Chapter 400 The strongest versus the strongest, it depends on who is stronger
Pellegrini has been under a lot of pressure recently.
Last season, Manchester City ranked second behind Chelsea in the Premier League, while in the Champions League, they were in the top 16. Such results obviously did not satisfy Chairman Mubarak and owner Mansour.
Therefore, the matter of coaching change has been put on the agenda of Manchester City's senior management early on.
Some rumors have pointed out that Mubarak has had in-depth discussions with Bayern coach Guardiola, and many contract details have even been finalized.
However, because Guardiola insisted that he would leave the team after completing his contract with Bayern, the deal did not proceed immediately.
After this season, Guardiola's contract with Bayern will expire.
If this rumor is true, it means that Pellegrini's time at Manchester City is coming to an end.
At this time, there is only one way to make Manchester City executives change their minds: that is to prove themselves with excellent results in the Premier League and the Champions League!
Obviously, the second round home game against Chelsea is the top priority.
This is the showdown between the Premier League champion and the runner-up last season, and in the eyes of the outside world, this is also a key battle that can determine the trend of the Premier League this season.
Whoever can win this game will undoubtedly have a psychological advantage in the following games, so that they can advance all the way, and maybe they can really win the championship in one fell swoop.
But on the contrary, if you lose the game against a direct rival for the championship, it will undoubtedly be a fatal blow to the morale of the team, and then it will fail to recover and directly withdraw from the championship competition. This is not an alarmist.
In addition, there are two focuses in this game.
One is that Pan Yi’s Chelsea has maintained an unbeaten streak of 39 games in the Premier League.
Chelsea's unbeaten record in team history was set by the Mourinho Blues between October 23, 2004 and October 29, 2005. The record at that time was 40 games unbeaten.
In other words, as long as Chelsea can escape unscathed at the Intihad Stadium, it will tie Mourinho's record.
The second one is, of course, the top transfer bidder in Manchester City's history, De Bruyne, who is worth 80 million euros.
His duel with Chelsea's all-time leader Harry Kane, who is worth 85 million euros, is naturally eye-catching.
Moreover, when De Bruyne comes to the Premier League, he will meet again with his old friend and mentor Pan Yi, as well as with his Belgian national team teammates Lukaku, Hazard, and... Courtois.<
/p>
In addition, since Chelsea defeated Swansea with four goals in the first round, while Manchester City defeated West Bromwich Albion 3:0 away from home, these two teams are ranked in the Premier League standings with a goal difference advantage.
The first two.
Therefore, this showdown between the giants that took place early in the second round was really an out-and-out Battle of Tianwang Mountain!
This game undoubtedly attracted the attention of media and fans around the world.
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At this time, in the visiting team's locker room, Pan Yi had also received Manchester City's lineup.
Pellegrini still uses his most commonly used 4-2-3-1 formation.
Several new players that Manchester City introduced at a high price in the summer window are all in action. Argentinian Otamendi, introduced from Valencia, partners with captain Kompany as a double central defender. On both sides of them are Kolarov and Sagna.
.
Today's double midfielders are Yaya Toure and Fernandinho, and in front of them, Sterling, bought from Liverpool, is on the left, and De Bruyne, bought from Bayern, is on the right.
The attacking midfielder is David Silva.
The one at the front is Argentinian striker Sergio Aguero, and the one at the back guarding the goal is Joe Hart.
It can be said that this is indeed the strongest lineup of Manchester City at present. Every position is filled with top-ranked stars in the world, and there are no obvious shortcomings.
Pellegrini wants to complete his victory in this game and set the tone for this season's championship in one fell swoop!
Of course Pan Yi didn't dare to neglect.
He is also well aware of the impact of this game on the Premier League campaign this season.
Wasn't his rotation in the European Super Cup just for today?
Therefore, Chelsea is also strong.
The goalkeeper is Courtois, and the three central defenders in the back line are Terry, Van Dijk, and David Luiz.
The five midfielders are Marcos Alonso, Kante, Hazard, B, Azpilicueta.
This arrangement is to maximize the control ability of the midfield.
Controlling the ball at your feet and compressing the formation will naturally greatly reduce the threat of through balls from De Bruyne, David Silva and others.
The forward line is still Lukaku and Harry Kane.
Although these two main forwards fight continuously, they are both in good physical condition and recover quickly. The interval between the two games this time is four days, so it is not a big problem.
After consulting the opinions of physical coach Pintus and chief team doctor Wolfat, Pan Yi decided to let them play.
It can be said that this lineup is also the strongest lineup of Chelsea in Pan Yi's mind!
The strongest versus the strongest, it depends on who is stronger!
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As the referee blew his whistle, the packed house was filled with loud noises.
