Mister Legend

Chapter 519 Another undefeated season?

想要说明李慕迪目前带领球队所打出的连胜纪录到底是有多么得厉害，最佳的参照物无疑就是2003-04赛季完成英超不败神话的那支传奇阿森纳了，后者以26胜12平积90分的成绩成为了英超自1992年改制以来唯一可以实现单赛季不输球的队伍，这一点就连2017-18赛季创造了联盟总积分和总胜场次数新纪录的曼城都没能做到。

It's just that the team that has become the best team in history in the eyes of the fans, especially the gun fans, started the season with a defeat. They played with all the main players and narrowly lost on penalties in the Community Shield that year. Old rival Manchester United.Even if this warm-up game is not counted, Arsenal did not have a very ideal start 17 years ago.

After they won four consecutive victories in the league, they encountered two consecutive draws. Although the state was relatively stable throughout the season, they have not been in a long-term bursting state. It was not until 2004 that they suddenly ushered in broke out, achieved the longest nine-game winning streak in team history, and completely locked the leader in the standings.

And if you calculate the winning streak in all competitions, then this number has not changed. From February 2004th to March 2th, 7, the Arsenal team won six league games, one FA Cup and one FA Cup. A wave of nine consecutive victories was also completed in the two European league games.

It's just that the above two coincident peak periods of state both appeared in the middle and late stages of the season. Judging from the state of the opening stage alone, Li Mudi has indeed left a long way behind the old predecessors.A few people have even expressed optimism that they are looking forward to the unbeaten league drama being staged again.

According to official statistics, the Premier League's opening winning streak belongs to Chelsea in the 2005-06 season, which is nine.The current achievements of Arsenal this season can already be ranked second on this list, that is to say, they are the second Premier League team to complete this feat.

It's just that the difficulties involved are extremely difficult, far from being as easy as the media's various touts say.

In the seventh round, they faced Crystal Palace, which is temporarily No. 14 in the standings. The gunners who did not have Xuezang's main force encountered tenacious resistance from their opponents. They were always in a passive situation throughout the first half.If Serbia international Milivojevic missed the penalty kick created by Benteke in the 207th minute, Moody's team would have to enter the halftime with a goal behind.

It’s just that the defense that has always been considered unreliable by the outside world still made a lot of mistakes in the following time. Less than 3 minutes after Torreira used a long shot to help the team take the lead, Koscielny There was a communication error between the two central defenders and Holding, and Ivory Coast winger Zaha seized the opportunity to form a single goal, and humiliated German goalkeeper Leno with a low shot through the crotch, tying the score at 1. than 1.

This conceded goal annoyed Li Mudi on the sidelines. Originally, the opponent's attack did not pose any threat. Endidi and others have blocked Crystal Palace's intention to penetrate with a short pass in the middle, forcing the opponent to take the risk of making mistakes. Great direct pass.However, the two central defenders of the team disagreed on whether they should be offside or not. As a result, Holding did not press forward in time, making Zaha's forward drive a classic case of successful anti-offside.

But this is not the end, when Welbeck in the No. 704th minute of the game, after relying on a dive to the top to overtake the score again, the defenders of the visiting team once again had a short-circuited situation.The reckless Papastathopoulos put the opponent's local striker Connor Wickham in the penalty area and gave the home team a penalty kick for the second time today.

This time, Milivojevic, the first penalty shooter of the home team, was not weak, and brought the scores of the two sides back to the same starting line in one fell swoop.

This time Li Moody was not just annoyed, his brows were crowed, wishing he could rush to the stage and scold the Greeks loudly, but unfortunately this idea could not be realized at that time.So he immediately used the remaining substitutions at hand and asked Mustafi to replace Papastathopoulos, who was thinking something in his head.

Although Li Mudi still politely patted the opponent on the back to express his comfort when the veteran was off the field, but in the heart of the Arsenal coach, he has basically made up his mind to deal with the team's defense immediately after the winter transfer window opens. The determination to make major adjustments.

