Super Marshal

In the head coach's office at the Carrington training base, Gao Han sat around the coffee table with four core coaching staff members.

The door of the office is closed, the air conditioner is on inside, and along with the wisps of light smoke floating from the coffee table, the aroma of tea overflows.

"The management has agreed to my recommendation and is currently arranging for people to go to Blackburn to discuss personal treatment with David Fevere. They are also willing to pay him a liquidated damages so that he can come to work at Manchester City as soon as possible."

David Fevere, 47 years old, is from England. He started working at Manchester United in the early 1990s as a team doctor. He made a lot of contributions to Manchester United's outstanding record in the 1990s. After the Red Devils won the Triple Crown, He chose to leave Manchester United and went to Blackburn Rovers, where he has been working ever since.

Gao Han was not familiar with England's local team doctors, but after firing two of Manchester City's team doctors, he urgently needed to hire a high-level physical therapy team. Brian Kidd, who had also worked at Manchester United for many years, mentioned it to Gao Han. David Favre is very sure of the team doctor’s ability.

Even in Brian Kidd's original words, if David Feifei had been there, Ferguson probably wouldn't have made mistakes on Stam that he still can't let go of, because at the time, Ferguson believed that Stam Mu's long-term injuries are difficult to recover from.

Out of caution, Gao Han also used his sharp eyes and discovered that David Fevere's medical level was indeed very high, reaching the full value, let alone the two before Manchester City, even with other wealthy teams such as Manchester United. The level of the team doctor is also much higher. He is indeed a team doctor who is trustworthy.

After the inspection, Gao Han immediately informed the management and recommended David Feifrey.

But what Gao Han wants to talk about today is not about David Feifrey. What he wants to talk about is the team.

After announcing the matter of David Feifei, Gao Han glanced at Sergio Garcia, who immediately took out a document, opened it, pulled out an A4 paper, and placed it on the He left it on a dry spot on the coffee table for everyone to see.

What I saw on the paper was a comparison chart of Manchester City's ball possession rates in various areas of the stadium in the past few warm-up games.

Through this chart by Sergio Garcia, everyone present can clearly see that Manchester City’s ball possession rate is indeed better than that of its opponents, especially in the area from the midfield line to its own half. , the ball possession rate is significantly ahead of the opponent.

But when it comes to the thirty-meter area, especially the frontier area of ​​the penalty area, the ball possession rate drops very obviously.

Although Brian Kidd has just cooperated with Gao Han, he has already worked with Gao Han for a month and has begun to understand Gao Han's work style. He can also understand that Gao Han and his team are different from many other Premier League teams in data analysis.

It should be said that the Gaohan team is more advanced and pays more attention to data comparison.

"Look at the next one." Gao Han waved his hand again.

Sergio Garcia immediately took out the second chart. It was a map of the passing routes of Manchester City's team in various areas of the stadium in a certain game. Successful ones were black, and failed ones turned red, which was particularly eye-catching.

What surprises many people is that the red lines with the most mistakes appear more often from the opponent's 30-meter zone to the front edge of the penalty area.

If it was just one game, it could be said to be accidental, but as Sergio Garcia put down the charts one by one, everyone could clearly see that almost every game was in this area. Zone passes have the most turnovers.

Of course, from a practical point of view, the opponent has deployed heavy troops in their own half. If Manchester City attacks this area, it will definitely encounter strong defensive resistance. Whether it is an increase in ball possession rate or passing and receiving errors, this is normal. things.

In other words, these charts show that Manchester City attacked this area and received a tenacious defensive attack.

"What do you think?" Gao Han asked calmly.

Brian Kidd, the chief assistant coach, raised his head, glanced at the others, and thought for a moment, "I think the main reason is that we don't have enough methods to deal with the opponent's intensive defense."

"Keep talking." Gao Han nodded.

Brian Kidd also understood Gao Han's temper and boldly continued: "I think this has a lot to do with our lack of wide offensive players. Our opponents know very well that they can't steal the ball from us, so They gave up possession of the ball and instead planted heavy troops at the front of their own penalty area, protecting their own goal first and then focusing on our counterattack."

Gao Han nodded. It should be said that Brian Kidd's judgment was correct.

Or it should be said that his understanding of his opponent is correct.

In the four warm-up games, Manchester City conceded four goals, one goal in each game, which made Gao Han very dissatisfied.

But what makes Gao Han even more dissatisfied is that he was counterattacked by his opponents many times during the game and only conceded four goals. That was thanks to the outstanding performance of Kompany and Petr Cech, otherwise, he would have conceded more.

After all, Brian Kidd is a veteran of the Premier League, and he knows his opponents' thoughts very thoroughly. They indeed adopt this tactical style of play. When Manchester City has the ball in their own half, they organize their defense slowly to save energy. Once inside their half, immediately increase the intensity of the pressing.

"If in normal times we have two full-backs, then when we encounter the opponent's tenacious sniper in the middle, we should transfer the ball to the wing, and the full-back and winger will form a breakthrough in the wider area on the wing. , and then pass the ball back into the penalty area to create a threat."

