The Godfather of Greenery

Chapter 659 Tottenham Hotspur's Biggest Weakness
Mancini put down the copy in his hand. He bought the Daily Mail on the way to Carrington. The column article from Craig Brown on the front page was very conspicuous. Mancini also took It was the first article he read after arriving at this newspaper, and after reading it, he gently put the newspaper on the desk and turned the chair silently.

The furnishings of his office are quite good, even luxurious. Perhaps Manchester City wants to use this conscious luxury to cover up the lack of trophies and championship atmosphere, because even now, Manchester City is not even in the No.2 Premier League. Never won, let alone a championship.

Facing the large window behind, outside the curtains is the gray sky in the suburbs of Manchester, while the training ground is surrounded by a whole row of dense trees, with no walls in sight, only a narrow road leading to the outside.

Compared with the perfection and advancedness of Manchester United's Carrington training base, although the training base of Manchester City Club is also called Carrington, it is much simpler and there are few venues, because it is close to a remote area, and Manchester City has always had a youth training base. It is not particularly ideal, so the entire training base is used by the first team.

Two standard-sized fields, plus the two-story office area where Mancini is currently located, and another two-story player recovery area, this makes up this simple training base .

Frankly speaking, if it was Manchester City who were still at the Maine Road Stadium before, maybe they would be very satisfied with this training base that cost 200 million pounds to build, but for the rich and powerful now, it is worth picking any player For the Manchester City team with over ten million, this training base seems too petty.

The club has already put forward the idea that it will be on the southeast corner of the City Stadium, just at the southern end of the Asda Manchester City Super Shopping Center, along the entire Ashton Canal. Obold's super first-class training base, and Manchester City will also have its own strict youth training echelon by then.

After Mansour took over Manchester City, he has indeed been investing in the past few years, and his future plan for the team is also very clear, that is, not only to form a star-studded team that is enough to compete with Tottenham Hotspur Manchester City, which competes with giants such as Manchester United and Manchester United, must also ensure that the team has Europe's top youth training echelon.

The club's ambitions are indeed great, and they are also very supportive of Mancini's work. They ask for money and people. Last season, the team was able to qualify for the Champions League and win the FA Cup. Mancini's work has also been unanimously affirmed by Mansour and Mubarak, and he hopes to make persistent efforts this season.

With the joining of Nasri, Clichy, Savage and others, plus Yaya Toure, Balotelli, Dzeko, Aguero, De Rossi, Maicon and other top players in the team The star, Manchester City's strength is getting stronger and stronger, and the thickness of the bench is getting better and better, which makes Manchester City's performance in the Premier League also rise with the tide.

Many people even raised doubts last season, thinking that Mancini's performance in Manchester City was not outstanding, which was the result of the team's overall strength. Rinho and other top coaches have already won the championship, and even the Champions League is expected.

You know, the league is all about overall strength. As long as your overall strength is not bad and you lose fewer games, it’s hard to say whether you can win the championship, but the ranking is definitely not bad. The real test of a team is those strong dialogues, and performance in Europe.

In this regard, Mancini is a weakness!

In fact, no matter whether it is in Inter Milan or Lazio, where Mancini has really risen, his coaching resume in the European war is not worth mentioning. law is satisfactory.

It is understandable if it is said once and a half times, but Mancini has always been from Lazio to Inter Milan to Manchester City.

Standing in front of the window of his office, Mancini looked at the gray weather outside. What he felt was that the heater was turned on in the room. London, or England began to cool down again, and the damn winter was coming again.

To say that Manchester City started this season really well. They beat Swansea 4-0 at home and won a full house. However, Mancini was questioned in the second round against Bolton, because in the case of a 2-0 lead, The Manchester City team was quickly chased by Bolton to 3:2, and in the last half hour, Bolton launched a crazy counterattack against Manchester City.

But what is more important is Mancini's reaction. All three of his substitutions had the obvious intention of strengthening the team's defense. But in fact, in the last three 10 minutes, Bolton played even better.

Therefore, when Mancini said that he had never thought of defending, some reporters on the spot shouted in a mocking tone, "If it was Ye Qiu from Tottenham Hotspur, he must have used Mo Delici for Zabaleta, not Zabaleta for Modric!"

This sentence caused a burst of laughter from the entire press conference at that time. Obviously, in the eyes of this group of reporters, Mancini's substitution represented a kind of cowardice and a kind of weakness.

But they never thought that they were on the road, and Bolton was not a weak team. No. was chased by the opponent from 60:3 to 1:3 in 2 minutes. Strengthening defense in this situation is undoubtedly a very pragmatic attitude. Is this also wrong?

