Chapter 266 Wenger sighs, Mourinho regrets! Fighting for the fourth place is easier said than done. In terms of lineup and league competition pressure, Wenger's Arsenal is definitely under more pressure than Ancelotti's AC Milan. Although Arsenal has performed quite well in the league this season, after the first eight rounds, Arsenal has achieved five wins, two draws and one loss, ranking third in the Premier League standings, only 2 points behind the top two teams. Perhaps they felt they had a chance to challenge for the league title, or perhaps they underestimated their opponents. In this round of the Champions League, Arsenal lost to CSKA Moscow away from home, which was a big upset. But Wenger didn't care too much. Although the Gunners lost a lot of people this summer, the Ice Prince Bergkamp chose to retire this summer, Pires chose to leave after the expiration of his contract because he was dissatisfied with Arsenal's attitude towards meritorious veterans, and Ashley Cole, the hot full-back, was robbed by Mourinho's Chelsea. But under Wenger's strong persuasion, Henry, the most important member of the team, finally chose to stay and was willing to play with the team for another year. With this year's buffer, he can look forward to the growth of young players such as Van Persie and Fabregas. Overall, Arsenal this season is not as strong as last season, but it is still considered a strong team. Maybe they don't have the chance to win the Champions League like last season, but qualifying for the group stage is no problem at all. What's more, there are no strong competitors in the group that Arsenal is in, which means that they don't need to be on edge and fight for every game like Chelsea, who are stuck in the group of death! An occasional upset loss doesn’t really matter. The only thing that made Wenger regretful was that he tried to attract Inter Milan's attacking midfielder Lin Feng to join in the summer, but failed in the end.
The other party seemed to have no interest in the olive branch he extended. Wenger felt very hurt that despite his reputation for identifying talents, making good use of them and being good at training young players, he was unable to attract the outstanding young players he favored. The Blues coach Mourinho has similar ideas to Wenger, although they defeated the powerful Barcelona at home in this round. But Chelsea won this game by luck, as Drogba's goal was a stroke of genius, and even he himself might not be able to replicate it again. On the other hand, on the Barcelona side, Ronaldinho's dribbling, Messi's wing breakthroughs, and Xavi's organization and dispatch in the middle all posed a huge threat to them. Compared with Barcelona, Chelsea's victory was a team victory. The intelligence collection before the game, the coaching staff's focused research and analysis of the opponent's players, and his own reasonable tactical arrangements, plus the extremely strong midfield combination of Lampard + Ballack + Essien and Makelele, can be said to be united and the three armies worked hard, plus the home advantage, which defeated the opponent. We may not be so lucky in the next away game! In this case, Mourinho also wants to have a player like Ronaldinho and Messi in his team. Originally, he had his eyes on Lin Feng, but Abramovich insisted on buying his fellow Ukrainian player Shevchenko. But after Shevchenko came to Chelsea, he was obviously not used to the local environment. His goal efficiency and performance on the field did not satisfy Mourinho. So far in the Premier League and the Champions League, Shevchenko has only scored one goal in the league and has not scored a goal in the Champions League. Does this performance deserve his price? The more Mourinho thought about it, the more he felt that he had suffered a huge loss! This is 5000 million euros. Wouldn't it be good to use this money to buy an -year-old supernova with unlimited potential? Why do you have to buy a 30-year-old veteran who will soon reach his prime? Abu is really getting old and confused! Mourinho believes that professional matters should be left to professionals. As the head coach, don't I know what kind of people the team needs? Abramovich's arbitrary interference in the team's transfer operations made him feel that he was not respected as he deserved. What he wanted was a role similar to that of football manager played by Ferguson and Wenger at Manchester United and Arsenal, but Abramovich obviously only wanted him to be a coach. It was precisely because of their disagreement on the transfer that a slight crack appeared in their relationship. Although it does not affect their cooperation now, it lays the groundwork for their future breakup. …… Lin Feng naturally had no idea what was happening in Britain. Although the outside world thinks that Inter Milan is sure to win the Serie A title this season, judging from Inter Milan's performance in the first few games of this season, their record can only be described as average. After seven rounds, Inter Milan has achieved four wins and three draws, with a current score of 15 points. With the advantage of goal difference, it has temporarily suppressed the dark horse Palermo and topped the Serie A list.
