Chapter 111: Breaking the Shield

After returning to Birmingham with a heavy League Cup trophy, Villa's Devil's schedule for February has finally come to an end. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. biquge。 Surrounded by strong opponents, Villa still have five wins and two draws in seven games in February. And these two draws are both Premier League games, which is simply inconsequential for Villa, who are at the top of the standings.

After February's fixtures, Villa have reached 21 wins and five draws in the league this season, continuing to sit at the top of the table. Manchester United are still in second place, but the gap between them and Villa has been stretched to nine points. Tottenham Hotspur once again overtook Chelsea on points with Manchester United and were temporarily third on goal difference. Chelsea were not only overtaken by Tottenham, but Manchester City also caught up, one point ahead of Chelsea in fourth place, while the Blues fell to fifth, and only two points behind Liverpool.

……

The so-called bitterness and sweetness describe Aston Villa, who ended the devil's schedule. Compared to February, Villa's schedule in March is like heaven.

Three league games, an FA Cup, one Champions League, Villa's all-of March are just five games.

Not only that, but the opponents of these five games are not worth mentioning for Villa.

In the 27th round of the league, Villa swept Reading 4-0 at home.

In the second leg of the Champions League round of 16, Villa drew 2:2 with Atletico Madrid away and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Champions League with an aggregate score of 6:3.

In the 28th round of the league, Leicester City lost 1:5 and returned from Villa Park.

In the FA Cup quarter-finals, Villa swept the Championship team Millwall 5-0 away.

In the 29th round of the league, Villa defeated Stoke City 4:1 and won all three points from the away.

Five games, four wins and one draw, that result doesn't seem perfect. But you must know that Villa's draw has a premise, that is, in the first leg of the battle between Villa and Atletico Madrid, Villa has a 4:1 lead. So in this second leg of the game, after Villa led 2:0 at halftime, Wang Shuai directly replaced three substitutes in the second half, that is, in the 45 minutes of garbage time when Villa half-gave up the game, Atletico Madrid scored two face-saving goals.

Compared to Villa's ease, the other teams at the top of the table are not so peaceful.

At the same time as Villa's big win over Leicester City, two other strong matchups are also in full swing. In the end, Arsenal drew 1-1 with Chelsea away, and Manchester United lost 1-4 to White Hart Lane. The draw was a recipe for a slumping Chelsea side as Liverpool swept away the attacking Brighton 3-1 at Anfield and the Reds pushed Chelsea into sixth place with a win and goal difference. Tottenham, on the other hand, successfully overtook Manchester United and rose to second place in the standings with the victory in this round.

However, Tottenham's good times were short-lived, in the next round of the league, they drew 3-3 away to Everton, while Manchester United beat West Ham United 6-1 away, but the victory in the previous round gave Tottenham a points advantage, allowing them to retain the second place after the draw.

At the same time, the Champions League is also bad news for Premier League teams.

Liverpool lost to Bayern Munich 1:5 in two games, ending their Champions League journey in shame. Manchester City and Monaco staged two goal battles, the two legs ended in a 6-6 draw, and finally left the Champions League due to the disadvantage of away goals. Chelsea, on the other hand, were eliminated in the second leg after a narrow 1-0 win at home to Sevilla.

As a result, Villa has become the only remaining team to advance to the quarterfinals this season.

……

If March was a bitter month for Villa, April was a good month.

With six league games, two Champions League games and an FA Cup, Villa played almost twice as many games in April as they did last month.

Fortunately, there are not many "heavyweight" fights in these nine fights, only three. They are league opponents Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, and FA Cup semi-final opponents Chelsea.

Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, two teams with very different styles, are no longer a threat to Villa, because no matter which team Villa face, Wang has an effective way to deal with it.

The only thing that gave Wang Shuai a headache was Chelsea.

The two meetings with Chelsea this season ended 0-0, and the intensity of the Blues' defence can be imagined. And if Wang Shuai is asked to choose a team that he least wants to face, Chelsea is definitely his first choice, and there is no one.

However, Wang Shuai does not have any effective means of dealing with it now, so he can only attack hard.

As a result, this FA Cup semi-final became a one-sided offensive performance for Villa. Yes, it's an attack, it's not a shot, it's not a shot.

As mentioned before, there are only two ways to crack the accelerated version of TF-BP tactics, one is to use faster speed, and the other is to rely on tacit area defense to block the opponent out of the penalty area.

Chelsea's approach is the second.

Unlike Liverpool and Arsenal, Chelsea's defensive line-up hasn't changed for two or three seasons, and the chemistry is naturally not the same. Add to that the maestro England international defender Brandt, and it's really not an exaggeration to say that Chelsea's defence is an iron bucket.

In such a situation, Villa did not get many good shots on goal throughout the game, and the only few long-range shots were disrupted without threat.

And against the two sides, in the regular 90 minutes, the battle was 0:0 again.

Fortunately, when the game went into extra time, Wang Shuai finally came up with a way to deal with it: set-piece tactics.

After thinking of this tactic, Wang Shuai was not only annoyed. Since sports warfare can't work, it's better not to exercise at all, why do you have to go head-to-head with the opponent's strengths. If I thought of this method earlier, the previous two duels would not have been so passive, and even now I have broken a few more records.

It's just that no matter which world you have no regrets, all Wang Shuai can do now is to try his best to win this game first.

Fortunately, the set-piece tactics worked.

As soon as extra-time began, Villa's attacking intensity intensified. This offensive intensity does not refer to the frequency of shots or the speed of running, but the intensity of physical confrontation. Under the frequent physical contact between Villa's attacking players and Chelsea's defenders, the referee's whistle almost never stopped, and although many of them were fouled by Villa, it has to be said that Villa won more free kicks in the entire extra-time than in the previous 90 minutes of regular time.

And in such a situation, Wang Shuai's superb shooting skills finally came in handy.

In the 99th minute, on the left side of the arc of the penalty area, Wang Shuai scored with a direct free kick.

In the 113th minute, ten meters before the middle circle, Zhou Aniu took a long indirect free kick to the penalty area, and after being cleared by the opponent, Wang Shuai scored a long shot in front of the penalty area.

2:0, Villa turned the tide in extra time, eliminated Chelsea, the strongest shield in the Premier League, and entered the FA Cup final.