Positional warfare is inherently difficult to attack. Many teams with full-backs find it difficult to break through. What's more, Manchester City has no full-backs at all. The opponent's wing only needs to focus on Cristia, who cuts in from the left. Ronaldo and Sanchez, a right attacker, can contain Manchester City's wing attack.

Not to mention the Premier League, even the professional teams from the second and third tier leagues that Manchester City met in the warm-up match could do it. That's why Manchester City's warm-up match was so frustrating.

"So, my opinion is we should look at going back to a back four."

Brian Kidd's opinion made Gao Han smile slightly and nodded appreciatively, indicating that he heard it.

Buenaventura and Pedro Haro are the physical fitness coach and goalkeeper coach, and they will not give much advice on the team's formation. Gao Han looked at Sergio Garcia, The latter curled his lips.

"I think what he said makes sense."

Gao Han smiled and wanted to slap him, but he shook his head, "My ideas are somewhat different from Brian's."

"Oh?" Brian Kidd was surprised.

As the team's chief assistant coach, he cannot escape the blame for the warm-up match being like this. Therefore, he has been under a lot of pressure in the past period and has been studying this issue. He also hopes to take this opportunity to prove to Gao Han. Take a look at his own strength. After all, he is new here and has just joined Gao Han's team.

In order to make this summary, he has watched the game videos many times in the past period, and he has put in a lot of effort to come to this conclusion, especially combined with Sergio Garcia's This data analysis can be said to be well-founded and quite convincing. Why does Gao Han still say that he has different opinions from his?

"Of course, I'm not saying that there's something wrong with your analysis, Brian, it's just that we look at the problem from different angles." Gao Han first calmed himself, the chief assistant coach, to avoid misunderstandings.

"Then what do you think..."

"I think our problem has nothing to do with how our opponents defend. It's mainly because we ourselves are not doing a good enough job in many aspects. This is why our opponents seem to be doing a good job on defense."

Everyone present understood what Gao Han said.

Everything that happens on the football field is relative.

Just like Manchester City cannot break through the opponent's defense, it may be that the opponent's defense is very good, but it may also be that Manchester City's offensive organization is particularly poor. So which reason is it?

This has to be viewed from the perspective of analyzing the problem.

After hearing this, Brian Kidd also became interested and expressed that he was all ears.

"Look at this picture of ball possession rate, and then look at the passing route map. Have you noticed a very interesting phenomenon? After entering the opponent's half, our ball possession rate dropped a lot. The success rate suddenly dropped a lot.”

Sergio Garcia's data charts are very intuitive, clear and understandable at a glance.

"I think a very important reason is that once our ball enters the opponent's half, we become impatient in passing and receiving, especially in the position in front of the midfield diamond, whether it is Elano or Stephen Ireland were unable to calmly hold the ball under the pressure of the opponent."

"I have said it long ago, if we cannot form a good and patient ball control within the opponent's 30-meter area, our high-position passing and pressing style will fall apart and be ineffective."

"But you can think back to the game process. As soon as our ball enters this area and the opponent tightens the pressure a little, we will become impatient in passing and controlling the ball, which directly leads to our passing and receiving errors, especially when When the opponent has already established a defensive position and organized the defense line.”

"With the lack of patience in passing and controlling the ball, it is difficult for us to create threats at the front of the opponent's penalty area and then get opportunities to cut in and assist. This is the most serious problem we are facing now."

Talking about the wings, Gao Han does not have dedicated wing offensive players, but there are many ways to attack the wings.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Sanchez are both good players on the wing. Benzema can also be pulled to the wing at any time. David Silva and Modric can also be pulled to the wing according to the situation on the field. These are not question.

Manchester City definitely does not lack the means and strength to open up the offensive width, but the problem is that when the opponent organizes its defense and stands in a good position, the efficiency of the wing attack is very low.

At this time, the most effective offensive method is to use patient passing and pulling, large-scale transfer, creating gaps in the movement of the opponent's defensive formation, and then cutting in to create threats, or even score goals.

Both Elano and Stephen Ireland have been determined by Gao Han to be incompetent for the forward midfielder position. They are simply unable to replace Kaka's role in this position. At the very least, they can only maintain the team's calm and patient passing control. This is difficult for them to do.

After listening to Gao Han's analysis, combined with the data charts and the situation in the game, everyone had to admit that Gao Han's analysis was indeed very reasonable.

In the pass-and-control play, the purpose of wing attack is not to break through, but to get the ball on the wing, attract the opponent's defensive players to the wing, widen the width of the opponent's defensive formation, and facilitate one's own offensive players. Penetration and advancement can be better accomplished in the middle.

Therefore, in theory, in a ball-control game, if you can appear on the wing to achieve this tactical purpose, you can use full-backs, wingers, central midfielders or even central defenders, no problem.

But now Manchester City's problem is how to pass the ball patiently to the front of the opponent's penalty area and create murderous opportunities.

This is what Gao Han believes is Manchester City's biggest problem now.