Many reports have used the term 'crisis' to describe Millwall's situation.

As a promoted horse, the most important thing to face is the decline in performance caused by the depth of the bench, and every season there will be weak teams that start well and drop sharply as soon as the league is more than halfway through.

This is a common problem.

Many teams with good results in the first half have a similar situation, the only thing that they don't have can only talk about three teams: Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, even Arsenal can't talk about it, and in recent seasons, there are only three teams in Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, and the results in the second half are similar.

Chelsea and Manchester United have been doing very well and occasionally getting better and better.

Liverpool, on the other hand, have always been average.

Arsenal also have some bench depth issues and their results start to slip halfway through the season.

Millwall?

Of course, the situation will be more serious!

The media didn't have to think much about it to come to this conclusion. In fact, this is not an irony, those teams that are not mentioned by name mean that the results have not been good, and the first half of the season has not been good, and there is no way to talk about the decline in results.

Millwall are eligible to be talked about because they are second in the league and have been a very good result so far.

The team with good results in the first half, whether the results in the second half of the season declined, depends on the team's heritage, directly speaking, the depth of the bench, on the contrary, such as Manchester United, the more the league is in the later stage, the results will get better and better, Manchester United rarely has a very good start time, but every year there are competition for championship qualifications, those teams that have a surprising performance at the beginning of the game, many will be in the middle of the league, the results will slowly fall, by these giants with a background to overtake.

This is already something that has become a 'law'.

Millwall was included in the law.

Charlton became Millwall's 'hard brother' and the two teams were mentioned together. Charlton Athletic's results have also been very good, with five wins, two draws and one defeat in the first eight rounds to sit fourth in the league, just three points less than Millwall and Manchester United.

The London area media continued to analyze this point, and the Guardian and Manchester Sport also joined in, and the latter two media joined for a simple reason: Millwall and Charlton are both London area teams, and as the big Manchester area media, they naturally join in the ranks of criticising London area teams.

These reports and remarks sound very unpleasant.

But I have to admit that the analysis of the content of the report is very true, most teams do have this problem, and Millwall's bench depth is difficult to support the whole season, and the last game against Manchester City, the rotation is also the key reason for the draw.

Fortunately, the report did not affect Millwall fans, perhaps because of the result of Zhang Yang's 'low profile', Millwall fans believe that the team's goal is only relegation, as long as they can complete the relegation, they are very satisfied, as for the media to say that the results have declined, they have long been prepared.

There are still some players in the Millwall team who are discussing, especially those who are 'supplementing the bench' depth, even if they know the gap between themselves and the main team, but they can be directly denied strength, how can they feel very uncomfortable.

On the contrary, these players are more active in training, and they hope to be able to become a main force one day, instead of 'negative strength' that has not been mentioned by name in the media.

A week later, Mill welcomed a new competition, the English League Cup.

The history of the English League Cup is interesting.

The competition was initiated by the Football League, which was founded in 1886 and originally dominated all 92 professional clubs in England at all levels, but in 1992, the 20 teams in the English First Division were ' After the establishment of the Super League parallel to the Mutiny', there are only 72 clubs left under its umbrella, since the level of the club in charge is not the highest, the weight of the speech is naturally not as good as before, and if you want to let the Premier League club participate in the League Cup, it is natural to look at the face of others, and the League Cup is more lonely, and it is even less than the FA Cup.

The League Cup is already behind the Premier League and FA Cup, and for the top clubs in the Premier League, the League Cup is just a game to train substitutes.

For these clubs, ignoring the League Cup is also a helpless move, because in addition to participating in the league, FA Cup, League Cup, they also have to participate in the lucrative UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup, if the results are very good, the number of games in nine months of a season can reach nearly seventy, an average of nearly two games a week, no team can withstand such a dense schedule, so some of the top teams will send a large number of bench players and even youth teams to participate in the competition.

The mid-table clubs of the Premier League have long lacked the quality to win the league title and can win the Carabao Cup without the big clubs taking it seriously to boost morale, while also using it as a second way to qualify for the Europa League.

Some small and medium-sized clubs can use the League Cup to get the opportunity to play against strong teams, and use the light to appear on TV and newspapers, which can not only generate ticket and TV broadcast revenue, but also expand their influence.

So the League Cup is a stage of multiple mentalities.

Millwall's mentality can only be 'training', in the eyes of the public, Millwall is just a relegation team, the League Cup can be fought for or as much as possible, but Zhang Yang's goal is to lead the team to the top four, even if he only participates in the Premier League, Millwall's bench depth is a little urgent, let alone to participate in the Cup, Zhang Yang decided early.

