There is an old Chinese saying, 'Three stinkers, one Zhuge Liang', sports media reporters, football commentators, and football lovers on the periphery are not professionals, but a group of people discussing a topic together can definitely draw certain conclusions.

"How do you beat Millwall?"

Or "How do you play against Millwall to improve your winning percentage?" ”

The answer to this question was quick.

The media reported three most approved styles of play, one is the model of dead defense and counterattack, which means that using crowd tactics to create problems for Millwall's offense, and then a striker who is good at counterattacking to create a threat to Millwall's defense, is generally the most extreme defensive counterattack play.

It's a shameless way to play, but it's almost universal to play against strong teams.

Of course, the media don't say 'shameful play', especially when discussing how to deal with Millwall, and they will say, "This is the best option for the underdogs." ”

"Very clever thing to do."

"That's how you play, and you're most likely to get points."

“……”

The second method is to refer to the game between Roma and Millwall, Roma's style of play is very restrained against Millwall, Roma's defense is based on the chain defense system of Italian football style, the backfield players have a fixed area, cross to run and defend, try not to miss any position, considering that Millwall has few players with excellent dribbling skills, they have to rely on short passes, and it is difficult to break through the tight defense.

If you can add active full-court pressing on this basis, you will be able to restrain Millwall even more.

Someone else came up with a third way, which is to refer to the second half of Manchester United and Millwall, Manchester United pressed with attack, forcing Millwall to shrink the formation.

This method is not suitable for small clubs, because they do not have such a strong attacking ability, but teams such as Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United and other teams that are good at attacking can be properly referenced.

The media carried out vigorous analysis and reporting, which made Zhang Yang have a headache when he saw it.

Millwall seems to have really become a public enemy of the Premier League, and the media has spent a lot of effort and even bought tactical analysis manuscripts at a high price to analyze Millwall's tactics and discuss ways to deal with Millwall.

Zhang Yang can understand what the media does.

To say that last season, all the big media still supported Millwall, because Millwall was the 'spoiler' of the Premier League, and few media regarded Millwall as a contender for the Premier League title.

Now Millwall's identity is different.

Just like last season's Chelsea, with the power of 'defending champions' and quite outstanding results, it has become the target of the Premier League, the media and opponents have found ways to beat Chelsea, if they can't beat Chelsea, Chelsea will continue to 'dominate' the Premier League.

English football is an open environment, and even the FA would like to see the Premier League become more competitive, not dominated by one or two clubs, and the biggest direction of development is to make the 20 teams evenly balanced, so that every game will be exciting and every game will be suspenseful.

At that time, the Premier League will truly become the number one league in the world.

That's the benefit of competition.

Millwall put on a 'weak team killer' look, and after a few games, the opponent had no power to resist, and also beat Manchester United away, which naturally became the target of public criticism.

The British press did not like it.

Other opponents don't like it.

The vast majority of fans don't want to see that.

The FA also don't want to see Millwall 'dominate' the league and they don't want to see any team dominate.

In addition to the Millwall club and the fans, everyone else will become Millwall's opponents and enemies.

Thinking of Millwall's situation, Zhang Yang has a feeling of 'master loneliness'...... Ahem, it's too early to say that, but masters are always jealous.

There's no way around it!

Millwall can only keep going under pressure and disappoint those who don't want to see Millwall do well, maybe that's what Millwall is aiming for?

Zhang Yang is not interested in the media's analysis of Millwall as a 'weak team killer'.

What a 'dual-core' tactic!

What a strong front!

Wrong!

All wrong!

Why have Millwall beaten back-to-back clubs? In many matches, the opponent seems to have little power to resist? It's not because of any tactics, because of any lineup, it's entirely because Zhang Yang has the 'magic ability' that other head coaches don't have.

That's the fundamental.

Why can a weak team beat a strong team?

Football matches are unpredictable, and on-the-spot performance is often more important than tactics and strength, and in football games, a goal can sometimes make the difference between victory and defeat.

For example, a weak team and a strong team play, the weak team relies on luck to score a goal first, and in the following time, they are constantly defending, the strong team has empty strength, and no goals are created in a limited time, and the upset naturally appears.

However, there is one thing...... Zhang Yang can 'predict' the game, relying on the 'prediction' ability, he will know what will happen in the next five minutes, and other abilities can also change the game.

