In the head coach's office at the Carrington training base, Gao Han sat around the coffee table with four members of the core coaching staff.

The office door was closed, the air conditioner was turned on, and the smell of tea was overflowing with the light smoke wafting from the coffee table.

"The management have agreed to my recommendation and are now arranging for someone to travel to Blackburn Rovers to talk to David Feverey about his personal treatment and are willing to pay him a penalty so that he can come to Manchester City as soon as possible. ”

David Feverey, 47, a native of England, started working at Manchester United in the early 90s as a team doctor, contributing to Manchester United's excellent results in the 90s, and after the Red Devils won the treble, he chose to leave Manchester United and moved to Blackburn Rovers, where he has remained ever since.

Gao Han was originally unfamiliar with the team doctors in England, but after sacking two of Manchester City's team doctors, he urgently needed to hire a high-level physiotherapy team, and Brian Kidd, who also worked at Manchester United for many years, mentioned David Feverey to Gao Han, and was very sure of the team's strength.

Even in the words of Brian Kidd, if David Feverey had been around, Ferguson probably would not have made a mistake in Stam that he still can't let go, because Ferguson thought that Stam would not recover from a long-term injury.

Out of prudence, Gao Han also used his keen eyes and found that David Ffeifre's medical level is indeed very high, reaching the full value, not to mention the previous two of Manchester City, even if it is compared with the team doctor of other giant teams such as Manchester United, the level is also higher, and he is indeed a team doctor worthy of trust.

After the inspection, Gao Han immediately notified the management and recommended David Feverey.

But what Gao Han wants to talk about today is not about David Feverey, he wants to talk about the team.

After announcing the matter of David Feverey, Gao Han gave Sergio Garcia a look, who immediately took out a document, opened it, pulled out an A4 paper, and placed it in the dry part of the coffee table for everyone to see.

On the paper is a comparison chart of possession in various areas of the pitch in Manchester City's past warm-up games.

Through this chart by Sergio Garcia, everyone present can clearly see that Manchester City's possession rate is indeed superior to that of the opponent, especially in the area from the midfield line to their own half, and the possession rate is much ahead of the opponent.

But in the 30-metre area, especially at the edge of the penalty area, the ball possession dropped significantly.

Although Brian Kidd has just worked with Gao Han, he has been working together for a month, and he has begun to understand Gao Han's style of doing things, and he can also understand that Gao Han and his team are different from many other Premier League teams in terms of data analysis.

It should be said that the alpine team is more advanced and pays more attention to data comparison.

"Let's take a look at the next one. Gao Han waved his hand again.

Sergio Garcia immediately took out the second chart, which was a map of Manchester City's passes in various areas of the stadium in a certain game.

What makes many people feel strange is that the red line with the most mistakes is more in the area from the opponent's 30-meter zone to the front of the penalty area.

If it was just one game, it could be said to be accidental, but as Sergio Garcia put down the charts one by one, it was clear to everyone that almost every game was the one with the most passing and receiving errors in this area.

Of course, from a practical point of view, the opponent has laid a heavy force in their own half, and Manchester City will definitely be met with stubborn defensive resistance when they attack this area, whether it is an increase in possession or passing and receiving errors, which is a normal thing.

That said, the charts show that City have attacked this area and have come under stubborn defensive sniping.

"What do you think?" asked Gao Han lightly.

Brian Kidd, the lead assistant coach, looked up, glanced at the others, and thought for a moment, "I think the main thing is that we don't have enough means to deal with the opposition's dense defense. ”

"Go on. Gao Han nodded.

Brian Kidd also understands Gao Han's temperament and boldly continued: "I think it has a lot to do with our lack of wide attacking players, our opponents know very well that we can't get the ball from us, so they give up possession and instead plant a lot of troops in front of their own penalty area, first protect their own goal, and then concentrate on our counter-attack. ”

Gao Han nodded, it should be said that Brian Kidd's judgment was right.

Or should it be said that he was right about his opponents.

In the four warm-up games, Manchester City conceded four goals, conceding one goal in each game, which made Gao Han very dissatisfied.

But what made Gao Han even more dissatisfied was that he was repeatedly counter-attacked by opponents in the game, conceding only four goals, thanks to the excellent performances of Kompany and Petr Cech, otherwise they would have conceded even more.

Brian Kidd is a veteran of the Premier League, who understands the opponent's mind very thoroughly, and they do adopt this tactical style of play, when Manchester City has the ball in their own half, they organize the defense slowly and methodically, save energy, and once they enter their half, they immediately increase their pressing efforts.

