The Godfather of Football

Standing in the visiting coach command area of ​​Stamford Bridge, Wenger suddenly recalled a sentence Ye Qiu had said to him. This sentence comes from Chinese, which is called "feng shui lun chu chu".

Arsenal, who had just defeated Chelsea in the League Cup final not long ago, was defeated by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this time, and it was a very embarrassing reversal. In the words of the on-site commentator, Arsenal's performance in this game made people worry about whether they have the ability to compete for the Champions League qualification next season.

Leading in the first half, but being reversed by Drogba's two goals in the second half, Wenger's team was almost ravaged in front of the Ivorian Elephant King, and if this game is counted, Wenger's team has not won for five rounds.

His ears were filled with the cheers of Chelsea fans who celebrated the team's reversal after the game. Wenger felt very irritated. He had an urge to yell and vent his anger, but he knew he couldn't.

Sometimes even he himself wondered, what was going on with the team?

Why is there such a huge difference in performance between the first and second half of each season?

Arsenal, who has been leading the Premier League since the beginning of the season and even once led by a long distance, has not won five rounds in March after the winter break. This round also directly lost to Chelsea. This is absolutely a disaster for a team that aims to win the championship. Even everyone can sentence Arsenal to death.

A month ago, Arsenal was still the leader of the league, but now, a month later, they have fallen to fourth in the league. Is there a bigger disaster than this? Is there a worse result than this?

With the loss to Chelsea in this round, Arsenal still maintains 67 points, while Chelsea successfully reversed and got 68 points. Tottenham Hotspur defeated Portsmouth 2:0 at home in this round and got 73 points, while Manchester United also successfully defeated the opponent and got 75 points.

After Arsenal, Liverpool has 59 points and Everton has 57 points. Both teams are still a little far from Arsenal, and there are still seven rounds left in the Premier League. If Arsenal fails to get out of the current predicament as soon as possible, with the team's poor performance in the past month, there will be no suspense about losing the Champions League qualification.

Who dares to say that a team that can lose 11 points in five games will not have worse results in the future?

In fact, Wenger is not blind to the team's problems. Arsenal has always had a problem of losing the chain at critical moments in recent years, especially since Vieira left the team, the team's midfield and backcourt have always had problems, but more importantly, Arsenal has not found its soul core on the court.

From a tactical perspective, the core of Arsenal should be Arteta. The Spaniard has performed very well. He is excellent in both organization and passing in the Arsenal midfield, and he is active in running and diligent in defense. He has won a position, but he is a newcomer and is low-key by nature, not a big name.

Captain Gallas is the biggest star in the team, but this central defender has many problems. In this game, Gallas had problems twice when defending Drogba. One time, he missed the ball, and the other time, there was chaos in the penalty area, and Drogba seized the opportunity.

How can such a player and such performance convince the public?

In fact, from a team's perspective, the core player is not necessary. For example, Manchester United does not have a core player now. Ferguson is the soul of Manchester United and the core of Manchester United. There is also Tottenham Hotspur. This team can rise so quickly and strongly. In addition to the strength of the players themselves, it is also because Ye Qiu made the team what he wanted in the shortest time. He is the core of Tottenham Hotspur.

But as the core of Arsenal's soul, Wenger's personality and temper are relatively soft, and his personality is naturally transmitted to Arsenal, so many people say that Arsenal's football skills are sufficient, but the strength is insufficient.

Since Campbell, central defenders have always been Arsenal's concern. Gallas and Kolo Toure are both central defenders who help defend and fill in positions. High balls and frontal defense are their weaknesses. So Gallas used to partner with Terry, and Kolo Toure partnered with Campbell. They both performed well, but now the two are together and the performance is very bad.

Wenger originally had high hopes for Senderos, but this player has completely lost his confidence under Drogba's ravages.

There is also the midfield. After Vieira, when Gilberto Silva was in his prime, Arsenal's midfield problem was not very big, but as Gilberto Silva gradually withdrew from the main position, the performance of several young players who replaced him was not reassuring. Even Flamini was more known for running and mobility, and his defensive skills were relatively weak.

Tottenham Hotspur's team formation is also technical, which seems much more reasonable.

Ye Qiu's frontcourt actively focuses on counter-attacking on the spot, and his main defensive means is to run without the ball in the middle and frontcourt to effectively cut off the opponent's ball path. However, in the back-end position of the midfield, there is a Mascherano. The Argentine has excellent defensive ability. After cutting and intercepting in the middle and frontcourt, if there are any fish that slip through the net, he can block them well.

Once the opponent can still pass through the midfield and reach the defense line, both sides are already in position. Hangeland is good at frontal defense, has excellent high-altitude ball ability, and excellent confrontation ability, even facing Drogba, and Thiago Silva was criticized for his high-altitude defense ability before, but his performance has improved a lot in recent times, and he is obviously adapting to the Premier League quickly.

One tall and one short, Tottenham's two central defenders are very reasonably matched whether in physical confrontation, frontal defense, or from assisting defense and turning back. And behind the defense line is a Czech goalkeeper Petr Cech who has a large defensive area and has performed nearly perfectly in the past two years.

