Football’s First Defender

The Premier League has one game less, but still relies on the strong performance of five consecutive victories at the start of the game, Chelsea is firmly in the top position.

And in the new season, Chelsea, which has won 8 consecutive victories in all competitions, won two championships, and performed extremely well on both ends of the offense and defense, has already made many people exclaim. This excellent state of play can be maintained, and the impact on the Premier League and the Champions League will be launched at the same time.

In the middle of the week, Chelsea need to play in the third round of the Carabao Cup.

In the third round of the game, Chelsea got the home qualification, and their opponent was Queens Park Rangers, a team from the British Championship.

Because in the second half of the last league game against Tottenham, Ballack suffered a muscle strain. Ancelotti also knows that the players have been fighting repeatedly recently and their bodies are already very tired. There may be a wave of injuries in the first half of the season.

Among the two cup competitions in England, the FA Cup is the one with the highest gold content. Therefore, for the English League Cup knockout match in the early stage of the league, the Chelsea players are not very cold. Like many rich teams, no matter who the opponent is, In the first few rounds, they sent substitute players and youth players to play in a mixed match. If they win, they win. After reaching the quarterfinals, they consider sending the main force to win the championship. If they lose, there is nothing to feel bad about.

Ancelotti, who is not willing to play a major player, still relies on his experienced cup experience to arrange a tactic that can maximize the characteristics of these players for the improvised team.

The final result is still good. I understand that I am the Queen’s Park Ranger who accompanied the prince to study, and I also think that the English League Cup is meaningless. As a team with the goal of promotion, 46 games in the English Championship per season are enough. It is dense, and for them, "strength out" in the English League Cup early is the option that is most in line with the interests of the team.

In the end, under the mutual "humility" of the two teams, Chelsea, which was obviously superior, won the game, 1 to 0, the most affordable score, Chelsea won the game, and also won the new season. 9-game winning streak!

The English media also made predictions about who can stop Chelsea. Everyone hopes that when Chelsea face the Red Army Liverpool in the 8th round of the league, Liverpool may be able to threaten Chelsea to the greatest extent.

As for Chelsea's opponent at the weekend, Wigan Athletic, was ignored by most people. After all, the team that fell into the relegation zone at the start of the game, Wigan Athletic's strength is just like that.

What's more, what is needed to cool down is the team's defensive ability. Wigan Athletic's defense conceding an average of 2 goals per game is really unsightly. Moreover, against the two giants, they lost 0-5 at home to Manchester United and 4-0. Bloodbathed by Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.

Wigan Athletic's defense problems will always be magnified when facing giants, and with an offensive level of only scoring 4 goals in 6 league games, it seems that facing Chelsea's top European defense line, there will be no problem. any chance.

Even though Wigan Athletic is at home, everyone was unanimously optimistic about Chelsea before the game. Even the Chelsea players themselves, with a series of red streaks in the record, also looked down on this game. After all, the hard power is there. No matter how you look at it, Chelsea has huge advantages on both offense and defense, which can guarantee that they can easily win.

In the weekend league, Ancelotti continued his main lineup to play the world. Due to Barack's injury, Ancelotti chose to use Mikel to play as a double midfielder with Essien in the away game. , the positions of the other personnel remain unchanged, and Bosingwa is still the right back, but this time due to the absence of Ballack, Bosingwa has to advance more bravely on the offensive end to ensure that Chelsea's wing attack can create the maximum. of threat.

Wigan Athletic, who played at home, decisively dispatched a lineup of 532. Although the team has a high probability of losing, but after all, it is still a home game, and it is still necessary to try.

Chelsea still showed the team's oppressive power from the very beginning. Although Chelsea's offensive players are not too many, the team's overall offense depends to a large extent on the large forward penetration of the two full-backs, but Wigan Athletic , At the beginning of the game, he paid great attention to the overall defense of the team. He did not blindly rush to defend Chelsea's two sides at the beginning of the game. The strength of the whole team for more effective defense.

Most of Wigan Athletic's players are black players. They have a strong physique and enough athletic talent to ensure that they will not suffer from physical confrontation in position defense.

