Chapter 254 Returning to Camp Nou Is Like Going Home [Please Subscribe! ]

Chapter 254 Returning to Camp Nou is like going home~ [Please subscribe, big guys! ]

Li Ang's bold statement after the game with Arsenal quickly made Chelsea and himself the focus of discussion among fans all over Europe.

His confidence and his generous desire for the championship won the appreciation and recognition of many fans.

Of course, on the other hand, some fans think that he is indeed very arrogant and does not respect his opponents enough.

But, it is indeed as Li Ang said.

When Chelsea beat Arsenal in the 31st round of the Premier League, Chelsea had enough qualifications to look forward to winning the championship in advance.

After all, in the next two rounds of the league, Chelsea will face Fulham, the last in the league, and Crystal Palace, the sixth from the bottom in the league.

It will certainly be painful if the relegation team bites back successfully, but if they can defend well, it will be even more difficult for Fulham and Crystal Palace to beat Chelsea unexpectedly.

The schedule is favorable and the morale is fully played. No matter how you look at it, Chelsea does not look like it will turn over in the next two rounds of the league.

In comparison, Manchester City will be the side with more pressure.

And Chelsea does not need Manchester City to lose. As long as they can draw one or two games in the next schedule, it will be enough for Chelsea.

And it has already reached the 31st round of the league. If they hide it, they will appear less confident.

So Mourinho and other Chelsea players simply showed their cards in the interview and clearly expressed their determination to win the Premier League championship this season.

However, after officially announcing the championship, Mourinho turned around and soaked in the training base with his coaching team with a serious expression.

They began to think about how to arrange the starting lineup for the next two league games.

The opponents that Chelsea will face in the next extra game and the 32nd round of the Premier League are indeed not strong, but the schedule is relatively tight.

And after playing these two league games, Chelsea will go to Barcelona to prepare for the Champions League battle with Barcelona.

Therefore, rotation is necessary, the playing time of the main veterans must be reduced accordingly, and Van Ginkel, Kalas and Oscar will inevitably have to take on more tactical responsibilities.

In Chelsea's first team, the players who played against Arsenal returned to the training base on time after a day of rest.

After repeated consideration, Mourinho finally chose to let all the main veterans rest in the extra game on March 26.

Ibrahimovic, Lampard, Terry and Cech will get one more day off.

In this way, after playing against Arsenal, these veterans will be able to get a full seven days of rest, and two of them are purely personal rest time.

By March 29, they will be able to meet the challenge of Crystal Palace with more abundant physical state.

After another three days of rest, it will be the tough battle with Barcelona in the Champions League.

With this arrangement, the rest time for the veterans is still sufficient, and the game state can also be well maintained.

So on the afternoon of March 26, Chelsea, who went to challenge Fulham away, was an almost completely young version of Chelsea.

The reason for using the word "almost" is that Chelsea's backup goalkeeper Schwarzer is over 40 years old, and Ashley Cole is not young either.

They are definitely not among the young people, but their experience is what this rotating Chelsea needs.

In the extra game that day, Chelsea's starting lineup was as follows:

Goalkeeper Schwarzer.

Ashley Cole, David Luiz, Gary Cahill and Azpilicueta lined up on the back line.

In the midfield, Van Ginkel played as a single defensive midfielder. Li Ang and Essien were on both sides of the midfield, and Ramires rushed forward.

Lukaku and Oscar partnered up on the front line.

This diamond 442 starting formation weakened some of the ability to attack on the wing, but greatly enhanced the stability of the central attack and defense.

Li Ang has not played with Essien in the starting lineup for a long time.

After this season, Essien will basically leave the Premier League to find a retirement team, so Li Ang also cherishes the days when he can still work side by side with Essien.

The opponent is very weak. Fulham has lost 70 goals so far, which shows the weakness of the midfield control and the backcourt defense.

So after five or six minutes of trial and error at the beginning, Chelsea took over the rhythm of the game very smoothly.

Li Ang signaled Essien to participate more in the offense today, and he and Van Ginkel blocked the two sides of Fulham's counterattack on the defensive end.

In most of the Premier League games, strong attacks on the center line will not achieve very good results, but today is an exception.

Because whether it is Heitinga or Hangeland, these two central defenders who are over 30 years old have no good way to limit Lukaku.

