Sixty-six!

On his desk in the office of the head coach at the Cobham training base in south-west London, Villas-Boas has in front of him the front-page headline of the Sun, the UK's best-selling newspaper and the most influential among the UK's readership.

On the cover are two big bright red Arabic numerals 66, which are the unbeaten record of Tottenham Hotspur after the 16th round of the Premier League, and they have played a total of 66 games unbeaten in the Premier League.

Underneath the front-page headline was a subheadline, "Will the next one be the end of the saga?" ”

The accompanying photo is Ye Qiu's team after the 1:1 draw away to Stoke City, the head coach Ye Qiu has a disappointed expression, as long as anyone sees this photo, the first reaction is that Ye Qiu is very disappointed, even desperate, helpless despair, and then has an association, the next game may be the end of the legend.

The entire front page is occupied by Tottenham Hotspur, and the Sun has really put a lot of effort into designing the layout, and to be able to make the commercial Sun, pay so much attention to it, and even make great efforts to do this kind of thing, it can be seen that almost the whole of the United Kingdom, the whole of Europe, and even the whole world will pay attention to Tottenham Hotspur.

Unbeaten in 66 games, Tottenham Hotspur is fifth in the all-time unbeaten list, behind Abidjan Mimosa from Ivory Coast with 108 games, Romanian side Bucharest Star with 104 games in second place, Tunisian side Esperance with 85 games in third place, and Egyptian side Al Ali with 71 games in fourth place.

This is indeed a very surprising record, because all of these teams are not competing in the Premier League, whether they are at the top of the table or at the bottom of the table.

You know, the current Premier League is a crowd of champions, chaos, there are not only Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool such old giants, but also Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea such as new giants, more Manchester City, Newcastle and West Ham United such local tyrant teams, plus the strength of Everton, Aston Villa and other teams, the competitiveness of the entire Premier League is very good, and even many fans regard the current Premier League as a reappearance of the seven sisters of Serie A.

But in the eyes of professionals, the competition in the Premier League is more brutal and fierce than the period of the Seven Sisters of Serie A, because the Premier League has a tighter schedule, more cups, no winter break, and the climate is not as good as Italy, all of which contribute to the Premier League's unique appeal, but also create a fierce competition in the Premier League.

In this case, Tottenham Hotspur can stand out from so many teams, and the quality of this team is absolutely unquestionable, but the question is, who can stop Tottenham Hotspur?

Boas is a head coach, he is only in his twenties and has been in charge of himself, very similar to Ye Qiu, but he is not as lucky as Ye Qiu, at least in his opinion, Ye Qiu is the lucky one of the times.

Why?

Take a look at Ye Qiu's resume, when he was at Ajax, it happened to be the lowest period in Ajax's history, the youth training staff was poached by Barcelona, and he stood out, and was promoted to the second team as the head coach because of his outstanding results in leading the youth team.

At that time, the Ajax first team fell into chaos and frequently changed coaches, but the second team led by Ye Qiu created a miracle and won the Dutch Cup, which was almost a myth for Ajax, which had fallen into **** at that time, so he took over the position of Ajax at a young age.

This is his opportunity, and it is also because he does have such strength!

The timing of Ye Qiu's Ajax is also very coincidental, if he is just in the Netherlands, there is no problem, because the Eredivisie does not have much attention, but he won the League Cup first, and then took advantage of the fact that almost all the big teams suffered Waterloo, defeated Porto to win the Champions League, it was another opportunity.

That year's Champions League final was called the most impactless final since the restructuring!

Ye Qiu seized both opportunities, and both did quite well, so he naturally left Ajax, left the Netherlands, which could no longer satisfy him, and came to the Premier League in the coaxing of Barcelona, Inter Milan and other giants, and took over Chelsea, which was ambitious at the time.

This is the third chance of Ye Qiu's coaching career, because at that time, Abramovich almost wrote him a blank check, he waved the check in his hand, and went to the transfer market everywhere to buy the players he needed, so it took him a year to build the strongest Chelsea in history that is still talked about by countless Blues fans.

A Champions League, two Champions League finals, and a Premier League title, this is a generous gift from Ye Qiu to Chelsea fans, and it can also be seen as the most cost-effective deal Abramovich has made in the more than eight years since he took over Chelsea.

Villas-Boas has been Mourinho's right-hand man since the Porto period, and he is still the same after coming to Chelsea, he can be said to have witnessed the rise of Ye Qiu, and even he and Mourinho once mentioned Ye Qiu, although the Portuguese madman said that Ye Qiu was lucky on the surface, but he also said that his most unlucky thing is that he came to Chelsea two years later than Ye Qiu.

From this sentence, we can understand Mourinho's complex feelings of helplessness and unconvinced, but at the same time admiration.

