While Grant was scratching his head and restless, Chelsea ushered in its next opponent in the league.
Birmingham currently ranks 14th with 18 points, still 4 points ahead of the current penultimate Black Cats Sunderland. After encountering the acquisition of Yang Ka-shing this season, the team's morale has been weakened and bad news has continued.
Bruce, the England veteran who was trained in the process, also wanted to leave, and even signed a coaching intention with relegation rival Wigan. Although the transfer was suspended due to a special clause in his contract, the team was still in the process.
The league is becoming more and more difficult. The good news is that the possibility of Yang Ka-shing acquiring the club has been completely rejected by the club recently. Bruce can safely train the Blue Nose (Birmingham nickname) to gradually get out of the trough. Among many relegation teams, Birmingham will not be relegated in the second half.
The prospects are relatively bright.
Another Blues team has returned to the Premier League this season, and Bruce has another chance to prove himself. The entry of Hong Kong boss Yang does not seem to have brought any big transfer news. At most, Bruce has accelerated the pace of signings. The two
Nearly ten players have joined during this transfer period.
The Blues have worked hard on their goalkeeper. They transferred 29-year-old Ghanaian goalkeeper Jin Song from Hammarby in the Swiss Super League on a two-year contract.
The biggest news in terms of defenders is the purchase of Fulham's French defender Quadreu for 2.5 million. Like the central defender Legeville transferred from Villa, he is a veteran who has been cruelly abandoned, but Bruce appreciates it very much.
As for the left back, Schmitz from Lille was recruited. The Brazilian obtained French citizenship in May. Because of his experience in playing against Manchester United in the Champions League, Bruce has high expectations for him.
In the midfield, Bruce was full of ideas. He first made the loaned central midfielder M'Amba a permanent purchase. The 19-year-old player ended his hard days at Arsenal. Then he added Pana, the versatile right winger of Middlesbrough.
Compared with free transfer, the contract is signed for three years.
In terms of foreign players, Dutch midfielder De Ridder from Celta Vigo chose to move to Birmingham on a free transfer. The 27-year-old is considered by Bruce to be a figure who can play on the front, right and left. The 27-year-old French midfielder Capo
Also transferred from Juventus, costing the club 3 million pounds, and the contract period is 3 years.
In terms of forwards, the Blues have a unique vision. They found Gary O'Connor, a Scottish forward from Lokomotiv Moscow. The 24-year-old forward is highly regarded by the club, so it cost 2.7 million pounds and the contract period is 3 years.
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Transfers were relatively relaxed. DJ Kamara was transferred from the forward line, and his new club is Leicester City. Midfielder Clemons, who once won Birmingham's best player, was also sold for 1 million.
Leicester City.
The 27-year-old winger Gray was given to Coventry, while the once-famous French veteran central defender Ngotti will no longer be renewed. Due to his outstanding performance in the British Championship, he is the backbone of the team like Clemons.
, this kind of behavior is undoubtedly "killing the donkey". But looking at Birmingham's bloated team, it is really impossible not to eliminate a few big names.
The goalkeeper position makes people murmur. No one seems to be the absolute main force. Mark Taylor has Super League experience, Doyle has performed better, and Jin Song is the new blood of the club. Let us judge that Bruce does not make radical plans, so whether it is mysterious
Jin Song, or Doyle, who was favored by Cheng in the second half of last season, are not important considerations, so only Taylor will be the main goalkeeper.
Irish central defender Kelly, who is both good at character and academics and also serves as an amateur model, seems to be one of the main central defenders in the new season. The other partner may be Leighville. After all, Ngodi has been taken away and the club cannot make a move.
If you want to find a fresher who is too aggressive, it would be good to get a half-purple but not red Lai Gewei, but Martin Taylor also has a professional history of playing for Blackburn. He became the main central defender in Birmingham last season. If you want to maintain the stability of the back line,
His and Kelly's main combination is more reliable in the early stages of the league. Jaidi can also be used as a substitute...
Quedru is expected to be reused, otherwise the club's 2.5 million investment will be of little significance. The 31-year-old Tebili can be a qualified substitute, and Parnaby can also play right back, but both he and Quedru
For this position, the club naturally has to consider appropriate position separation. Lille left-back Schmitz, who has very rich experience in European competitions and was purchased by the club at a large price, will naturally steal Sadler's limelight.
In the midfield, the newcomers supported by Arsenal must play a huge role. Their biggest feature is their high adaptability to positions. Larsson can play right back, left back, right midfielder and right winger. Here we choose
His most common role is right midfielder, with Parnaby as his backup.