Of course, just like the Stoke City that Chelsea faced before, its team members may not have such a high tactical quality when facing some delicate running tactics, and they may not have such a high tactical quality, and they have always maintained their attention to complete the attack on the offensive players. Follow up.

But now, after Ballack was injured, Chelsea left Lampard alone as a passer in the middle. Although Lampard passed the ball well, he gave the players of Wigan Athletic a guideline. bright light.

Instead of struggling to defend Drogba and Anelka, it is better to gather the strength of the whole team to restrict Lampard tightly, instead of allowing him to complete the pass freely and easily.

The opponent's two black and hard midfielders began to focus on Lampard, and they continued to fight physically. Regardless of whether there was a ball under Lampard's feet, Lampard was constantly harassed by the opponent's small movements. The large-scale physical confrontation exhausted Lampard's physical strength.

Although Essien and Mikel began to participate in the attack because the team had an absolute advantage, but the two defensive players, even if they opened up the space in the middle, when the ball appeared in Essien and Mikel When he was at Er's feet, he was always unable to complete the ball in the first time, and the accuracy of passing the ball needs to be improved.

When the ball finally, most of the time, the ball can only be handed over to the wing to attack, Wigan Athletic's defense also began to increase its defensive strength to the wing, and the rope was locked on Chelsea's head little by little. .

It is rare that while Chelsea are controlling the high-altitude ball rate, they really don't have too many chances to hit the goal. In the past, the long-range shots from the center should have been opened by this time, but Essien and Mikel are still farther back. , and when there is no conventional long-range weapon, without Ballack's Lampard, one person really cannot get enough offensive space in the middle.

Chelsea's ball possession rate is high, but it's just real ball possession, without much substantive progress.

In the first 15 minutes of the game, Chelsea only contributed 1 goal, which is very inconsistent with Chelsea's previous offensive data when pressing.

Wigan Athletic's defense is getting better and better. While enhancing their team's defensive confidence, it also brings more and more troubles to Chelsea's offense!

For the Chelsea players, to be the main players of the European giants, everyone's tactical quality is extremely good. Everyone understands that the crux of Chelsea's offense is that the ball is not passed smoothly in the middle.

Perhaps for Ancelotti, he still has enough cards in his hand to make substitution adjustments in the second half of the game and strengthen his offense. But for the players on the field, they don't want to simply consume their own and the opponent's physical energy on the field, and make wedding dresses for substitute players.

Especially for a player like Mikel who is between the main force and the substitute, although he has always been a defensive player, in private, he and Essien did not practice passing less.

After all, when facing the opponent's iron barrel formation, a midfielder who can pass the ball will greatly supplement the team's offense.

It's just that no matter how well you train on the training ground, you may not be able to perform at a normal level in actual competitions.

Without confrontation, no matter how good the pass is, in the actual game, there will be huge deviations.

Mikel tried to send a pass to the penalty area from a distance, but under the fierce confrontation of the game, Mikel's pass was realized, but the effort at his feet still appeared to be deviated, and this time, Mikel's pass error was directly caught by the home team Wigan Athletic.

You know, although Mikel's pass went to Drogba in the penalty area, the angle was slightly off. After the ball ran, it was passed directly to the Wigan Athletic center back near Drogba.

After Bramble received Mikel's "assist" pass, he didn't think much about it, and directly drove towards Chelsea's half-court with a big kick.

It can only be said that it is Wigan Athletic. After a series of disastrous defeats, the character performance of this game is really good.

Bramble's "clearance ball" turned into a long pass directly, and it was still a very threatening long pass.

The football, which was not deliberately controlled, fell to the most fatal place for Chelsea in the final landing point.

The ball directly hit outside the vast defensive area formed by Yang Feng and Terry, and after the ball landed, it still bounced to the side, giving Wigan Athletic full-back Thomas enough space to start, but Yang Feng immediately , unable to step forward to complete an effective supplementary defense.

Thomas's speed was extremely fast, without any extra thoughts, he just advanced in a straight line quickly, and Yang Feng, who came to defend, could only follow closely at a position close to the inside, but far away from Thomas' position.

It's just that Yang Feng's following was doomed to be futile in the end. Thomas didn't have any thoughts of cutting into the penalty area and trying to create direct scoring opportunities by himself. Thomas had only one thought in his mind, which was to start from the side, and then Complete the cross.

