Father Green

Chapter 385: League Cup Champion

In the first round of the UEFA Champions League [-]/[-] knockout round, Charlotte's team was host to the Devils at home in Istanbul, and was eventually defeated by the opponent [-]-[-] to take the lead.

There is nothing to say about Charlotte in this game. In his opinion, there is no problem with the performance of the players, and there is no problem with his own tactics.The only problem is that the players are still not used to this horrible devil's home court. They are very unaccustomed to the abuse, attacks and threats of the Galasatare fans, as well as the fireworks from the stands that rush into the stadium every now and then.

There are a lot of football hooligans in the Premier League, but few fans play like this when the game is in progress.

The most important thing is that there was a snowfall in Istanbul the day before the match. Originally, the Turk Telekom stadium in Istanbul was of poor quality. After a day of rain and snow, the grass looked like rotten leaves.

As a technical player, Southampton played in such a stadium, not to mention how uncomfortable it was. Almost all of the game was made of passing and receiving errors. In the end, only one goal was allowed by the opponent in this game. Otherwise, it is very likely that the two rounds of the game will cause the opponent to end the suspense in the first round.

Higuain and Reina performed normally throughout the game, after all, they are no strangers to this rotten stadium.When the two were in Real Madrid and Liverpool, they did not miss the Istanbul game in Turkey. They had already prepared for the urgency of the opponent's fans and how poor the stadium was, so the two experienced players were not affected by this.

Now Charlotte has finally felt the benefits of the veteran. At least if this game is not for Higuain and Reina, then the Saints' Champions League mission this season will come to an end, but now it is [-]-[-] The score is not powerless. After returning to the home court, Charlotte still has the opportunity to let the opponent try the bitterness of the away game through adjustments.

The physically and mentally exhausted Saints did not perform well in the league. They were tied by the Red Army Liverpool at home. Liverpool was completely waiting for work to face the exhausted Southampton.

Aubameyang and Eriksson, who participated in the Champions League game, did not perform well in this game, and Sterling is no longer in form today.In addition, Charlotte let Higuain rest in rotation, Pogba was suspended for three additional games before, and Griezmann was still recovering from his injury, so the Red Army Liverpool seized the opportunity.

Then Southampton tasted the distress of four-line combat. Immediately after they sent Liverpool away, they went to London's new Wembley Stadium to prepare for this year's League Cup final.

Last season, Southampton also fought on four fronts, but they were eliminated early in the FA Cup. At the same time, the intensity of the Europa League cannot be compared with that of the Champions League, so they can barely cope.

And this season they are advancing in all competitions, and none of their opponents in the Champions League is easy to deal with, so this season they are a little bit powerless.

Facing the giants Manchester City, Charlotte is naturally almost the main force.Although Griezmann recovered from injury, Charlotte did not dare to let him start, but let him sit on the bench.At the same time, because Aubameyang and Eriksson played in the Champions League against Galasatara and Liverpool in the league, Charlotte didn't even let them enter the squad for this game.

So in this League Cup final, Charlotte let Higuain take the lead, followed by Rodriguez, Sterling and Florenzi.Sitting on the bench like Griezmann are Lukaku and Harry Kane. At this time, Charlotte regretted loaning De Bruyne to Wolfsburg, although Tintin cannot play in the Champions League , then there is no problem playing in the domestic league.
In terms of midfield, Charlotte gave a combination of Jack Cork, Schneiderlin and Florenzi, and made up his mind to carry out a defensive counterattack.

Pogba was suspended for three additional games due to his red card against West Ham United. These three games include England's domestic games, including the League Cup and the FA Cup. So this game He didn't even make the roster.

Chilean engineer Manuel Pellegrini's Manchester City still relies heavily on wing attacks, especially the speed of Navas is a weapon they often use to attack the opponent's defense.Knowing this, Charlotte naturally made targeted tactical deployments for this game. Fortunately, whether it is Danny Rose or Danilo, the speed of the two is not very slow, and their physical fitness is also good, so the full-back The location Charlotte is very reassuring.

Both sides played very fiercely in this game. In the end, with the goals of Aguero, Yaya Toure, Higuain and Rodriguez, the two sides drew [-]-[-] in regular time.

Charlotte has been very calm. In the 10 minutes of the game, he didn't use a substitution quota. Instead, Pellegrini used Nasri to replace Navas, because Navas was directly restricted by the opponent in normal games. died.

The game came to overtime, and Charlotte directly changed two people at this time.First, Lukaku replaced the core Higuain, and then Harry Kane replaced Jack Cork.