With the support of the home team fans, Manchester City took the lead in launching an attack on Chelsea.
This is Pellegrini’s main strategy today, which is to attack!
There are offensive players like Aguero, David Silva, De Bruyne, and Sterling in the frontcourt. If we don’t attack, why bother?
Even Yaya Toure in the midfielder position is a capable player, and it is no problem to dribble the ball and score goals.
Looking at the visiting team, Chelsea neither retreated nor pressed forward.
They played steadily and at their own pace from the beginning.
The backcourt is setting up defenses in an orderly manner to take over the attack from Manchester City; while the midfield and frontcourt are actively fighting and using the excellent ball control abilities of Hazard, B and others to control the midfield with Manchester City.
Fight for.
The first threatening offensive in the game occurred in the fifth minute. After Manchester City stole the ball, Sterling on the left twisted his butt to form a breakthrough and passed a cross pass to Aguero in the middle.
】
Aguero was not greedy for credit, and he knocked back to Sterling again, but the happy boy kicked off the hat of an old man watching the game in the stands with a volley.
Then Manchester City's attack shifted to the right.
Right back Sagna assisted, and a high-altitude ball that seemed to be passed and shot flew to the goal, but was resolved by Courtois.
"This is one of his characteristics. He is solid defensively, but he lacks in accuracy in passing and shooting ability."
Arteta, standing next to Pan Yi, said.
Sagna is a former Arsenal player and a famous "factory beauty". Arteta, the former captain of the Arsenal, is of course very familiar with him.
Pan Yi nodded slightly.
For the ball just now, Sagna had actually rushed to Chelsea's left rib with speed, but he didn't have much confidence in his shooting skills, so he didn't choose to cut in and shoot, but made a hasty cross.
However, he did not control his footwork well when passing the ball, which caused the ball to go straight to the goal. Because of its weak strength, it was easily confiscated by Courtois.
Pan Yi pointed to the other side of the field: "Kolarov on the other side is attacking the strong and defending the weak."
This Serbian can also be said to be Pan Yi's old rival. His skills in positioning the ball and passing the ball are also impressive.
It's just that his speed is slow, and he is not particularly good at marking, stealing and defensive positioning. He is really the opposite of Sagna.
Because of this, Manchester City's main attack direction today is still on the left where Kolarov is, and they will make a fuss with Sterling's breakthrough here.
On the right, Sagna is allowed to defend firmly, and then wait for the opportunity to hand the ball to De Bruyne, allowing Ding Ding to use his super vision and precise passing to maneuver across both sides of the court, and use this to tear apart the opponent.
Break Chelsea's defense.
"So... we still have to focus on Kolarov today? Use the space when he assists to hit him behind?" Arteta thought for a while and said.
"No," Pan Yi shook his head gently, "We can see such an obvious gap, and of course Pellegrini can also imagine it."
In fact, when Pan Yi first played against Manchester City, he took advantage of Kolarov's defensive loopholes to attack.
Later, when he met Pan Yi, Pellegrini even gave up using Kolarov and instead used Clichy, who was more balanced in offense and defense, as the left back.
But today Pei Gong once again used Kolarov to face Pan Yi, so he must have thought of some foolproof strategy.
Pan Yi also noticed that in today's game, when Kolarov pressed for assists, Manchester City's double midfielders, whether it was Yaya Toure or Fernandinho, would consciously move closer to the left.
Fill the gap behind the Serbian.
It is precisely because of this that if we continue to attack this road forcefully, the effect will not be good.
"I suggest you look at De Bruyne's side." Pan Yi pointed to Manchester City's right wing.
Pan Yi's words immediately caused the surrounding coaching staff to turn their attention to De Bruyne on the court.
"What happened to him?" Arteta was a little confused. "He seemed to be in good condition today. Stopping the ball and getting rid of it shows the level of a world-class midfielder."
"But have you noticed that his new teammates are not used to his passing?"
Arteta observed attentively for a while: "It does seem a bit."
De Bruyne is a player with a great outlook on the overall situation. He can be said to be the controller on the court and a person with a God's perspective.
He is always able to pass the ball to the best position at the best time, which is commonly known as the space.
At this time, cooperation with teammates is very important.
A player of De Bruyne's level has a lot to consider when he passes the ball.
For example, what are the characteristics of teammates’ kicking skills, whether they are left-footed or right-footed, and which footwork they like to use most to receive what kind of passes;
If this kick needs to be played in a gap and speed up, then what is the speed of the teammates and even the physical consumption;
Then calculate how much advance should be given to allow them to sprint and catch the ball comfortably.
