Manchester United 2-0 Everton:
Shaun Deitch gave gifts, gradually returning from injury, but the smiling Manchester United lost their trump card
Wolves 1-0 Chelsea:
Chelsea's obfuscation continues.
After having missed countless chances to sack Porter, Chelsea have brought in Frank Lampard to lead the team after the final international break of the season.
The most important thing in fighting fires in the middle is to maintain a stable record.
Note that this is talking about stable results, not improved records. If the team can still win, and there is hope for this and that, there is no need to put out the fire halfway, so the first thing the interim coach must do is not to continue to lose, so as to avoid the collapse of the locker room and the situation of breaking the tank for the whole season.
But what kind of coach is Frank Lampard?
The Chelsea and Everton periods have proven that he is a mediocre coach who plays chicken blood in attack and whips defensively, especially when the backline construction is in shambles, and it is wishful thinking to expect him to temporarily lead the team to maintain stability.
So in his first game in charge, Chelsea switched back to a back four.
From his point of view: "There are so many good players in the midfield, if you don't take it out to play offense, you are blind, do a good job in front, and enter the two of them, and there is a hole in the backfield and you are not afraid." ”
To be honest, it's possible that he doesn't even feel a hole in the backfield.
However, does Chelsea have the possibility of playing back in the back four, or even playing 433? The last time Frank Lampard was in charge of Chelsea, there were defenders with a certain speed guarantee such as Antonio Rudiger and Tomori at the back, and he was usually able to keep up with the pace of the central midfield.
What now?
So in the opening stages, we saw that Reece James and Kucurella had begun to take turns inserting:
Despite the weakness of the core area of the backfield, the full-back pulled up to participate in the attack, a very familiar taste.
So from the 10th minute of the game, Koulibaly and Fufana began to pull the edges sharply, make up for the position, and began to wipe their butts:
The old problem of imbalance between attack and defense has appeared, and the next thing is to read people inaccurately.
The last time he was in charge of Chelsea, Frank Lampard had a precedent of blindly trusting some players and handing over important responsibilities to players who were not up to par in quality, such as Tammy Abraham.
Today, that example is Gallagher.
433 system, the responsibility of the midfielder is very heavy, undertaking the offensive and defensive tasks of responding, connecting, and supporting a whole half fan, can Gallagher do this job?
In Frank Lampard's view, Wolves' goal was a sign of luck.
There is some truth to this, because Wolves only had 9 shots on goal in the whole game, but looking back at the whole process of conceding the goal, Enzo was suppressed by Diego Costa when he was competing for the top, but people still have the ability to pass the ball, put it in the right position and responsibility, and completely cover their physical problems.
But look at whose zone Wolves sent the cross from?
And see if Gallagher can make up for his mistakes with offense?
So to a large extent, Chelsea's dilemma in this game has already emerged in the opening stage, and the world wave concedes goals are indeed accidental, but they are away in themselves, and if they don't lose the ball like this, they will probably lose the ball in other ways.
In this game alone, because of the problem with the layout idea, Chelsea may win the least, but after all, the hard power is still there, the draw may be relatively large, but the possibility of losing is not small.
As interim manager, Frank Lampard is not without a path ahead of him to lead the team to improvement.
If you need to keep your record consistent, you can't change the basic system near the end of the season. When Hiddink took over Mourinho, 5 or 6 months were roughly the content of the predecessors, not to mention that he only had two months, so the back three was something that had to be used to the end. But on this basis, the interim coach has no preferences in mind, and everyone is on the same starting line, so the employment is expected to be more flexible.
As a new English coach, he may not necessarily use Kucurella as a full-back, which will hopefully lighten the burden on Koulibaly, but he is likely to use Aubameyang as a true striker, which will hopefully really drive Havertz.
With these two points, even the phased content will be significantly better than the Porter period.
However, the change back to a back four in the first game shows that Frank Lampard has neither the basic cultivation as an interim coach, nor does the new system meet the basic requirements of attacking and defensive balance.
What's more, objectively, he has neither fame nor time to instill his own football.
If you can't think of such a simple question, Chelsea's season results will most likely be like this game: the record may improve the least, the record stability is relatively the largest, but it is not stable, and it is not small to continue to fall.
Finding Frank Lampard as interim manager is not a person, so Chelsea fans still do a good job of psychological construction.
Tottenham 2-1 Brighton:
In this match, most fans will pay attention to the fact that Hoibel's stepping on Mikasa in the box was ignored by the referee and VAR, and the clash between Dezelby and Strini on the sidelines.
