At the end of the 2005/06 season, Blue Devils coach Jose Mourinho unexpectedly resigned as Blackburn Rovers manager, and his surprise successor was Lippi, who led Italy to a magical World Cup win this summer. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

At that time, Mourinho's arrival was doubting whether he could succeed, and at this time, whether the famous Lippi succession could stand the test was also the focus of attention from the outside world.

The Italian, Juventus' "Phonegate" dynasty, and the World Cup-winning coach, these are the three most important keywords for Lippi to coach Blackburn.

Both the media and fans have expressed enough respect and high praise for Lippi's coaching career, but there is no comment on whether his coaching style can adapt to English football.

Since it's already him, so be it.

What can Lippi bring?

On a well-known football forum, someone commented on the succession: The football circle mainly relies on face, and it is not enough to be famous, but also to be familiar.

Blackburn Rovers signed Lippi for a wealth of coaching experience and his extensive network of contacts in European football is invaluable to Blackburn.

Can Lippi bring so many connections?

This requires a question mark.

On the contrary, he brought his connections to Blackburn, not only his own team, but also players with good connections, such as Cannavaro, with high wages, high salary, high input-output ratio, and Lippi's strategy is as outstanding as his coaching ability.

So, what can Lippi's arrival bring to Black's real guns?

Record? Champion? Tactical system? Advanced ideas?

All of this takes time to manifest.

The only thing that can be confirmed is that Lippi was a process of gilding Blackburn, which would bring a boost to Blackburn's popularity, but compared to what Lippi got at Blackburn, Blackburn got nowhere near enough.

Why believe Lippi?

Undoubtedly, the main reason is Arthur's hand-picked.

Arthur, who has absolute power in Blackburn, as long as he makes the final decision, it will inevitably be the result of a word.

Since taking charge on 11 August 2006, Lippi has managed Blackburn Rovers for 112 days, leading the team in 24 competitive games, including one Community Shield, one League Cup, 16 Premier League and six Champions League games, with 12 wins, six draws and six defeats. The winning percentage is only 50 per cent, which is a stark gap to what Blackburn had hoped for, and the results of the same period last season when Jose Mourinho led the team.

In the Premier League, Blackburn currently has 16 games, 10 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss, accumulating 35 points, the same number as Manchester United, ranking second in the standings due to goal difference, creating the worst start for the team to be promoted to the Premier League for 6 seasons.

Although Blackburn Rovers has not paid much attention to the League Cup, Blackburn under Lippi's account was eliminated by the League One team in their first domestic cup match in the new season, creating the worst record in the history of Blackburn's League Cup. After the group stage of the Europa League, the record of 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss can hardly be called excellent.

In fact, judging from the transfer in the summer, Blackburn still gives people a lot of expectations. Lippi's team only let go of Deco and Stam last season, but brought in McConn, Cannavaro, Ballack and Montella, and the main squad has almost changed by half of the lineup.

Judging from the transfer effect, it is difficult to call it satisfactory.

Cannavaro played an important role in the win over Manchester United, but he was still a ticking time bomb for the team.

The new season is a half-and-a-half months, and it will be a disaster for Cannavaro in the adaptation period, and the Champions League against Lyon in September and Chelsea in December have made big mistakes. Cannavaro doesn't want to excuse his early dip in form, but rather finds a reason for it. He confessed: "The physical consumption of the 06 World Cup was too great, and after the 98 World Cup, I also experienced a low ebb in Parma. ”

However, out of respect for Lippi, Arthur did not have the slightest resentment that he still used Cannavaro.

Because at this time, the performance of other stars who have participated in the World Cup also has a lot of ups and downs, the most obvious is not Cannavaro, but Henry.

In the new season, Henry defended himself in a column in The Sun, saying that the World Cup was too tired. In December, the Sun questioned: "This kind of performance, if you can't be a gentleman, you really can't say anything." ”

Against Hamburg, Henry couldn't grab the ball and kicked Mathieson and ate a red card. "It's stupid, the ball is two seconds away from me and he's fouled," Mattheeson said. ”

In Highbury, Henry even heard the fans booing, and the Arsenal fans also started a discussion: whether Henry should not be the captain.

After a two-month adaptation period, Cannavaro gradually adapted to the Premier League. It wasn't until the 2-0 win over Arsenal in October that Thierry Henry and Reyes didn't take advantage of it to win the approval of the English media and Blackburn Rovers fans.

However, what is very frustrating for Blackburn is that after Cannavaro finally adapts to the style of play in the Premier League, he is about to suffer from the lack of a winter break in the Premier League, and whether his form can be guaranteed makes many people doubt.