In such a reasonable layout from front to back, Tottenham's strength is definitely underestimated.

On the other hand, in the past two or three years, Wenger has been forced to take the route of rejuvenation due to the team's finances, reduce the team's salary expenses, and tap some young players with potential. In addition, Wenger prefers technical players, which makes the main lineup not very capable of fighting hard battles and the bench is seriously insufficient, which has caused the current dilemma of Arsenal.

Thinking of this, Wenger sighed helplessly, turned his head and looked at his assistant Pete Rice. Both of them smiled bitterly at the same time, because Arsenal is not really without money, but without money to transfer.

There was a media report that Arsenal has enough cash, but as Ye Qiu said, which club does not have cash support? With Arsenal's current serious debt and the heavy pressure brought by the loan for the Highbury real estate development project after the subprime mortgage crisis, if there is not enough funds for reserve, it may go bankrupt if it is not careful.

Pete Rice patted Wenger's shoulder helplessly to comfort his old partner, because everyone could see that Arsenal had no chance of winning the Premier League this season, and the rest was a fight between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

At the beginning of the season, who could have thought that the final situation would be like this?

Wenger raised his head, looked at the night sky and muttered to himself, "Ye Qiu, humph, what a fucking bastard!"

Ye Qiu didn't know that someone was scolding him, because after playing against Portsmouth, he was busy summarizing and evaluating Portsmouth's strength with the coaching staff, and Redknapp's team was still quite strong.

Pompey Legion is also Tottenham Hotspur's opponent in the FA Cup semi-finals.

It is really surprising that Portsmouth eliminated Ferguson's Manchester United in the FA Cup quarterfinals, and this year's FA Cup is really a hotbed of upsets. The other two teams are also from the English Championship, namely Barnsley and Cardiff. Among them, Barnsley is really an upset among upsets. They eliminated Liverpool and Chelsea successively, but the problem is that this team is currently in the relegation zone in the English Championship.

So, football is sometimes really strange, and you can't figure out what will happen to it.

A week later, in the 32nd round of the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur beat Newcastle 4:1 at home. The Magpies have long lost the true colors of the Premier League powerhouse. The current Magpies are still the most popular team among local fans in England, but their competitiveness is much less than before.

However, when talking about the decline of the Magpies, perhaps many people will still mention the famous Premier League god Souness.

It was also in this round that Arsenal finally played a tough game. After falling behind Bolton twice in the first half, they scored three goals in the second half, completed a beautiful reversal, and got the first three points in the past six games.

The happiest person was Wenger, who praised this victory and even called it an epic reversal.

But the outside world is not satisfied with Arsenal's current state and situation. You know, this team was the leader of the Premier League more than a month ago, but now it has fallen to the point where it needs a reversal even against a team like Bolton that is entangled in the relegation zone. How can Arsenal fans be happy? How can they be satisfied?

After the 32nd round of the Premier League, the Champions League once again ushered in the first round of the quarter-finals. The most eye-catching one was Tottenham Hotspur's away game against AC Milan. This was also a game that countless fans had high hopes for before the game and believed would be a wonderful match.

But just like all the highly anticipated games that fans have high hopes for, the more such games are, the worse they are. In the end, the two sides ended up in a 0:0 draw, and the best player of the game was AC Milan's main central defender Maldini.

From Maldini's selection of the best player of the game, it is not difficult to see the advantages and disadvantages of both sides in this game. Even in the away game, Tottenham Hotspur still actively played its advantages instead of taking defensive counterattacks, because Ye Qiu knew very well that offense was Tottenham Hotspur's strength, and he also wanted to test the level of AC Milan's aging defense line.

As early as before the game, many media broke the news that Tottenham Hotspur's preparations focused on the Premier League, and the Champions League had been put in a secondary position. In fact, Ye Qiu did not try his best at the San Siro Stadium, but made appropriate rotations. For example, Arshavin replaced Fabregas and Yaya Toure replaced Mascherano in the starting lineup.

AC Milan's team lineup is seriously aging. The team is currently ranked only fifth in the Serie A. Whether it can enter the Champions League next season is a question, but it has performed well in the Champions League with its rich experience.

In this game, their experience once again played a key role. They successfully adopted the strategy of slowing down the fast and using static to control dynamic, making it difficult for Tottenham Hotspur's offensive to have a direct threat. This is due to AC Milan's very solid chain defense, especially the cooperation and position sense between the players, which are very accurate.

This situation did not reveal some confusion until the last stage of the second half, but at that time Tottenham Hotspur had been exhausted by AC Milan and had no ability to play an effective fast attack.

In fact, AC Milan eliminated Manchester United last season by adopting the strategy of slowing down the fast, which made Manchester United lose its edge, but a year later, AC Milan was still able to counterattack a year ago, but AC Milan a year later no longer had the ability to organize an effective counterattack.

In order to keep this draw, AC Milan's main central defender Nesta was injured and left the field. It is still unknown whether he can participate in the second round.

