Chapter 304: Mourinho's Conundrum

The same city, the same night, but two days of ice and fire. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Blues fans took to the streets with full beer mugs, muffled the anthem and frantically celebrated their next league title. Fans of Arsenal, Tottenham and other teams were sad and closed doors.

Stimulated by fireworks and alcohol, there were also some brawls in the streets and alleys of the city, as usual, and from time to time drunk fans were thrown out of bars by hostile fans.

But none of this has anything to do with the Chelsea players.

Despite having just won the trophy, chairman Bruce Barker informed the team that the celebration dinner would be postponed, and the owner Abu hoped that everyone could win Barcelona and advance to the last four of the Champions League.

So the team just opened a few bottles of champagne in the dressing room, had a brief celebration, and went home to rest. The next day, the team flew to Barcelona for acclimatization training.

The big game is approaching, and the atmosphere in the team is getting tense. After Shi Hao returned to the hotel after training and a brief interview, he buried his head in the system to simulate the next game.

However, the results are not encouraging. This Barcelona team is indeed in full swing, and it cannot be said that there are no weaknesses, but when playing at home, they still show unparalleled attacking power.

After 5 simulated matches, the scores were 2:2, 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, and 2:2.

After exiting the system, Shi Hao could only smile bitterly. The results of these five simulated matches were all Chelsea eliminated from the competition.

Of course, in reality, the on-the-spot adjustments of the managers of both sides are likely to make different changes in the game, and the performance of the players will also make the course of the game go in different directions.

However, these 5 simulated matches are still a rough comparison of the strength of the two sides. It should be said that Chelsea's strength is not necessarily weaker than Barcelona's, but the failure to win at home really puts Chelsea at an extreme disadvantage.

If Mourinho can't come up with something new, the team is likely to collapse.

Mourinho's side have already won two titles this season, but his tactics are not without controversy.

On the one hand, it is his guiding ideology of focusing on defense, which leads to the team's lack of good play. But Chelsea players, including Shi Hao, don't see it that way, what does it matter if it's good or not? It is real to have a champion to start and get honors and bonuses.

The second aspect is to put too much emphasis on possession in the middle and in the midfield. The main reason for Chelsea's good defense this season is the consistency of possession in central midfield, even using Oscar, Willian, Ramires and even Eden Hazard as defensive players when necessary, and also requiring Cesc Fabregas to drop enough times to support Nemanja Matic and get enough passing fulcrums in central midfield. The defense was solid enough, but the team was too slow to advance on offense.

The third aspect is that he puts too much emphasis on midfield scrambling and high pressing. He asked his players to make sure the ball was back in their hands more quickly on the pitch, or to disrupt the opposition's tactics and movements, so as to gain time and space for the overall defense.

But the Blues' high pressing up front is also controversial, with Diego sacrificing on the one hand. Costa's threat and pressure on the opponent's backline, as well as the retreat defense of Hazard, Shi Hao, Fabregas and others, will also sacrifice part of their attacking talent and lose many opportunities to attack the goal; On the other hand, the attrition of the frontcourt players will also increase.

When Costa first joined the club, he set a record of seven goals in four games, but then his form was gone. This has something to do with the impact of his injury, but the bigger reason is Mourinho's tactical problems.

Don't look at Chelsea's ability to play big against weak teams, but when playing strong teams, the lack of attack is exposed.

The fourth is in the rib attack. Winning the ball through high pressing, with breakthrough players such as Shi Hao, Eden Hazard and Oscar, Chelsea's movement up front has been enriched, and the combination of passing in the middle of the side is guaranteed, and the rib attack is very important. However, from the perspective of the field, Chelsea pays too much attention to defense as a whole, so the troops invested in the positional battle are limited, and if the rib attack basically cannot play a decent match, it is often relied on Shi Hao, Hazard, and Oscar's individual single-handedness to solve the problem, so the offensive efficiency is relatively low.

For example, the two draws against Manchester City fully show that under the tone of equal strength, technical superiority can still prevail in the face of the overall defense.

The fact that they conceded five goals away at Tottenham and three at home to Barcelona shows that the Blues' individual defensive effect is quite poor in sports warfare.

At home against Manchester United and away against Arsenal, they gave up the ball and tried to put the bus to the extreme. Winning is winning, but the team's tactical rigidity and Mourinho's conservative use of troops are also really present.

If there is enough troops at hand, no one will be willing to put the bus. The individual defensive ability of Chelsea players is indeed a problem, John Terry is no longer stable, Cahill makes frequent mistakes, Branislav Ivanovic has begun to fluctuate, the youngster Kurt Zouma has not yet grown up, the new signing Felipe has not played at all, and Azpilicueta is strong in attack and weak in defense...... So Mourinho can only helplessly use the numerical advantage to solve the defensive problem.

To make matters worse, Chelsea's rotation has not been good this season. Drogba is clearly the one who cares about the water cooler and has to fight the bayonet first. When Fabregas is not in good shape or is being stared at, there is no other midfielder who can transform into the core of the organization, and Shi Hao is often required to retreat to organize and sacrifice Shi Hao's offensive ability, which is also quite embarrassing.

In general, the three goals conceded at home to Barcelona were caused by the defender's lack of ability when playing one-on-one with the Barcelona attacker. If Mourinho doesn't want to concede too many goals in the away game against Barcelona, he can only put the bus in the box.

But if the bus is out, the team's attacking power will be reduced, and Chelsea need to win away from home, and results like 0:0, 1:1 will only lead to Chelsea's elimination.

That's the dilemma Mourinho faces.

Shi Hao thought about it for a long time and didn't get an answer, so he could only sigh and go to bed. All he can do is do his duty on the pitch. Tactical, he can't do anything about it.

At the pre-match press conference, Mourinho did not bring Shi Hao to attend. In the past few days, the Spanish media has been frantically hyping the news that Shi Hao will transfer to Barcelona or Real Madrid next season, and Mourinho is unwilling to let Shi Hao face the media at this time, so as not to affect his form.