As for what happened after the pass, that was not in Thomas' hands.

Thomas's directness made Yang Feng's defense useless, because the long pass from the backcourt just now gave Thomas a big enough positional advantage close to the side.

It was no easy task for Yang Feng to keep following along the way, not to be thrown away by Thomas' speed. It was really impossible to smooth out the distance between the two of them by a few meters in a short period of time.

Thomas made the last kick and crossed from the side without too much interference.

After Essien and Mikel seized the time to retreat, they partnered with Terry, and the three defended the opponent's two forwards who barely kept up.

However, it may be that I blame myself for my previous pass error, or it may be that the game state has not been adjusted to the best, or there is a problem with my mentality.

This time, Mikel wanted to express himself too much, but he took the top of the penalty area again. A fatal defensive error caused a huge hole in Chelsea's defense in an instant, and Wei Keer not far behind Mikel Athletic Gan striker, Hugo Rodagas, faced the big gift that Mikel missed, and directly accepted it with a blunt smile.

In the absence of other interference, Hugo Rodagas unloaded the ball directly, fully adjusted, pushed and hit the goal, and scored a goal for Wigan Athletic in the first half!

Chelsea is in an away game and fell behind again. The good news is that the game time has only reached the 19th minute, and there is still enough time for Chelsea to make adjustments.

Ancelotti kept instructing the players on the sidelines that they must calm down at this time and must not panic. The Chelsea players must believe in their own strength.

In the following games, Chelsea took the offensive initiative in a short period of time and resumed their onslaught against Wigan Athletic.

However, it is hard for a clever woman to cook without rice. Without enough offensive players, Chelsea's offensive strength cannot create too good opportunities.

In the first half of the game, Chelsea did not have any gains on the offensive end this time. It was 0 to 1 at halftime. Chelsea entered the intermission with a lagging score.

At the beginning of the second half, Ancelotti directly used his own substitution quota, and Deco replaced Mikel to increase Chelsea's offensive ability on the field, while offensive players such as Kalou and Zhirkov, At the beginning of the second half, he came to the sidelines for warm-up exercises to ensure that Ancelotti could add offensive players to the field at any time according to the situation.

Deco's play was immediate, and Wigan Athletic's defense has not yet entered the game.

Chelsea fought back early in the second half.

This time, Lampard took advantage of the gap where the opponent's back was not tight enough to defend, directly dribbled the ball to open the space, and completed a long shot.

A high-quality long-range shot directly hit a diagonal and hit the upper left corner of the goal. Wigan Athletic's goalkeeper couldn't make a save, and Chelsea equalized the score in the 47th minute.

However, in today's game, Chelsea is destined to have trouble. Not long after the score was equalized, Deco was directly knocked to the ground by the opponent's striker before the ball was played. Hu Ge, who came from the ball, launched a counterattack directly on the spot.

A diagonal through ball to Thomas was also accurately passed in front of Thomas, giving Thomas a space to accelerate all the time.

Thomas directly relied on his speed to force a one-handed effect, while Cech naturally attacked quickly, trying to see if he could block the football.

Thomas' waving ball was a bit too big, giving Cech a chance to hold the ball, but before Cech could catch the ball, Thomas forcibly adjusted and completed the change of direction of the spike, while Cech's center of gravity had already pounced forward and stopped. Too late, he jumped directly at Thomas.

For the red dot package, Petr Cech was shown a red card and sent off in the 52nd minute. He also gave Wigan Athletic a penalty. Chelsea encountered a huge crisis.

The penalty kick was accurately scored, and Chelsea, who played one less player, naturally had no good way to achieve success on the offensive end.

On the contrary, Wigan Athletic, relying on the large number of people, even started to attack vigorously.

Before the end of the game, Wigan Athletic chased all the ball possession rate, and the number of shots was also the same. Chelsea's last effort in the final stage was futile, but the home team counterattacked and scored a goal again.

With a score of 3 to 1, Wigan Athletic ended Chelsea's winning streak and gave Chelsea their first loss of the new season!

Playing football is very cool, but after playing football, the code words are exhausting...