Starting from playing as a defensive midfielder for Real Madrid

Since transferring to Manchester United this summer, the frequency of phone calls between Angel Di Maria and Li Ang has become higher month by month.

At first - at least when he signed the contract with Manchester United, Di Maria was still very happy.

He got the lucrative contract he wanted, got a commitment from Van Gaal to play the tactical core of the team's offense, and the feeling of playing in the Premier League's largest club was not bad.

At that time, he also asked Li Ang about the current situation of Manchester United.

Li Ang asked him back.

"Angel, do you still want to prove your ability at the club level? Or, do you still want to lead Manchester United to dominate the Premier League?"

The answer given by Di Maria is of course no.

All the club honors he ever wanted were achieved at Real Madrid.

As the absolute main member of Real Madrid, he won the supreme honor of six crowns and defending the Champions League.

He no longer needs to prove his ability to anyone. Their group of main players from Real Madrid are all winners in life.

Now he is actually the same as Higuain who chose to leave Real Madrid in the summer of 2013.

The pursuit of heavyweight championship glory is of course still there, but it has to be ranked below the lucrative contract offer.

After achieving great success, there is nothing wrong with pursuing good rewards and enjoying football as much as possible.

What interests him more now is representing the Argentina national team to compete for the World Cup.

The regret of missing Brazil this summer and being so close to the world championship has become the pain of all Argentine players and fans.

Apart from this, there are basically no events that Di Maria would be willing to work hard for.

He and Li Ang are excellent friends and often communicate in private, so he answered honestly in this regard and did not want to hide anything from Li Ang.

And after knowing Di Maria's current pursuit, Li Ang just responded to him cheerfully.

"Then Manchester United will be a good choice for you. Relax, prepare your personal data, and don't worry about other things..."

Di Maria was a little confused at first and didn't quite understand what Li Ang meant by what he said to him.

But now after playing nearly ten games at the beginning of the season, he finally understood the correctness of what Li Ang said.

The water at Manchester United can no longer be described as turbid. Anyway, Di Maria regrets taking this contract without knowing more about Manchester United's current situation.

However, after experiencing tactical struggles at the beginning of the season, Di Maria finally accepted the reality under Li Ang's constant guidance.

After all, the salaries and bonuses paid by Manchester United are real money.

Never mind that the club's management is in disarray, its training facilities are outdated, and its head coach's tactics are bizarre.

He took the money, took good care of his health, produced data as much as possible, and treated it as early retirement!

Di Maria, who is now more and more relaxed, often teases himself and Manchester United when communicating with Li Ang.

"Really, don't let us lose too embarrassingly at Old Trafford. If the boss (Mourinho) gives us a tragedy at Old Trafford, the next group of reporters will Yue Du has to shoot and taunt us..."

Li Ang listened to Di Maria's self-deprecation, but he was asked to relax on the phone.

"No, there will definitely be no tragedy. At most, it will be a small victory. Don't worry~"

Di Maria didn't believe Li Ang's words, but Li Ang kept reassuring him with this answer, making it mysterious and confusing to him.

Fortunately, the international match day is next, and the troubles the club brought to Di Maria were quickly forgotten by him.

Intercontinental competition qualifiers or friendly matches on all continents are in full swing.

Ten days later, the professional players who had finished playing for the national team returned to the club to report.

So the head coaches of the top-ranked teams in the four major leagues began to have headaches again.

The physical depletion and injuries of the stars have been exposed by the media of major leagues one after another.

Chelsea has not escaped the FIFA virus this time, De Bruyne, Ibrahimovic, Azpilicueta, Matic...

Seeing that the list of people recommended to rest included almost half of the important players in the team, Mourinho could only curse in secret.

Then start planning your rotation for the next few rounds.

This is also inevitable. The better Chelsea perform in the Premier League and Champions League, the stronger the starting positions of the team's main players will be in their respective national teams.

Mourinho was used to this kind of trouble when he was at Real Madrid.

Fortunately, Chelsea's current bench is deep enough, and on the central axis, Terry and Liang, two main players who have no national team competition, can hold the line.

Drogba replacing Ibrahimovic can also continue to provide a considerable tactical fulcrum.

The defense in the midfield and backfield is stable, and the offensive end will add more burdens to Li Ang. The next two rounds of competition will be against Crystal Palace and Maribor respectively. Mourinho feels that he can still cope with it~

Li Ang was not surprised that Lao Mu temporarily injected himself with chicken blood and painted cakes.

