My light shines on Arsenal

Chapter 87 The Old Gear

"Friends of the audience, welcome to Wembley Stadium! This is the semi-final of the FA Cup, Arsenal vs. Liverpool. I am the commentator Martin Taylor, and I will comment on this game with my partner. "

"I'm Jamie Redknapp, the guest commentator for this game."

"The game begins! Liverpool kicks off first, let's take a look at their starting lineup, or the familiar 4-4-2..."

Dalglish's arrangement was indeed a 4-4-2 system deeply rooted in his heart. After only 5 minutes of the game, Chen Yao could see that Dalglish did not play any new tricks ingeniously.

In football matches, teams with certain strength will generally maintain a stable tactical system and style, instead of making a large number of targeted adjustments in each game.

A system that has been polished to excellence is fundamental enough to support a team's stable victory.

But that’s not necessarily true if the system itself is flawed.

The tactical style pursued by Liverpool under Dalglish is actually a bit chaotic.

Their underlying framework is the 30-4-4 system that Dalglish has insisted on since 2 years ago. The defenders and midfielders stand in parallel, a second striker roams and connects, and a big center is in the penalty area.

The main means of advancement is long passes and the division of labor between the two midfielders is orderly, with one intercepting and the other passing the ball.

The back line is mainly stable, and it does not require the back to have a high ability to play the ball, as long as they can give the ball.

But previous managers brought something else to the Liverpool players.

For example, Benitez brought the elements of high-position pressing to Liverpool, Hodgson brought Liverpool a simple, rough and simple passive counterattack strategy, and the popular Spanish style made Dalglish take advantage of the situation and hope to inject players technical elements.

But Dalglish's selection criteria made it difficult to realize his hopes.It is impossible for him to let a group of rough guys play football that combines pressure and fine passing and running under the 4-4-2 system that he is familiar with.When the tempo of the game picks up, they just habitually start passing the ball long.

The situation after the opening confirmed this point.

Arsenal did not use high-position pressing tactics, and even if they can play a pressing now, it is still an imperfect primitive pressing, so Chen Yao did not force the team to form a pressing system now.

He directed Arsenal to set up interception lines in the middle, Liverpool's defenders dragged far behind to watch the show, Downing and Henderson spread out on the two wings, Charlie Adam and Spilling were trapped between Arsenal's double midfielders and Surrounded by the front midfielder, the route of the ball was almost completely blocked.

Only when Spilling receives the ball from the backcourt can he have space to handle the ball.

When he dribbled the ball to the front of the center circle, there was Arsenal striker van Persie blocking behind him, and Alexander Song and Jorginho in front of him blocked his forward pass route. Aaron Ramsey would stick to himself after that like nougat.

Spearing is not good at playing the ball at a fast pace in a small space, and his technical level cannot support such actions.

Although Dalglish's request was that he could form a pass-run linkage with his teammates, Spilling's subconscious reaction at this time was to scald his feet with the ball and quickly pass it across to Charlie Adam to deal with it.

But after Charlie Adam gets the ball, he will face the same dilemma again.

Aaron Ramsey was completely like an engineer standing in front of the midfielder during this game. He spread his legs and ran up to him with long strides.

Going forward, Jorginho and Song cut off the line of the ball to Gerrard and Suarez respectively.

Later, Van Persie interfered with his return pass.

On both wings, Arsenal's wingers Zaha and Chamberlain returned sharply to suppress Downing and Henderson.

At this time, Arsenal are defending from defenders to forwards.

The resoluteness of the Gunners players' retreat made Dalglish smell a touch of retro. In the 70s, Cruyff's total defense concept was looming in the actions of Arsenal players.

He also saw that the inherent disadvantage of the number of midfielders in the 4-4-2 system made it difficult for the team to advance. At this time, the only way is to pass long passes.

Charlie Adam had no choice but to make a long pass with his right foot, which is not his skill.

The football goes to the right and Henderson gets the ball.

Charlie Adam's long pass was not accurate, and Henderson kept adjusting his pace and barely unloaded the ball, but his body position was not comfortable, and he lost the fleeting breakthrough space.

Liverpool's offensive system then stalled again.

Henderson is not good at playing on the wing, but Dalglish has always asked him to adapt to the right midfielder position.

He is diligent, steady and hard-working, but breakthroughs, dribbling and cutting inside are really not what Henderson is good at.

To help the attack run, Liverpool's next steps were Gerrard's deep support and the full-back's lap support.

In the end, Liverpool's choice was to let Glen Johnson leave the backcourt and support Henderson from the side.

