Entering February, York City's schedule has been relaxed compared to before, which has also eased the physical pressure on the players to a certain extent, and this has immediately allowed York City to reap the results.

In the four League One games held in February, York City also won all four games, successfully getting 12 points!

In those four games, Baker has maintained his consistent goal scoring rate so far this season, scoring five goals and continuing to lead the League One scorers' charts.

Such a stable performance has also made York City have accumulated 74 points with 22 wins, 8 draws and 1 loss after 31 rounds of League One, which has distanced itself from the teams behind!

Sheffield United are still in second place, but they only have 19 wins, 6 draws, 6 losses and 63 points, while third-placed Bolton have 18 wins, 6 draws and 7 losses with 60 points, and then Scanthorpe only has 58 points.

This is mainly due to the fact that League One itself is a mess, and few teams have been able to maintain consistent form.

Let's talk about Pan Yi's several League One leagues in his previous life.

The League One champions in the 2022-2023 season are Plymouth, who ended up losing seven games;

A little further back, the winner of the 2021-2022 season was Wigan Athletic, who lost more, eight games;

And the most exaggerated is the 2020-2021 season, this year's champion Hull City, actually lost a whopping 11 games!

It's hard to see in the top flight.

If you compare the Premier League titles of the same period, the teams that have won the championship in recent years have been Manchester City, losing five, three and six games respectively.

The year before Liverpool won the title, they had only lost three games.

This shows that it is often more difficult to establish a "hegemon" status in the lower leagues, because the league level is relatively low, there are more games, the team's performance is more unstable, and it is easier to have "upset" plots.

And now that York City has stabilized and only lost one game so far, their lead is naturally evident at once.

After four League One games, York City travelled to take on Wrexham from the national league.

This is the fourth round of the FA Cup!

At this time, Reckpim has not yet been taken over by "Deadpool" Ryan Reynolds, so it is not very eye-catching now.

Since being relegated from League Two to the National League in 2008, they have struggled in this fifth tier of semi-professional leagues, and have even come close to dropping into the sixth tier of the North and South leagues.

During this time, the team also experienced a disgusting incident of a greedy owner buying the team and trying to sell the stadium for money, so their fans banded together to gain de facto control of the team.

In other words, Wrexham do not have a real owner now, and it is the Wrexham Fans Trust that manages them.

The staff, from the chairman to the hygienist, are volunteers and do not receive any remuneration from the team.

After Ryan Reynolds bought the team, he basically kept all the volunteers at the club, paid them to become full-time employees of the club, and slowly the team got back on track and finally made it back to League Two.

And why did Ryan Reynolds choose Wrexham over other teams?

In addition to this part of its story, there is of course the attraction.

First of all, it's a club with a lot of history. Founded in 1872, Wrexham is the oldest surviving football club in Wales and the third oldest professional football club in the world.

Yes, it's still a Welsh team, but like Cardiff City and Swansea, they play in the English league.

Secondly, the price of buying a club that is struggling in the English Nations League will definitely not be as sky-high as that of a Premier League club.

In fact, Wrexham have gone through two bankruptcy crises in recent years, and the ownership of the club is in the hands of the fans, who have been looking for reliable investors and the terms offered are quite tempting.

Because the acquisition itself does not cost a penny, only after the acquisition is successful, then invest financial resources in team building.

Also, due to its long history, Wrexham's infrastructure is actually quite good.

Their home stadium, the Hippodrome, can accommodate more than 15,000 spectators, and it is also the oldest international stadium in Wales and is still one of the home options for the Welsh national team.

However, such a history does not help Wrexham to go further in the league.

They are still at a non-par level in the national league this season, and they have been ranked in the top 10 in points.

The reason why Wrexham was able to reach the fourth round of the FA Cup can only be said to be blessed by luck.

Oldham in the first round and Fapoulf in the second round are both teams from the lower leagues.

That is, the third round against Coventry from League One is a test, but at this time, Coventry is still struggling for relegation in League One and has no intention of fighting.

In the end, in a goal shootout, Wrexham narrowly defeated the opponent 4:3 and entered the round of 16.

Then, they were drawn against another League One team.

But this time, their opponent is York City!

Although they are both League One, the two teams are completely different.