Lukaku, who almost exclusively enjoyed the right to fire on the front line today, also transformed himself and seemed to have really become the little overlord of Chelsea's front line.

With Essien and Ramirez constantly passing the ball to him, and Oscar's offensive containment, Lukaku scored two goals in the first half, bringing the game directly into "Chelsea time".

Before the game started, the Fulham team was a little happy to see Chelsea's large-scale rotation, and also had some unrealistic fantasies.

But they were stunned by Lukaku's small outburst, and Li Ang's steady defense provided a bottom line for his teammates.

Fulham, who was already playing badly, quickly lost their spirit and almost surrendered.

Li Ang was replaced by Mikel by Mourinho in the 60th minute of the second half.

David Luiz, who had just returned from injury, was also replaced by Kalas.

Lukaku played the whole game today, and Mourinho also wanted to fulfill his wish of performing a hat trick.

But unfortunately, the passes sent to him by his teammates behind him were basically wasted by him.

So until the end of the game, Lukaku also assisted Oscar to score a goal, but he himself was still far from the third goal of the game.

Chelsea finally won Fulham 3-0 without bloodshed.

After this round of extra games, Mourinho also told Li Ang with a smile that Li Ang could sit on the bench to rest in the next round of the league.

Li Ang naturally had no opinion on Mourinho's arrangement. He had not used physical recovery potions recently, and he just felt a little tired.

So resting for a round of league and then preparing for Barcelona became a better choice for him.

So three days later, at Selhurst Park, Li Ang sat on the bench beyond the media's expectations.

And the person who replaced him in the starting lineup was naturally Van Ginkel.

The three midfielders composed of Van Ginkel, Essinga and Lampard were not arrogant to deal with Crystal Palace.

On both offense and defense, the overall strength of this midfield trio was relatively balanced.

In addition, Ibrahimovic, Hazard and De Bruyne all started today, so no reporters or fans thought that Chelsea could not break through the half-court bus of Crystal Palace.

At the beginning of the game, Chelsea's pre-match tactical prediction was indeed followed.

Mourinho guessed that Crystal Palace would use the three-back defensive tactics that they are good at.

So in the offensive test at the beginning, Mourinho gave Essien and Lampard more long-range shooting privileges.

Even Ibrahimovic can find an opportunity to try a long shot after pulling out of the penalty area.

It is not necessary to penetrate the Crystal Palace bus through long shots and score goals. Being able to get a corner kick is also a threatening opportunity for Chelsea.

In the constant long shots and high-altitude bombing. Ivanovic, who started today, reversed again!

He stepped forward in a corner kick opportunity and once again became the key player to break the deadlock in the game.

Originally, after this goal was scored, Chelsea's advantage had been established, and it was more appropriate to stop after scoring a few goals.

But God just wanted to play a joke on Chelsea.

In the first half stoppage time, Crystal Palace striker No. 7 Bolasie sent a powerful pass after going down the bottom.

Their center forward Jerome almost grabbed a little, but in fact he did not touch the ball. Instead, Terry made a mistake when clearing the ball and accidentally shoveled the ball into his own goal!

The picture of Terry scoring an own goal and Cech looking at Terry in surprise quickly spread all over the Internet with the arrival of the halftime break of this game.

In fact, this was just an unlucky mistake.

If Chelsea's game progress in the second half was still smooth, it would have no effect on Terry.

But the bad thing was that in the second half of the game, Crystal Palace, who had escaped death, defended more resolutely, and their midfielder Yedilac also exploded directly, playing at an extraordinary level!

After Chelsea switched to ground attack, Yedilac seemed to have turned into a hard stone wall that could not be broken in front of the Crystal Palace penalty area.

In the first 20 minutes of the second half, Yedilac defuses Chelsea's fierce attack with 4 steals and 5 successful headers!

Seeing this, Mourinho dared not delay any longer and directly called Li Ang to warm up!

More than 20,000 Crystal Palace fans in Selhurst Park saw Li Ang warming up on the sidelines and immediately booed loudly!

However, their actions obviously could not stop Li Ang from playing.

In the 71st minute of the second half, Li Ang replaced Essien and brought Mourinho's latest tactical instructions.

"We should go to the two wings more often, pay attention to the combination of the wing and the middle, and Zlatan should not be pulled out of the penalty area frequently. You just press in their penalty area, and their midfielder will be left to me!"