Anyway, this happens every year after the international competition.

There's no way, who makes him the only core player under Lao Mu who doesn't need to play in the national team?

And if he doesn't step up, he will have to let other brothers in the team continue to start the game at a higher risk of injury.

Those who can do the hard work, Li Ang is also used to it, and directly gave Mourinho a look of "Don't worry when I do the work."

Attack and defense.

This sounds very majestic and impressive, but when it comes to specific tactical arrangements, Li Ang, as the core of offense and defense, has to withstand tactical pressure from both sides.

Especially in the next two rounds, we have to play against the underdogs.

If Chelsea focuses too much on offense and they set up a defensive formation, as long as they steal a chicken once, they can set up a bus and defend to the end.

Van Ginkel is actually capable of playing as a single defensive midfielder, but he is still too young, coupled with Li Ang's proactive suggestions.

So Mourinho put Li Ang back in the defensive midfielder position.

Playing against a weak team, even if they use rotation in offense, Chelsea's offensive strength is enough.

If that doesn't work, can Li Ang still step in and participate in the attack?

There is always nothing wrong with being more prudent defensively.

And with Li Ang sitting in the midfield and backcourt, Cross and De Bruyne taking turns taking turns, Mourinho still feels very at ease.

On the afternoon of October 18, after a two-week break, the Premier League war resumed.

At Selhurst Park, the home of Crystal Palace, the eighth round of the Premier League between Crystal Palace and Chelsea also started a formal contest!

It exceeded the predictions of most media before the game.

Mourinho arranged an extremely solid starting lineup of 4231 in this game.

Li Ang even retreated to the defensive midfielder position. The importance of the Chelsea coaching staff to Crystal Palace made the Crystal Palace fans feel a little flattered.

Even if Chelsea sent out a rotating lineup, the shining star names did not allow Crystal Palace fans to feel happy at all.

"Chelsea's starting goalkeeper today is Petr Cech.

On the back line, Terry and Karas partnered as central defenders, starting with Ake at left back and Ivanovic at right back.

In the defensive midfielder position, Li Ang partners with Van Ginkel, and Lampard serves as the central midfielder.

The left midfielder Lukaku, the right midfielder Salah, and the center position is Drogba! "

After the Sky Sports commentator introduced today's starting personnel of the two teams, he also discussed the strength of Chelsea's rotation with the special guests.

In the end, they gave a more cautious statement.

"Chelsea's current rotation should be able to rank among the top eight in the Premier League, higher than Stoke City and slightly lower than Everton..."

This statement is really a bit too conservative.

At least the Everton fans who are watching this early game at this moment do not feel that they can beat this Chelsea rotation.

Crystal Palace played very cautiously against Chelsea, who made it clear today that they must focus on defense first.

They clearly had the advantage of home court, but they were not busy attacking aggressively after the game officially started.

Even when trying to attack, they tried it very carefully. It seemed as if Crystal Palace was not playing at home today, but Crystal Palace was challenging Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

This conservative tactic naturally cannot bring too many offensive threats to Crystal Palace.

Chelsea was not in any hurry when facing Crystal Palace, which was reluctant to attack.

Li Ang is in the left midfielder position and seems to be very keen to compete with Zaha, who started playing as a right winger in Crystal Palace today.

The young "shooting king" went to Manchester United for a walk in the winter of 2013, and was basically delayed and forgotten.

This summer, thanks to the efforts of his agent, Zaha finally returned to his home team Crystal Palace on loan.

In a stable training environment, Zaha also showed his brilliance. From the substitute rotation at the beginning of the season, he gradually became the starting player on the right side of Crystal Palace.

His sharp speed and confident breakthrough with the ball have made him the sharpest knife on the wing of Crystal Palace.

However, being targeted by Li Ang today, the unlucky Zaha suddenly lost much room to perform.

After the game started, he didn't even take the ball to have a one-on-one duel with Chelsea's left back Ake.

Li Ang basically blocked him out of Chelsea's defensive third zone in advance.

Originally, Zaha had never thought about having any close combat confrontation with Li Ang.

He knew where his advantage lay, but when he couldn't escape Li Ang's defense no matter how much he accelerated and changed directions, he knew that his team was going to suffer badly in this game.

Sure enough, Zaha was completely silenced by Li Ang.

With only Bolasie on the left, it would be difficult for Crystal Palace to open up an offensive situation under Chelsea's midfield encirclement.