Among the midfield players, Naferty is known as "French Savage". The purpose of buying him was to play the role of Savage. As a result, he and Downs' midfield partnership in the warm-up match was very effective. However, Damier Johnson
He M'Amba's abilities are also outstanding, not to mention that we must mention Kabo. This is definitely a midfielder that can maintain a very stable level. How to use it? Bruce has his own idea.
As for the left midfielder, of course he is the omnipotent Dredd. The Dutchman’s offensive-oriented characteristics will make Dredd likely to become a man of the hour in the new season. If he does not play well, he will only hurt Mike Sheffry.
Return to the left.
On the forward line, Mike Shefry, the player who once set the record for the youngest goalscorer in the Premier League, is back. His performance in the British Championship has restored his confidence, and Danish forward Bendtner also performed well last season.
The two of them are in the same level as Gary O'Connor. In addition, there is Jerome who wears the No. 10 jersey, Varney who is in unstable form, and Fussell who is on and off. It depends on how Bruce chooses.
Generally speaking, it is probably impossible for Birmingham, who is in poor form, to defeat Chelsea, led by Prince, at home. A draw is considered a blessing from God.
The African Cup of Nations is about to start. As one of the victims, Chelsea has to lose the absolute main players Essien and Drogba, as well as the quasi-main players Mikel and Kalou, plus Terry, Lampard, and Shevchenko.
The return date is uncertain. Although Anelka has joined, the team is still not rich in manpower. Fortunately, Cech and Makelele are back, and Carvalho and others have finished their suspension. The defense is still in order. They played against Tottenham in the last round.
Tottenham scored a big victory, which was also quite convincing.
Birmingham has shown the character of a hard-nosed team this year, always mercilessly blocking strong teams, and Chelsea has always had trouble playing against Birmingham teams (two draws and one loss in three games against Birmingham and Villa this season), and it is also an away game.
Challenge, so even though Birmingham is in the relegation zone, there is still some suspense in this game.
Chelsea, who played away from home, wore bright yellow uniforms, and the lineup continued with 4231, goalkeeper Petr Cech, four defenders from left to right, Ashley Cole, Alex, Carvalho, Belletti, and midfielder Mark
Lele and Ballack are in the middle, with Malouda on the left and Joe Cole on the right. Prince continues to play the role of commander in the frontcourt. On the forward line are Pizarro, who was fed a goal by Prince in the last game, and Frenchman Ane.
Erka was put on the bench, and Serbian defender Ivanovic, another new aid added during the winter break, was not included in the game squad.
The home team Birmingham Blueshirts played with Northern Ireland veteran Taylor as goalkeeper, captain Ridgewell and Brazilian Schmitz as central defenders, right back Kelly, left back Kudru, O'Connor and Mwamba in the midfield, and Dami on the left.
Ann Johnson, Sebastian Larsson on the right, and the two attackers Kabo and Jerome are arranged in the frontcourt, with a flexible formation, even between 451 and 433.
Birmingham's home atmosphere is quite strong, and the home team's momentum is high. Although its strength is limited, it is extremely fierce in defense. In the 3rd minute, Belletti made an assist and was intercepted. Capo intercepted the ball and counterattacked, and O'Connor made a high-speed intervention.
He got the ball and hit the goal hard in front of the penalty area. The ball was blocked by Ashley Cole with his body. In the 10th minute, Carvalho assisted to the midfield but was knocked down from behind by Muamba. The referee showed him a yellow card.
In the 13th minute, Ashley Cole was brought down in the frontcourt and the attack was blocked again. One minute later, Birmingham had a corner kick opportunity on the right. The ball was given to the back of the penalty area. O'Connor's header was unmarked.
The ball went over the crossbar. In the 21st minute, Malouda was violated in the frontcourt and the free kick was headed by the Birmingham defender. In the 23rd minute, Birmingham stole the ball in the frontcourt and Johnson broke through from the wing and made a pass.
, a good opportunity for 4-on-4 in the penalty area, but the cross was saved by Cech...
In the opening stage, Chelsea gave up or passively gave up control of the game in an extremely strange manner. They took the trouble to control the ball, made continuous short passes from the two wings, dribbling breakthroughs, and Carvalho directed the backcourt to press forward.
, blocking Birmingham in front of their own goal, playing like another Arsenal team, but the reason why it is strange is that Chelsea is quite inefficient when they completely control the ball possession rate. Once they enter the opponent's hinterland, they suddenly lose
Patience, or in other words, being restrained by the opponent's ferocious kicking style, making him timid. The most terrible thing is that Callejon, the core offensive player on the field, seems to be sleepwalking. This has a huge impact on his wonderful performance in the first two games.