Coventry are 24th in the table, which is the bottom of the table, and it can be said that one foot has already stepped into League Two.

And York City is the first in the standings, which can be described as a quasi-Championship team!

The gap can be imagined.

——

February 21.

The atmosphere of the racecourse course, which was filled with more than 15,000 spectators, was very solemn, and thick cumulonimbus clouds were pressed overhead, and it seemed that a torrential rain could pour down from the sky at any time.

The 45 minutes of the first half were over, with only substitutes from both sides left on the pitch to warm up.

The cheering of the fans in the stands also subsided, and they all needed to breathe a sigh of relief and wait until the second half.

At this time, the score on the sideline scoreboard was the same as 45 minutes ago, and it was unchanged, still 0:0.

In the face of the League One squad giants, Wrexham's style of play is to defend, almost deadly defense.

It's the same as putting the bus, but today the role of York City has changed, from setting up the bus itself to attacking the bus.

This gave York City a taste of how Tottenham felt when they faced themselves in the last round of the FA Cup.

In fact, Wrexham's buses are pretty good.

York City's centre-forward Baker, who has been in excellent form this season, barely played in this game, he was firmly watched by the two opposing centre-backs, and once York City got the ball into Wrexham's defensive area, Wrexham players would go forward and pinch the defence, making it difficult for the ball to be passed comfortably to Beck's head or feet.

Judging from the performance of the whole first half, York City firmly grasped the initiative, but failed to get too many chances. Especially after Baker, the strongest firepower point, was restrained, and Yorktown's attack lost most of its power.

These were once tactics used by York City to restrain the enemy, but now they are being used by the enemy against themselves, which also makes York City fans who are watching the game away from home very dissatisfied.

Interestingly, when York City set up an iron bucket formation for Arsenal and Tottenham, the fans were happy to be able to defeat strong opponents, but now they are clamped by Wrexham's iron bucket formation, and they feel very unhappy in their hearts, and even ridicule the opponent for only defending.

Well...... At this time and at that time, the essence of human beings is double standard......

Of course, York City fans are still a little anxious.

I thought that after winning against Arsenal and Tottenham, facing Wrexham would be as easy as chopping melons and vegetables, but I didn't expect to encounter such a big difficulty.

They fear that if their players, like Tottenham, fail to find the back of the net for a long time, they will easily become impetuous, and then be seized by Wrexham, who are weaker than them.

"We can see that in the first half, York City's strong attacking power was completely suppressed by Wrexham United, and York City felt a bit cornered by their opponents. We could even see from the latter stages of the first half that the YorkCity players were clearly showing irritability, and there is reason to believe that Wrexham will have more chances in the second half than in the first. It's like the second half of York City's game against Tottenham......"

Although today's match is the FA Cup round of 16, there are no top-flight teams to participate, and Sky Sports has only arranged a young commentator to comment.

And from this commentator's point of view, it may be in favor of the weaker Wrexham.

It's also a natural thing to do, and people tend to prefer to support the underdogs when playing against two teams that don't have emotional tendencies.

'Looking at the first-half stats, York City had a total of 13 shots on goal, but they were all far from the back of the net and only had three shots on target. If you look at it this way, Wrexham's defense in the first half was very successful, and York City's offensive efficiency was actually very low. ”

In addition, York City's two wings were also restrained by Wrexham, coupled with the suppression of high school striker Baker, so that York City's offensive firepower in this game was completely dismantled. At the same time, their defence is constantly moving forward, leaving a lot of space for Wrexham to counter-attack, which is a great opportunity and I'm sure the Wrexham manager will see that! ”

"Okay, the second half is about to start and the players from both sides are already in the game. We can see that Wrexham have not made any changes to their line-up, with the team's fastest number 18 striker, Ntuba Masanka, on loan from Burnley, still on the pitch. It was clear that Wrexham were trying to use his pace to counter-attack while also threatening York City's backline. ”

"Huh? On the other hand, York City is about to make a change. Hey? This substitution ......"

By the time the commentator said this, the assistant referee on the sidelines had already lit up their number plates, with No. 11 Thomas Armand and No. 31 Jonathan Parkin on.

Obviously, even the commentators were surprised by the substitution that York City made at the start of the second half.

