Is the midfield the focus of today's clash between the two teams?

The answer is definitely "yes".

It's just that at the beginning, both teams found that the opposite side was arranging multiple defenses in the midfield, so they wanted to bypass the midfield in the attack.

As the game progressed, the two teams gradually began to fight hand-to-hand in the midfield.

In the fifth minute, Arjen Robben was just trying to dribble down the right flank to the middle when he was brought to the ground by his former team-mate Frank Lampard who was chasing after him.

After the foul, Lampard tried to pull Robben up, but was immediately slapped away by Robben's handle.

In the 8th minute of the game, this time it was Leeds United's old team-mates who attacked.

No, it's down.

Scott Parker was a step slower than Frank Lampard when he was in the middle of the game, stretching his leg and tripping Lampard.

However, this time Parker did not reach for Lampard to try to pull Lampard up, but rolled over and left the scene of the incident. It's just that after just a few steps, he was shown a yellow card by the referee who caught up.

In January 2004, Parker joined Ranieri's Chelsea for £10 million. As it turned out, Parker's choice was a big mistake. The old-fashioned Ranieri did not trust Parker, and the arrival of Mourinho did not change the fate of Parker's iron bench. Parker was crushed to the bench by Claude Makelele and made just four league appearances, and the former Premier League's best newcomer was gone.

Later, George Lee bought Parker, who was depressed at Chelsea, through an introduction from Walsh, the current Leeds United chief scout. Parker, who had just arrived at Leeds United, competed with Graveson for the post, and later after the departure of "Boar" Davies and the change of Smith's position, Parker completely sat in the starting midfield position of Leeds United.

It was also Parker's stable performance in the Leeds United midfield position that helped Leeds United win multiple trophies in recent seasons and was also selected for the England national team many times.

Today, Parker is also gritting his teeth and wants to play well in front of his old club, so that those who once looked down on him can see who was blind and let him go.

In the 13th minute of the game, Essien and Barton collided during a scramble in midfield, and both fell to the ground.

However, Barton sat on the ground for a while before standing up, while Essien kept rolling on the ground holding his calf.

With the support of the team doctor, he came to the sidelines for treatment.

Chelsea opted for a substitution, bringing on Claude Makelle for Essien, who was already unavailable on the sidelines.

George Lee saw Chelsea's substitution on the sidelines, and he began to think about countermeasures, wanting to make good use of Chelsea's passive substitution to make a little fuss.

According to the previous practice, if Leeds United had Sneijder today, then George Lee would definitely arrange for Sneijder to try to play behind some of Makelelele's back; If Smith had been there today, then George Lee would have arranged for Smith to attack either side of Makele. Both of these purposes are used to continuously drain the 35-year-old's fitness, so that in the final stages of the game, Makelele will become a hole here at Chelsea.

However, it is unfortunate that here at Leeds United, two of the players that George Lee needs are sitting in the stands.

'If I had known that Essien was going now, I would have preferred not to go to Barton and have Pedersen or Sigurdsson on so that I could at least try to play behind the Chelsea midfielder with a long ball.

"According to the pre-match thinking, our attacking focus in this game is on the two wings, and now it seems that Chelsea are not ready to attack on the two wings today, Belletti and Bridge are both back to defend, and the attack on both sides is almost out of a vacuum, basically we are attacking and they are defending."

While George Lee was still thinking about what to do next, the game on the court was interrupted again.

This time, it was because Robben was too far forward when he received the ball and counterattacked, so he was flagged offside by the linesman.

Robben was judged offside by the linesman, but instead of obeying the referee's decision, he came to the linesman and complained to the linesman that he was not offside.

This scene also caught the attention of the referee on duty, who paused the game and began to come to the sideline to signal Robben to leave.

Who knew that Robben was a little bit on top, not only did he not leave, but he intensified his efforts to find the referee.

In the end, after being shown a yellow card by the referee, Robben left there and began to retreat.

"It's not going to go on like this."

George Lee began to talk to himself again, although the current scene is Leeds United, they are all taking the initiative to attack, but the team now has two players with yellow cards, so if this continues, it will not only make the mentality of the players change, but also let Chelsea catch the focus of the attack.

It's like a few times before, Chelsea here are all Chelsea players who want to pass the ball to Parker.

^^^

The game continued, and George Lee found a way to deal with it for a while afterward.

That was to arrange for Kuyt to retreat to the vicinity of midfield to organise the team's attack. What was not meant to be a striker is a good fit for Kuyt.

Because Kuyt had increased his own drop-back and passing drills before he was injured in the early stages. Unlike the general forward's passing training, which is to carry the ball with his back, Kuyt added forward passing training to the previous training, and the training effect is not bad.

Now, George Lee has asked Kuitra to return to midfield to help sort out the team's attack, and let the two wingers move closer to the middle to use as strikers.

There are two advantages to this, firstly, because after Arneson and Robben move closer to the middle, Makelele cannot move closer to Ballack and Frank Lampard, which would be a threat to the Chelsea defence from Leeds United's two flanks; The second is that once Makelele is fixed in front of the defence, then Leeds will regain the advantage in midfield, after all, Leeds United and Kuyt are four against two in terms of numbers.

Coupled with Arneson and Robben giving up the flanks, Bale and Blake had more opportunities to step forward, and the overall formation was able to press forward into a very comfortable position.

In the 36th minute, Leeds United launched a very dangerous attack here.

Ballack was a little overconfident in the face of Barton and Barry's scrambles. As soon as he took an extra step, he was immediately pushed to the side by Barton, who was squeezing over, and just wanted to turn the ball back and regain control of the ball, but he didn't expect a Barry to come out behind.

The two kicked their feet on the ball at the same time, but because they had just made contact with Barton, all of Ballack's second shots were not as fast as Barry's, and Barry snatched the ball early.

As soon as the ball was broken, Barry passed the ball to Kuyt, who was pulling back.

The pass was made behind Kuyt, who was running back, so that Kuyt could turn and face the opposing goal.

The Dutch striker turned comfortably and then took the ball. Then get the ball to the left before Makelele can get on the scurry.

There, Arneson had already started a diagonal run from the left, and immediately after receiving Kuyt's pass, he picked up speed and slid the ball through the junction between Carvalho and Belletti.

Facing the onrushing Chelsea goalkeeper Joud Cudicini, Arneson opted to lob the shot.

However, his lob shot was not well controlled and the ball went slightly over the crossbar.