The contrast; several other frontcourt players also played in a mess. Malouda rushed from left to right, but the timing of the pass was very poor. Pizarro always faced off with Ridgewell or Kudru one by one.
He can get corner kicks and the like, but the help to the overall offense is limited, and the ball cannot be handed over to a suitable place for him to start earlier. As for the interim captain Ballack, he was the most missing person in the first half, except for two good quality kicks.
Long-range shot - shot into the lower left corner in the 13th minute and was caught by the goalkeeper. In the 22nd minute, a fast and flat cross from the left was barely cleared by the defender. The Germans basically stood in the back row of the offense and moved the ball in place. There was indeed some Elegance in this.
The presence of Sheen and Mikel in the middle of the field puts a lot of pressure on defense, but it makes people miss Lampard's wide range of runs in the frontcourt.
Birmingham's overall defense was fierce, the midfield press was fierce, and everyone's defensive range appeared to be very large. Chelsea kept switching between "playing too small" and "playing too hastily", but overall they were able to control the rhythm.
A series of continuous cooperation from right to left in the 20 minutes was the most exciting. Unfortunately, Joe Cole and Pizarro were unable to turn around in the opponent's penalty area. Birmingham also had some good counterattacks, but they were basically defeated by the steady Makelele, Carvalho and
Cech resolved.
At the beginning of the 26th minute, Birmingham launched a counterattack. The restless left wingers Larsson and Capo, Jerome broke into Chelsea's messy penalty area after continuous cooperation on the left. Capo cleverly dunked Alex and then shot was blocked.
Carvalho came out, and in the 37th minute, Alex was surrounded in the penalty area and passed back to Cech. Cech, who had made mistakes every now and then, almost reached his peak... He kicked the ball with a big foot, not only did it not go high, but he also hit it directly on the target.
The opponent Jerome's head flew towards the goal, but fortunately it missed from the other side. At the 41st minute, there was chaos in the penalty area again. Jerome's two consecutive shots from the center of the penalty area forced Cech to close to handing over his gun. Fortunately,
In the 42nd minute, A Cole and Alex made up for the goal, and in the 42nd minute, Mwamba shot an unguarded shot over the penalty area. In the last ten minutes of the first half, Birmingham, who had dared to attack, suddenly discovered Chelsea's defense.
It wasn't so flawless, Chelsea had constant dangers, and finally managed to maintain a 0-0 draw until the second half.
In fact, the prince's performance in the entire first half was really bad. Facing this kind of weakling, he was a little uninterested. Although there are no weak teams in the Premier League, it is still relatively speaking. As far as Chelsea's current lineup is concerned, if we compare it with Birmingham,
It's really strange to lose. However, although Chelsea had a certain advantage in the first half, Birmingham still would not surrender easily at home, so it was a dull first half. The score of 0:0 also explains it well.
to such a situation.
During the halftime break, Anelka started jumping up and down again, asking for a fight. Grant was annoyed, but he thought of relying on the prince's performance, so he ignored the Frenchman's request.
The prince also knew that he had a heavy responsibility in the first half, but because Grant did not criticize his performance, so in order to thank him for his trust, the prince decided to go all out in the second half, otherwise he would be sorry for his high transfer fee.
….
The early period of the second half was almost the same as the last period of the first half. Alex, Belletti and Ashley Cole were slow to react and kept passing the ball to the opponent's Jerome, Capo and others in their own half.
Larsson, but fortunately Cech, who almost caused a big mistake, was focused and first successfully cleared Alex's too-slow return pass, and then successfully blocked it when Capo broke through his left defense line.
Dead angle. In terms of offense, thanks to the support of Prince, Chelsea reduced the roundabout passes and began to pursue speed. The focus gradually shifted from Malouda, who was messy in the first half, to Prince, who became serious.
But the weather was not kind. It started to rain heavily in the first 65 minutes, and the prince seemed to be suddenly awakened to fighting spirit. He continued to use fake moves to change directions and pass people on the right, gradually regaining the offensive initiative. However, because Pizarro was obviously not adapted to Birmingham's
With a fierce rhythm and always a half-beat behind the ball, Chelsea pushed another character into the position between the midfielder and Pizarro...the invincible prince! Our protagonist showed amazing ball control skills and precise and fierce
Mid-distance pass, Prince took the ball from the right in the 64th minute. Joe Cole's shot was not strong enough. In the 66th minute, the Prince made a wonderful pass to Pizarro in the middle. Unfortunately, the latter faced the goalkeeper one-on-one and pushed the ball into the goalkeeper's arms, missing the entire goal.
