go hard.

Millwall is clearly not the strongest squad today.

Starting goalkeeper: Bout.

Defenders: Schneider, Helguera, Southgate, Capdevila.

Midfield: Makelele, Pirlo, Ballack.

Forwards: Gudjohnsen, Trezeguet, Shevchenko.

There is only one change in Arsenal's lineup from the last time the two teams faced each other.

Goalkeeper: Seaman.

Defenders: Dixon, Adams, Keown, Winterburn.

Midfield: Overmars, Vieira, Petit, Pires.

Forwards: Wright, Bergkamp.

The referee blew his whistle and Arsenal kicked off first.

As the game started, Aldridge observed that the Arsenal players entered the game very quickly, with a clear sense of movement, a high success rate of passing and receiving, and a rapid transition between offense and defense.

Wenger has completely changed the previous Arsenal, making it impossible to think of the Arsenal in Graham's era from the hottest player in front of him.

The biggest problem with the Arsenal team a few months ago was that the two defensive midfielders did not cooperate tacitly. There were flaws when switching from defense to offense against top teams. There was a lack of rhythm control, and the cooperation of the offensive players in the frontcourt did not achieve a qualitative change. level.

But a few months later, the Arsenal in front of me felt impeccable, with a top-notch defense. In the offense, there were individuals with super individual ability like Overmars, and Bergkan who attacked in series or solved the battle by himself. When the cooperation between Pu, Vieira and Pettit matures, the pure energy of this 11-man starting lineup seems to be able to compete with any team in the Premier League.

It's no wonder that several contemporary Manchester United stars in history later lamented that Arsenal in the 97/98 season was the strongest, not the one in the 03/04 season!

Overmars took the ball on the right side, turned around and broke through with the ball forward, Capdevila defended, and Overmars easily used a change of direction to accelerate to get rid of Capdevila and left Capdevila behind.

After the success of the bottom, Peter Pan passed the ball in time, and the timing was just right. This is completely different from his performance outside the Gunners' tactical system a few months ago.

Ian Wright outflanked the ball in the middle and scored a header. Butt made a brilliant save and lifted the ball over the crossbar.

Seeing this scene from the sidelines, Aldridge pinched the bridge of his nose with a headache.

Capdevila was broken by Overmars twice in a row, and it felt like his defense was useless.

The Spaniard's return from injury was earlier than planned, but Aldridge expected him to play in January, but no one expected Zambrotta's last game at Old Trafford. He was injured again, which forced Capdevila to play early, and his state was indeed deeply worrying.

Damn Christmas Express, there are many foreign players, and it is often during the winter break of other leagues that the performance of foreign players will decline. In the past three years, Millwall's record has always fluctuated greatly around January.

Some of the older players were gradually overcoming this difficulty, but the young players still started to slump at Christmas.

Arsenal created pressure through two flanks in a row. They never dragged their feet when transitioning from defense to offense.

After playing 30 minutes in the first half, Capdevila was obviously out of shape, and was almost blown out and played by Overmars in various ways.

Jensen came up and suggested replacing Capdevila with Neil, fearing that the Spaniard's confidence would be broken in this game.

Aldridge vetoed this proposal. Players need to use the game to recover from injury. If Capdevila is replaced in this game, it will be a heavy blow to his confidence.

It is necessary for him to keep up with the rhythm in the game and continue to improve his feeling.

In the final analysis, it was a bit of bad luck. In the first game after his return from injury, he ran into the sky-high Peter Pan.

Aldridge kept yelling for Gudjohnsen to return to defense on the left to relieve Capdevila's pressure, but the Icelanders did not do a good job of the double defense on the same side, and Aldridge had to let Shevchenko and Gudjohnsen switched positions, allowing Shevchenko to help defend the left flank.

This time, the threat of Overmars dropped sharply. At the very least, Shevchenko's large-scale retracement can block the opponent's inward line, and Capdevila can concentrate on guarding against the opponent's bottom.

But in this way, Millwall's offense was almost paralyzed.

Arsenal shrunk deeper when defending. They learned the lesson of the last disastrous defeat. Six or seven defensive players alone are not enough to limit Millwall's overall advancement. Even Bergkamp returned to disturb Peel in the second half. Lowe's organization, which directly led to Millwall making a lot of mistakes in passing and receiving in the frontcourt.

The entire first half was played very passively, and the fans in the stands could see it. The most intuitive thing was that Arsenal's offense could reach Millwall's goal and form a threatening attack, but Millwall was in front of the goal. There is no way to advance to the opponent's penalty area.

Gunners fans saw this scene, and it was not unreasonable for the voices of doubts that condemned Wenger to weaken.

Being able to suppress Millwall at home is just a lack of luck, which is enough to show Wenger's skill, he has trained the team well, and he looks passionate and beautiful.

At halftime, the score was still 0:0.

Aldridge walked back to the locker room expressionlessly and directly adjusted the team's tactics.

The gorgeous offensive coordination of the offensive players in the frontcourt like they used to play with one kick, can't be played at all today!

In addition to the fact that Arsenal has a top-level defense and midfielder, as well as the large-scale retracement of frontcourt players, Millwall itself has a lot of problems.

Gudjohnsen's ability is good, but he still lacks a tacit understanding in cooperating with his teammates. That kind of dazzling offensive cooperation lacks a suitable piece of puzzle in the frontcourt, and the threat of offense is greatly reduced. Unsatisfactory, Capdevila's side was suppressed and unable to step forward to assist, Schneider's physical strength was a hidden worry, and the difficulties Millwall encountered today were far from being as simple as they appeared on the surface.

Aldridge can't allow the team to pursue any more gorgeous cooperation. With one kick, teammates move, pass and cut cooperation, and tear the opponent's defense line, it seems very simple, but in fact it requires a very high level of skill.

In the second half, Millwall had to play more simply and roughly, at least to be able to threaten the opponent's goal, not always spinning around in front of the penalty area and being counterattacked by the opponent!

In the second half, the two sides changed sides and fought again. After Aldridge's adjustment, the team's formation also changed, from 433 to 4231.

This adjustment quickly received a miraculous effect! (To be continued.) ()