Thanks to the "Death of the Thief" and "M4-A1" for the tip! ——

"Manchester United won 2-0 at home to Everton in the same round, and Ferguson should be grateful to Arsenal for successfully sniping at the defending champions, so that United opened up a nine-point gap to Millwall, and Arsenal won but were still 10 points away from Manchester United, a scenario we witnessed this time last year, just to switch United and Millwall positions, and the difference between the two teams at that time was a more desperate 16 points for second place. Hopefully, Millwall can adjust their form quickly, otherwise they will see Manchester United on the podium directly at home in the final round of the Premier League, and Hall has said that if possible, he will line up his team to welcome the early champions, but I think he will do his best to avoid this possibility. ”

After losing, Aldridge took the initiative to go to Wenger to shake hands, at this time he could probably understand Wenger's mood, after shaking hands did not say anything, he was not in a hurry to leave, but walked to the field and shook hands with each player, some players were more depressed, the mood fell to the bottom, unwilling to talk more, Aldridge patted their shoulders to encourage two sentences, the last one walked into the player tunnel.

The post-match press conference was full of turmoil, and although there was no deliberate fault-finding, many questions were still very acute.

Aldridge defended his players, especially Ballack.

He denied that Frank Lampard would have performed better than Ballack if he had played, but it was a fact that the Germans did not play well in this game and conceded a goal that was reversed. It was also from his mistakes on the counter-attack. Vieira seized the opportunity and played another wave of counterattacks. Let Millwall even lose a draw.

Capdevilla's form after returning from injury is also worrying, the problem of Millwall's squad thickness has been completely exposed, Aldridge tries to interpret the team's problems with a normal mentality, he believes that it is normal to lose, no team does not lose, especially in such a tight schedule, the team is not in good shape, then it is necessary to prescribe the right medicine. After adjusting, the team is back on track, and it will take a while, unless it is an irrepressible downward trend, which is the big problem.

Just before the defeats to Manchester United and Arsenal, Millwall were unbeaten in successive rounds and performed very well, but the outside world would not tolerate them, and Millwall's success last season made them the target of public criticism. For this kind of team on the cusp, many people have a mentality of watching the show. They don't want to see Millwall continue to shine and get tired of Millwall's continued success, so they want to see the defending champions fall to rock bottom, which is exciting.

The next two weeks are cup time, with Millwall playing two cup games in a row, one in the FA Cup and one in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Middlesbrough.

Aldridge held a coaching meeting after returning to the club.

There was a moment in the game against Arsenal where he reflected.

Because Arsenal are defensively based and don't give their opponents space to attack, which is a situation they often encountered in the first half of the season.

Swinging the bus was the most they had in the last few months, but when the opposition was too crowded, Millwall broke down and the opponent counter-attacked with one or two, two or three.

But Arsenal's counterattack is another style of play, an organized and planned positional counterattack, and the reason why Aldridge has reflected on it comes from such an Arsenal, which is the original Millwall.

In the first year after the League One and promotion to the Premier League, Millwall played 442, and Larsson was a retreat in the double striker, similar to Bergkamp, with both speed and breakthrough on both sides, relying on defense to fight for their own offensive space, and quickly moving forward after switching from defense to attack.

This is the foundation of Millwall's life in the past, but now it is rarely played in the Premier League, at least in the Champions League, they still play this way, but the formation is different.

The reason why you can't play in the Premier League is because the opponent is also defending, they are the defending champions, if you defend, it is estimated that the opponent will be happy, everyone takes time to end the game, and everyone is happy to take a point.

Mentally, Millwall are a strong man, which has led to the pretentiousness of the new signings and youngsters.

Aldridge and the coaches focused on the growth of several new signings over the past six months, and finally discovered a sad fact.

In addition to their usual training skills and physical improvement, their tactical literacy, especially their understanding of Millwall's football philosophy, is really not complimentary.

The reason for the fatal flaw was discovered in the match against Arsenal.

Aldridge found that Gudjohnsen had a particularly big hole in the defense, and he couldn't see the problem at all when he played other weaker teams, after all, the opponent's attacking firepower was limited, but Arsenal was different, two sides, Pire and Overmars, the individual ability was strong.

Gudjohnsen takes a slow step and he will be thrown off the street, and a second of hesitation will make the entire defensive system porous.

And in attack, whether it is Gudjohnsen, Duff, or Van der Meyde, the performance is not satisfactory, because in their limited playing time, they do the same job: attack, attack, attack

In the Premier League, which is a field that emphasizes confrontation ability, it is not enough to have skills alone, and when they have the upper hand in physical confrontation, or even evenly matched, a difficult battle is undoubtedly a hell test for them.

In the conference room, Benitez also constantly pointed out the mistakes of the players in the game on the big TV screen, and the other coaches watched very seriously, and a large part of their job was to correct the mistakes of the players in the game, and make them improve in training.