The outside world is generally disappointed with Tottenham Hotspur's draw away from home, but it is also full of expectations. They hope that Tottenham Hotspur can return to White Hart Lane and defeat AC Milan in one fell swoop. Ye Qiu also held a coaching meeting the next morning after the team returned to the Theobald training base.

"I want to give it a try!"

In the coaching room, Ye Qiu faced his group of core coaching staff members and said this. It should be said that everyone present could almost guess what he said, so after he finished speaking, everyone was laughing, and no one was surprised.

"When we were having breakfast in the restaurant just now, Roland was still saying that we probably had a meeting!" René Mullensteen looked at Roland Schepas with a smile. This Dutch fat man was called the roundworm in Ye Qiu's stomach.

It was a bit disgusting, but he guessed Ye Qiu's thoughts very accurately.

"The situation is very favorable to us now, and it has even exceeded our expectations, isn't it?" Ye Qiu smiled and explained the reason why he suddenly decided to change the original game plan, because the situation is always changing. If he does not change and insists on the plan made before, it would be a pity.

Roland also stood up at this time, "There is only one week between the first and second rounds. We have to play the FA Cup semi-finals against Portsmouth. We can arrange a substitute lineup for this game and concentrate all the main players to prepare for the second round next week."

"But AC Milan is obviously not good. They have to play Juventus this weekend. The Zebras are currently ranked third in Serie A, while AC Milan is ranked fifth. Both teams need to fight hard for the Champions League qualification next season, so no one will easily hold back. This situation is obviously beneficial to the second round next week, that is, us as AC Milan's opponent!"

Peter Brandt nodded after listening The first said: "AC Milan's players are aging seriously. Such teams often have physical fitness problems in the second half, especially when the schedule is intensive. We can all see that in the last game last night, AC Milan's players obviously didn't have much physical fitness at the last moment. If they try their best against Juventus at the weekend, how much fighting power can they still exert when they come to White Hart Lane next week?"

The San Siro Stadium is an away game. Tottenham Hotspur's away performance in the Champions League is relatively average, which has something to do with the team's lack of experience, but the team's fighting power at White Hart Lane is something that no team dares to underestimate, because Tottenham Hotspur is the team with the strongest offensive ability in Europe this season.

The two right-hand men both produced evidence to support themselves, and Ye Qiu smiled confidently, "If we give it a try, I am very confident that I can beat AC Milan at White Hart Lane!"

Although this is the first time Tottenham Hotspur has participated in the Champions League in recent decades, from the League Cup last season to the Champions League group stage this season, Tottenham Hotspur's performance has always improved rapidly, and the team's combat effectiveness is not bad, far from being a team that is good at internal wars but not external wars.

This is also due to the team's coaching staff having extremely rich experience in the Champions League, which makes them very good at instructing players.

Of course, the players still have to play the game, but with the experienced coaching staff guiding them, Tottenham Hotspur has made very fast progress, and the team itself has enough strength, so it is not surprising that Ye Qiu said that he would beat AC Milan at home. On the contrary, if Ye Qiu still has no confidence in this situation, that would be a big problem.

"If we really beat AC Milan and enter the semi-finals, this is the best Champions League result in Tottenham Hotspur's history!" Peter Brandt said with a smile.

Tottenham Hotspur once participated in the European Champions Cup as the champion team of the English top league in the 61/62 season. At that time, only the league champions could participate in this cup competition, and there were very few participating teams. Tottenham Hotspur also made it to the semi-finals, but was eliminated by Benfica, a team from the Portuguese Super League.

"It is still difficult to tell who will win or lose in the semi-finals. Chelsea tied Liverpool 1:1 in the first round away. But if you meet Benitez again, are you sure?" Roland was just joking with Ye Qiu.

Ye Qiu shook his head helplessly and amusedly. The loss to Liverpool in the Champions League final was indeed the most painful defeat in his coaching career, and Tottenham's performance against Liverpool this season was not ideal either.

If Tottenham Hotspur's number one opponent this season is Manchester United, because Tottenham Hotspur has lost two consecutive games against Manchester United, then it is Liverpool. Both teams are difficult opponents.

"Let's talk about reaching the semi-finals!" Ye Qiu chuckled, "Liverpool's offensive problems this season are very serious. After the introduction of Torres, the team's problems have not been fundamentally solved, which is why they have so many draws in the Premier League. , and whether we meet Liverpool or Chelsea, I firmly believe that we can reach the final!”

At least Ye Qiu has this kind of confidence. As long as it is a Premier League team, Tottenham Hotspur is not afraid of anyone, even Manchester United!

After hearing what Ye Qiu said, the group of assistants present didn't say anything more.

Tottenham Hotspur are under a lot of pressure in the Premier League, and they have to chase Manchester United. If they really try their best to play in the Champions League, it may really affect the performance of the league, but this situation is not good for any team now. The team is a huge temptation for any head coach, because frankly speaking, the possibility of reaching the Champions League final is really greater than the possibility of winning the Premier League championship.

Of course, the premise is to kill AC Milan!