When he officially joined the League Cup and met his first opponent, Rotherham, Zhang Yang only sent a substitute lineup - a starting team of 442 system.

The only players who can be regarded as the main players in the starters are Joey Healy and Livermore, and all other positions are substitutes.

The goalkeeper was replaced by Graham Stark.

The double striker was Neil Harris and Jamie Vardy, with Curtis Weston also getting a start, playing right midfield in place of Josh Simpson.

When it is said to be military training, it is military training.

Zhang Yang wants to carefully observe Vardy's performance in the game, Vardy is still the first time to represent Millwall, he is a player that Zhang Yang values very much, but he is still too young, and it is difficult to say whether he can play in a short time.

Jamie Gundy is a difficult player.

For example, Darren Bent, it is easy to play, he can also play as a full-back, he can play multiple positions such as left and right forward, center forward, full-back, etc., it is too easy to play.

Braniff and Vardy are both players who can only play forward, so it doesn't mean that they can't play other positions, but their performance will be affected if they change positions.

Curtis Weston is a bit better, he has been a substitute for the team, and when he was promoted to the first team last season, Wise has made him change the frontcourt position continuously, left and right forward, central midfielder is what he is good at, but it is the striker that Zhang Yang asked him to try to play.

It is necessary to use the Carabao Cup to observe the performance of the players, especially Weston, Vardy and a few defenders on the bench, when always playing in the main line-up, there are some inaccurate judgments about the performance of the substitutes. The data of the word spirit calculation is not the only one, the data seems to be very accurate, but football is never the data can explain everything, the strength is not enough and it is not necessarily not good, some players are very strong, but when it comes to the game, there is always no good performance, on the contrary, some players are competitive players, and they can have a good performance whenever they play.

During the course of this League Cup, Zhang Yang carefully observed the performance of several players, and he also asked Wise to watch carefully together to make a reasonable judgment on the performance of the players.

Curtis Weston was in good form, playing at right-back, showing pace and good link-ups, with a long ball and a chance to give Livermore a direct volley into the back of the net.

Jamie Vardy's performance was a surprise.

The vast majority of people are not optimistic about Vardy, and the media will not even mention Vardy's name when analyzing Millwall's lineup, and many people think that Vardy is just buying and putting him in the youth team when he sees potential.

This is already exalted.

Previously, Vardy only played for one non-professional league team, and Millwall's youth team played in the regional league, which was much higher, and it was rare for a young player in the non-professional league to join a Premier League team and have the opportunity to play.

As for what it can do? It's like opening Mike Johnson's doubts, "Vardy played? Zhang Yang is probably going to give up the League Cup......"

Jamie Vardy's performance was not as bad as he could have imagined.

Although Vardy did not score in the whole game, he did a good job of cooperating with his team-mates and there were no major problems in the game, as summarized by the statistics: 41 touches, 32 passes, 2 tackles, 3 shots, 1 shot on target, zero goals.

That's a bit of a bad statistic.

If Braniff and Darren Bent were to play this kind of statistic, Zhang Yang would consider removing them from the main position, but for a backup forward, it is a qualified statistic, and even Neil Harris is only slightly better than Vardy's stats.

That's all.

Neil Harris had four shots on goal, also only once on target and also failed to get on target.

It was surprising that Vardy could perform like this, and even Wise was surprised to agree, "This guy might be a genius!" "A few months ago, Vardy only played for an amateur league team, and he wasn't an absolute mainstay in that amateur team, only making occasional appearances.

It's a bit unbelievable to be on par with Millwall's fringe bench right now.

Zhang Yang nodded with satisfaction.

In the memory of his previous life, Vardy would come to Lescott City to play and become one of the top scorers in England, but that was after 2010, and it was too early to do so.

"Maybe Vardy will be famous sooner." Zhang Yang was a little excited when he thought about it, which was caused by the butterfly effect he brought, which was almost equivalent to changing the future.

Myself...... Did you change the future?

How interesting!

In the end, Millwall beat Rotherham 2-1 at home to win the Carabao Cup.

Zhang Yang felt a little regretful.

In fact, Zhang Yang's consideration is to lose to the opponent early, and the team does not need to think about the League Cup, defeating the opponent said that he will participate in the next round of the competition, but there are also benefits, you can continue to use the game to train.

"In the next League Cup, keep sending all the substitutes!"

Zhang Yang made a decision again.

After playing the League Cup, Millwall can not rest, the next round of the league is only three days apart, the opponent is McClaren's Middlesbrough, a very headache team, they are known as the 'giant killers', the league ranking is only in the middle, but when playing against strong teams, they can burst out with high morale, such as they drew with Liverpool, defeated Arsenal, and also lost to Tottenham and Charlton Athletic.

