The Young Lion

Highbury was full of gunpowder, and military songs were loud in the stands.

As the game time passed, Wenger's frown became deeper and deeper.

Millwall's offensive restriction against Arsenal was very successful!

What is the main basis for studying the work of opponents?

Formation? player?

How does a technical and tactical system work?

One thing is the most critical.

That's how the player moves off the ball, not where the player plays.

Just like the outside world can only say that Henry is a striker, but they cannot clearly define what type of striker Henry is. His range of activities is too large, and his trajectory seems to be irregular. They are all in double figures, the average number of goals is 20+ easily, and the number of assists is only one season without breaking through 20, and that is last season.

Although Nedved's performance is not as good as that of Henry in terms of statistics, Nedved is still indispensable and irreplaceable in terms of tactics, because Nedved's indirect assists are second only to Ronaldinho in the team.

In the Arsenal formation, such a character is Bergkamp.

What is the biggest difference between today and half a season ago?

Millwall has made a breakthrough in targeting Bergkamp.

Maturity derived from Alonso.

No matter how Arsenal play offensively, Alonso's main task is to read the development trajectory of the opponent's attack, and then cut off the connection between the Arsenal players and Bergkamp. Bergkamp instigated the offensive and made the frontcourt attack clear. His greatest threat.

Whether Ljungberg is on the right, Vieira comes up from behind, or Pires is on the left. Even Van Bronckhorst came up with an assist. Alonso has to block the straight line between Arsenal's players and Bergkamp.

Vieira assisted in the middle. With Nedved against the pressing.

When attacking from the wing, the full-back follows closely.

If Ibrahimovic withdraws to respond, De Rossi will follow him.

In the first half of the season, the opponent broke the midfielder. In fact, Alonso was unable to limit the role of Bergkamp.

What happened over four months?

What specific changes have taken place between Alonso and Bergkamp?

Alonso is growing, body, experience, technique, awareness. All aspects are growing rapidly, among which the body may be the slowest, but it is also a rising period.

In the same period, even if Bergkamp did not improve or regress, the gap between the two in one-on-one, or cat-and-mouse games was shortened.

In particular, this is the final game, and it is a season of fierce competition. A player's physical fitness has been reserved before the season, and he will continue to fight in the middle of the season. At the end of the season, the fuel is about to run out, the critical stage of the end of the battle.

this aspect. Alonso's advantage is obvious, and it is by no means comparable to the 35-year-old Bergkamp.

The pitch is huge, Millwall takes the initiative to attack and gives the opponent a lot of space.

Bergkamp does not retreat as deep as Zidane, as if he has the desire to control football, he organizes from the midfield and then inserts himself for further organizational support.

Bergkamp will find a space in the frontcourt, then appear in the space, wait for the pass of his teammates to arrive as expected, and then he will make the next attack.

Of course, Alonso's task cannot be to chase Bergkamp. That is the most stupid way of defense. The defensive player chases the offensive player, can he catch up?

Just one or two sudden stops and turning around, the rhythm difference will lose the target of hot pursuit.

What Alonso does is to examine the direction of Arsenal's attack and pay attention to the position of Bergkamp. Even if Bergkamp appears in the open space, it doesn't matter. Alonso only needs to be on the straight line between the ball and Bergkamp. It is enough to form a block.

With his defensive position to block Bergkamp from taking the ball, even though Bergkamp's defensive position is not deep after the start of the game, Bergkamp still needs a lot of running without the ball to get rid of the blockade Wire!

This is a defense, but also a consumption.

And Millwall's offensive strategy after 10 minutes has also changed.

Now that the opponent's home court advantage has been partly eliminated after the start of the game, and all players have entered the game state, Millwall has to control the rhythm of the game.

When Millwall attacked, they had a huge possession advantage in midfield.

Ronaldinho never stays on the front line, he attacks from the back to the front.

Therefore, Ronaldinho's offensive starting position is often just beyond the left side of the midfield.

Ronaldinho, Nedved, plus Alonso, and two full-backs, their pass control in the midfield will tear Arsenal's formation apart at first!

Forcing Ljungberg and Pires to participate in the defense of the backcourt, and not chasing the ball back and forth in the midfield, it was just being played like a monkey.

Immediately afterwards, Arsenal also needed someone in the middle to retreat to defend, but they couldn't have both forwards come back to defend. Why?

If they all withdraw, so what if they grab the ball?

They couldn't play deep at the first time, and it became a layer-by-layer push. Millwall's huge midfielder advantage made Millwall definitely faster than them when they retreated, and they were no threat. After all, Ibrahimovic and Borg Kemp, now does not have the individual ability to directly break through Millwall's two-level defense with the ball.

In such an oppression, Bergkamp has to retreat to participate in the defense, which will further consume his physical energy!

In the 19th minute, Millwall suddenly launched a threatening attack after passing and controlling the midfielder. After a feint attack from the left, he quickly shifted the attack to the right. Saved by Lehmann.