In addition, Ballack played most of the game, but with the exception of October, when he found his groove, the rest of the time was very mediocre, and it was difficult for the German footballer to secure his position in the team's main midfield position compared to the contenders Alonso and Cambiaso.

However, the failure of Cannavaro and Ballack to become the backbone of the team does not mean that Blackburn's summer transfer is unfavorable, as one player has managed to occupy the main position of the Blues by squeezing out a player who should have been in Blackburn's place, and that is Brazilian right-back McConn.

Although McCone is a reserve for the future youth team, he has played an important role this season as Lippi's surprise man in the formation.

However, McCone will certainly not be loved by Chinese fans, and officially because of his outstanding performance, he squeezed Finnan to the bench, while Sun Jihai can only get a few substitute opportunities this season when Finnan is injured.

This season, due to the continuous injuries of Duff and Robben, coupled with the arrival of strong midfielders such as Ballack and Diarra, Lippi has created four defensive midfielders lined up without a back. He has repeatedly brought Ballack, Frank Lampard, Claude Makelele and Alonso into action at the same time.

Although they don't have the sharpness of the wingers, the interception and possession ability of these four defensive midfielders is enough to ensure that Blackburn maintain a high rate of possession and ensure that the defense is solid. However, in attack, without the help of wingers, Blackburn have often been in a tough battle this season, and they need to rely on the amazing long-range works of Drogba, Cristiano Ronaldo, Frank Lampard and others to get through.

But Lippi wasn't conservative either, for example, when he trailed Manchester United away, he replaced Finnan at right-back with Arjen Robben, put Claude Makelele at wing-back, and then brought on Robin van Persie to make it 4-2-44 before drawing away to the Red Devils.

In the Christmas game, he brought more attacking players such as Van Persie and Cristiano Ronaldo into the game, and he also achieved good results, showing that as long as he does not stick to superstars and practical play, Blackburn can also be more aggressive.

If home results are counted, Blackburn Rovers sit below Manchester United this season, with nine wins and 27 points.

Sadly, Blackburn's away results were a shame compared to their home glory, losing to the likes of Everton and Bolton in addition to falling at the feet of Chelsea.

In addition to the difference in home and away performances, Blackburn's offensive and defensive abilities are too different, which is also the main reason for the sharp decline in form this season. Compared to the previous two seasons, the Blues' attack is still not the best in the Premier League, with the fewest goals scored in the top four. In the main lineup, winger Cristiano Ronaldo has only scored 6 goals and is already the team's top scorer, and no one else has been able to score more than 5 goals.

However, compared to the weak attack, Blackburn's defense is still unbreakable, conceding only 13 goals, especially at home with only 3 goals, ranking last among all teams.

In short, Lippi's arrival as a World Cup-winning coach has not made Blackburn any better than it was under Jose Mourinho, and the team's performance in the first half of the season has been difficult to describe as consistent, and it looks difficult to win the final victory in the long league this season.

There are several reasons for this, one of the key points is that Lippi is still vacillating in the use of players, Ballack has become a panacea in midfield, and coupled with poor away results, Lippi's tactics have become more and more conservative.

The Premier League has been a five-strong competition in recent seasons, however, this season, there has been no top-5 competition. Arsenal and Liverpool were distanced from Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers and Chelsea from the start and away from title contention this season.

The Reds have brought in Kuyt and Bellamy, but the striker problem remains their biggest weakness, which can be compensated for by a midfielder or a defender in a single-game cup game, but in the long league game, Liverpool's performance has been as inconsistent as their strikers. It's also a long-standing problem for the once-dominant red team in English football, which has remained unresolved this season.

Arsenal moved into a new stadium this season, which became one of the team's problems, and Arsenal, who were accustomed to the small size of Highbury Stadium, did not adapt to the new stadium as their famous Merson predicted, and started the game with one defeat and one draw, indicating that the Gunners' season is destined to be only a process of educating young players. Injuries are another issue for Arsenal, with top scorer Thierry Henry suffering intermittent injuries.

Manchester United had the best away record last season, however, they finished fourth at home, which was the reason for their final defeat to Blackburn. The Red Devils have improved significantly at home this season.

Few favourites were favourites on Chelsea to win the title before the season, however, Louis van Gaal's side have led the way this season, with the Blues topping the halfway table except for a fifth-round defeat to Arsenal who finished second and a fifth-round draw with Reading to a season-low third. Moreover, Chelsea's longest winless run is limited to two, and the number of defeats they have lost is by one goal, and they have never tried to lose by two goals or more, which proves the consistency of the team.

Who will join the championship team in the second half of the season?

Manchester United, Blackburn, Chelsea and Arsenal will surely continue to strengthen, with the race for the semi-finals continuing and Lippi still having time to prove himself. (To be continued.) )