Starting from playing as a defensive midfielder for Real Madrid

After the second round of the Premier League, all teams basically ushered in a week-long rest period.

After the first two rounds of games, some Premier League teams are happy and some are sad.

Including some of the top teams in the league, facing a less than stellar opening record in the new season, they are now seizing the time to make positive tactical adjustments.

For example, Liverpool and Everton performed very well last season and entered the European competition.

Another example is Manchester United, which finished seventh in the Premier League last season, and Southampton, which finished eighth.

Although the new season has just begun and the results have to be reviewed slowly, these teams have basically suffered heavy losses from relegation teams or teams in the middle and lower reaches of the league.

The slow game state of the players of these teams has indeed made their supporters anxious.

In comparison, Chelsea and Manchester City, the two Premier League champions and runner-up teams last season, are in much more stable form.

Chelsea started the new season against two newly promoted teams, scoring eight goals and conceding no goals. The statistics are good, but they have not yet been tested in tough games.

Manchester City played Newcastle at the beginning of the game and defeated Liverpool 3-1 at home in the second round. The gold content of two consecutive victories is still much higher than that of Chelsea.

Although there is little time for analysis in the two games, Chelsea and Manchester City at least showed that they have advantages over other top teams in the Premier League.

Chelsea is as steady as an old dog in her abuse of food.

Manchester City's players are in good shape very quickly in the new season, and they can also achieve tactical suppression against strong teams in the Premier League.

Both traits are essential for a team that wants to win a championship in the top league.

After the second round of the Premier League ended, various British media immediately began to hype up this season's "Double Blue War".

A large number of Premier League fans have also expressed their views, believing that the final Premier League champion this season will basically be produced by Manchester City and Chelsea.

Last season Chelsea had a league record of 30 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses, accumulating 94 points and winning the championship four rounds ahead of schedule.

Manchester City finally set its league points at 89 points.

Although the final points between the two teams are close because Chelsea no longer cares about the results of the last four rounds of the league after winning the championship in advance.

But in terms of results, Manchester City last season was indeed closest to Chelsea in terms of strength.

Liverpool and Arsenal both ended up with a double-digit points gap opened up by Chelsea.

To be conservative, there is nothing wrong with these two teams being half as good as Chelsea last season.

Therefore, in the new season, if you want to expect that the foundation of Chelsea's newly established dominance in the Premier League will be shaken.

Most Premier League fans can only hope that Manchester City can do more.

It just so happens that the first meeting between Chelsea and Manchester City in the league this season comes quickly.

In the fifth round of the Premier League, in late September, Chelsea will go to the Etihad Stadium to challenge Manchester City.

It is foreseeable that this Premier League highlight battle will definitely attract a large number of fans to watch.

And at the beginning of this Premier League season, the sumptuous main course was served to the fans' "dining table".

In the third round of the Premier League, the game between Chelsea and Everton can be regarded as an appetizer.

Everton, under the leadership of new coach Robert Martinez, finished sixth in the league last season.

At least Roberto Martinez has stabilized Everton's pecking order after Moyes' departure.

Three days ago, Everton defeated their opponents in the Europa League play-offs at home and officially entered the Europa League this season.

Maybe it was also because they had to be more distracted by the two-leg Europa League play-offs.

Therefore, Everton only drew with their opponents in the first two league rounds of the new season.

But now Everton has successfully passed the play-offs, will not be dragged down by the Europa League for the time being, and its morale is also high.

As a Premier League powerhouse in the European theater, Everton is the first challenge Chelsea has faced this season.

After buying out Adebayor, who was in poor form, from Tottenham in the winter window of last season and reactivating him, Everton has been firmly in the top six in the league.

This can be regarded as one of the butterfly effects caused by Li Ang.

Originally, after experiencing the dilemma of having a weak striker at the beginning of the season last season, Everton on the original historical line would seek the possibility of loaning Lukaku to Chelsea.

It was precisely because of Lukaku's explosion that Everton qualified for the European war after the end of last season, and even almost entered the top four of the Premier League.

But Chelsea valued Lukaku very much last season and were more inclined to keep him on the team for training.

So Martinez doesn't have many forward options.

In the first half of the season, in addition to continuing to rely on the magically absent striker Jelavic, he could only further tap the scoring capabilities of the team's wingers and midfielders.

After the winter window opened, Martinez named Adebayor, another "little monster" who had rich experience in the game but seemed to have declined significantly, from Tottenham.

