Bruce was surprised by the performance of Derby County, surprised by the strength of Derby County, this Derby County on the field did not see the kind of low-level league team at all, in terms of tactics and technical roughness, but many of their players were not worse than Birmingham in skills, and they also suppressed the team tactically.

Would such a team be a League One team?

It is said that they were still struggling with relegation last season and did not bring in any outstanding stars in the summer, but how did the opposing young Chinese coach do it when they have been able to make such a big change so far?

Bruce was somewhat incomprehensible.

Bruce was surprised and incredulous that he had led Birmingham City out of the lower leagues, and when he took over Birmingham, the team was only a team in the second division (third tier), but it took him six years to cross the team to the first division and become a member of the English Premier League.

With this experience, Bruce naturally knows that the lower league teams have problems.

Birmingham are better, after he took over, the team has been supported by millions of pounds of transfer funds every year, which has allowed him to buy some good players, and it is this slowly accumulated in this way that the team can now gain a foothold in the Premier League, but also have to fight for relegation every season.

What about Derbyshire?

They were fighting for relegation last season and basically didn't invest in the summer, but they are now showing the strength of the team, and they actually have ¢∞, ww◇w.

How is this possible?

At the same time, the Birmingham players on the field also felt the pressure of the game, they knew some news about Derby County before, most of them were about the opponent's young Chinese coaches, but they just looked at it as a gossip, and they didn't care too much about it, and Derby County's results also talked about some, but won Tottenham Hotspur and temporarily ranked first in the League One table. They did it a few years ago, and it's not a big deal at all.

How good can a League One team be?

Do you want to continue to win against Birmingham?

They don't believe it at all.

But having experienced the game firsthand, they found that there was no advantage at all, and they were already behind in the scoreline as they were scrambled by the Derby County attack.

They were a little overwhelmed.

How did the game come to be like this? Is this really 'just' a League One team?

In this game, Wansheng arranged a double-striker formation.

The two-striker formation, compared with the single striker, is not much sharper in attack, but somewhat tends to be balanced in attack and defense. After all, Birmingham is a Premier League team, how to face it cautiously, a balanced offensive and defensive style of play can allow the team and Birmingham to fight head-on, and there will be no big loopholes, this is the safest way to play.

But even with the two strikers, the team's tactical theme has not changed, and the attack is still centered on midfielder Morris and Ribery on the left wing. Ivan Crewe on the right was in the position and from the very beginning of the game, Derby County played in the atmosphere of the Pride Stadium.

Under the pressure of Derby's full-court pressing defense, the initiative soon fell into the hands of Derby.

Every Derby County player has taken the Wansheng advice to heart. "Be sure to pay attention to the formation and rhythm!"

This kind of advice is mainly aimed at a few players such as Morris, Ribery or Ivan Crewe who can guide the overall rhythm of the team, and the rest of the team only needs to pay attention to their position and follow the run, but this is also the core of the strategy. If the rest of the people can't keep up, tactics or anything is just empty talk.

Even the formation will be chaotic, talk about what is fast, fast. Speeding up, slowing down, is meaningless.

When it came to the game, the Derby players also did a good job, they faced the game calmly, no one would underestimate the opponent, although they beat Tottenham Hotspur, but beating one strong opponent does not mean that they can beat another, as a Premier League team, Birmingham can be called a strong opponent.

So Derby County was very serious, and the game also showed the strength of the team.

Their targeted attacking effect was quite obvious, especially the fast attack on the two flanks.

After finding that Birmingham's defense in the middle was very tight, Morris often handled the ball on the side, and then it was Frank Ribery's turn to play with Ivankrew, Ivankru was better, his foot skills were not very dazzling, so his choice was often to cooperate with his teammates to advance, Ribery was completely different, such as possible wrong passes, many times he believed in his foot skills, Birmingham's right wing-back, he was shaken several times in a row, this kind of table is dazzling enough even in the top league.

Bruce in the coach's box, watching Ribery's play, was also quite surprised, he knew Ribery, if there are any talented players in League One who have attracted attention this season, Ribery is one of them.

Derby's away game at Tottenham Hotspur has become a famous game for Ribery, which has attracted a lot of media coverage and a lot of interest from top league clubs.

Birmingham is also one of them.

Ahead of the game, Bruce also felt that this game would give him a real glimpse of Ribery's appearance, and if the Frenchman is good enough, he would consider having the team's hierarchy try to run a transfer with a view to bringing the player to Birmingham City in the summer.

Of course, the premise is that the other party's table is good enough.

