Coaching legend

After loaning the two young men to Stoke City, Blackburn Rovers had the Christmas schedule.

Christmas games are a very important schedule in England. Especially for teams aiming to win the championship, it is a game that needs to be taken seriously. Many strong teams have performed well in previous games, but at Christmas, there are not a few who fall behind due to the intensive schedule.

Therefore, whether they can pass the Christmas schedule is a huge test for the championship team.

Now it is the Christmas schedule. But for Blackburn Rovers, it is even more of a devil's schedule. The three teams Blackburn Rovers encountered before and after Christmas are all Premier League powerhouses.

On December 24, in the 17th round of the Premier League, Blackburn Rovers played Aston Villa at home.

On December 26, in the 18th round of the Premier League, Blackburn Rovers challenged Manchester United away.

On December 28, in the 19th round of the Premier League, Blackburn Rovers challenged Newcastle United away.

These three teams are all absolutely strong teams in the Premier League. Manchester United, needless to say, has been a Premier League powerhouse since the establishment of the Premier League. So far, Manchester United has only appeared outside the third place once, and the rest of the time it has been in the top three of the Premier League.

And before Blackburn rose strongly, it had never fallen out of the top two in the Premier League. Although Manchester United's performance has been somewhat poor in the past few seasons, no one dares to ignore the old man Ferguson and Manchester United.

Newcastle United has also performed very well in the past few seasons. Especially after Robson took over, Newcastle United has often impacted the top four positions in the Premier League.

Last season, Newcastle even beat Liverpool and Chelsea to become the fourth in the Premier League.

Unfortunately, Newcastle failed to break through in the Champions League group stage this season. But Newcastle's performance in the Premier League is still very good.

As for Aston Villa, it is also a Premier League powerhouse.

In recent seasons, although Villa cannot impact Blackburn, Arsenal, Manchester United and other first groups. But the results can be stabilized in the top eight. Generally, it is in sixth or seventh place, and when it performs well, it can even rank fifth.

Aston Villa is a typical core team of the second group. His results will not be too bad, but he does not have the strength to challenge the first group. This kind of team is a powerful team, and he may bite a piece of meat if he is not careful.

Encountering such a devilish schedule, George can only admit his bad luck.

Playing a game every two days has already given George a headache. And now playing against three strong teams in a row, George's head is even bigger. How to reasonably rotate players and what tactics to use to play the game. These all require George to think carefully.

But before George can think carefully, the 17th round of the Premier League will start.

On December 24, Blackburn will face Aston Villa at home.

Speaking of Villa now, there are very few stars familiar to Chinese fans. Even if there are, they are young players who have not yet become famous. There are only a few outstanding players in Villa now.

Vassell and Crouch on the front line, and Melberg and Gareth Barry on the back line. But Crouch at this time is still a young boy with average strength. He is not valued in Villa and is just a substitute.

Vassell is a rising star in the Premier League. Vassell, who is fast and physically fit, is currently the top striker of Villa.

Mellberg is not well-known, but he is a capable player. He is the main central defender of the Swedish national team.

Since it is the first game of the devil's schedule, George certainly hopes to get off to a good start.

Although Villa is strong, it is still much worse than Blackburn. Especially in the midfield, Villa's strength is completely incomparable to Blackburn.

Barry at this time was not the defensive midfielder Barry of the England national team later. He was not the defensive midfielder who was valued by McLaren and Capello and was called the player who could solve the double German problem.

A few years later, Barry performed extremely well in the defensive midfielder position. Even in history, Benítez would rather give up Alonso in order to pursue Barry. In the end, Alonso left Liverpool in a rage. It also started the fuse for Liverpool's decline in performance.

It can be imagined how outstanding Barry's performance was at Villa at that time.

However, Barry at this time was still playing as a left winger in Villa.

This was the position he just changed to last season. When Barry debuted, he even played as a center back and a full back, and he performed very well as a left back. For a while, he even became a substitute left back for the England national team.

Later, with the growth of Ashley Cole, the England left back position had two generals, Ashley Cole and Daniel Morrison. Barry could only be assigned to the U21 national team.

Last season, Barry became the left winger of Villa. He performed well.

Therefore, the current Villa team has poor defense and organization of offense in the midfield.

In the first half, Blackburn led Villa by one to zero with a goal shot by Klose in the penalty area. In the second half, Pires scored the second goal of the game with a free kick.

But in the 76th minute of the game, Alonso was injured and fell to the ground in a fight with Barry.