The main thing is that Jonathan Parkin, who is 34 years old this year, although he also played in Championship teams such as Hull City and Stoke City in the early years, but now he is quite old, and he can only play as a substitute in the team, and he rarely has the opportunity to play.

Now Scaloni has actually replaced Armand, the strongest and fastest in the team, but replaced him with such a veteran, what kind of trouble is this?

However, when all the York City players stood on the field and the new formation appeared in front of everyone's eyes, it immediately made all the Wrexham fans on the scene, including the TV commentators, gasp.

Standing at the front of the line now is a 197cm Mark Baker, a 194cm Jonathan Parkin, and a ...... 189cm De Ligt!

Yes, Scaloni even pushed central defender De Ligt to the front line and directly engaged in the three-tower tactic!

It is clear that York City are preparing to use indiscriminate bombardment tactics in the next half of the game to attack Wrexham's bucket formation.

The fans were dumbfounded, and Scaloni, who was on the sidelines, clasped his hands in front of his chest and smiled confidently at De Zerbi next to him: "There is no way, I can only try that the boss's advice works." ”

De Zerbi also shook his head with a wry smile.

Before the game, Pan Yi once looked for them, and if they couldn't open the situation, they could try such a simple and rough way of playing.

Pan Yi said: "Have you ever thought about how we should deal with it if they also use the iron bucket formation to defend? At this time, we offer the tactics of three high strikers, how do they deal with it? ”

However, at the time, both Scaloni and De Zerbi were convinced that their teams could break the deadlock with skillful passing.

De Zerbi, in particular, believes that a team like Wrexham will be disarmed in less than ten minutes if the players put the high pressure in place.

But Wrexham's tenacity was beyond their imagination.

For forty-five minutes, nothing was leaked, and York City couldn't find a good chance to score.

I had no choice but to try this traditional English style of long-pass punching.

Pan Yi is like this, tactically eclectic, he has defeated many strong teams with such a seemingly simple style of play when he was coaching!

After Jonathan Parkin came on and pushed De Ligt up front, York City's formation also changed to a 3-4-3, with Alphonso Davies being pushed forward in midfield, while Rice retreated to the back line and formed a three-centre-back with Westerman and Tomiyasu.

In the midfield, Alonso is still in the back position to carry out the overall scheduling, Lin Liangming to the front position to form a diamond-shaped midfield, Alphonso Davies on the left, Kulusevski on the right, the "Big Three" in the front line to support the shell.

As a result, York City's defensive depth has not dropped, but the attack is clearly more threatening.

This is also a very targeted change in Wrexham's defensive tactics.

York City played only one bridgehead in the first half, Baker, and was targeted by two opposing centre-backs.

So, now in the second half, they simply went to three bridgeheads to see how they stared!

Whether it's Baker, Jonathan Parkin or De Ligt, they are all the kind of players who are big, strong and have excellent headers, and York City are very resolute in playing long balls.

They completely abandoned the area between the halfway line and the penalty area that had been stalking with Wrexham in the first half, and York City's three strikers squeezed into the box one by one, while Alphonso Davies and Kulusevski on either side played long balls into the opposition box as soon as they got the ball.

The height advantage, coupled with a strong body, allows the three York City forwards to basically grab the first point, and then see whether to shoot directly with a header, or pass to Lin Liangming, who is always following behind, or a full-back who runs over from the other side to respond, depending on the specific situation at the time.

Wrexham, who had been deployed to defend near midfield, looked up and saw the ball flying over his head, but it just didn't hit the ground.

They are really uncomfortable because there is no such option in the pre-race preparations!

In their perception, York City is a team that also insists on playing pass-and-control football in the lower leagues, often attacking from the ground, and it is only possible to find the head of Baker when it is the last pass.

So whether it's the coach or the players, I really didn't expect the second half of the game to suddenly turn out like this.

And it was under such a very traditional English style of long passing and hanging tactics that York City really blasted Wrexham's goal!

In the 51st minute of the second half, De Ligt received a long pass from the backfield and gave a header to nearby Jonathan Parkin, who swung his long legs dexterously and knocked the ball to Baker next to him, who met the ball and shot angrily, 0:1!

After scoring a goal, York City was like a hungry tiger that smelled blood and continued to grin at Wrexham.

