The Young Lion

Grimsby was reversed in the middle of the week, and the League Cup passed smoothly. Aldridge apologized to the team again on the training ground the next day. His sudden absence did have a negative impact on the team. The importance of it goes without saying.

Aldridge is not a person who will indulge in the past, so he takes the self-criticism seriously, but it will not take too long.

Millwall's tight schedule means that they have just returned to London for two days, and they will go to the northwest of England. The main event of the defending champion Blackburn has become the focus of this round of competition, even surpassing Arsenal's home game against Nottingham Forest. .

Blackburn is a city in name, but it’s actually more like a town, because the population here is just over 100,000. After winning the first Premier League title in the history of the club last season, Blackburn still retains the main frame lineup this season. , the staff has not been lost, but their head coach has changed. The scheming Dalglish hastily retired and enjoyed worship in Blackburn with a vacant position, leading an annual salary of up to 300,000 pounds. Then, Blackburn ushered in New manager: Ray Halford.

This coach is over 50 years old and played as a central defender in his career. A coach’s playing experience has a great impact on his coaching career. For example, Kevin Keegan is an offensive player. The team he trained offensively The game is smooth, but the defense is a mess, and Halford's style is defensive, but this Blackburn is not known for its defense. The reason why they won the Premier League last season was their offense. The offensive firepower that tops the Premier League , scored 3 more goals than Manchester United, but conceded 11 more goals than Manchester United. Of course, Manchester United scored a lot of goals and scored against the underdogs. For example, they slaughtered Ipswich Town with 9 goals.

The style of the coach and the team does not match, and it is not surprising that the team's performance fluctuates.

In the first three rounds of the Premier League this season, Blackburn got off to a good start with a small victory over the underdogs, and then suffered two consecutive losses. The outside world commented that Blackburn focused on the Champions League. After all, they have drawn a good lottery. The opponents in the game were Spartak Moscow, Rosenborg, Warsaw Lega.

But Aldridge, as the head coach, can see that Blackburn's problem is not the focus of the season at all, because they performed extremely amazing in the Champions League. The famous brother-in-law fight, shame in front of the whole world.

Before coming to this quiet and traditional town, Aldridge said in a formulaic diplomatic tone at the press conference: Blackburn is the defending champion, Millwall is a newly promoted, and it is a challenge for us to be a guest at Ewood Park.

Challenge?

The media thinks that Aldridge is low-key in his usual way, but Aldridge is telling the truth.

Because of this game, he rested the main lineup and made a rotation.

It is a risky approach to let the substitute lineup directly face the pressure brought by the defending champion, but Aldridge feels that he should try to let the substitute players grow rapidly and adapt to the rhythm of the Premier League, which will help Millwall as a whole in the future. more powerful.

Halford's life is not easy, with two consecutive league losses, especially the loss to Manchester United at home in the last game, which put him under tremendous pressure, so this game against Millwall cannot be missed.

In the locker room, the old coach painstakingly told the players to set up fences, defend first and then attack. The players must more or less listen to the coach's words, so as not to get a reputation for rebellion.

In the fourth round of the Premier League at Ewood Park, Aldridge supervised the game from the sidelines as usual,

Halford didn't dare to neglect, and he was always on the sidelines directing the players to strengthen their defense.

Aldridge played a 433 formation in this game, Gattuso-Vieira-Barack three midfielders have a guarantee of defensive hardness, the defender was suspended for five games last season because of Materazzi, plus the original red card Leaving the field, he will not be able to return until mid-September, so Richards and Elguera are the defenders, Zambrotta and Mills are the full-backs, and the striker is Glenshire Phillips-Sauer Skia.

Blackburn was almost the main lineup last season.

SAS striker combination, Hille and Sutton.

Sherwood-Barty-Wilcox-Ripley formed a midfield four.

Le Saux-Hendry-Coleman-Berger formed the back line with Flowers in goal.

There is nothing to say about the strength of this lineup, except that it is a bit top-heavy, but if Aldrich Blackburn was given the transfer budget, he would not buy this group of players. , Blackburn introduced all capable players who can fight, and after a little polishing, they will be able to achieve results.

But such players are often already well-known, and Aldridge can't control them at all, because the players' subjective will is too strong, and they have no sense of belonging to the club, and their identities are more like mercenaries.