But the problem now is that De Bruyne's passing idea is a bit too unnatural, and it is difficult for his teammates to understand his intentions in a short period of time.
Take Sterling, who is most often found when De Bruyne makes diagonal passes, as an example.
Many times, Sterling hopes that the ball can be passed to his feet, so that he can come back to bring about a breakthrough;
But De Bruyne helps you think more. His pass is to help you directly ignore the defensive player in front of you. You can just get behind and catch the ball.
It is precisely this difference in philosophy that led to the lack of coordination between the two on several occasions, and they failed to pose a threat to Chelsea's defense.
This cannot be blamed on Sterling, after all, he has just joined the team, so it is normal for him to be unfamiliar with the habits of his teammates.
This is why when new players join the team, they need more games to get used to it.
As for why Pan Yi’s players don’t seem to need it much?
That's because Pan Yi knows the characteristics of his players so well! He even knows these players clearly before they even join the team.
Therefore, whether in ordinary training or summary, Pan Yi will make it very clear what each player's habitual movements are and what kind of cooperation they need from teammates. This also greatly reduces the time required for teammates to understand each other.
Time.
Take Pan Yi as an example when he first bought De Bruyne when he was in Hamburg. At that time, he directly formulated a very direct and straightforward tactical routine of De Bruyne and Vardy, which quickly created a chemical reaction between the two.
, and then produce immediate results in actual combat.
Not everyone can have a plug-in for the time-travel system!
Therefore, it is difficult for other coaches, such as Pellegrini, to do this.
Although he knows that De Bruyne is a player with wide vision and good passing ability, it is difficult to detail how to pass each ball of Ding Ding, how to run the forward, including the follow-up recovery if the pass is missed.
Take care of.
Maybe in the future, but definitely not at the beginning of the season.
Because as a head coach, he has more important work to do.
That is to determine the main formation for the new season, and then integrate the players, especially the new players, into this tactical system to form a whole.
In other words, we need to get the thicker stuff first, then the finer stuff.
Without a systematic tactical framework, it doesn’t make much sense to make fine-tuning first.
This is also Pan Yi's biggest advantage compared with ordinary coaches: he understands the players thoroughly and can work together extremely efficiently!
"So, we have to take advantage of this." Pan Yi continued:
"Although Manchester City's main attack direction is from the left, after the ball reaches the center, it often passes to De Bruyne, allowing him to organize the final pass."
"But because De Bruyne's cooperation with his teammates is still relatively unfamiliar, this causes him to release the ball slower than usual after getting the ball because he needs a little more time to observe."
"And this little extra time is the key for us to steal him and launch a counterattack. We must remember that De Bruyne is not strictly an all-around midfielder, and his confrontation ability is not outstanding." "In addition, since Manchester City's double defensive midfielders have been focusing more on filling the left back Kolarov's position recently, they rarely take care of De Bruyne's side."
"Therefore..."
Arteta said excitedly at this time: "So we need the players to step up the pressure on De Bruyne and try to intercept the ball at his feet!"
Pan Yi nodded slightly: "Well, you can go and give the instructions."
"Yes, boss!" Brother Tazi ran to the sidelines with a squeak.
When Pan Yi looked at the court again, a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Ding Ding, Ding Ding, although you are my favorite general, but since you have become my opponent today, I’m sorry!
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"We have noticed that in the past few minutes, Chelsea seems to have begun to increase the pressure in the midfield and frontcourt."
"If I read it correctly, this increase in intensity should have occurred after Chelsea's new assistant coach Arteta came to the sidelines and had some verbal exchanges with the players."
"This is probably Arteta's latest instruction from head coach Pan Yi to Chelsea players."
"And I believe that all fans who often watch Chelsea games know that this is often a signal after Pan Yi discovers the opponent's weakness. This also means that Chelsea must focus on attacking the opponent's weakness! Manchester City should be careful." p>
"Now it's De Bruyne who has the ball. He wants to pass the ball forward after getting rid of Marcos Alonso in front of him, but his old friend Kante is interfering behind him, so he can only
Pass the ball back to Fernandinho behind to reorganize."
"Strictly speaking, De Bruyne is also facing his old club this time."
"Because as early as the winter of 2012, Chelsea bought De Bruyne from the Belgian club Genk, but immediately rented it back to Genk for half the season. So, even though De Bruyne did not represent
He has played one game at Chelsea, but he is still considered a former Chelsea player."
"Everyone knows the story that happened after that. Pan Yi spent 12 million to buy De Bruyne from Chelsea, and made him the Bundesliga assists leader, won the Champions League, and became a world-class midfielder.
, and also successively transferred to giant teams such as Bayern and Manchester City."