In the 54th minute, it was still a long pass from the backfield, Baker's header hit the goal, and was saved by the goalkeeper out of the penalty area, Lin Liangming, who was on the heel, received the ball and passed to the far post, and Jonathan Parkin, who had been waiting in ambush there, scored with a close-range header, 0:2!

Conceded two goals in less than five minutes, which caused Wrexham to mess up and down.

After taking the lead, York City did not weaken the offensive at all, and attacked frantically as always, which made Wrexham's manager Dean Kitts a little flustered, and immediately changed a midfielder and a defender, intending to fill the hole in the defense.

The substitutions did work to some extent, but they didn't stop York City from continuing their attack.

Alonso played the role that a central player should play at this point.

He saw that Wrexham's defence had returned to order, and immediately slowed down the attacking tempo, even starting to pretend to be inadvertently down-to-foot, slowing down the pace of the game.

York City's slowness suddenly relieved the worried Wrexham players, and they began to slow down.

But just when they thought York City was going to slow down, Alonso suddenly shifted a long diagonal pass to the left wing.

Alphonso Davies accelerated to catch up, stopped the ball, crossed, and De Ligt, who turned into a powerful center forward, smashed the ball into the goal near the near post, 0:3!

Each of the three centre-forwards scored a goal!

The goal conceded gave Wrexham players no hope of an equaliser.

Their morale was shattered, and York City went from strength to strength, ending the FA Cup with a four-goal win with a direct free-kick from Marcos Alonso in the 87th minute!

——

The victory of the original English football!

The day after the game against Wrexham, the headline of a match review written by the Yorkshire Journal made a prominent front page headline in the sports section.

In this report, the reporter pointed out very objectively that York City obviously underestimated Wrexham's iron bucket strategy in the first half, especially Scaloni's hesitant reaction on the spot, if he had been decisive in the first half, he might not have entered the midfield with a draw.

But after the break, Scaloni became very resolute, directly replaced the long-lost high school striker Jonathan Parkin, and ingeniously pushed the central defender De Ligt to the front line, and the result worked wonders.

For such an unexpected change, in an interview with reporters after the game, Scaloni also mentioned the proposal of the boss Pan Yi.

"The boss said, this is indeed a gamble, but if you don't bet, you probably won't win!"

Yes, York City's typical England-style long pass in the second half is to use the most passes into the penalty area to fight for a low probability of scoring goals.

But football is originally a win-only theory, and it is clear that Pan Yi and Scaloni won the bet this time.

"Pan Yi was known for his flexible, eclectic tactical style when he was head coach, and now it seems that this style has been completely inherited by the York City team."

'In the second half of this FA Cup round of 16, we got a glimpse of what English football was like in the 80s.

"If you had told me before that this was a game played by an Argentine coach led by the owner of the Dragons, I would have not believed it......"

Later in the report, the Yorkshire Journal also analysed the situation of York City's upcoming matches.

York City currently have a huge 14-point advantage over third place in League One, and it can be said that the possibility of direct promotion to the Championship is very high.

With that premise, they could really shift their focus to the FA Cup side in order to try to pull off a miracle.

However, there is also concern that York City are the only League One side to reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, meaning they will have to play more games than any other team.

In the coming March, York City will have a relatively tight schedule.

It is because of concerns about the dense fixture schedule that the Yorkshire Journal believes that the next two months will be a watershed moment for the league.

If York City can maintain their current lead at the end of March, there will be little suspense that York City will win the league title until April, when the league finalises.

Of course, it still depends on who York City's opponents are in the FA Cup, after all, different opponents will cause different intensity and pressure on York City.

And soon, all the teams that entered the quarterfinals were also produced.

At this point, it's basically a Premier League team.

Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea are the three big 6 teams, and then there are Middlesbrough, Bournemouth and Swansea.

There are also Fulham from the Championship and York City from League One.

This time, Yorktown's luck is neither bad nor bad.

It's not good to say, because it didn't draw Fulham, the weakest of the remaining seven opponents;

It's not bad, because they also didn't draw the strongest BIG6.

York City's opponent will be another team from Wales, Swansea!

Although this is a home game, Swansea are obviously much stronger than Rotherham, and it will be a tough battle!

(End of chapter)