In the 21st minute, Arsenal counterattacked. Bergkamp did not step forward in the midfield and directly instigated Pires' counterattack on the left. In pursuit of speed, when Pires rushed to the front line, the players who inserted behind did not follow up. He cut inside alone and was successfully defended by Schneider and Nesta.

Millwall, who had turned from defense to offense, immediately launched an offensive. They quickly passed the ball through the midfield. Ronaldinho cooperated with Nedved on the left and then went straight to Henry on the front line. Henry carried Campbell in the penalty area and barely Kick shot wide of the goal.

30 minutes later. Millwall has a clear advantage. But it couldn't create an excellent scoring opportunity.

Arsenal used their lives in this game. In addition, the research on Millwall is not a day or two, and the targeted restrictions are extremely in place. There is also a point that Ronaldo is immature. His performance at this point cannot achieve intuitive effects. He has four shots, two of which if If you give it to Henry or Larson, you may be able to break the door.

Wenger stood on the sidelines with a worried look on his face.

He has already seen Millwall's routine.

In positional warfare, use Ronaldo's speed to achieve depth. Compress Arsenal's overall formation to the extreme in the second half. In this way, Arsenal's counterattack threat is greatly reduced!

After Arsenal finally made an attack to advance to the Millwall penalty area, if the attack was terminated and Millwall launched a counterattack, Millwall would shift the focus of the attack to Ronaldinho's side.

Obviously, when counterattacking, there is more space, more choices, and when creativity is needed to generate stronger offensive threats. Millwall will play to Ronaldinho's strengths when there is no space. For a sudden and violent attack, it will be handed over to Ronaldo, who is using Ronaldo to consume Arsenal, allowing Ronaldinho to use every energy in the most threatening environment.

But just like Millwall's targeted restriction of Bergkamp, ​​Arsenal's player movement trajectory and offensive routine changes are also fully prepared for Millwall.

Wenger believes that as long as they don't make mistakes themselves, such as personal stop errors, pass errors, or slips, and suddenly the brain makes a move to give the opponent a dangerous set-piece, Arsenal's defense will have no problem.

The overall defense line, four backs and double midfielders, have also played together for at least two years.

Like Henry pulling the sidelines, Ronaldinho cutting inside, Nedved going forward, etc. They were beaten so frightened and powerless before, but today they are fully concentrated, and the alarm will be sounded at the slightest sign of trouble. Can play better!

However, Wenger still underestimated Millwall.

The Millwall that Aldrich is building now, the third generation of Wild Lions, will play a more magical offensive effect on the offensive end than the second generation of Wild Lions.

In the 36th minute, Ljungberg sought a pass from Ibrahimovic on the right, but was blocked early by Southgate's bold attack. Southgate passed the ball to De Rossi, who calmly Observing Bergkamp's movements, Alonso's position is obviously easier to catch the ball openly, and Bergkamp is far away from Alonso at this time.

The ball reached Alonso's feet, he looked ahead and gave the ball to Nedved.

Nedved dribbled the ball to the left, trying to tear up the defensive gap between Vieira and Silva, paving the way for Ronaldinho's attack.

Because Ronaldinho is running from the left to the middle at this time, neither of them need to make eye contact, and they know how to form a cooperation in the next step through the direction of each other's legs.

Ronaldinho, Nedved, switch positions!

Nedved took two steps with the ball and suddenly stopped the ball in place, and then he ran in the direction of the left side of the penalty area without hesitation!

His running position caught the attention of Vieira and Campbell. Vieira is in the middle right position of the midfielder, and the focus is to limit the impact of Ronaldinho and Nedved's habitual running positions on this side.

But this time, Ronaldinho took the ball to the middle, and did not pass it to Henry in a straight line, or pass it to Nedved directly by cutting the line.

He split the ball to the right.

What looked like a formulaic pass wasn't a surprise.

However, Ronaldinho's next move after passing the ball made all Arsenal's defensive players, as well as Wenger on the sidelines, tingle!

Under Wenger's dumbfounded gaze, Ronaldinho rushed from Silva's left side to the ribs of Arsenal's defense, that is, Millwall's attack direction should have been the end of Ronaldo's internal cut route!

After Ronaldinho passed the ball, he pointed to the front of his running position, and with a cold face, he ordered Ronaldo to pass the ball there immediately.

Ronaldo stops the ball and passes the ball without sloppy.

Ronaldinho threw off Silva in the impact of running, because Silva didn't expect Ronaldinho to run like this!

At the same time, Nedved was attracting Vieira and Campbell on the other side, Henry also started at the same time, he knew what he should do, he also approached Nedved, Toure followed Henry subconsciously, Unconsciously exposed rib space!

Ronaldinho is coming!

After receiving a pass from Ronaldo, he took a step forward, slanted towards the goal, and blasted out without any interference!

The ball slammed into the top corner of the goal against the inside of the near post.

Lyman was dumbfounded.

Highbury

The enthusiasm of Arsenal fans was extinguished by the icy sea water!

Wild Lions fans are burning like flames! (to be continued..) ()