The visiting team's best chance before. In the 72nd minute, Joe Cole was like a fish in water in the rain. He continuously made incredible passing moves and then passed to the middle. The prince moved to the left. Malouda followed up and shot hard, but was once again beaten by the very stable old goalkeeper in this field.
Taylor blocked the angle. In the last 15 minutes, Birmingham replaced McFadden, who had just been introduced with a huge sum of money, and Finnish forward Forssell, an old Chelsea player. Obviously he wanted to make a difference, but Cech, who was gradually returning to his heroic nature, replaced McFadden.
The free kick sneak attack was successfully blocked again. In the 76th minute, the prince made a wonderful pass and broke into the penalty area, showing his superhuman status. Suddenly he knocked the ball outside the penalty area, and Ballack inserted a shocking shot that penetrated the home team's wall.
After the goal, Chelsea led the home team by one goal in the away game. After that, Chelsea recovered a little, paid attention to controlling the ball, and successively replaced Sidwell and Bridge to strengthen the defense and delay time, preserving the difficult victory.
"The Sun" commented on this game: Today's game can only make people confused for long-term followers of Chelsea. First of all, everyone believes that Chelsea's absence problem is mainly due to the lack of offensive manpower, but although the defense is
Without Terry and Essien, but with Alex and Makelele in good form, the trouble will not be too big. But today it is obviously more defensive problems than offensive problems, if not for the poor shooting skills of Jerome and others.
, it was entirely possible to be 0-2 behind in the first half. In the 30-60 minutes of the game, as long as a few black players in Birmingham dared to attack physically, Chelsea's defense would be in a state of chaos - I really don't know what Grant did during the halftime break.
What. Today, it seems that Alex cannot completely replace Terry. Although he can often dominate the high-altitude ball and play a good role as a defensive barrier, his tacit understanding with other players is obviously not as good as that of the captain, and his concentration level is not as good.
It is not ideal. In the past, there has been the problem of instability against mid-to-lower teams. Although Ashley Cole has been holding down Bridge at the left back position, he did not show this strength today, except for making up the goal.
In addition to his still good ability, the whole game was mediocre, and there was no good offensive support for Malouda. Bridge's skills are still there in several appearances since his comeback. Maybe Grant should consider introducing competition on this side. Bayley
Letty's sudden burst of offense is still an offensive option, but the pass error rate in the backcourt has always been high, which makes people worried, and he is not the answer to long-term problems. He only has strong ball control ability and excellent positional sense.
The good Carvalho is still an irreplaceable figure. I didn’t see the details of the newcomer Ivanovic today. From the video, he is also very strong. I hope he can share the duties of Carvalho and Belletti in the center and right in the future.
task...
Having said that, the offensive end is not worthy of praise. Although Grant showed the side that "may play gorgeously", if it were not for Pizarro's flash of inspiration today, the car would have been farther away from Manchester United and Arsenal in the away game.
Unavoidable. The first is Pizarro. No one on the team seems to have figured out how to support him in positional offense today. As a result, he has no credit but hard work and is trapped in endless entanglements with the opponent's defenders. But having said that, the prince still performed well.
Showing his value - no matter what the situation is on the field, he can threaten the goal on his own. Compared with Alex who cannot replace Terry, Ballack seems to be even less able to replace anyone - his position is awkward, and today he almost became the opponent's steal.
The first choice for the ball... With a heavy task, he can't attack the team like Lampard, and defensively can't intercept up and down like Essien. His offensive and defensive balance is not as good as Mikel's. The passing efficiency in this game is ridiculously low.
.Coupled with the absence of Wright, who had finally found a feel for the forward midfielder position, Chelsea's entire central attack relied on the support of Makélélé. Pizarro, as a natural shooter, was forced to play in the third position.
The second forward constantly returns the ball to the midfielder. Although he works hard, his frequency of handling the ball is the same as Ballack today - in most cases it is still at the Bundesliga level... Neither Malouda nor Joe Cole can guarantee the pass on the wing.
In terms of medium quality, Ashley Cole and Belletti can't keep up. I boldly suggest here that if Wright can't recover from his injury soon, Grant might as well consider starting Sidwell and Makelele as a partner again, and then
Ballack was liberated to the wing - which sounds ironic, pushing the over-energetic Malouda to the second forward position. Of course, Grant's dare to use Sinclair is also a good consideration.
In short, Chelsea in this game was, at best, fierce in offense and fierce in defense, but in worst terms, inefficient in offense and messy in defense. Judging from the game results and ball possession rate (71%), Chelsea was attacking, and from the rhythm of the game and threats
In terms of the situation, Chelsea is undoubtedly a loser. The five wins and one draw in the past six rounds, and the four points difference between the top two teams, may be just a good illusion.