Everyone can see that this is the rhythm that Charlotte is preparing to fight desperately in overtime.But why must Higuain be replaced?Wouldn't it be better to let the smoker and Lukaku play double centers?
It’s just that the outside world doesn’t know, Gary Monk and Best finally concluded with physical coach Nick Harvey through data analysis that Higuain’s physical fitness has declined seriously, and if this continues, the risk of injury will increase.

Charlotte's positioning for Higuain is not only to help the team in the league, but also to lead the team further in the Champions League. His rich experience in competitions and outstanding personal abilities are what Charlotte values.

It is obviously not cost-effective to sacrifice their own layout in the Champions League for a tasteless League Cup. As for the league, Charlotte is not very worried, because they are now leading by an absolute advantage.

Southampton's sudden change of tactics, from the previous cautious defensive counterattack to the current aggressive attack, caught Manchester City by surprise.

Finally, at the end of the first half of overtime, Sterling received Lukaku's ball and released Charlotte's "big move" calling him to play Manchester City.

"If there is love, the sky will be old, when I met Hartmon kick!" Sterling silently recited the "big move" mantra given to him by his boss, and then kicked directly on the ribs outside the penalty area of ​​the goal.

As a result, Joe Hart's side attack did not hit the football, and the football crashed into the net!

In fact, Sterling's goal is not very difficult, and the ball speed is not fast.When many people watched the live broadcast, they thought they were sending the ball to Joe Hart. It was more like a pass than a shot.

But it was raining gradually, and Joe Hart couldn't see the ball.
After the start of the second half of overtime, Charlotte immediately made a third substitution adjustment.He brought on Alderweireld and then replaced Rodriguez.

This is a typical signal to strengthen the defense. Even Florenzi and Schneiderlin have been staying at the front of their own penalty area and not pressing out.

Pellegrini also made substitution adjustments, he sent Negredo.When the opponent increased the number of central defenders, he also saw tricks to increase the number of centers.Dzeko and Negredo directly resisted the three central defenders of Jose Fonte, Nkuru and Alderweireld, and Aguero looked for opportunities behind them.

However, because there were too many people in the Southampton penalty area, even Aguero and David Silva failed to get a chance. In the end, relying on Sterling's previous goal, Southampton won in overtime. Defeated Manchester City to win the League Cup this season.

After the game, Southampton fans were the most excited. Counting the previous Community Shield Cup and European Super Cup, this is the third championship won by the Saints this season. Although the gold content of these three championships is the lowest three in a season
Although it is a very happy thing to defend the League Cup champion, Charlotte rejected the club's idea of ​​wanting to celebrate. Now that all competitions are in full swing, do you want to play the game after the celebration now? ?
So Charlotte asked his players to forget about this championship, and then they still have more important games to complete.

On March 20th, they will face the ninth round of No.16 in the league. This time, their opponent is the not-so-strong Crystal Palace team.But the Premier League Blue Eagles are in the critical period of the relegation battle at this moment. They are currently ranked No.[-] in points, but this is not a complete position, because they are only behind the penultimate and penultimate teams. Four credits.

So they need to work harder to completely get out of the quagmire of the relegation zone.

The teams in the relegation zone are not easy to mess with, despite their poor results.But like this kind of relegation zone team that can see great hope, their explosive combat effectiveness cannot be ignored.

So far this season, Southampton has only three draws and one loss, which is a very ideal result.But among the three draws and one loss, there were draws with downstream teams such as Norwich and West Ham that needed to be relegated, and the only game they lost was against the current No.17 team in the standings. Sunderland, these three teams are still near the relegation zone, just one game is enough to get them to the relegation zone.

It can be seen that the teams near the relegation zone are really not soft persimmons! ! !

Because they played in the League Cup final three days ago, Charlotte had to make personnel adjustments again in the league, and a large number of rotations were used.

The only players in the frontcourt are Griezmann, Lukaku and Sterling, and even the back line is a combination of Luke Shaw, Chambers and Stephens.

It may be that the recent schedule is too dense. The Saints will play three games in almost nine days. Basically, the rhythm of a game is two or three days. Excited.

Therefore, the Saints players did not perform well in the whole game, especially Griezmann, who returned from injury, felt a little lost in the whole game. He played for 10 minutes and was replaced by Aubameyang. up.

The Saints only scored one goal in the whole game, which was scored by the teenager Sterling.Charlotte's side suffered their second defeat of the season as Crystal Palace scored twice at home