As a result, Adebayor only scored 2 goals in 11 appearances for Tottenham in the first half of the season.

In the second half of the season, he regained his form at Everton. He scored 10 goals and 4 assists in 18 league games, successfully supporting Everton's offensive system and scoring tasks.

This made Levi very angry, because in order to stop the loss in time during the winter window, he directly agreed to Everton's buyout offer of 4 million pounds for Adebayor.

Judging from Adebayor's performance in the second half of the season, even if this little monster is over 30 years old, Levi is still sure to sell him for a price less than 10 million pounds.

The gap between 4 million and 10 million is huge.

Especially considering Levy's temperament, seeing Everton get such a huge advantage for no reason would make him feel even more uncomfortable than Tottenham losing money.

Of course, Adebayor's departure from the team forced Tottenham to tap the potential of the team in advance, and finally gained Kane, a potential center who scored eight goals in the league last season.

Levi selectively forgot.

Adebayor's outstanding performance in the second half of last season won him praise from many "famous players" in English football.

For Everton now, Adebayor undoubtedly plays a very important offensive tactical role.

Even he performed very sluggishly last season and once lost his position as Tottenham's starting lineup.

But Mourinho, who is good at using big centers, still formulated an exclusive tactical restriction package for this little monster before the game.

On the afternoon of August 30, the Goodison Park stadium was already full early.

Players from Everton and Chelsea, who have completed their warm-up preparations, returned to the locker room.

An hour ago, when Mourinho finally released Chelsea's starting 11 for today's game.

The entire English football world is destined to have heated discussions surrounding their match with Everton.

Because Mourinho chose to let Maguire, who performed well as a substitute in the last game, start directly in this game!

Fans who don't know Mourinho may have nasty guesses.

Mourinho, or Chelsea, wants to take advantage of this wave of discussion about Maguire in English football.

But in fact, although Mourinho also likes Maguire, he has not yet reached the point of directly rewarding him for starting the starting position just to encourage him.

As for saying that popularity equals traffic, that is even more impossible.

Because Mourinho himself is already the most trafficked head coach in football, he wants to be popular?

It is no exaggeration to say that he could just accept an interview casually.

The reason why Maguire was started in this game was that Mourinho took a fancy to his superb head-on defensive ability.

In other words, Mourinho wants to let Maguire do the tactical work, directly suppress Adebayor's performance, and make Everton lose the tactical fulcrum on the offensive end.

It's that simple.

But at this time, Everton's head coach Martinez did not expect this.

He was still holding Chelsea's starting 11-man roster, wondering what kind of trouble Mourinho wanted to make today by letting Leon and De Bruyne play together in the middle of the midfield?

Cross, who performed very well in the first two rounds of the league, was on the bench in this round.

Martinez doesn't think Mourinho looks down on him.

He was just wondering whether Mourinho wanted to imitate Guardiola in conducting some on-the-spot tactical experiments.

If this is the case, then in today's game, Martinez feels that his team even has a high probability of defeating Chelsea in an upset.

But when thinking about Mourinho's stability in tactical selection and the cunningness of pre-match tactical psychological games, Martinez felt that it was unlikely that Mourinho would survive.

"They must have done mature tactical drills in the offseason, so today's game is De Bruyne's control of the midfield organization. Mourinho is still choosing Li Ang's best midfield partner?"

After thinking for a while, Martinez finally came up with an "answer" that he thought was most likely to be close to the truth.

After all, De Bruyne also tried playing the No. 8 position several times last season, and the results were good when partnered with Li Ang.

Compared to Kroos's solid organization, De Bruyne's advantage is naturally his ability to pass the ball forward no matter where he is on the court.

Thinking of this, Martinez couldn't help but feel envious of Mourinho again.

This pick of Li Ang's midfield partner almost makes him pick out flowers.

When Kroos and De Bruyne go to other teams, even if they are rich and powerful teams, they will basically be treated as iron-clad midfield playmakers.

Now Mourinho actually wants the two of them to compete for the starting position?

Martinez thinks this is simply a wasteful way to use players!

Wait until the players from both sides follow the referee team onto the court.

Mourinho felt the slightly resentful look from Martinez next door to him, and felt uncomfortable all over.

"He won't guess our defensive tactics today, right?"

Mourinho pulled Holland over with some uncertainty, covered his mouth and asked.

Holland looked at the Everton coaching bench suspiciously, but shook his head repeatedly.