This is an opponent with ups and downs.

The League Cup has not interrupted the league, and many media outlets continue to use 'Millwall performance analysis' as a gimmick to attract readers' attention while also looking down on Millwall's league results.

When Millwall met Middlesbrough, a lot of the media began to look favorably on Middlesbrough.

Zhang Yang is very familiar with the routines of the British media.

Whenever a team performs well, that is, after playing surprising results, the media begins to analyze all kinds of things, if you chase the team to analyze the 'good results', there must be few people who want to read it, but the analysis of 'bad results' can attract many readers.

Their analysis makes sense in some respects.

Millwall's bench depth problem is indeed very serious, and it is not even as good as Charlton's 'difficult brother', when the substitutes come on, the strength and the main squad cannot be compared at all, if there is a big injury problem, it will be the end.

Even so, Zhang Yang is still very unhappy.

Before the match against Middlesbrough, Zhang Yang said 'sincerely' at the press conference, "A lot of people said before the game that we were going to have a crisis because we have limited bench depth. Yes, I'll admit it, and I'd like to thank you all for the reminder that I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for you. It's a big problem, the Premier League opponents are too strong, we have a tough game and now we have a crisis. ”

When they heard Zhang Yang's words, the reporters in the audience were a little dazed.

Even if many media reports have analyzed the crisis that Millwall's bench depth may bring, as the team's head coach, shouldn't he refute it?

At least a few words to boost morale, right? Why did you admit it directly?

The script is wrong!

Middlesbrough's regional media didn't feel that much, and they thought that Zhang Yang was showing weakness because Millwall didn't have the confidence to beat Middlesbrough.

Middlesbrough are not as good as Millwall, but they are a traditional Premier League powerhouse, and the previous draw against Liverpool and defeat to Arsenal gave the team a lot of fighting spirit.

When it comes to strong teams, Middlesbrough can do well.

Millwall...... It's a strong team, right?

They are second in the league!

So in this game, if nothing else, Middlesbrough will definitely win, and it is understandable that the opposing coach is weak.

Middlesbrough regional media reporters were delighted.

But when the 90 minutes were over, their smiles froze on their faces, and the numbers on the scoreboard almost blinded them - Millwall beat Middlesbrough 4-1 at home.

From the first minute, there seemed to be little suspense in the game.

Millwall relied on home advantage to attack Middlesbrough and found it just three minutes to find the back of the net.

Millwall began to play a solid defense with the advantage of the score, and for most of the game, they also suppressed Middlesbrough, two goals in the first half, plus the opening goal in the second half, when the score rose to 3:0, anyone knew that Middlesbrough had no chance.

After the game, when Zhang Yang shook hands with McLaren, he was still smiling, turned his head and walked into the press conference, he became serious, his expression was even more serious before the game, just when the reporters felt strange, Zhang Yang said seriously, "We beat Middlesbrough and successfully got the three points at home, but I found that we are closer to the crisis!" ”

"Our goal is relegation, but in the current situation, we can't finish the relegation, I can't imagine how to play in the future, this is the sadness of the small club......"

At the beginning, the reporters in the audience listened carefully, but as the words continued, their faces began to turn blue.

The reporters finally knew why Zhang Yang said this!

Whether before or after the game, this young Chinese was not talking about any crisis at all, but purely sarcastic about their remarks, and their cheeks were snapped!

Didn't you say the crisis was coming?

I admit that Millwall has a bench depth problem, admit that the crisis is approaching, and then we won a big victory, and then we made sure that the crisis was approaching again, and said your possible reports in advance, even if you force your anger, the media do not dare to report like this, that is equivalent to the lower limit of the show IQ in the face of the fans, everyone can see that Zhang Yang is making fun of the media, they report like this, which is equivalent to telling the fans: We are caricatured by this young Chinese, and the fans will probably find it very interesting, But the face of the media is gone.

Now they want to take revenge, and they can only wait for the next opportunity.

On the night of the game, many people were surprised to find that the media that liked to report negative news about Millwall all died down, and only talked about the score of the Millwall game, and even criticized Middlesbrough, and seemed reluctant to mention this game.

Other reports were just praise.

Not all media are hostile, such as the Times, The Sun and other media will not find any gimmicks to criticize Millwall, they are big media in the first place, they have no regional hostile relationship with Millwall, let alone any friction, they do not have to do this, and their coverage of Millwall is only neutral.

When Millwall does well, the media will praise it. When the public opinion was full of praise, the mood of Zhang Yang became much more comfortable.

Millwall will now be preparing for the next round when they take on Liverpool at Anfield.