Since moving to Manchester United this summer, Angel Di Maria and Leon have been talking on the phone more and more every month.

At first – at least when he signed his contract with Manchester United – Di Maria was happy.

He was offered the lucrative contract he wanted, received a commitment from Louis van Gaal for a tactical position at the heart of the team's attack, and it didn't feel bad to play for the Premier League's biggest club.

At that time, he also asked Leon about the current situation of Manchester United.

Leon asked him rhetorically.

"Angel, do you still want to prove what you can do at club level? Or do you still want to lead Manchester United to the Premier League? ”

Di Maria's answer is, of course, no.

All the club honours he ever wanted were achieved at Real Madrid.

As the absolute main member of Real Madrid, he won the supreme glory of winning six crowns and defending the Champions League.

He no longer needs to prove his ability to anyone, and their group of main players of Real Madrid are all proper winners in life.

Now he is actually the same as Gonzalo Higuain, who chose to leave Real Madrid in the summer of '13.

Of course, there is still a quest for heavyweight title honors, but they have to be ranked below the lucrative contract offer.

After a huge success, it's understandable to pursue good pay and enjoy football as much as possible.

Now what can affect his mind more is mainly to represent the Argentine national team to fight for the World Cup.

The regret of dreaming of Brazil this summer and being so close to the world championship has become a pain for all Argentine players and fans.

In addition, there are basically no events that can make Di Maria willing to pay hard.

He and Leon are very good friends, and they often communicate in private, so he answers honestly in this regard, and does not want to hide anything from Leon.

And after knowing Di Maria's current pursuit, Leon just replied to him happily.

"Then Manchester United will be a good choice for you, relax, play your personal stats, and leave nothing else......

At first, Di Maria was a little confused, and he didn't quite understand what Leon meant by what he said to him.

But now, after nearly 10 games at the start of the season, he finally understands the correctness of what Leon said.

Manchester United's puddle of water can no longer be described as muddy, and Di Maria regrets that he ate this contract without knowing much about Manchester United's current situation.

However, after experiencing tactical struggles in the early part of the season, Di Maria can be regarded as accepting reality under Leon's constant guidance.

After all, Manchester United's salaries and bonuses are real money.

The management of the club is chaotic, the training facilities are backward, and the head coach has strange tactics.

He took the money, protected his health, tried his best to type out the data, and he should retire in advance!

Di Maria, who is now becoming more and more relaxed, often jokes about himself and Manchester United when communicating with Leon.

"Really, don't let us lose too ugly at Old Trafford, if the boss [Mourinho] sends us a tragedy at Old Trafford, those journalists will have to shoot at us for the next month..."

Leon listened to Di Maria's self-deprecation, but on the phone, he was relieved.

"No, there will definitely be no tragedy, at most it will be a small victory, rest assured~"

Di Maria didn't believe Leon's words, but Leon repeated the answer to reassure him, which made it mysterious and confusing him.

Thankfully, the international break was coming up and the club's troubles for Di Maria were quickly put behind him.

Continental tournament qualifiers or friendly matches are in full swing on all continents.

Ten days later, the professional players who had finished fighting in the national team returned to the club one after another.

As a result, the managers of the top-ranked teams in the four major leagues began to have headaches again.

The physical wear and injury of the stars have been exposed by the media of major leagues one after another.

Chelsea have not escaped the FIFA virus this time, De Bruyne, Ibrahimovic, Cesar Azpilicueta, Nemanja Matic......

Seeing that the list of people who recommended a break included almost half of the important players in the team, Mourinho could only curse secretly.

Then start working on a rotation plan for the next few rounds.

It's inevitable that the better Chelsea perform in the Premier League and Champions League, the more secure the starting positions of the main players will be in their respective national teams.

When he was at Real Madrid, Mourinho was used to this kind of trouble.

Fortunately, there is enough depth on the Chelsea bench at the moment, and on the central axis, John Terry and Leon are two main players who do not have national team competitions.

Didier Drogba's replacement for Ibrahimovic could also continue to provide a significant tactical fulcrum.

The defense in the midfield and backfield is stable, and the offensive end adds a burden to Li Ang, and the next two rounds of matches are played by Crystal Palace and Maribor, Mourinho feels that he can still cope with it~

Li Ang was also surprised by Lao Mu's temporary chicken blood painting cakes.