But now Bruce suddenly felt that he would rather not see the other party's appearance, mainly because of the attack led by the opponent, which really made the Birmingham backfield in danger

"Poor Birmingham right wing-back" The commentator at Pride Stadium all sighed for the opposition.

It is not known how many times he has been shaken by Ribery.

After the break, Franck Ribery dribbled directly into the Birmingham City penalty area and crossed the ball before Pesquisollido followed up with a powerful shot to score the second goal of the game for Derby.

After that, Birmingham rebelled a little.

They pulled a goal back at the start of the second half, but soon Derby County attacked again and took control of the situation, followed by a free-kick from Ivan Crewe in the 73rd minute, helping the team extend their lead again and make it 3-1.

It was the last ten minutes of the game. Wan Sheng also began to make substitutions.

This is not to delay time, now Derby County is fighting on two fronts, the pressure is still relatively large, even if the semi-substitute lineup has some strength, but among the substitute players, there are only a few who can show Xiàn outstanding, and the strength of others is still much worse.

If you can have a break, try to make sure that the players rest as much as possible.

But in ten minutes of the game, anything can happen. Wan Sheng just replaced the frontcourt players and then replaced the backcourt players.

When he saw Derby County replace two backcourt players in a row, Bruce felt even more helpless, taking advantage of the last time of the game, he also wanted the team to fight, after all, it is possible to create a miracle, but the other party did not give him a chance at all, Derby's defense was already good, and then added defensive players. It's too hard to get two goals back in a short period of time.

He can only let the team attack as much as possible, and the outcome is up to fate.

Eventually, until the end of the game. Birmingham City were unable to find the back of the net as Derby County eliminated Birmingham City 3-1 at Pride Stadium to move on to the FA Cup round of 16.

At the end of the game, the on-site commentator Alfi said happily. 'Derby County have reached the last 16 of the FA Cup, a rare run in the competition in a few seasons. The last time we reached the round of 16 was in the 20002001 season, but that time we fell in the round of 16 and hopefully Derby County will go further in the FA Cup this time."

Bruce in the dugout felt helpless.

He didn't expect the team to lose to Derby County. In fact, when the draw was drawn to Derby County, he still felt that the team was lucky, in the round of 32, to draw a lower league team, even if it was very lucky, even if this League One team is the first in the league, no matter what, it is much better than the opponent is Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and other giants, right?

But Birmingham still lost.

Bruce felt that this loss was somewhat convincing, Derby County played in form, and the team was actually good, and the opponent won the game in a dignified manner.

The only thing he couldn't figure out was how the young Chinese man brought a team on the verge of relegation to such a point in only half a year?

A relegation team from League One.

There is no transfer investment in the summer, and he himself has no coaching experience, which means that no other players will defect to him, and even in the media, this Chinese is still controversial, and almost most of the news reports do not have good comments about him.

But in this environment, he actually transformed Derby County into a team that can fight and win against Birmingham.

It's incredible.

At the end of the game, before standing up in his seat, Bruce touched his cheek and asked himself with a frown, "Is it that I'm old?" "No, he's only 43 years old

After the game, the two teams still looked relatively friendly.

At the press conference, Bruce praised Derby County and was amazed at how they behaved, and similarly, Wan Sheng politely replied, "We won a bit of luck, the home factor still has a lot of influence on the game, if it was at St Andrews, we wouldn't necessarily win." ”

The media reporter is quite acceptable to Bruce's statement, Birmingham lost the game, and it is normal for Bruce to praise the opponent, which is equivalent to saying, "It's not that we are not good, but we are too good at watching, so we lost the game." ”

In response to Wansheng, they were noncommittal.

Mainly, Wan Sheng talked about 'luck', which is a pain point for a lot of Derbyshire's hostile media.

Last season, when Wan Sheng led the team to win, there were many media talking about luck, they said that Wan Sheng was just lucky, when he took charge of the team, Derby's luck began to improve, and then began to show that a large part of the win was luck.

After the summer, they are still talking about luck.

It was luck for Derby County to get the opening streak, it was luck to win against West Ham, it was luck to win against West Bromwich Albion, in short, Derby County was lucky, and Wansheng was lucky.

But now, when Derby County consolidates the first position in the league, these 'luck theories' are self-defeating, no one can rely on luck to win all the time, and Derby County can stabilize the first place in the league, which proves that this is not luck, but real strength. After that, Wan Sheng often ridiculed 'luck' after the game, which was even more sarcastic to them in the media's understanding.

But in fact, Wan Sheng just responded to Bruce's friendliness, and did not mean to ridicule the media at all, and the media understood it as a sign of 'lack of heart'