Special correspondent Gan Hui reported that with the 4-1 home victory over Three Towns, Shenhua won five consecutive games in the opening game, setting a record in team history. The last time Shenhua won four consecutive league games was back in the 1994 season. However, the head coach Slutsky was not too concerned about breaking the record, "Frankly, I was thinking more about the next game, as you can see, the schedule is very tight. The only thing on my mind now is how to make the players recover better in tomorrow's training. As a professional coach, we don't have time to celebrate anything, we focus more on the games that follow. ”
Affected by the club's financial situation, the loss of personnel in the three towns is relatively serious. Moreover, the team's current injuries are also very serious, striker Liu Ruofan has a soleus fascial injury in the proximal area of the back of his right leg, striker Romario has a biceps femoris fascia injury in his left leg, and defender Avoleda has muscle edema around the rectus femoris muscle in his right leg.
Shenhua is a strong soldier, Malele has returned with a shoulder injury, and Slutsky has a variety of options in terms of personnel arrangement. However, he did not make a large rotation for the weekend's game against Guoan. Compared with the previous round against Yatai, Slutsky only made two changes, Wu Xi rested and Gao Tianyi started, in addition, Malele returned to the starting line with protective gear, and Xie Pengfei returned to the midfield.
The difference in strength is fully reflected in the game. After the opening, the game almost became a half-time offensive and defensive drill, Shenhua was comprehensively suppressed, and the three towns could only "put a bus" to deal with it. However, Shenhua still seized on a mistake of the opponent and knocked on the opponent's goal through a fast attack. In the 24th minute, Three Towns made a mistake in the front, Shenhua seized the opportunity, Malele made a strong breakthrough on the left side and then reversed the triangle pass, and Andre outflanked the middle and easily scored.
Towards the end of the first half, Shenhua won consecutive set-piece opportunities, and Xie Pengfei showed a good sense of the ball. In the 43rd minute, after the last set-piece almost broke the goal, Xie Pengfei played a wonderful elevator ball, and Shenhua entered the break 2-0.
Shortly after the start of the second half, the referee misjudged a free kick on the right side of the penalty area to Three Towns, Jiang Zhipeng was unexpected, and hit the goal directly at a small angle, the ball flew straight into the net, and Three Towns pulled a goal back.
Shenhua did not panic, and quickly took advantage of a low-level mistake in the opponent's backfield, and scored from the dead corner with a low shot from Gao Tianyi, and opened the score again. Four minutes later, Teixeira blasted out the world after crossing outside the penalty area, expanding the score to 4-1, completely dispelling the opponent's confidence in equalizing or even overtaking.
"I'm very happy with the game in general, especially the state that the team didn't feel like they were when they conceded a goal. Slutsky believes that the team was very good at controlling the game, scoring two goals with a quick comeback after conceding a goal, "I'm very happy with that. ”
In this game, the two new signings Xie Pengfei and Gao Tianyi both scored their first goals after joining Shenhua. So far, the Shenhua players who have scored in the league are Andre, Malele, Teixeira, Xu Haoyang, Jiang Shenglong, Xie Pengfei and Gao Tianyi, showing a multi-point flowering situation.
Due to the Asian Cup with the national football team, Xie Pengfei and Gao Tianyi did not go through a complete winter training preparation period, so at the beginning of the season, the two did not enter the starter, as time went by, Slutsky has a deeper understanding of the ability, characteristics and state of the two, and they have more and more opportunities.
Although Xie Pengfei was given the start after Malelai's injury, Malele made his debut in this game, and Slutsky still placed him in the starting lineup, obviously, through the performance of these two games, he has won Slutsky's recognition and trust. After the game, Slutsky said that Xie Pengfei's performance was very satisfying, "He is a very good player, he has two assists in the first two games. In today's game, we conducted more experiments in tactical arrangement, and arranged Xie Pengfei in the position of the frontcourt organizer, hoping to show himself more fully. ”
In addition, two new foreign players Andre and Manafa have also won recognition, Andre has 4 goals in 5 rounds, tied with Teixeira for the best in the team, in addition, he also has two assists, it can be said that his fulcrum role in the front field is very obvious, although Manafa did not score, but he effectively improved the strength of Shenhua's right side of attack and defense, and was considered by his teammates to be one of Shenhua's strongest right-backs.
The successful introduction of reinforcements has improved Shenhua's strength and combat effectiveness, and to a certain extent, it has also helped the team play the best league start in team history. After 5 rounds, Shenhua is not only the only team to keep winning all of them, but also the team that has scored the most goals (13) and conceded the fewest goals (2).
The strong performance made Shenhua the favourite, but Slutsky said: "It's too early to talk about the championship, after all, the league has only played five games, and I have to think about the next game now." In the next round, Shenhua will continue to sit at home against old rivals Guoan.