With the support of the full-back, Henderson was finally free. He pushed the ball forward and gave it to Glen Johnson who came in.

Johnson took two steps after getting the ball and found that the space was too narrow.

Henderson has been forced to the sideline by Arsenal, and Johnson forcibly overtakes and dribbles the ball, but is only pushed closer to the sideline.

Arsenal had partially strangled Liverpool's line. Johnson made a big cross in a panic. The ball floated high and far, and was easily picked off by Szczesny.

A non-threatening attack.

Dalglish scratched his head, helpless.

This was the first consecutive attack in the whole game, and only 5 minutes had passed since the game, but he could already see that Liverpool's offensive methods lacked threat.

Liverpool's offensive system is like an old machine, rattling and rusty, just barely keeping it running.

They were unable to complete the continuous and delicate distribution, and finally returned to the antique tactical framework of the 80s of the last century.

Dalglish's next move was to counterattack on the spot.

After Szczesny picked up the ball, he did not kick off with a big kick, but passed a short pass to central defender Mertesacker.

Gerrard kept the coach's deployment in mind, immediately premised, and Suarez formed a double pressing line.

He ran in a curve from the wing, trying to cut off Mertesacker's space to play the ball to the wing.

Then... This scene will be quite familiar if Klopp and his Dortmund players watch it.

Left back Gibbs received the center, Alexander Song moved to the flank, and Jorginho opened up the space.

In an instant, Mertesacker had two more routes for the ball in front of him. Liverpool's midfielder did not follow up in time, and the half-hearted press was full of loopholes.

Gibbs handed the ball easily, Mertesacker slowly retreated to a safe position, Gibbs knocked the ball and turned around, stretched his body to distribute the ball to the flank, and comfortably gave it to Carvajal's feet.

Carvajal didn't even need to adjust his body orientation when receiving the ball. He was slightly surprised-Gibbs gave the ball more and more comfortable, which showed his technical foundation as a defensive midfielder when he debuted.

Liverpool left winger Downing hurriedly rushed forward to suppress Carvajal's advance, but this time Carvajal also changed his previous characteristic of rushing with his head covered, and took a feint shot back to Alexander Song who was pulling over to support him.

After Song got the ball, Liverpool's formation was chaotic, and Suarez, who was closest to him, was still running all the way to close the distance, giving him ample space to handle the ball.

The Cameroonian took a leisurely pose, played a long pass, and shifted to the weak side of the left wing.

In less than five passes, Liverpool's incomplete high pressing was broken.

Gibbs' inward response, transfer to the right side, and then Song's transfer to the strong and weak side, the Arsenal players almost subconsciously completed these pass coordination, which was designed by Chen Yao in training. Ball routine.

The ball came to the left rib, Jorginho volleyed the ball, and there was a lot of space in front of him.

Gibbs retreated to the left-back position, slightly ahead of schedule, and Zaha was in a one-on-one position with Enrique.

The three on the left form a triangle structure, and Jorginho can either hand it over to Zaha one-on-one, or pass it to Gibbs on the back.

Liverpool's left wing is very awkward. At this moment, only Henderson is facing the triangular structure of Arsenal's offensive team, and the other players have not had time to transfer.

Compared with Liverpool's bumpy machine, Arsenal's ball transfer and advancement are silky and smooth.

　Let me tell you about the first order results, more than 300, about 7:1 subscription ratio, definitely incomparable with the master, but I think it is enough to satisfy, after all, I am unpopular, thank you book friends, I once put it on the shelves We are praying for 100 orders.

　　After it was put on the shelves, readers felt that a lot was lost, and the follow-up data was not very good-looking.

　　This is a necessary process. I wrote a lot of problems in the first [-] chapters, and the chapters after the release happened to be stuck in the transition after the climax, and the data loss was expected.

　　I have summed up the previous 20 words of experience and lessons, and patiently outlined an outline for the next volume. It is now two o'clock, and I just stayed up late to finish writing the outline.

　　The intention of saying this is to seduce everyone. I think the following content is quite interesting (when I finished writing the outline, I was so excited that I almost wanted to post it, and I lost sleep), so please continue to support it.

　　Finally, I want to say that subjectively, I definitely hope that everyone will follow up and read, but objectively, I understand that reading two chapters in fragments every day is not as enjoyable as reading fifty chapters and one hundred chapters in a row.

　　If it were me, I would wait a few months before reading it again, and I think this reading experience would be better.I just hope you don’t keep it and forget about it.

　　I believe it will be a good work, and I really want to share this story with everyone.

　　Thank you all.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)