Chapter 23 Against Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough is a powerhouse in the Premier League. Their strength is difficult to compare with strong teams such as Manchester United and Arsenal, but there is no worry of relegation every season. Compared to Derby County, Middlesbrough is one level higher - they are a mid-level Premier League team, and Derby County can only be regarded as a League One relegation team.

The status of the two teams is very different, and the strength is naturally a lot different.

However, head coach Steve McLaren still agreed to Derby County's warm-up request. Just like Derby County wants to invite some lower leagues to warm up, Middlesbrough also needs to warm up in the lower leagues. Relative to Middlesbrough Borough, Derby County is a qualified lower league team.

On this day, all Derby County came to the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough.

The warm-up match was not so formal. After entering the stadium, the two sides started to warm up, and then the official match was played directly. The referee responsible for enforcing the match was invited by the two teams.

Wan Sheng stood with McLaren on the sidelines.

McLaren is only 42 years old, which is quite young to be the manager of a Premier League team at this age. His coaching resume is also dazzling - he was an assistant to Ferguson at Manchester United, and is now also an assistant to Eriksen, the England manager, while he is also the manager of Middlesbrough. Overall, this is a very successful coach.

Wan Sheng knew McLaren because he knew England.

McLaren's biggest dream is to coach the England team. Three years later, after the 2006 World Cup in Germany, McLaren also realized his dream. It is a pity that he was dismissed by the FA within a year of taking office. The reason for his dismissal There are many, including the poor performance of the team, the criticism of the media and the dissatisfaction of the stars in the team. In short, he did a poor job as the head coach of England. Later, his experience in the Eredivisie and the Bundesliga was a failure. Eventually he returned to England, but he could only find a coaching job in the Championship (now League One).

In other words, McLaren's most brilliant time was when he took over as England head coach in 2006.

He is now at the peak of his coaching career as Middlesbrough head coach. But ten years later. He was reduced to the head coach of the British Championship, and the current Wansheng belongs to the same level of coaches.

Thinking about the later experiences of this 'senior in the coaching industry' and 'the current successful person', Wan Sheng can only sigh that the competition in the coaching world is really fierce, but he respects McLaren very much, after all, this is a senior , The results of coaching Middlesbrough are also very good, and this warm-up match. The Middlesbrough club is quite generous. All the ticket revenue belongs to the Derby County Club. Being able to find a Premier League team to warm up and bring benefits to the club, Wansheng feels at home in this game.

But he quickly put his energy into the game.

In the game between the two teams on the pitch, Derby County did not show any disadvantage. In terms of the situation, they and Middlesbrough had each other's offense and defense. The overall performance looked very good, but Wansheng saw a big problem. Offensive and defensive is of course. Derby County is also a League One team and plays attacking football. If this can't be offense and defense with Middlesbrough, then Derby County's performance is too bad. The problem Wansheng noticed was the team's defensive performance.

The two teams have each other's offense and defense, but Middlesbrough's offensive threat is quite large. It's not that their offensive performance is very good, but Derby County's defense is very poor.

The team's midfield is almost undefended!

Especially Wansheng found that the team conceded the ball in the frontcourt and Middlesbrough launched an attack. During this transition between offense and defense, the team's formation was a bit chaotic. Many times in the middle of the midfield, the opponent jumped with two or three passes. Then Middlesbrough will be able to calmly enter the dangerous area of ​​the backcourt.

How did that happen?

Wan Sheng watched the game carefully, trying to find the crux of the problem.

In his opinion, the team's current performance is quite poor. The most important thing for the new tactics he developed is to grasp the rhythm. This rhythm is the rhythm of his own offensive and defensive transition. This is the core essence of tactics, but the current situation is that whenever the team turns from offense to defense, the formation becomes a bit chaotic. Wansheng emphasized it more than once in training. On defense, it stands to reason that players on the field are trying to run and intercept according to tactics. The team's full-court pressing should be able to play a role, but the current situation is that the defense is in chaos, as if the rhythm Entirely in the opponent's hands, the team is not adapted to their own tactics.

Wan Sheng's brows furrowed.

He carefully watched the game, carefully watched the performance of each player, and carefully watched the opponent's offense. Just like this time, after Middlesbrough completed the interception in the backcourt, he turned from defense to offense, and only used a three-legged pass. After penetrating the team's midfield defense line, the football soon reached the feet of the opponent's full-back. The full-back wanted to dribble the ball forward, opened the neutral position with two or three steps and passed directly to the penalty area, and the opponent's forward sent the ball into the goal with his head.

Middlesbrough scored.

However, Wansheng doesn't care about the opponent's goal. This is just a warm-up match. The victory or defeat has no effect at all. What he cares about is the team's defense in the midfield. Obviously now the team's midline can't hold the opponent's offense. In the face of the opponent's transmission and cooperation, the defense of this midline is too weak.

