Chapter 479: New Season Preliminary Battle

Bruno did not mean to disrespect Mourinho, but he really felt that the team's tactics were indeed a bit too conservative, which seriously limited the team's offensive power and creativity in the frontcourt.

Mourinho himself is a defensive head coach. He is best at defense, and coaching offense has never been his forte. Although Manchester United scored 174 goals in all competitions last season, setting a single-season goal record in team history, and often won opponents by a large score in the game, it was more dependent on Bruno's personal ability.

You know, Bruno helped Manchester United score 58 goals and assisted 32 times in all competitions last season. He created 90 goals alone, which has exceeded half of Manchester United's total goals.

Especially in the Premier League, Manchester United's total number of goals is 96, Bruno scored 38 goals alone, and had 21 assists, and the number of goals created reached 61.4% of the total number of goals!

For Bruno, this is a very good performance, but for the entire Manchester United team, this is unreasonable.

Moreover, Bruno can't always maintain this state and be able to kill all sides in the Premier League.

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In fact, since the second half of last season, Premier League teams have begun to find ways to deal with Bruno, which can be seen from the sharp decline in his data in the second half of the season.

In the first half, Bruno set a record of scoring in 18 consecutive Premier League games. In the first half of the season, only the first round of the league did not score a goal. The data for the first half was 27 goals and 12 assists. There was no game without a goal or an assist.

However, since entering 2017, Premier League teams that have become familiar with Bruno's playing style have made considerable progress in restricting Bruno. This made Bruno's score in the second half of the season only 19 games, 11 goals and 9 assists, and the number of goals he participated in was almost halved.

In the second half, Bruno had a wave of five consecutive goal droughts, and another wave of three consecutive goal droughts, and he had no goals and no assists in as many as 9 games!

Because Bruno's personal performance has declined significantly, Manchester United's performance in the second half of the season has also declined significantly. At the end of the first half, Manchester United created a record of Premier League half-time points with 18 wins and 1 loss; but in the second half, they only achieved 12 wins, 5 draws and 2 losses, 13 points less than the points in the first half!

If Manchester United had not achieved such a big advantage in the first half, they would not even be able to become the Premier League champion last season!

Professional leagues are like this. If you don’t change, your opponents will change, and you will not be able to do it, so you must constantly seek change and keep improving.

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"We have three midfielders, and I am alone in the front. I have to organize and sort out the midfield, pass the ball to the frontcourt, and even often retreat to get the ball. I am under too much pressure, especially as opponents pay more and more attention to us."

"I think N'Golo is a trustworthy midfielder who is a defender. He not only has a large defensive range and strong confrontation ability, but also has a high success rate in interception and stealing. What's more rare is that his passing ability is also improving rapidly."

Fans have always had the impression that Kante is a pure defensive midfielder, but in fact, this greatly underestimates him.

When he first debuted, Kante did rely on defense to gain a foothold in football. But since the Udinese period, Guidolin has been deliberately training Kante's offensive ability.

When he was in Leicester City, under Ranieri, Kante's offensive ability was further developed.

After transferring to Manchester United last season, in the team's internal data, Kante's defensive data was not only eye-catching, but also his passing success rate exceeded 90%, which in itself was enough to prove that he was a trustworthy midfielder.

More importantly, Kante was only passed 0.7 times per game on average, that is, he was passed by the opponent twice in three games, and this data is really rare in European football.

Kante's effect on Manchester United's defense can be said to be immediate. Since entering the 2010s, Manchester United's number of goals lost in each season has not been less than 30. But with the arrival of Kante last season, this data suddenly dropped to 27 goals.

Combined with Kante's characteristics and advantages, Bruno believes that as Kante continues to grow and improve, Manchester United should further release the vitality of the midfield, rather than continue to adopt the previous double midfielder style.

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"Gundogan can play a strong defensive role whether he is in the front or in the back, but he also has an advantage that his footwork is delicate and technically outstanding. He can directly attack from his own hinterland. His ability to dribble forward is not valued by us."

"Another point is that his physical fitness is very good. Combined with his footwork, I have noticed several times that he is very calm and has a great advantage in handling the ball in front of the penalty area."

Mourinho and Faria both understood what Bruno meant.

Faria's eyes lit up and nodded loudly: "I think it's feasible."

Bruno meant to activate the offensive firepower of the midfield.