"How could Martinez have such a skill? If he had such keen tactical insight, he would have been poached by a mid-to-upper-tier team in the Premier League. How could he still lead the Wigan Athletic team to avoid relegation?"

Holland did not believe that Martinez could directly see through Chelsea's defensive tactics within an hour after receiving Chelsea's starting lineup.

Mourinho felt that what Holland said made sense, but he was still mentally prepared for his defensive tactics to be seen through by Martinez in advance.

After taking over Everton last season, he was able to lead the team into the top six of the Premier League. Although there was an element of luck due to Adebayor's explosion, Martinez also had a couple of tricks...right?

Mourinho never likes to make the mistake of underestimating his opponents.

He feels that his opponent today is more or less a capable young coach, and even if there is a gap between him and Pochettino, who switched to Tottenham this season, it should not be much different.

So after the game officially started, Mourinho looked at Adebayor's movement and taking the ball on the court with a serious face.

If Adebayor withdraws from the penalty area later to drop back to get the ball, Mourinho will have to make timely adjustments to his defensive tactics...

However, as the two teams' mutual offensive attempts ended at the beginning of the game, the worst scenario that Mourinho expected was that the tactics were broken, but it did not happen.

Adebayor is still playing the same style as usual.

After the start, he wanted to try his best to gain the upper hand in one-on-one confrontations with Maguire or Silva, and take the ball to create offensive space for his teammates.

But it's obvious that Adebayor still underestimated Maguire's confrontational power and his terrifying suppressive power in the deep-lying battle for the top!

Adebayor, who is 1.92 meters tall, keeps his weight at about 80 kilograms all year round. This allows him to have good confrontation ability and agility in movement that is not common in other big centers.

When he was young, Adebayor was actually obsessed with his skills at his feet. To a certain extent, he should not be called a little monster by fans.

If he were younger and in a different playing era than Ibrahimovic, it would be more appropriate for him to be called "Little Ibrahimovic".

So he is not a regular column center.

When he was playing for Arsenal, he actually also liked to play mismatched plays.

The defenders in the Premier League at that time were stronger than him, not as fast as him, and not as flexible as him.

And defenders who are more flexible than him are easily suppressed by him in terms of strength.

Now that he's older, Adebayor is just like Ibrahimovic.

Both of them slowly learned to use their body and fulcrum more rationally during the transformation to create offensive space for the team.

But the biggest difference between Adebayor and Ibrahimovic is that Ibrahimovic thinks more clearly and walks more smoothly on the road to weight gain.

Therefore, Ibrahimovic, who moved to the Premier League last season, did not suffer at all in confrontation, and I did not see any Premier League central defender restricting Ibrahimovic's performance one-on-one.

Adebayor is still somewhat immersed in his past years of dominating the Premier League.

It is impossible to gain a lot of weight. Anyway, the tall star central defenders in the Premier League are also old.

The new generation of central defenders have generally increased their mobility and reduced their size. In terms of strength confrontation, Adebayor feels that he can still take advantage of it.

But today he met a new generation of monster-heavy central defender!

Maguire's height of 1.94 meters and weight of 95 kilograms are really terrifying.

The key is that this kid always has a fierce spirit that likes confrontation, and his jumping ability is relatively good.

So after being forced into a one-on-one confrontation and fighting for a few high-altitude balls, Adebayor felt like his head was buzzing all the time!

After Li Ang saw Maguire suppressing Adebayor's defensive challenge in the frontcourt, he felt a slight pain in his head.

Good guy, it seems that this little World of Warcraft that moves the Premier League has encountered the "British Aircraft Carrier", so he has to kneel down when he should!

As long as he does not force a U-turn and take risks without the defensive protection of the midfielder, Maguire is a top frontal defender.

This has nothing to do with his current age or whether he has rich defensive experience.

The main reason is that his physical talent is too outstanding, and his big head is really an advantage when used to compete for high-altitude balls!

Mourinho probably didn't expect that he would achieve such an outstanding defensive effect when he sent Maguire to start today.

Then he turned around and looked at Martinez, who was still restless, as if he didn't know how to deal with this tactical dilemma.

Mourinho also decisively changed his previous view of this colleague.

Well, this guy led Everton to qualify for the European competition last season. It seems that he was really lucky and reaped the dividends of Adebayor's explosive performance.

Now that Adebayor has no room to perform, Mourinho can sit on the coaching bench and enjoy the offensive performances of his disciples.

I don’t know if it was because he was playing at home today, but Martinez’s opening tactics were relatively proactive.