When the football game arrives here, it becomes 'predictable', and other weak teams want to beat Millwall, relying on the luck component, which is equivalent to not having most of it, Millwall with stronger strength, naturally easily defeating the weak team.

That's the root cause!

The basis of media analysis tactics is wrong.

Of course, the methods they listed against Millwall may still have some effect, but how much effect they can have is not as good as imagined.

————

On 23 November, Group D of the Champions League group stage kicked off again, with Millwall hosting Valencia.

Millwall had an easy run as they had already secured their place in advance.

However, the group qualification is also divided into the first and second in the group, the first and second terms are related to the top 16, and the second group is more likely to meet the strong team.

Zhang Yang asked the players to still take the game seriously.

This doesn't really need to be reminded.

Regardless of whether Millwall qualifies from the group or not, every player will be very motivated to play in the Champions League, because the game is followed by the world, and playing well in the Champions League will attract a lot of media fans.

Valencia is also relaxed.

Valencia lost to Millwall in the first round, but in the next three rounds, they played very well, and they also had three more points than their rival Roma, even if Roma defeated Shakhtar Donetsk in this round and Valencia lost to Millwall, as long as Valencia can beat or draw at home to Roma in the last round, they can still qualify as second in the group.

There are two types of cases.

Valencia defeated Roma, naturally with more points than Rome; In the draw with Roma, Valencia can also beat Roma to finish second in the group with the advantage of winning and losing.

All of this is premised on the terrible situation of Valencia losing to Millwall and Roma beating Shakhtar Donetsk.

Therefore, Valencia's qualifying situation is very good, but head coach Enrique Flores still hopes to control his fate early, if he can beat Millwall in this round, Valencia will be invincible in the final round.

Flores still hasn't said a little bit of caution: he wants to lead Valencia to revenge!

It's also a battle of face!

In the first leg of the Champions League group stage, Valencia lost at home to Millwall, and after the game, the Spanish media caricatured him for nothing, believing that he did not pay attention to the game with the 'reigning Premier League champions', and Valencia made careless mistakes to lead to the home loss to Millwall.

The Spanish media is better, such as "As" and "Marca" are just criticizing, hoping that Valencia can do better, and the Catalan media is even more hateful, they caricature Flores as a 'clown', the article of "World Sports" says, "We have long reminded Flores, Millwall was the Premier League champion last season, after the Champions League group draw, the young manager Zhang Yang also said that Millwall drew a good draw, obviously Flores is very unconvinced, Maybe he thinks Valencia has drawn a good draw. The result? Valencia easily lost at home to Millwall and the answer was obvious. ”

"Compared with Millwall's young coach Zhang Yang, Flores has no other advantages at all except to live a few more years, Valencia's future is bleak under his leadership, and the next time Valencia challenges Millwall away, it probably won't have any good results......

Flores was so sarcastically that her mood can be imagined.

Now Valencia are away at Millwall, and Flores is desperate to lead Valencia to a win over their opponents and prove to the Spanish media that his Valencia are not soft persimmons.

So it's a battle of revenge, a battle of face!

Flores believes that the game is in Valencia's favor, although the venue is Neil Stadium, Valencia is certainly not as hard as Millwall sitting on their own turf waiting for the game, but Millwall has already secured a place in advance, there is no reason to give it their all in this game.

The match between the two teams is closely watched.

Roma are also keeping a close eye on the game, and in an interview, Roma coach Luciano Spalletti said he hopes Millwall can abide by the work ethic and not let Valencia out if qualification is confirmed.

This is crucial.

If Millwall loses, no matter how hard Roma tries, they will hardly have a chance.

Under the grim situation in Rome, the Italian media paid a lot of attention to the game, and there were Italian reporters before the game, who asked Millwall about the preparation of the game.

Zhang Yang still answered patiently.

But in response to the reporter's question of 'whether Millwall will release water', Zhang Yang did not make a statement.

Zhang Yang is also experienced, he knows that this is a 'pit' question, even if he answers that he will not release water, but what if Millwall loses the game? The Italian media will also say that Millwall released water.

No matter how you answer it, it will be regarded as 'releasing water', and the question of how to say it is wrong is simply not to express its position, and what the Italian media says will not affect Millwall, and not expressing its position is the most correct answer.