Aldridge’s team building idea is to let young players come to his team when they are penniless. Even if the players leave, then the club has cultivated them and let them leave with pride and reputation, which is beneficial for him to manage the team. And the persuasiveness to retain players is stronger.

Opposite Blackburn, in the main lineup, the SAS combination needless to say, will be poached in two years, and other players will join Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester United and other teams one after another. They are mercenaries, come here to make money With the money and the honor, when the team's record is not good, it is logical to transfer and leave.

This battle, which was expected by the outside world, did not spark, but was a little dull.

Three attacking and defensive midfielders effectively blocked Blackburn's positional attack, and the central defender combination of El Graga Richards also performed with ease.

Aldridge looked around the stadium stands, thoughtful: maybe the atmosphere here is not as frenzied as Anfield or Old Trafford, and he doesn't feel much pressure.

Because of this, Millwall's young players did not have any stage fright against the defending champions. Elguera, who played in England for the first time, was even more impressive. Sutton and Shearer tried to break through him once respectively. Being successfully intercepted, he is even more calm and decisive when handling the ball.

Millwall's offensive performance left Aldridge speechless.

Ballack passed the ball to Phillips. Phillips turned around with the ball, wiped Sherwood, and then shot a long shot from 30 yards in front of the penalty area!

This long-range shot was of extremely high quality, but it was still blocked by goalkeeper Flowers.

Aldrich turned around and sat down on the coaching bench with some helplessness, turned his head and asked Jenson, It's been a year, has he not changed his playing habits yet?

Jansen shrugged and said, Didn't he show it just now? However, he is very lucky with goals.

The two are talking about Kevin Phillips. Aldridge is not very satisfied with Phillips, but Phillips can always score goals in limited playing time. In terms of time efficiency alone, he can even be ranked second to Solskjaer. Front.

But just now, before Phillips made a long-range shot, both Glenshire and Solskjaer on the two wings ran out of good positions, and he chose to shoot long-range himself.

He is a demon sword!

He is good at long-range shots, sudden cold arrows and other skills, and his shooting skills are very good.

But it's just a little out of gregariousness, and I can't play with team football.

Aldridge needs a striker to play a supporting role, but his way of playing is similar to England's traditional fast striker of one high and one fast. He appears in the most threatening position and takes care of the final blow by himself.

But he was still able to score goals. Aldridge had a few in-depth talks with him, and he still played the familiar way as always.

Now that he is still a substitute, Aldridge can't demand too much from him. The demon sword also has the benefits of the demon sword, which is not in line with the mainstream, but it has infinite power when used well, but it cannot be used rightly.

Rubbing his forehead with a headache, Aldrich didn't know what choice he should make when the demon knife asked him to be the main player. The more goals he scored, the more he wanted to be the main player. This is obvious.

But he is not the type of forward Millwall needs in the future.

Substitutes are fine, but the main players have no way.

During the period when Aldridge was absent, Blackburn played a wave of counterattacks and suppressed Millwall completely relying on his personal ability. He also responded with a long-range shot. Bout threw the ball, but Sutton, who entered the penalty area, grabbed the ball in front of Richards and shot the ball out of the goal.

Blackburn lead Millwall 1-0 at home.

Seeing the goal lost, Aldridge stood up from his seat and shouted to the players to cheer them up. That kind of goal loss is not unacceptable, but this is a lesson, a lesson for goalkeepers and defenders. They try not to make the same mistakes again in the process of honing their skills and raising awareness.

After scoring a goal in the first half, Blackburn got a little carried away in the second half. They attacked boldly, and the space holes in the defense became bigger and bigger.

In the 73rd minute of the second half, Vieira and Ballack went forward together to organize an effective counterattack, and finally it was Phillips who assisted Phillips to score the goal.

After the score was equalized, the scene was a little out of control. Both teams wanted to win. The conservativeness in the first half of the opening was thrown out of the sky, and the confrontation was vigorously launched.

The game was fierce and exciting, but the goal never appeared again. In the end, the two teams shook hands and made a draw.

Aldridge's Millwall has achieved two wins and two draws in the new season, with excellent results, but in the Premier League rankings, they are 4 points behind the top team.

To everyone's surprise, Newcastle United, led by Kevin Keegan, won all of the first four rounds and took the lead in the standings.

PS: Thank you Nanxi Old Man for your tip!