George almost lost his soul.

In the current Blackburn, Alonso is the midfield general that George relies on most. If he is really injured, George will cry.

Fortunately, it was just a false alarm.

Alonso's injury was not serious. It was just a hard injury, and it hurt a little when his foot hit his foot. As long as the pain passed, he could still be alive and kicking.

But George did not dare to be careless at all.

He quickly replaced Alonso with Parker.

Alonso played a lot of games. Alonso even entered the Spanish national team last season because of his outstanding performance in Blackburn. And he began to strongly challenge Baraja and Albelda's main positions.

Blackburn relied on Alonso even more.

Therefore, Alonso really couldn't rest. The moment George saw Alonso fall to the ground with injury, his heart almost jumped out. Fortunately, it was a false alarm, but George still did not dare to be careless.

Defeat Villa 2-0, and play Manchester United two days later.

In fact, George's plan was to continue to use Alonso. But the game against Villa made George too scared. So George let Alonso sit on the bench. George did not dare to be careless, what if Alonso was really injured.

Still should let Alonso rest. If you play too many games, even an iron man may get injured.

Parker is quite strong.

But the midfielder who supports Blackburn is still not strong enough. Or it is not a problem of strength, but there are many problems in coordination. Although Blackburn tried very hard at Manchester United's home, they still couldn't resist Manchester United's attack.

Keane received a cross from the wing, and scored the only goal of the game with a header.

George could only accept a 0-1 defeat away from home.

The devil's schedule tests the depth of substitutes, perseverance, etc.

It may be that Blackburn's luck ran out after defeating Arsenal and breaking through the Champions League group stage. After losing to Manchester United, Blackburn suffered another defeat against Newcastle.

Because Campbell had a minor injury, George asked Lescott to replace Campbell for insurance.

Unexpectedly, Lescott couldn't withstand the impact of Shearer.

In the end, George lost again 1-2 away. It was two consecutive losses in the devil's schedule.

George's brows were getting tighter and tighter.

Because after December, Blackburn has more and more injuries. In the past few years, although there were some injuries, they were not serious, or not very common. George, the team doctor of Blackburn, is quite satisfied.

In recent years, Blackburn rarely has large-scale injuries.

This is also a guarantee for Blackburn to achieve good results. But this season, Blackburn has more injuries. Not to mention that Hargreaves needs to lie in bed for three months, and after his comeback, no one knows whether he will relapse.

In addition to Hargreaves, Miku has also had more injuries this season. Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes it takes two weeks. There are not a few minor injuries.

Although Pires is slightly better than Miku.

But Pires has also had two injuries this season. Although they are minor injuries, they also delay the game.

Campbell doesn't know why, but there are also many minor injuries.

Even Sagnol, who has been free of illness and disaster, is also troubled by some injuries.

This makes George quite dissatisfied.

But there is no way, this is a natural disaster.

The Christmas schedule was a complete failure. Three games resulted in one win and two losses, accumulating only three points.

Blackburn's opponents performed much better than Blackburn. Let's talk about Manchester United first. Manchester United won two games and lost one game in the Christmas schedule, accumulating six points.

Manchester United defeated Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 away in the 17th round of the Premier League, and defeated Blackburn 1-0 at home in the 18th round, but lost 0-1 to Wolves in the 19th round of the Premier League. It was very unexpected.

Blackburn is needless to say, Tottenham is also a strong team in the Premier League. But Manchester United defeated them all.

Wolves is a team in the relegation zone. It is now ranked last in the Premier League. Manchester United actually lost to such an opponent.

Chelsea, which has invested heavily this season, has also achieved good results.

It also achieved two wins and one loss in the Christmas schedule.

First, it defeated Charlton 1-0 at home, but was beaten 4-2 by Charlton in the next away game. After returning to the home court, they were in good shape and defeated Portsmouth 3-0.

Only Arsenal had the best result.

In the 15th round of the Premier League, Arsenal lost 0-2 to Blackburn at home. And in the next four games, Arsenal never lost again.

In the 16th round of the Premier League, Arsenal defeated Leicester City 2-1 away. And entering the Christmas schedule, Arsenal's performance is still outstanding. In the 17th round of the Premier League, they were tied 0-0 by Bolton away. But then they defeated Wolves 3-0 at home, and then defeated Southampton 1-0 away.

So far, the Premier League half-season has ended.

In the 19 games, Arsenal had 13 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss, and accumulated 44 points. Currently it is at the top of the list.