Anyway, it basically comes out after the international break every year.

There's no way, who let Lao Mu have only him as a core player who doesn't need to play in the national team?

And if he doesn't stand up, he will have to let the other brothers in the team continue to start at the risk of a higher tendency to be injured.

Those who can work harder, Li Ang is also used to it, and directly left Mu Shuai with a "I do things you can rest assured" look.

Attack and defense.

This sounds very majestic and very platoonful, but when it comes to the specific tactical arrangement, Li Ang, as the core of attack and defense, will have to withstand the tactical pressure of two aspects.

Especially in the next two rounds, we have to play the underdogs.

If Chelsea are too attack-oriented, people will put up a defensive formation, and if they steal a chicken once, they can put the bus to the end.

Van Ginkel's ability to play as a single midfielder is actually enough, but he is still too young, plus Leon took the initiative to suggest.

So Mourinho still put Leon back in the midfielder position.

Playing against a weak team, even if it is rotated in attack, Chelsea's attacking strength is enough.

It's really not good, can Leon still be able to participate in the attack.

It's always fine to be defensively safe.

And with Leon in the midfield, Kroos and De Bruyne rested together, Mourinho is still very sure.

On the afternoon of October 18, after a two-week break, the Premier League rekindled.

At Crystal Palace's home stadium, Celhurst Stadium, the eighth round of the Premier League between Crystal Palace and Chelsea has also begun!

This exceeded the predictions of most media before the game.

Jose Mourinho fielded a solid 4231 starting formation for this game.

Leon has even retreated to a central midfield position, with the Chelsea coaching staff taking Crystal Palace seriously enough to flattering the Palace fans.

And even if Chelsea sent a rotating lineup, the shining star names made Crystal Palace fans not have the slightest idea of rejoicing.

'Chelsea's starting goalkeeper for the day was Petr Cech.

At the back, John Terry and Callas partnered in central defence, starting at left-back Ake and Branislav Ivanovic at right-back.

In midfield, Leon partnered Van Ginkel and Frank Lampard played in central midfield.

Lukaku on the left wing, Salah on the right, and Drogba on the center! ”

After introducing the starting line-ups of both teams, the Sky Sports commentator also discussed the strength of Chelsea's rotation with special guests.

In the end, they gave a more cautious statement.

'Chelsea's current rotation should be in the top eight of the Premier League, higher than Stoke City and slightly worse than Everton'......

That's an overly conservative statement.

At least the Everton fans who were watching this early game at the moment didn't think they could beat this Chelsea rotation right now.

Palace were cautious about Chelsea's defence first.

They obviously have the advantage of being at home, but they are not busy attacking actively after the game officially starts.

Even when it came to attacking testing, they were very cautious and it looked as if it wasn't Crystal Palace at home today, but Crystal Palace were at Stamford Bridge to challenge Chelsea.

Naturally, this conservative tactic could not give Palace too many attacking threat opportunities.

And Chelsea are not in a hurry in the face of Crystal Palace, which is slow to press the attack.

In a left-sided midfield position, Leon looks keen to play against Zaha, who started at Crystal Palace on the right winger today.

The young "King of the Ball" went to Manchester United for a walk in the winter of 13 years, and was basically delayed and forgotten.

This summer, thanks to the efforts of his agent, Zaha finally returned to his parent club Crystal Palace on loan.

In a stable training environment, Zaha also shined his light, gradually becoming a starter on the right side of Crystal Palace from the beginning of the season.

His razor-sharp pace and confident breakthrough on the ball have made him the sharpest knife on the wing of Crystal Palace.

However, being targeted by Li Ang today, the hapless Zaha suddenly had little room to play.

He hadn't had much of the ball to play one-on-one with Chelsea's left-back Ake since the game began.

Basically, Leon was given an early position to stop Chelsea's defensive third zone.

Originally, Zaha hadn't thought about any hand-to-hand combat with Leon.

He knew where his advantage was, but when he couldn't escape Leon's pinch no matter how fast he accelerated and changed direction, he knew that his team was going to suffer in this game.

Sure enough, when Zaha was completely silent by Leon all the way.

With only Rassier on the left flank, it will be difficult for Palace to open up the attacking situation under the siege of Chelsea's midfield.