"At the national team level, De Bruyne has also become the absolute core of the Belgian national team. He has played 33 times on behalf of the national team and scored 8 goals."
"Now, such a world-class midfielder will definitely want to perform better when facing the coach Pan Yi who discovered and trained him, as well as his old teammates Kante and Van Dijk..." "We saw that Manchester City's ball was still passed to the midfielder at this time and handed to De Bruyne. It seems that Pellegrini still has high hopes for this high-priced new signing. Many of the balls in the frontcourt come from him.
Deal with it. It’s just that De Bruyne seems to be trapped in a tight siege now..."
"Look at this ball! De Bruyne has just stopped the ball, and Kante and Hazard behind him have already gone straight to grab it!"
"Beautiful escape! It's really De Bruyne. He deceived the two Chelsea defenders with a flexible ball-pulling action with the soles of his feet, and then looked up in front..."
"Ah, it's slow! He was a little slow in passing the ball, and Bernardo Silva stretched out his foot first and broke his foot! When De Bruyne got the ball this time, there were three Chelsea midfielders
Everyone came up to fight, which shows that they are still very afraid of De Bruyne's passing skills."
"But this strategy has obviously been successful. Now Chelsea has got the ball and started to launch a quick counterattack!"
"Bernardo Silva gave the ball directly to Marcos Alonso on the left. The Spanish left midfielder did not take the ball. He directly pushed the ball with the arch of his foot and the ball went to the feet of Lukaku in front." "Lukaku is getting up! He is very fast..."
"At this time, Manchester City also quickly defended, and Sagna also kept up with Lukaku, preventing him from cutting in and shooting at any time."
"Okay, Lukaku really cut inside! He dribbled the ball laterally and cut inside, but he didn't shoot. He suddenly passed behind him and passed into the penalty area!"
"Harry Kane came in from the other side! Good opportunity, not offside, it was a one-way goal!..."
The whole Intihad stadium screamed when Harry Kane sprinted past Otamendi and Kompany and headed straight for the ball in front of the goal.
All Manchester City fans are worried about this.
However, just as this dark blue figure passed by a group of sky blue players and rushed into the Manchester City penalty area, just when he was about to receive the ball, Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart suddenly gave up the goal.
Got it!
This also made the fans at Intihad Stadium raise their hearts to their throats and watch with wide eyes.
Now we can only look at the goalkeeper!
In this flash of lightning, Harry Kane took the lead, reached the ball with his foot, and with a light poke, the ball changed direction.
But at this moment, Joe Hart fell to the ground and flew.
It was because of Kane's timely poke that Joe Hart failed to pounce on the ball, but instead tripped Harry Kane to the ground.
The Chelsea forward fell out and rolled twice on the grass before lying on the ground.
Beep!
The referee's whistle sounded quickly!
The scene suddenly rang out sparse shouts of "Red card!" "Red card!", which were the shouts of Chelsea fans who followed the team to the away game.
But soon, Manchester City fans launched an overwhelming boo, completely drowning them.
After all, this is Intihad. Here, they have an overwhelming numerical advantage.
Amid the boos, the referee finally gave out only a yellow card and a penalty kick.
At this time, Harry Kane climbed up from the grass with the support of Lukaku and Azpilicueta.
This immediately caused him to be booed by the audience again, because Manchester City fans thought he was diving.
"Judging from the slow-motion replay, Harry Kane did not dive."
"Joe Hart's attack was actually not a big problem, but Harry Kane poked the ball away very alertly. This caused Joe Hart not to pounce on the ball at all, but hit Kane's supporting foot, causing him to fall to the ground.
."
"So, this penalty kick is definitely awarded, and only receiving a yellow card can be regarded as being merciful by the referee."
"We saw Harry Kane seemingly unharmed, standing on the penalty spot."
"We know that Chelsea's first penalty kicker has always been Hazard, but Hazard just indicated that Harry Kane would personally take the penalty kick that he created. This reflects the good atmosphere within the Chelsea team.
!"
"Harry Kane expressed his gratitude to his teammates without being too humble. He was also the first penalty taker when he was at Tottenham, so there was not much pressure on him."
"It is now the 35th minute of the game. If Harry Kane can score this penalty kick, it will undoubtedly open up the situation for Chelsea."
"In this way, Kane will face his national teammate Joe Hart. Okay, Harry Kane will run and shoot..."
"The ball is scored!
”
"goalllllllllllllllllllllllll!
”
"Harry Kane calmly scored the penalty!"
"Although Joe Hart was fully prepared and even guessed the direction correctly, Harry Kane's usual penalty kick method is to hit the top corner vigorously. The ball speed is so fast that it is useless even if he guessed the direction correctly!" "One to zero, Chelsea leads away from home!"