Li Ang's tactical explanation is very clear, and his words are full of confidence. It sounds like he doesn't take Crystal Palace's outstanding midfielder Yedilac seriously at all.

But in fact, Li Ang has come to a conclusion when he was observing off the court.

This Yedilac is a powerful player with strong ability.

However, Chelsea now urgently needs to score again to break the deadlock, so Li Ang also needs to give his teammates more confidence and motivation.

He will give enough attention to Yedilac in his heart, but in terms of language, he must let his teammates feel his strong confidence!

Shortly after coming on the court, Li Ang took over the task of sorting out the team's offensive route.

After establishing the offensive strategy of playing more on the two wings and pulling the Crystal Palace defense line more.

Li Ang also frequently used his long passes to help Hazard and De Bruyne take turns to attack the Crystal Palace's side defense.

Yedilac played very well in the middle, but he alone could not assist the two full-backs to withstand the defensive pressure.

De Bruyne was actually okay, and his desire to force a breakthrough today was not strong.

But Hazard, who was holding his breath in his heart, was very abnormal.

Crystal Palace right-back Mariappa, who had been in the English Championship for many years and returned to the Premier League last season, was not Hazard's opponent at all.

In the 78th minute of the second half, Hazard used two consecutive changes of direction to stun Mariappa, and then sent a cross directly near the baseline, trying to find Ibrahimovic to connect.

Crystal Palace's central defender Delaney tried his best to compete with Ibrahimovic for the header, but in the end, neither of them seemed to have gained control of the ball.

But when the ball flew outside the Crystal Palace penalty area, Li Ang had already taken advantage of his excellent running position and prediction of the ball's landing point to take the lead in grabbing the second point.

Yedilac naturally refused to give in, and had a fierce physical confrontation with Li Ang before the ball fell.

However, Yedilac still underestimated Li Ang's determination to fight and his excellent confrontation ability.

After a tangle, he fell into the disadvantage of blocking!

At the moment the ball fell, Li Ang decisively headed the ball. Then he took the ball directly to the front of the Crystal Palace penalty area!

Yedilac didn't dare to let go easily at this moment. He grabbed Li Ang's jersey and approached his own penalty area with Li Ang.

Originally, Yedilac thought that Li Ang would take advantage of the situation to enter the Crystal Palace penalty area and shoot or pass the ball.

But he didn't expect that when Li Ang approached the Crystal Palace penalty area, he used his left foot to shoot!

Crystal Palace goalkeeper Speroni reacted quickly.

At the moment when Li Ang shot a long shot, he also made a save in time.

But his goal line skills and reaction were still inferior to those of the first-line goalkeepers.

Li Ang's long shot was very powerful, and it was very powerful!

Many fans in front of the TV seemed to have missed the birth of this goal in the blink of an eye!

When the football plunged into the net above the far corner of the Crystal Palace goal, the entire Selhurst Stadium fell silent!

After falling from the air, Speroni roared and questioned angrily.

But his Crystal Palace teammates in front of him were powerless to do anything about this ball.

After all, the football was caught by Li Ang during the clearance process, and he forced a long shot.

Yedilac had already tried his best to stop Li Ang. He couldn't possibly knock Li Ang down in front of the penalty area, right?

That would only bring him a severe punishment of a yellow card or even a red card, and then give Chelsea a close-range threatening free kick.

So he had no choice but to blame Li Ang for being too determined and too tricky in this long shot!

Mourinho and his assistants were so happy on the sidelines!

But his mind was still clear, and he didn't get too excited. After celebrating happily, he immediately arranged for several defensive players on the bench to warm up.

In the final moments of the game, Mourinho decisively used substitutions to disrupt Crystal Palace's counterattack rhythm and kept the score of 2 to 1 until the end of the game!

A nearly perfect start, an ups and downs process, and a dangerous result.

Chelsea finally won two consecutive victories in the league and achieved their short-term goal.

Li Ang's tough last-gasp goal once again sparked a big discussion in English football, and it is estimated that Barcelona fans will have trouble sleeping these days.

Li Ang is still looking forward to returning to Camp Nou to play against Barcelona.

After all, he has won many times in this stadium.

Returning to Camp Nou is like going home. It felt great to win here!