Bolacie is taller, but Van Kinkel and Branislav Ivanovic are no slouch when it comes to confrontation.

With both flanks largely out of the fire, Crystal Palace's attacking trio was almost finished.

They don't have the slightest advantage over Chelsea when it comes to set-piece attacks.

In the second half of the first half, Chelsea were in direct control of the tempo of the game.

Relying on the super fulcrum role of Drogba in the front, Chelsea's attack is called a wind and water.

But Crystal Palace's defensive will today was also very tenacious, and their backline did not make any mistakes throughout the first half, and they were stunned to hold a half-time draw.

Mourinho was not ambiguous when he saw this, and after figuring out the strength of Crystal Palace's counter-attack, he directly let Lampard and Leon switch positions at the beginning of the second half.

After switching to central midfield, after just ten minutes of the second half, Leon used his ability to shoot from a distance and helped Chelsea win two corner kicks.

In this second corner kick attack, Big Ivan descended to earth and pressed on the shoulder of Crystal Palace central defender Hangrande is a lion head!

Crystal Palace goalkeeper Speroni didn't even have time to make a save before he was pierced by Branislav Ivanovic's header!

After this goal, the morale of the whole Chelsea team was boosted!

However, Leon kept his cool head on the pitch and after making a tactical gesture to Jose Mourinho on the sidelines, he switched places with Frank Lampard again.

The Crystal Palace players, who were forced to increase their attacking intensity, soon noticed the change in Leon's position.

They didn't know that this was a change of position made by Li Ang, and they scolded Mourinho in their hearts.

And after a few tough attempts to attack Chelsea's midfield defence, not to mention the Crystal Palace players, countless neutral fans who watched the game were in despair for Crystal Palace.

In the 68th minute of the second half, after watching Li Ang make two effective tackles in just 10 seconds, forcibly destroying a rare counter-attack opportunity for Crystal Palace.

The commentator of Sky Sports said a golden sentence with emotion.

"In today's football, who is the world's No. 1 attacking midfielder and No. 1 defensive midfielder depends on whether Leon wants to play as a central midfielder or as a midfielder today."

Such an evaluation is already very exaggerated.

But just like Lahm at his peak back then, countless fans thought that he would be the first full-back on any way he played.

Today's Leon is also qualified to accept this level of praise from the media and fans.

Both the data and the scene Li Ang have it, and in terms of tough performance, Li Ang is the undoubted number one among today's midfielders.

At least the fans who watched today's Premier League game have to be convinced, Li Ang's defensive coverage and interception success rate are really Ha!

In the end, Chelsea managed to win 1-0 at home to Crystal Palace, but the second half was in Chelsea's hands.

Crystal Palace manager Prince even directly used "despair" after the game to describe his psychological feelings after seeing Leon's phenomenal defensive performance.

"I'd rather lose this game 1-4 or 2-5.

Leon's defensive performance was an absolute torture for me, my players and the Crystal Palace fans on the scene today!

He's the toughest central defender I've ever seen! Thankfully, we didn't see the 'Tyrant Leon' on the offensive end today, and in a way, we were lucky today......"

Prince's super high opinion of Leon after the game made him a lot of criticism from various media.

Even many Crystal Palace fans believe that he is trying to shirk his responsibility for his failure in tactical arrangements.

But three days later, when Chelsea slaughtered Maribor, the opponent of the third round of the Champions League group stage, 7-0 at home, the voice that had previously accused Prince disappeared from the Internet!

Because in this game, the firepower of Li Ang shot three shots and two passes, and directly used his personal ability to break Maribor's midfield and backfield defense!

Five goals in a single game!

Although he was facing a weak European team, Leon only brought the rotating Chelsea to create this massacre!

And it's too early to say that Maribor is a fish belly team, after all, in the previous two rounds of the Champions League group stage, they drew with Sporting Lisbon and Schalke 04 respectively.

But now they are facing Chelsea, there is no way to fight back, and Leon's three-shot and two-pass data is more and more convincing against the backdrop of the records of the two teams...

Prince's previous nickname of "Tyrant" for Leon immediately became the focus of heated discussions among fans due to the popularity of this game.

Now everyone believes that Crystal Palace, who only lost to Chelsea by one goal before, they are indeed lucky!

(End of chapter)