No matter how good the Chelsea he led is, in the eyes of all Chelsea fans, he is the one who takes over Ye Qiu's team, and all his achievements must be divided into more than half of Ye Qiu, and even in the eyes of Abramovich, no matter how good and excellent he is, there is still no way to compare with Ye Qiu.

Perhaps, Mendes is right, Ye Qiu is Abramovich's first love, and it is also the first love that left him with indelible scars!

Sometimes, Villas-Boas has to admit that the successful rise of a manager needs opportunities, and the strength of the manager can ensure that when the opportunity comes, they can seize it, but there are also many managers who have the strength but miss the opportunity again and again.

He always knew what he wanted to do, so he was an assistant coach to Robson and Jose Mourinho in order to improve his quality and gain more experience, and when the opportunity came, he stepped up and coached alone, and then he made a name for himself in Porto.

But after coming to Chelsea, he had to sigh that he still fell on the opportunity.

Chelsea are an aging team, and before Boas took over, he had a contact with Roman Abramovich, who told him that he would fully support Boas's reform at Chelsea and promote the restructuring of Chelsea.

Even Frank Lampard, including John Terry and others who have been involved in disputes over his wife's door, have been included in the transfer list.

On the one hand, he knows very well that the team's problem is in the midfield, and it is necessary to bring in a strong midfielder, and there are already problems in the backline, but the biggest problem is, Abramovich and Pini? Zahavi did not bring in a strong midfielder and defender for him.

Mereles, Romelu Lukaku, Romeu, two midfielders and a striker, spent a lot of money, but it did not have much effect on the improvement of the team, and they also sold players such as Zhirkov and Nemanja Matic.

What's really bad is that when Villas-Boas was forced to take the aging Chelsea team with him after the league started, he slowly implemented his own reforms, but Abramovich and the management repeatedly expressed their dissatisfaction with the team's results.

When Villas-Boas wanted to make drastic reforms, rejuvenate and technologise and even put Frank Lampard on the bench, the team's results soon began to fluctuate and the management began to put pressure on the coaching staff again, and they did not want to repeat the tragedy of not being able to play in the Champions League last season, because they believed that by losing the Champions League, Chelsea would soon lose the aura of a big team.

You want results, you want reform, you have to face the veterans of stars like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and even Nicolas Anelka in the dressing room, and you have to promote the young players in the team to take on big responsibilities, how can there be such a cheap thing in the world? Who can do that?

Blowing leaves and autumn all day long, blowing Tottenham Hotspur, don't you see that Tottenham Hotspur is also selling Yaya? Toure, after missing out on the Champions League result, promoted Phil? Jones and Ramsey, while selling Cesc Fabregas and David? After Silva, Tottenham Hotspur brought in Vidal and promoted Pogba, Eriksen and others to the position?

Reform must go through labor pains and bloodshed and sacrifice!

Villas-Boas has been through a lot when he takes over Chelsea, and he finds himself imagining a big club manager too simply, thinking that as long as they can develop better, more reasonable and winning tactics for the team, or as long as they can make the players feel that the team is improving, they will support him.

But when he came to Chelsea, he found out that he was wrong, because the management will interfere with your decision-making, and a lot of players in the team will look at you with all kinds of colored glasses, even against you, and you have to bring the team out well and get results in this complex environment of interference and resistance.

If nothing else, let's just say that recently, the media broke the news that Hiddink, who broke up with the Turkish Football Association, said that he would not refuse Chelsea's offer, which is definitely a big threat to Boas, but the bigger threat is that Mourinho returned to London and bought the mansion he rented before, almost all the media declared that Mourinho will return to the Premier League next summer, which team will he coach?

In addition, Boas found that many people in the coaching staff had a bit of a negative attitude towards him, and he was even speculating whether someone wanted to fall into the trap for him and replace him?

Did some of the players whose interests were hurt by his arrival incite a revolt against him in the dressing room?

All of this has made Boas feel unprecedented pressure, and it is too difficult for him to solve these problems, really too hard!

But he decided to stick with it because he knew very well that coaching Chelsea was a bottleneck for him, and if he broke through, he could become one of Europe's top managers, but if he failed, he would return to the ranks of Europe's second-rate managers, and it is unknown whether there will be a chance to coach the giants in the future.

If you want to continue to manage Chelsea, Villas-Boas has to show his quality and quality, and he has to win over all the Chelsea fans and the club's management with a win, a convincing victory, and tell them that if you trust me, if you give me time, I will be able to give you something back!

There is no doubt that the away challenge to Tottenham Hotspur is the last battle for Villas-Boas to decide his own position!

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Before this high-profile battle, Ye Qiu got a report from the analysis team.