In the remaining 10 minutes or so, the Gunners in the away game launched a siege to the restricted area of ​​the Crystal Palace team. Although their forwards are all speed and technical types, they are not very good at giving play to their own advantages in positional attacks, but when the time comes Can't take care of that much anymore, winning a victory is the only purpose for them to come to Selhurst Park Stadium.

Fortunately, at this critical moment, someone bravely stood up again. Bosnia and Herzegovina left winger Kolasinac, under the cover of his teammates, pushed Mkhitaryan's free kick from the left into the upper left of the home team's goal In the corner, with only the last 2 minutes left in regular time, he helped the team score a goal that sealed the victory.

3 to 2, Arsenal scored three points with difficulty in this small London derby. While continuing the winning streak, they also showed the world the team's tenacious style.However, the defensive weaknesses exposed in this game have also received a lot of attention.Many experts have started to speak ill of the future performance of the Gunners, and there are also many followers, because without a solid line of defense, it is undoubtedly a dream to win the final championship in a long season.

However, this storm of criticism did not last long. In the third round of the League Cup on the last day of September, facing Aston Villa, who played with all the main players, Arsenal, which once again resorted to a large-scale rotation, failed. With a clean 3-0, they qualified for the round of sixteen.

In this duel, Li Moody's team performed very well on the defensive end. In the whole game, only Villa, whose attack power can be ranked in the top eight in the British Championship, scored six goals, of which the number of hits was It was a pitiful time, which somewhat surprised the outside world.

But the next one that will appear immediately is an opponent at the ultimate test level. The leaders of the Premier League and the Premier League will usher in the fourth place in the standings on the first weekend of October, but their offensive firepower can be ranked first in the league. Liverpool.This strong dialogue is the touchstone that can truly test the level of the Gunners' current defensive strength.

If Tottenham are generally expected to become a strong contender for the Premier League title this season because of the stability of the lineup in the first two or three seasons and almost all core players have entered the golden age group, then the state of Liverpool is also No less than the former.

看一看红军目前的主力阵容构成，巴西门将阿利松28岁、后防核心荷兰中后卫范迪克29岁、苏格兰左后卫安德鲁·罗伯逊26岁、巴西中场法比尼奥27岁、队长乔丹·亨德森30岁、前场两大边锋萨拉赫以及马内都是28岁，怎是强大一词可以评价的！

And Uncle Zha has also been very successful in promoting young players. The 23-year-old England central defender Joe Gomez and the 22-year-old right back Alexander Arnold have secured their main positions two years ago. Ranke and the 23-year-old Ben Woodburn began to attack Firmino's main center forward position again. Based on paper strength alone, Liverpool does have the capital to compete for the league throne.

In reality, the Red Army almost achieved this goal. In the 2018-19 season, Klopp led the talented team at the time to launch a fierce attack on Manchester City, which had just created a new scoring record in Premier League history, but ultimately failed to win the championship from Guardiola Title, won the club's first Premier League runner-up in five years with a three-point difference, and won another third place a year later, together with Manchester City and Tottenham, they have won the top three positions for two consecutive seasons.

It is precisely because of such a good foundation that Uncle Zha did not make major changes to the lineup in the past summer, but spent 6750 million pounds to recruit French central midfielder/midfielder Rabiot from Paris Saint-Germain. , made an upgrade to his team's midfielder.Although this move did not improve the star flavor of the Red Army, the strength of the main lineup is no worse than that of Manchester City, which has invested huge sums of money to introduce superstars every year, so they are still one of the most promising seeds to win the championship.

However, when the season really started, the Red Army, which was given high hopes, did not perform well. The first four rounds of the league only achieved 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss, and the ranking once fell to ninth in the standings. bit.Fortunately, the winning streak in the last three rounds has allowed Liverpool to quickly return to the Champions League seat area, but they are already seven points behind the leader Arsenal, which still disappoints the Kop and the experts who are optimistic about them .