But if you turn back to the game, Tottenham played a lot of fun.
The Brighton team, or Dezelby's Brighton, has some notable features in the use of personnel.
The Italian is very fond of using small players in midfield, keeping a close distance from each other and strengthening the bond with and without the ball, thus building a strong possession and pressing group in the mid-circle area.
On this basis, it also includes the use of Welbeck, an all-round striker, and Evan Ferguson, a young power forward, to bring up full-backs to open up the width of the attack and form a suppression of opponents.
This is an underlying logic of Brighton's outstanding results this season.
This game is a typical example.
The five between center Welbeck and the back four, three are less than 180cm tall, including the back Caicedo, the tallest Gross, also only 181cm.
So based on this basic set, Brighton move quickly in midfield and can form a numerical advantage in the vicinity no matter where the ball goes:
And because of this, the space between the opponent's two lines is also very efficient:
In Brighton's games, it is often seen that the players of their own side face the opponent's back line with the ball, and there are shots of teammates in front of them from all directions, which is even more obvious.
In addition to the vertical advantages brought by this, the midfield strength is sufficient, and the lateral can also be reflected:
That's why the Brighton attack looks beautiful.
All in all, it's the midfield area, where individual players have catch-up points (when there's the ball) or co-points (when there's no ball) everywhere, and it's very simple to connect with each other, and that's what Dezerby wants.
To deal with such a team, either wrestle with them in the midfield area and compete with one to be higher, or avoid reality, give up the midfield to Brighton, and then work hard in attack and defense.
Tottenham's side, hard wrist breaking is not capable, and there is no capital, but avoiding reality is just good at it, after all, the three-back formation itself is more focused on the idea of attacking and defending at both ends.
However, the reason why Tottenham played this game was interesting was a small change in Striny.
Ceding midfield to Brighton means that the field must be under pressure, and releasing the pressure requires the striker's strength, but Kane needs to save money at this stage, but the game cannot be saved.
So, Kane needs support.
That's what we've mentioned a few times this season, that Tottenham need to move towards a two-striker approach, but Conte's attempt was unsuccessful, which was the tactical reason for his failure.
However, in this game, Stellini put Son Heung-min next to Kane, not only in the pressing phase, the two appeared at the front of the formation together:
More importantly, when defending the position, Son Heung-min did not need deep positions during the Conte period, but gave the position of the corner of the penalty area to Skip, and Kulusevsky on the other side continued to fall in depth, thus forming the 352 system:
In this way, Kane has support, Tottenham have more opportunities to move forward, and with the two-striker driven, the pressure at the back can be relieved normally:
Sun Xingmin is also in good shape today, not only the world wave is credited:
More importantly, the problem of poor confrontation exposed by moving into the middle has not appeared frequently, of course, it is also related to the slightly tall backfield of Brighton:
Of course, playing a double striker means that the midfield will cut a position, and when it was previously shrunk to 541, the width covered by four people is now required to be covered by three people, and it is inevitable that there will be some mistakes.
At this time, the back line needs help, but Tottenham's defenders don't mention helping the periphery, most of them are difficult to protect themselves, so even if Brighton can't suppress Tottenham, they can capture space in various forms to threaten Tottenham's goal:
In the 33rd minute, a goal was scored from a set-piece:
So, both teams were good in this game.
Brighton got the midfield advantage they wanted through the use of people and layout, while Tottenham played counter-at both ends of the attack and defense through a system of five defenders and two forwards.
Strictly speaking, a draw is more reasonable, which highlights how much Tottenham took advantage of the penalty:
In the era without VAR, this kind of misjudgment can be shirked from the poor perspective of the referee, and the outside world is barely acceptable; In the era of VAR, this misjudgment directly challenges the principle of fairness and is completely unacceptable to the outside world.
So does VAR make football fairer, or does it make football fairer?
Let's leave this question for discussion.
In the rounds that went back and forth, Brighton played more of a game advantage, but after entering the 60-minute interval, there were some obvious problems with the wholeness, and there seemed to be signs of dispersion:
So in the 79th minute, Tottenham seized the opportunity to score a second goal:
From that point of view, the game was indeed ruined by the referee.
It was supposed to be a game that was very confrontational on a tactical level and would have been very exciting, but the focus after the game was diverted by the penalty, and the areas where both teams played well were ignored.
In any case, Tottenham's response was very pleasantly surprised, I don't know if Striini has plans to coach alone in the future, from his use of Lucas Jr. and this change to the 352 system, it shows that his thinking is still more flexible than Conte, less rigid and rigid.