Although Chelsea's head coach Villas-Boas has repeatedly stressed that Chelsea's problem is not in defence, in fact, in this report, it is very clear that Boas's remarks are more of a dead duck's mouth.

Perhaps, in a way, he is right, because if the defenders are replaced by defence, the Chelsea defenders are not a problem, but the key problem is in the midfield.

Of course, many media outlets have been analysing it before, such as Chelsea's two full-backs, Bosingwa and Ashley? Kerr is stronger offensively than defensively, and Ashley? Cole is also too young to balance attack and defensively, so the wings of the full-backs have always been a major weakness in Chelsea's defence.

The other is the combination of central defenders, David? Luiz has not been able to produce satisfactory results since he joined the team, and Branislav Ivanovic has struggled to believe that he is Terry's best partner, so Villas-Boas has been adjusting the centre-back combination.

But none of this goes to the point, and the key core factor is Mikel.

Villas-Boas's main tactical formation is also 433, his tactics are also high-pressure high defensive tactics, and he has always advocated that Chelsea should build on Carlo Ancelotti's technical side.

It should be said that Villas-Boas got the point, because all the 433 tactics of high defending, especially those who want to play possession, possession and combing at the edge of the opposition's 30-metre zone are crucial, even if you are just crossing.

Looking at Chelsea's entire lineup, Mikel was ridiculed by many fans as the emperor of the cross, in fact, he is a key member of Chelsea's current style of play, but the crux of the problem is that Mikel himself is not a similar Yaya? Defenders like Toure, Mascherano or Claude Makellele.

Mikel has a poor ability to move, so in the game, he looks like a consistent pick-and-shoot point in the backfield similar to Sergio Busquets, but herein lies the problem, in front of Busquets is a group of Barcelona players who are very active and good at pressing, and they can share the pressure of Busquets' defence.

Just like Tottenham Hotspur now, Pirlo's mobility is also relatively poor, but Ramsey and Vidal, as well as Cavani and others in the front, can reasonably share the pressure of Pirlo, so this is not a problem.

The problem for Chelsea is that Ramires and Frank Lampard struggle to juggle both attack and defence, meaning they can support and support the team in attack, but at a defensive level, they can't support Mikel effectively.

The same can be said for Tottenham Hotspur, if Ramsey and Vidal don't support Pirlo, then Tottenham's defence will be a mess, but as long as they come to the aid and have someone around Pirlo at all times, then Tottenham's midfield will become stable.

It's not just a matter of individual players, it's a question of how the whole defensive system is arranged, and that's the responsibility of Villas-Boas, who has clearly made a serious mistake in dealing with this issue.

Some people may say, "Don't Boas understand the question you're talking about?"

No, he understands, but he can't do anything about it!

In the first eight rounds of the league, Chelsea have played six wins, one draw and one defeat, scoring 20 goals and conceding seven, in terms of wins and losses, Boas's team is not bad, they were third in the league at the time, but if you look closely, you will find that they have conceded goals in almost every game.

When you lose a goal, everyone naturally thinks it's a defender's problem, but the problem is not only the defender, but also the overall aging of Chelsea, and it is no longer appropriate for you to adopt this kind of high-intensity pressing and full-court pressing tactics, because the players can't run like this at all!

Tottenham Hotspur run so much every game, and that's because they're young!

Ramsey, Vidal, Eriksen, Coutinho, Pogba, Phil? Jones, Sandro, which one is not a young player?

But if you look at Chelsea on the other hand, Didier Drogba, Malouda, Nicolas Anelka, Frank Lampard, Essien, Meireles, Ramirez, Mikel, there are so many veterans over 30, and you still insist on running so many tactics, which is a problem in itself.

Why, then, is it said that Boas is powerless?

The reason is very simple, he will only play this set of tactics!

In fact, the head coach is just like the player, with the accumulation of experience, their coaching ability and coaching methods will become more and more, just like Ancelotti, before Juventus, he could only defend, after coming to AC Milan, he learned to arrange tactics according to the players, and with the accumulation of experience, played control flow football, and transformed Pirlo.

The same is true for a lot of players, such as Gareth? Bale, who was born at left-back, started to rely on his speed and explosiveness to rampage, played his own style, and gradually transformed, from left to right, began to cut inward with his back foot, continued to enrich his offensive means and improve his strength.

Villas-Boas cannot be blamed entirely for his tragedy, as Chelsea have invited him to coach without ever thinking about whether the manager is the right fit for them, and they have taken a fancy to it, ignoring whether the young Villas-Boas has what it takes to lead an aging Chelsea side.

In Ye Qiu's view, Boas's trip to Chelsea was a tragedy from beginning to end, a tragedy of mismatched marriage!