Gundogan is not a defensive midfielder. There will be problems if he copies the tactical play of last season, but if he is allowed to play a role similar to the all-around midfielder from B2B penalty area to penalty area, the offense is solved.

Ibrahimovic is a center forward, very intimidating in the penalty area. Let him be at the front and suppress the opponent's central defender. Rashford gets more freedom to launch attacks on both wings, and Lingard supports him.

Bruno is responsible for organizing and passing the ball, as well as attacking from behind. Gundogan is responsible for more tasks of advancing from the backcourt and suddenly attacking from behind. With Cancelo and Luke Shaw on the two wings, Manchester United's offensive problems can indeed be solved well.

Of course, if the forward recruitment task can be completed, Kane and Mbappe will join Manchester United, then Manchester United's offensive ability will be more terrifying than last season.

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"But in this case, what about defense?" Mourinho asked with a frown.

He is a defensive head coach after all, which is also his usual characteristic.

"Our traditional advantage is to counter-grab on the spot. As long as the players maintain a high degree of overall cooperation and tactical discipline, the defensive problem will not be a big problem." Carrick, the team's new captain, said.

As long as a new idea is opened up, many problems can be solved.

Manchester United's current frontcourt players, whether Ibrahimovic, Bruno or Lingard, have strong tactical execution capabilities and are already very hardworking in the game. If the team's tactics are pushed forward, Manchester United's ability to counter-press in the midfield will be even better than before.

At the end of the symposium, the coaching staff did not clearly state what they would do, but Mourinho expressed his intention to try.

In the team training the next day, the coaching staff began to use Bruno's previous ideas in the group confrontation, allowing Gundogan to take on more offensive tasks on the substitute side.

This change really activated Guo Degang's role in the midfield, and the German midfielder began to play more threateningly. Several times he rushed from the backcourt to the frontcourt with the ball, which was eye-catching.

And he really had an advantage in getting the ball at the front of the penalty area, and he handled it very calmly, which further confirmed Bruno's previous views.

The players themselves were also communicating and coordinating each other's on-field interaction and cooperation, especially Gundogan and Bruno.

Everyone knows that there is no problem with the strength of Manchester United's players. They won the championship last season and will be even stronger this season because everyone is one year older and more mature.

The problem now is whether the team's offense can be played out.

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Since there are only ten days left before the Community Shield after the International Champions Cup, although Manchester United has made some tactical attempts, they have not made enough preparations, so Mourinho did not boldly adopt the new style of play suggested by Bruno in the end.

As a prelude to the Premier League, this year's Community Shield was arranged to be held at the new Wembley Stadium.

Since Manchester United won the Premier League and the FA Cup last season, the Community Shield this time will be between the league champion Manchester United and the league runner-up Chelsea.

Due to the regrettable failure in the competition for the Premier League championship last season, the unwilling Abramovich continued to increase investment and has introduced strong reinforcements such as Lukaku, Bakayoko, Rudiger, Zappacosta, Caballero and others in the transfer market, trying to make a comeback in the new season and challenge Manchester United again.

However, due to the large number of new reinforcements, the cooperation between the players may be a problem.

In this game, Conte continued to use his 343 formation, with Azpilicueta, David Luisson and Gary Cahill as the back line, Matic and Fabregas as the midfielders, Moses and Marcos Alonso as the wings, and Willian, Batshuayi and Pedro as the front line.

None of the new players started.

On Manchester United's side, Mourinho's deployment was also chosen for the sake of safety.

Because of the lack of forwards, Mourinho still arranged the trident combination of Lingard, Rashford and Bruno, with Mata in the midfield, Herrera and Kante as the double defensive midfielders, and Valencia, Smalling, Maguire and Luke Shaw as the back line, and De Gea as the goalkeeper.

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At the beginning of the game, both sides played very fiercely, especially in the first 20 minutes, Lingard and Alonso were warned with yellow cards in succession, which shows that both sides fought hard against each other and no one was willing to give in.

Manchester United still had the same old problem. Bruno's state had not been adjusted yet, and he seemed not excited enough. He was also closely guarded by the opponent, and his offense seemed a bit sluggish.

It was difficult for Mata to hold the midfield alone.

The double defensive midfielder combination of Herrera and Kante ensured the team's defense, but the offense in front still could not open up the situation.

This situation lasted throughout the first half, and the two sides ended up in a 0:0 tie, and no one could break the opponent's goal.