Until the end of the first half of the game, Wansheng kept staring at the game and thinking.

Middlesbrough scored another goal at the end of the first half to make it 2-0, which left the Derby players demoralized, but Wan Sheng didn't have time to think too much about the result, he was still thinking about tactics no problem.

In this game, the players on the team performed very well. At least they worked hard and worked hard. They were also playing according to their tactics. The team's offense and defense transition was also very fast. How much difference is there between the attack and the opponent? Why does the opponent always easily penetrate the team's defense? The team did not realize the effect of pressing the defense in the whole court at all, on the contrary, they rarely had the opportunity to entangle with the opponent in the midfield.

It's still a matter of defense!

Wansheng was confirmed. On the way back to the locker room, he finally wanted to understand some problems. The most important thing was the performance of the two players in the midfield, Maurice and Osman. The team's formation was 442, and the midfielder was Standard diamond stance with Morris up front. Osman was behind. As a result, when Morris attacked, there was only Osman left in the middle of the midfield. The range he needed to defend was too large, and one person simply couldn’t handle such a large range of defense. The team's midfield is naturally easily penetrated by the opponent.

Wan Sheng had already seen this. But his formation is very standard. Many other teams use this 442 midfield diamond formation. One of the most representative ones is Arsenal. The offensive football they play is more open than Derby County. more, but their defense is equally tight.

In the final analysis, the players are generally lacking in strength!

That's the most important thing.

A diamond-shaped position with two players in the midfield, one attacking and one defending, when the attacking midfielder intervenes. The overall retreat of the offensive and defensive transition was not timely. In addition, the opponents are much stronger than their own, and the midfielders naturally cannot stop the opponents. This is also the drawback of open offensive football. Arsenal can be strong defensively because they are already the world's top players. Team, and Derby County is just a League One team, they are now facing the Premier League team Middlesbrough.

Wan Sheng figured it out.

But he will not give up new tactics because of this, to fight back with Middlesbrough. Then his preparations for the summer would be in vain, even if it was a big loss. He also wants to make the team more adaptable to this set of tactics. Now facing a strong team, although the choice of defensive counterattack is better, Wansheng still feels that the new tactics also have a chance. What he has to do is to change the formation and strengthen the defense.

Back in the locker room and seeing the players shrugging their heads, Wansheng also knew that the first half of the game had hit the players a bit hard. They played very hard, but the opponent still scored two goals, especially When the opponent is attacking, they feel quite passive on defense, and this passiveness can easily kill the players' morale.

When Wan Sheng walked in, the players all looked over, but immediately their heads went lower because they thought the coach would definitely be furious and unhappy with their performance.

But they didn't expect Wansheng to praise their performance with a smile.

"Your performance is very good, everyone has done a good job!" Wan Sheng affirmed the performance of the players, "Don't pay too much attention to the first half, you know, they are Middlesbrough, a Premier League powerhouse, and We were still fighting to stay out of relegation last season."

There was a bit of a joke in his words, which also made the atmosphere in the locker room a lot better.

"But we can't let the game go on like this, so we need to adjust the formation in the second half..." Wan Sheng said in detail about the tactical adjustment.

The adjustment Wansheng made was simple, adding a defensive midfielder.

In this way, the team is equivalent to having two midfielders. If the backline does not move, there must be one less striker, so the formation becomes 4231. There are two defensive midfielders behind, and the opponent wants to easily penetrate the ball. The team's midfield defense is not easy.

As long as the defense can be stabilized, the basis for the effectiveness of the tactics will be there, and the performance will naturally become better.

Sure enough, after this adjustment, Derby County's defense in the second half appeared to be much more stable, with defense as a guarantee. The team's fast-paced transformation and fast offense in the transition of offense and defense also caused Middlesbrough to suffer a lot. In the second half In the 15th minute, Derby County took advantage of an opportunity to steal from the backcourt to directly accelerate the attack and caught Middlesbrough by surprise. Ian Taylor, who came off the bench, found the opportunity and completed a powerful shot in the penalty area. The team came back with a goal.

Next, Middlesbrough also stabilized the defense. At the same time, they were still trying to penetrate the Derby County midline, but at this time they found it very difficult to do so. The opponent's two defenders were very good at running and intercepting. , causing countless troubles to their offense.

Soon they had to get caught up in a battle with each other for the midfield initiative.

Wansheng is already quite satisfied with the game at this level. He was able to use the new tactics to play evenly with the Premier League powerhouse Middlesbrough, and even regained a little advantage in the second half, which proves that the power of the new tactics is still good.

The result then doesn't matter.

---As a pseudo-fan, writing this chapter is sincere Alexander---(To be continued ~^~)