Especially in the third round of the just-concluded League Cup, the Red Army, who had hidden most of their main players in order to prepare for the weekend league, almost overturned at West Bromwich Albion's home court, and finally got promoted through a penalty shootout. It looked a little embarrassed.

However, this will not affect everyone's attention to this weekend's focus battle at Anfield Stadium. Whether the Red Army can take the opportunity to narrow the gap with the top team and keep the hope of the championship, or can the Gunners continue? Call it a miraculous start, and return from a venue that hasn't won in seven years, and that's what the whole of English football is talking about ahead of this weekend.

The supporters of both sides naturally have their own positions on who will be the final winner, but from the feedback received from neutral fans, it can be found that the proportion who thinks that Arsenal will end the winning streak is higher. That's Liverpool's home advantage.

Since losing to Crystal Palace in the league on April 2017, 4, the Red Army has played a total of 23 games at Anfield, of which only one has been lost, and the winning rate is as high as 67%, which is the highest in European football today. One of the most difficult home courts.

It is precisely because of this confidence that Liverpool players will make all kinds of rhetoric before the start of the game, and appear in front of the media in a posture that will definitely end the opponent's winning streak.

The process of the game also seemed to verify that the home team's confidence did not come out of thin air. Klopp's trident in the frontcourt is the oldest version, but it is extremely targeted.Although Firmino's finishing ability is not very good, but he does not spare physical strength and very smart running positions and the extremely rare passing awareness among center players, so that he can help his players draw a lot of attention from the defenders of the guest team, thus Help Salah and Mane, two wingers with the world's top technical speed, obtain a relatively easy breakthrough space.

You must know that these two dribblers are like stepping on hot wheels. Once they find their most comfortable breakthrough rhythm, the result will be quite terrible.Even if someone in this world can defend them, the number will not exceed one pair of hands, and naturally it is even more unlikely that they will appear in the current Arsenal team.

So Li Mudi's countermeasures can only be to withdraw with all his strength and try not to give the opponent any room to move freely—well, it's just a better way to say the crowd tactics.

In this way, he had to put Lucas Torreira and Xhaka, who are relatively better defensively, in the starting lineup, and cooperate with Ndidi to build a barrier in the midfield, which makes the team The organizational ability on the offensive end dropped to the level of the Premier League Bangwei team in an instant.

So the result is that throughout the first half, Arsenal in the away game didn't even have a single shot on target, and the data of the three missed shots was obviously very bad, even though Lacazette had withdrawn shortly after the opening Arriving at the position of the front midfielder, but lacking the necessary support in the backcourt, he and Aubameyang are almost reduced to spectators of the game.

However, the team's tactics are still rewarding after all. Although Liverpool had more than 0% of the possession rate in the first half, they did not create too many good opportunities, except for a direct free kick by Salah. Except for the ball that tested Leno's reaction, the remaining few shots did not bring any real threat.Therefore, the 0-10 score was maintained until the rematch, even after [-] minutes, did not change.

The home team, which seems to have a stronger desire for victory, chose to invest more in the offensive end. After replacing Chamberlain with a more comprehensive technical style, Uncle Zha replaced Firmino with Sturridge, who has a better ability to grab points. At the same time, Henderson's position was premised, and the offensive momentum became more violent.

However, the fence posts of the visiting team are extremely tight today, and it feels a bit airtight. Li Mudi also timely replaced the midfielders to maintain the physical fitness of the midfielders, and resolved all the attempts of the Red Army one by one.Leno also made two world-class saves. Among them, Salah's bound-to-go long shot with a single punch has a chance to be selected as the best save of the week.

It's just that the score finally changed before the final whistle, but it was exactly the opposite of what everyone predicted.Veteran Koscielny headed Ramsey's corner kick into the home team's goal in the 804th minute, helping Arsenal leave Anfield as a winner after a lapse of seven years.

For a while, the news that Arsenal had won eight consecutive league victories attracted the greatest attention in the entire European continent, but not all of them were positive comments.

(End of this chapter)