Not to mention the frequent offensive attempts, it seemed that he had no intention of counterattacking at all.

Faced with Everton's aggressive offensive tactics, it would be a waste if Chelsea did not counterattack.

It just so happened that De Bruyne was partnering with Li Ang in the midfield today. The two of them made diagonal 45-degree long passes and the ball was more threatening than the other.

Chelsea played relatively securely today on both offense and defense.

Hazard and Salah, who started the game, failed to seize the previous counterattack opportunities and lacked a certain amount of aim in shooting.

But in the 28th minute of the first half, when De Bruyne sent a long counterattack pass, Li Ang suddenly followed up and attacked.

The tilted court situation was immediately completely tilted towards Chelsea!

Salah has a strong impact with the ball on the court, but today his desire to perform was a bit excessive.

In the two previous counterattack opportunities, the ball was given to him, and he missed the best time to distribute the ball.

Li Ang did not reprimand him loudly on the court.

This time following the forward attack, Li Ang directly signaled Salah, who had broken into Everton's bottom line, to pass the ball back to him at the most appropriate time.

If another Chelsea midfielder asks Salah for the ball now, Salah may not necessarily give it to him.

But seeing Li Ang raising his hand, Salah returned the ball to Li Ang without saying a word.

Before taking the ball, Li Ang had already observed the movements of his other offensive teammates in and outside the Everton penalty area in advance.

So after receiving Salah's pass, he just made a slight adjustment, and then used his left foot to pass the ball straight to the open area on the left side of Everton's penalty area!

Ibrahimovic's movement in the middle and Li Ang's passing once again formed a silent and tacit understanding.

When Everton's defenders were almost all attracted to the defensive attention by the passing and running movements of Li Ang and Ibrahimovic.

On the left side of Everton's penalty area, the unmarked Hazard stopped and shot in one go!

His powerful volley aimed at the far corner of the Everton goal was very decisive.

Everton's old goalkeeper Howard even just got down to the ground to make a save, and the football had already rolled directly into the far corner of the Everton goal!

Hazard was very happy after scoring a goal. Amid the cheers of the Chelsea fans at the scene, he rushed to Everton's bottom line and knelt down to celebrate.

Li Ang deliberately waited for a short while, then put his arm around Salah's shoulders and took him to celebrate with his teammates.

There is no need to preach, Salah is very smart, just like De Bruyne last season.

They already have their own fixed playing habits, but after entering the top league, they need a process of adaptation and adjustment.

After they tried to use the previous core style of play but failed to produce efficient data and performance, they themselves would understand that there was something wrong with this style of play.

There are many players who encounter problems but do not take the initiative to change.

Many so-called genius players who were once all-powerful in the minor leagues have disappeared from the crowd after reaching the top leagues. Basically, they were ruthlessly eliminated by strong teams because they refused to take the initiative to change.

But with Li Ang, Salah, like De Bruyne, has no possibility of not being able to play in the Premier League.

Some young players may need stricter control and teaching. For example, Lukaku needs a leader to teach him how to better utilize his abilities.

But young talents like De Bruyne and Salah just need more tolerance and adaptation time...

In the 42nd minute of the first half, Salah once again took the ball and broke through Baynes' marker. Before Distin could cover up, he finally passed the ball in an inverted triangle to the man who inserted in the middle of the penalty area. Ibrahimovic.

Ibrahimovic made a quick connection and then pushed the shot into the middle of the goal. This time Howard made a timely save and blocked Ibrahimovic's shot immediately.

But facing Li Ang, who advanced into Everton's penalty area and shot a follow-up shot with a grimace, Howard was helpless.

Salah did not gain personal data during this goal, but his performance was recognized by all Chelsea players.

Ibrahimovic laughed affectionately and rubbed Salah's curly hair.

After Li Ang and Hazard finished celebrating, they also smiled and high-fived Salah and hugged him.

Mourinho was in a good mood standing on the sidelines. He just felt that his previous approach of asking Li Ang to find a way to integrate Salah into the team's tactical system as soon as possible was extremely correct.

As long as Salah maintains this state of continuous improvement, he will be able to serve as Chelsea's trump card on the right in the second half of the season, ready to play at any time to break the balance of the game.

By then, in the Champions League, Mourinho will have more confidence to compete with any team without falling behind!

As for the Premier League in the new season?

All Mourinho wanted to say.

Including Manchester City.

Humph, there is no one who can fight!