Bolasie is taller, but Van Ginkel and Ivanovic are not far behind in terms of confrontation.

After the two wings were basically shut down, Crystal Palace's offensive attack was almost complete.

Compared with Chelsea in terms of set-piece offense, they have no advantage at all.

So in the second half of the first half, Chelsea directly controlled the rhythm of the game.

Relying on Drogba's powerful fulcrum in the frontcourt, Chelsea's offense was booming.

But Crystal Palace's defensive will was also very tenacious today. Their defense did not make any mistakes throughout the first half, and they managed to hold on for a half and the game ended in a draw.

Mourinho was unambiguous when he saw this. After figuring out Crystal Palace's counterattack strength, he immediately asked Lampard and Li Ang to switch positions at the beginning of the second half.

After switching to the central midfielder, just ten minutes into the second half, Li Ang used his ability to shoot from behind and help Chelsea gain two corner kick opportunities.

In this second corner kick attack, the great Ivan God came down to earth, pressed the Crystal Palace defender Hangeland's shoulder and gave him a lion's head!

Crystal Palace goalkeeper Speroni didn't even have time to make a save, but Ivanovic's header penetrated the goal!

After scoring this goal, the morale of the Chelsea team was greatly boosted!

However, Li Ang still maintained a calm head on the court. After making a tactical gesture to Mourinho on the sidelines, he changed positions with Lampard again.

Forced to have no choice but to increase their offensive intensity, the Crystal Palace players soon discovered Li Ang's change in position.

They didn't know that this was Li Ang's initiative to change positions, and they all cursed Mourinho in their hearts.

After bravely trying to attack Chelsea's midfield defense several times, not to mention the Crystal Palace players, countless neutral fans watching this game felt desperate for Crystal Palace.

In the 68th minute of the second half, I watched Li Ang complete two effective tackles in just ten seconds, forcibly destroying a rare counterattack opportunity for Crystal Palace.

The commentator of Sky Sports sighed with emotion and said a golden sentence.

"In today's football, who is the world's No. 1 offensive midfielder or No. 1 defensive midfielder? It just depends on whether Li Ang wants to play as a central midfielder or as a defensive midfielder today."

This kind of evaluation is already very exaggerated.

But just like Ram at his peak, countless fans believed that he would be the first full-back in whichever team he played.

Today, Li Ang is also qualified to accept this level of praise from the media and fans.

Li Ang has both statistics and scenes. In terms of performance in tough battles, Li Ang is undoubtedly the number one midfielder today.

At least fans who have watched today's Premier League game have to be convinced that Li Ang's defensive coverage and interception success rate are really impressive!

In the end, Chelsea only achieved a 1-0 result at home at Crystal Palace, but the second half of the game was completely in Chelsea's hands.

Crystal Palace head coach Prince even used "despair" directly after the game to describe his psychological feelings after seeing Lyon's phenomenal defensive performance.

"I would rather lose this game with a score of 1-4 or 2-5.

Li Ang's defensive performance was absolute torture for me, my players and the Crystal Palace fans here today!

He is the strongest center defender I have ever seen! Fortunately, today we did not see the 'tyrant Li Ang' on the offensive end. In a way, we are lucky today..."

Prince's high evaluation of Li Ang after the game caused him to receive a lot of criticism from various media.

Even many Crystal Palace fans believe that he just wants to shirk responsibility for his dereliction of duty in tactical arrangements.

But three days later, when Chelsea slaughtered their opponent Maribor 7-0 at home in the third round of the Champions League group stage, the voices that had previously criticized Prince suddenly disappeared from the Internet!

Because in this game, Li Ang, who was full of firepower, shot three times and passed two passes, directly using his personal ability to defeat Maribor's midfield defense!

Score five goals in a single game!

Although he faced a weak European team, Li Ang only led the rotating Chelsea to create this massacre!

And it is too early to say that Maribor is a weak team. After all, in the previous two rounds of the Champions League group stage, they drew with Sporting Lisbon and Schalke 04 respectively.

But now they face Chelsea, and they have no power to fight back. Li Ang's three shots and two passes are more and more convincing against the background of the records of the two teams...

The "tyrant" nickname given to Li Ang by Prince immediately became the focus of heated discussion among fans due to the popularity of this game.

Now everyone believed that Crystal Palace, which had only lost one goal to Chelsea before, was indeed lucky!