'If we have two full-backs in normal times, we should move the ball to the wing when we are sniping in the middle, and the full-backs and wingers can break through the wider area of the wing and then pass the ball back into the box to create a threat. ”

The offensive difficulty of positional warfare is already very difficult, and many teams with fullbacks are difficult to break through, not to mention that Manchester City now has no fullbacks at all, and the opponent's wing only needs to keep an eye on Cristiano Ronaldo, who cuts inside on the left, and Sanchez, a right-wing attacker, to be able to contain Manchester City's wing attack.

Not to mention the Premier League, even a few professional teams in the second and third divisions encountered in Manchester City's warm-up matches can do it, which is why Manchester City's warm-up games will be so aggrieved.

'So, my opinion is that we should consider going back to a back four. ”

Brian Kidd's opinion made Gao Han smile slightly, nodded appreciatively, and signaled that he had heard.

Buenaventura and Pedro Harrow, both strength and conditioning coaches and goalkeeper coaches, don't give much input when it comes to the team's line-up, and Gao Han looks at Sergio Garcia, who pouts.

"I think he has a point. ”

Gao Han smiled and wanted to slap him, but shook his head, "My thoughts are a little different from Brian's. ”

"Oh?" said Brian Kidd.

As the team's chief assistant coach, he is also to blame for the warm-up game playing like this, so he has been under a lot of pressure in the past period of time, and has been studying this problem, and he also hopes to take this opportunity to prove his strength to Gao Han, after all, he is also a newcomer and has just joined Gao Han's team.

In order to make this summary, he has watched the game video many times in the past period, and he has made a lot of effort to come to this conclusion by asking himself, especially in combination with Sergio Garcia's data analysis, which can be described as reasonable and convincing, why does Gao Han still say that he has different opinions from himself?

"Of course, I'm not saying that Brian has a problem with your analysis, it's just that we look at things from different angles. Gao Han first stabilized his mind as the chief assistant coach to avoid misunderstandings.

"Then what do you think......"

"I don't think our problem has anything to do with how the opponent defends, it's mainly that we don't do a good enough job in many areas, which makes our opponents look very good defensively. ”

Gao Han's words, everyone present understood.

Everything that happens on the football field is relative.

It's like Manchester City can't break through the opponent's defense, it may be that the opponent's defense is quite good, but it is also possible that Manchester City's attack is particularly poorly organized, so what is the reason?

This has to be looked at from the perspective of analyzing the problem.

After hearing this, Brian Kidd also became interested and said that he was listening.

"If you look at this chart of possession, and then look at the passing roadmap, do you find a very interesting phenomenon, that is, after entering the opponent's half, our possession rate has dropped a lot, and the pass success rate has suddenly decreased a lot. ”

Sergio Garcia's data graph is very intuitive, clear and self-explanatory.

"I think a big reason is that once the ball is in the opposition half, it becomes impatient, especially in front of the diamond in midfield, neither Elano nor Stephen Ireland can calmly hold the ball under pressure. ”

"I've said a long time ago that if we can't form good, patient possession within the 30-metre zone, our high-passing, pressing play will fall apart and be ineffective. ”

"But you can think back to the game, as soon as our ball enters this area and the opponent presses a little bit, our passing and possession will become impatient, which will directly lead to our passing and receiving mistakes, especially when the opponent has already taken a defensive position and organized the defence. ”

'It's hard for us to threaten the edge of the penalty area and get the chance to get the assist when we don't have patience with the ball, and that's the biggest problem we face right now. ”

If you want to talk about the wing, Gao Han does not have a special wing attacking player, but there are many wing offensive means.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Alexis Sanchez are both good on the wings, Karim Benzema is always available on the wing, and David Silva and Luka Modric are also able to play wide depending on the situation on the pitch.

Manchester City definitely has no shortage of means and strength to open up the width of the attack, but the problem is that when the opponent organizes the defense well and stands in a good position, the efficiency of the wing attack is very low and very low.

At this time, the most effective offensive means is to pass and pull patiently, transfer a wide area, create gaps in the movement of the opponent's defensive formation, and then cut in to create a threat, and even score a goal.

Elano and Stephen Ireland have both been identified by Alpine as unfit for the midfield position, and they simply cannot replace the role that Kaka can play in this position, at least in terms of maintaining the team's calm and patient passing.

After listening to Gao Han's analysis, combined with the data charts and the situation in the game, everyone has to admit that Gao Han's analysis is indeed very reasonable.

In the pass-and-control style of play, the purpose of the side attack is not to break through, but to attract the opponent's defenders to the side through the ball on the side, and open the width of the opponent's defensive position, so that the offensive players can better complete the penetration and advancement in the middle.

Therefore, theoretically, in the possession play, there is no problem with the full-back, the wing-back, the central midfielder or even the central defender, who can appear on the side to achieve this tactical purpose.

But now City's problem is how to pass the ball to the edge of the opposition penalty area through patient passing, and create a killing chance.

This is what Gao Han believes, the biggest crux of Manchester City's now.