Aldridge wandered away, and after a long time, Aldrich suddenly knocked on the table, and everyone looked at him.

"I think the rotation strategy we had in the first half of the season was wrong."

"Are you going to get the main squad to go all out and close the gap in the league? Aldridge, it's dangerous to do that, because it doesn't matter if it's a league or not. Champions Cup. All are events that are more than six months old. You have to make sure that the team is consistent as a whole, and if the physical distribution is not right, then the team may be unable to continue at the end of the season when the last 1/3 and 1/4 stages of the season are most needed! ”

Jensen frowned and offered his opinion.

Craig also supported Jensen, saying: "Our rotation strategy for the last three seasons has been correct, both to ensure results and to improve the young players. ”

Aldrich waved his hand and said, "No." I'm not saying there's a problem with the rotation, but that's saying, uh, there's a misdirection in the rotation depending on the opponent. ”

Everyone was confused and didn't understand what he was talking about.

Aldrich stood up and walked over to the blank blackboard and wrote down a series of numbers.

Pointing to 1-14, he said: "Before the season, we will let the main team play against the top two teams that we have divided, which is what we think is the upper and middle teams. They are roughly between 1-14 in the standings, with the remaining 15-20. Just leave it to the bench, right? ”

Everyone nodded.

Aldridge continued: "There is a general perception that a 15-20 team is certainly not as strong as a 1-14 team, so it would be right for us to let the weaker bench play the weaker Premier League team. But we ignore the fact that we are the champions of the Premier League! Even if it's a 15-20 team, they will choose to be tactically conservative for the sake of points, for the sake of a draw, and our substitutes don't have the ability to attack well, what is the direct result of this? That is, players like Van der Meyde, Duff and others with speed and skill can't play their advantages in the game, and they can't exercise their defensive awareness, they rarely withstand the test of the opponent's fierce attack, and they have been staying in the front court to attack and attack, but the offense is a mess, and the defense can't be practiced in the game, which is the biggest problem! We made a directional mistake! ”

The coaches looked at each other and found Aldridge's question somewhat surprising.

Isn't it normal to change to any big team and let the substitutes play the underdogs when they need to rotate?

However, many giants lost the victory they should have won because they despised the weak team and faced the game with a "Tian Ji horse racing" way of thinking.

That was the case with Millwall in the first half of the season.

Benitez asked with a deep face, "So how do you think we should adjust?" ”

Aldridge wiped the board clean and re-wrote a string of numbers on it.

"The 1-8 and 15-20 teams, the strongest and weakest teams in the Premier League, are handed over to the main team, the former is the top competition, and the latter is the main team to fight more confidently and avoid dropping points to the greatest extent. The rest, the 9-14 team, is handed over to the bench! ”

"In that case, our bench lineup is not superior in strength, or even completely at a disadvantage."

Aldridge said firmly: "So we have to adjust our tactics, play on the bench, we have to play conservatively, let the opponent attack, so that we can exercise the defensive ability of the newcomers, improve their team defense awareness, and at the same time, on the basis of playing defensive counterattacks, they can also play their advantages, so that they become more and more confident and steadily improve." ”

"But what if the opponent is also conservative? Just like Tottenham, we sent a substitute at White Hart Lane, but they were satisfied with a draw. ”

Aldridge spread his hands and said: "So, we have to let the opponent know that we will play a young lineup, and spread the news before the game, of course, this is my task, to play psychological warfare with the opponents." ”

Benitez asked curiously, "What are you going to do?" ”

"Like I said, announce the starting line-up in advance, and then wait for the opponent's reaction, and we play with a group of kids in the eyes of the other party, and the opponent is embarrassed to stick to it? As I said, the 9-14 Premier League team, they are carefree, the pressure of relegation is not so great, and they are further involved in European competition and limited by their ability, they are nothing more than looking forward to a breakthrough in the domestic cup, so in the league, they can't even have dignity! The average age of the opponent is less than 23 years old, are they too embarrassed to be conservative? Did their fans say yes? The wrong direction of our strategy was that the teams that seemed to be the weakest were actually the ones who could give up everything and try to stay in the Premier League, so we had to change that strategy if we tried to get as many points as possible and also develop young players. ”

The coaches looked at each other and nodded, and it had to be said that they felt Aldridge had a point.

The midstream team plays Millwall's substitute lineup, at least if it can't be committed, it will be held to the death, and when it comes to Millwall's main lineup, the opponent will defend it, and it is beyond reproach, the difference in strength is huge, but if the substitute lineup is still stubborn, it can't be said, and the pressure of public opinion will be very great.

Coaches are starting to re-rotate their rotation strategies according to the schedule, and Aldridge is trying his best to adjust the team's form, and the winter transfer market is making waves again! (To be continued......)