Ye Qiu, Ye Qiu, Ye Qiu, Ye Qiu, you bastards know Ye Qiu all day long, no matter what the damn Chinese do, he is right, and I am always wrong and conservative !

Thinking of this, Mannic turned back and looked at the newspaper on the desk. That guy named Craig Brown was about to praise Tottenham Hotspur to the sky. What kind of pop culture? Symbols, what an innovation, what a change in football closure, fuck me!
Sitting back on the office chair all of a sudden, Mancini still seemed very angry, he couldn't understand why those fans and reporters must be so harsh?
When he was coaching Inter Milan, Mancini already felt the overwhelming pressure, but when he was coaching Manchester City, he found that this pressure was even greater, because when he was coaching Inter Milan, Italy happened to go through a phone call. At that time, Inter Milan was in Serie A. The league is almost invincible, and you can win with your eyes closed.

But today's Premier League is different. There are world-class coaches such as Ye Qiu, Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Benitez gathered here, as well as local famous coaches such as Redknapp, Ranieri and Villas-Boas. The competition between the old European coaches and the young men is very fierce. If one is not careful, he may be swallowed up by his opponent.

This kind of pressure, which is almost like a mountain, is a kind of torture for anyone.

Mancini even found that his hair had turned white for some time.

Just when he was angry, there was a knock on the door of the office, and two of his right-hand men walked in, David Pratt and Brian Kidd, both of whom were not simple characters.

Among them, David Pratt has a brilliant player career. He has played for Manchester United, Aston Villa, Juventus, Sampdoria, Arsenal and Nottingham Forest. He is also the first player Wenger won in the Premier League. The main force of the team when it was a Premier League champion, and he was once regarded as a popular candidate for the head coach of the England national team.

David Pratt and Mancini were teammates during the Sampdoria period. After the latter came to Manchester City from Inter Milan, he invited David Pratt to his side in 2010 to help him manage the Manchester City team.

If David Pratt is Mancini's own person, then Brian Kidd is Manchester City's own person. He has played for Manchester United, Arsenal, Everton and Manchester City, but the most famous He was still Ferguson's assistant coach for 12 years, including Beckham, Scholes, Giggs and others were all promoted during his time as Ferguson's assistant.

He left Manchester United in 1998 and missed the most peak period of Manchester United's Triple Crown, so few fans will remember him, and after leaving Manchester United, he ushered in a period of glory, that is to O'Leary As an assistant, the peak of Leeds United was exactly when Brian Kidd joined the team.

After several twists and turns, he joined Manchester City in 2009 and joined Mancini's coaching staff.

Obviously, Brian Kidd belongs to the kind of assistant coach who can't do it alone, but at the same time has strong football ability and can help a head coach to complete his work well.

Another advantage of these two right-hand men is that they are both locals in Manchester, and they are their own in the eyes of the fans.

"It's unlucky, when Tottenham Hotspur broke out!" David Platt was familiar with Mancini, and he complained as soon as he walked in. Whoever met Tottenham Hotspur at this time, Obviously, they will not feel relaxed and will complain.

Of course, such words can only appear among the three of them, and cannot be spread, otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous.

"What are you going to do?" Brian Kidd is like this, and someone needs to tell him what to do at a critical moment.

Perhaps this is also an important weakness and shortcoming that he cannot coach alone.

"What do you think, David?" Mancini looked at David Platt.

The latter was sitting opposite him, across a desk, and he could clearly see hesitation on his face.

"To be honest, we can still compete with them in terms of offense alone, but if we add defense..."

The meaning of David Platt is very clear. Facing a team like Tottenham Hotspur, especially this Tottenham Hotspur who just slaughtered Manchester United 8-0 in the away game, any team You can only make a choice, either attack or defend, choose one of the two, it is impossible for a team to play against this team while defending Tottenham Hotspur's offense.

Of course, it’s another story when Tottenham Hotspur are not in good shape, but now their guns are still smoking, whoever goes up will die!
Mancini looked at Brian Kidd again, "What do you think, Brian?"

Brian Kidd smiled wryly. Before, Ferguson would never ask him what he thought, but would only tell him what to do, but Mancini was obviously different. He preferred to discuss, "Maybe we should be brave!"

"That's impossible!" David Pratt shook his head vigorously, "If they play against each other, it will hit Tottenham Hotspur's mind. Manchester United will play against them at the beginning, and they will lose four in 10 minutes. One goal, oh my God, four goals in 10 minutes and it was Manchester United!"

To be honest, this game was too deterrent to the entire Premier League, and even all the teams in Europe.