If you have a plan, you can still pay attention to it.
Southampton 1-4 Manchester City:
The 1-4 score was no small one, but the situation was not a one-sided move towards Manchester City.
Southampton's manager Seles has a bit of a level, and can maintain a tight formation for a long time in the game, which can ensure a certain lower limit in a weak team environment, indicating that the usual training level is sufficient.
And more importantly, the recognition of people is more accurate. Southampton still has some good players, there are many black players who can provide hardness, and Bednarek is good. Although Ward Prowse as the top card is average, he can get by with Lavia support, not to mention Ward Prows is guaranteed in the set-piece link.
The most beautiful hand is to press Adam Armstrong, who he had spent a lot of money to buy before, on the bench.
In this way, Southampton can put on a full dogfighting posture, and the giants can not fall behind, and Manchester City will inevitably suffer a little this week:
Manchester City not only struggled to effectively carve out space in attack, but also came under pressure from two wings defensively:
However, to be able to play back and forth, it is inevitable to give Manchester City room to fight back, as was the case in the 5th minute of the game:
Therefore, Manchester City's main focus is on the efficiency of the rapid progress.
If you play well, you can kill your opponent one by one under pressure; If you don't play well, I'm afraid you will inevitably bury hidden dangers in the process of being brought back to the back by Southampton again and again.
At least in the first half, Southampton were doing well. Positional defense can close the space and drive Manchester City to the flanks:
Although there was no organization in the conversion defense, everyone ran back together, which did seal the space for Manchester City to move to the weak side:
So at the end of the first half, Manchester City began to let Stones assist:
Manchester City have won consecutive games in recent games, and the previous problems have been successfully masked, but this game against Southampton shows that the problem is still there.
Full-backs support the back, but they can't support the front; Full-backs are involved in the attack, and hidden dangers are buried at the back. Behind this obvious problem is the invisible problem of Haaland and his teammates up front.
It's just that playing Southampton, this problem will not affect the overall situation.
In the 45th minute of the first half, Manchester City broke through a cross, and in the previous attack, Southampton's wing defense was already weak:
The main thing is that at the end of the first half, the veteran Walcott, who should have come to help defend the right wing, could not come back, and more importantly, there was a lot of back and forth consumption in the first half.
What's more, 1 minute before Manchester City's goal, Southampton had just wasted an opportunity:
As Guardiola said after the game, there was an element of luck in scoring in the first half because Southampton "had a very, very pragmatic tactical plan, a well-organised formation and a very disciplined team".
It's just that this sentence is not appropriate in the second half.
The strength of the team is not only reflected in the technical gap in a single round, but also in the length of time the intensity is maintained. In the coming rounds, Southampton played a half-time, and then it was difficult to guarantee compactness, but Manchester City could still do it.
So in the second half, after several turnbacks, Manchester City had significantly more space in attack:
At this time, Seles should have made a quick substitution, using various methods to interrupt the rhythm and regain the intensity, but he did not shoot, and Guardiola shot first.
Bernardo Silva and Walker came on and Pep Guardiola changed all the right wings, intending to be in attack. Walker is better suited to attack and defense than Stones, and helped him take the obviously incompatible Mahrez and give way to the front channel, but Manchester City's second goal still came from a quick advance:
In the 60-minute interval, both Walker and Acker have interpolated shots:
It shows that Guardiola still solved the problem with attack, and also succeeded:
It's just that it still costs to concede a goal:
There is a data that everyone may not notice.
It was because of this goal that City conceded 27 goals after 29 league games, more goals conceded than last season's league combined (26), and they have nine league games to play.
There is a statistic that everyone will be keen to discuss after the game.
In 29 league games, Haaland has scored 30 goals, hoping to break the record of 34 goals in a single season by Alan Shearer and Andy Cole.
Scoring more up front and throwing more back is what Manchester City are fighting for higher honours this season.
Arsenal, who are at the top of the league, Martinelli is the team's top scorer with just 14 goals, while Manchester City, who are sitting on the league top scorer, are currently six points behind Arsenal.
Before the season started, we mentioned the development prospects of Manchester City and Arsenal this season, and it is very interesting to look back:
Next, Manchester City will face rivals at the level of the Champions League quarter-finals with a stronger overall strength, which means it will be harder to score a goal and easier to concede one.
Whether Bayern can compete for higher honors, Bayern is the next litmus test.
Liverpool 2-2 Arsenal:
After being drawn by Liverpool, Arsenal need to let Arteta see who is really strong and who is fat