No matter how bad Manchester United is, no matter how weak it is, no matter how much it is affected by injuries, they are still Manchester United, but they were scored four goals in 10 minutes by Tottenham Hotspur at their home court. To be honest, This is almost impossible for any team to do, who would not be afraid?
"That's right, it's too risky to play counterattacks, but I'm worried that if we defend and counterattack, once the rhythm and situation are controlled by Tottenham Hotspur, we will be passive and may not even be able to counterattack in the end!" Brian Kidd also watched that game, he can only say that it was very shocking.

For ordinary fans, they may have an illusion that Manchester United's performance is too bad, or that Manchester United's players are in poor condition, but for insiders, they know very well that it is not Manchester United that is too bad, but Todt. Naham Hotspur played too well.

It was Ye Qiu's set of tactics and personnel that inspired the state of the Tottenham Hotspur players, and made them explode into a football style full of impact and rhythm changes, which made anyone have to Weigh your weight, if it were my team, would it be able to stop it?
In fact, the two assistants talked and talked in front of them, but they didn't say anything.

Attacking is too risky, defending is also risky, so should we attack or defend?
The ball was actually kicked back at Mancini's feet, and both assistant coaches looked up at Mancini, waiting for him to make a decision, because the next few days of training will be built around this.

Clichy, Kolarov, Hangeland, Lescott, Zabaleta, Maicon, Mika Richards, Kolo Toure, plus Gareth Barry, Yaya Toure, De Rossi and De Jong, logically, such a set of tactics really has no reason to say that their defense is bad.

Looking at the entire Premier League, who else dares to say that their lineup is more luxurious than Manchester City's?

"When we all feel that playing offensive tactics in away games is very risky, will our opponents also have the same feeling? Will they also guess that we dare not play against each other in away games?"

Mancini thought of the bunch of sloppy media reporters, didn't they all want to brag about Ye Qiu as if he was like a god?Didn't it mean that Ye Qiu admired offense very much?Didn't you say I'm conservative?Then I'll take a chance and show you!

"You mean..." David Platt and Brian Kidd were obviously surprised by Mancini's words.

This is not like Mancini's usual style, he is usually more cautious.

"Yes, what I mean is, when everyone thinks that we will play defensive counterattacks away, if we suddenly attack away, how do you think the effect will be? And even if the attack fails, we can also take the opportunity Disrupt the rhythm of Tottenham Hotspur, and then slowly look for opportunities to attack and strive for goals!"

Speaking of this, Mancini also felt more and more confident, "You know, Tottenham Hotspur's two wings are weak, and now it is not Yaya Toure who is in the midfield, he is now under our command , form a double midfielder with De Rossi, and Tottenham Hotspur has a single midfielder, Pirlo!"

Mancini knows Pirlo very well. When he was in Inter Milan, he had a lot of contact and games with Pirlo. He knew very well that although this player has defensive ability and excellent defensive awareness, there must be a prerequisite. It is that there are sweeping players like Gattuso in front of him to sort out and block the frontal impact for him.

In other words, Pirlo's defense is not the kind of frontal confrontation, but more ingenious and less confrontational. The central midfielder's defense area directly hits the area where Pirlo is located, and Tottenham Hotspur's defense will be self-defeating.

I have to say that Mancini's analysis is indeed very tempting. David Platt and Brian Kidd were obviously moved and even excited after hearing this, because there are such players in the Manchester City team. Players, whether it is Van der Vaart or Nasri, or Aguero and Balotelli, all have the ability to attack directly against Pirlo.

"However, I always feel that it is not that simple!" Brian Kidd was a little puzzled.

In the eyes of the world, Ye Qiu's tactical comprehension ability is already on a par with Ferguson, and Brian Kidd has personally experienced Ferguson's peak tactical attainments. For a head coach of their type, since he dares to play Peel If Luo Dan plays the midfielder card, it is absolutely impossible for Pirlo to be exposed.

Of course, this tactic of Tottenham Hotspur has only been used in two games so far. Among them, the Everton game is not obvious, and the game against Manchester United can be noticed, so it can be studied. There are still very few places to visit, and it looks very unfamiliar. Whether it is a weakness or not, it is not clear for the time being.

After Mancini heard this, he chuckled, "You are too careful, Brian, there is no perfect tactic in this world, and it is impossible to have a tactic without loopholes. Turnham Hotspur's biggest weakness!"

Italian coaches are outstanding in tactics, especially in defense, and Mancini is not bad at this point.

At least he has always had strong confidence in his ability in this area.

(End of this chapter)