Roma, which missed the chance to catch up, is currently ranked third in Serie A with 13 points, and the gap with the top two teams is not that big. In fact, with Inter Milan's performance in the past few seasons, it would have been difficult for them to even be in the top three, let alone top the list. Especially when compared with Juventus' nine-game winning streak last season, Inter Milan, the new Serie A champion, seems to be unworthy of its reputation. Although Juventus' reputation has declined a lot due to the impact of the phone-gate scandal, Juventus is really strong whether it is a foreign war or a civil war! On the other hand, Inter Milan, forget it, it’s better not to watch it! Serie A fans are not interested when talking about Inter Milan and do not have a good impression of this team, especially during the time of the phone-gate scandal. Everyone felt that Inter Milan did not get to the top due to their hard power, but was just lucky. In this regard, Inter Milan's best response is to achieve a breakthrough in foreign wars. Otherwise, relying solely on the results of the civil war will not be enough to silence the gossips. This is also the reason why Moratti and Mancini attach so much importance to this season's Champions League results. But the importance of the Champions League does not mean that the league championship is ignored. Affected by the Champions League in the previous few rounds, Inter Milan drew two out of three games and lost a lot of points that they shouldn't have lost. So in the eighth round of Serie A, which was still a long time before the next Champions League group match, the Nerazzurri struck hard. Thanks to Torres' double goals and Lin Feng's two assists and one goal, Inter Milan defeated sixth-ranked Livorno 4:1 at home. Livorno felt like they were screwed. In the fourth round of the league, they ended AC Milan's three-game winning streak with their own hands. In recent games, they have won consecutive games against various strong teams. In contrast, Inter Milan has only achieved one win and two draws in the last three games, and their results are even worse than theirs. Before the game, Livorno felt that even if they could not win, it should not be difficult to maintain a draw, right? Unexpectedly, I was defeated by my opponent! You should know that before this game, Livorno and AC Milan were the teams with the fewest goals conceded in Serie A. They only conceded 4 goals in games. To be able to concede so few goals, their defense must be very good! But in this game Inter Milan beat four of them, and the number of goals conceded in one game caught up with the previous seven games! This is so brutal! Livorno was almost doubting his life after being beaten! Is this the strength of the defending champion? Seeing Livorno die tragically at the hands of Inter Milan, Inter Milan's next opponent AC Milan couldn't help but feel a tightness in their anus! To be honest, AC Milan really doesn't want to meet the league leader at this time. This season they are aiming for the Champions League, not the league, otherwise they wouldn't have the embarrassing result of not winning four league games. Considering that the fourth round of the Champions League group stage will be held in a few days, AC Milan does not want to over-consume the players' physical strength and condition in the league before the Champions League game just in case. But who can blame Inter Milan for this? As teams from the same city, the Milan derby is extremely popular every year. Even if AC Milan is willing to give up the Champions League, it will never let its opponents win easily. Last season, before the start of the Champions League semi-finals, the two Milan giants suffered heavy losses in a tragic Milan derby, and both were eliminated in the semi-finals. Judging from the results, both teams suffered huge losses. But if you ask the fans of both teams, do they regret doing this? They guarantee that they will answer without regret! Since it is a derby in the same city, how could there be any let-up? Let’s put the Champions League aside for now and wait until I kill my opponent! In order to cope with this game, Ancelotti replaced main players such as Kaka early in the last game to save enough energy to deal with Inter Milan. Mancini had already started preparing for the Milan derby a week ago. The two teams are ready to fight and are full of murderous intent. Both want to defeat their opponents and prove that they are the king of Milan! However, the lineups of both teams are incomplete. After the alien Ronaldo joined AC Milan, he has been suffering from injuries and will continue to rest in this round. Inter Milan's formation was also incomplete. Midfielder Cambiasso was injured, and the all-round captain Zanetti was moved from the backcourt by Mancini to the left midfielder position. Materazzi returned from injury and started this game with Cordoba.
This game was Cordoba's 300th game for Inter Milan. Unknowingly, the Colombian has played for Inter Milan for eight seasons. In this game, Ancelotti adjusted the team's formation. The Christmas tree formation, which was ordered to be stopped by Berlusconi after the Istanbul tragedy, was re-activated by him because of the departure of Ukrainian nuclear warhead Shevchenko. In the new version of Milan's Christmas tree, Inzaghi is the only one rushing forward, Seedorf and Kaka form a double attacking midfielder, Ambrosini, Gattuso and Pirlo follow closely behind, and Cafu, Nesta, Kaladze and Maldini form the back line. Milan's lineup, well, how can I describe it? High emotional intelligence means that the player is mature, stable and experienced. The low EQ statement is that the team is full of old noobs and their average age is unbearable to watch! The only striker Inzaghi is 33 years old, Cafu is 36 years old, Maldini is 38 years old, goalkeeper Dida is 33 years old, Seedorf is 30 years old, Nesta is 30 years old, Ambrosini is 29 years old, Gattuso is 28 years old, and Kaladze is 28 years old. The two youngest players in the team are Kaka and Pirlo. Kaka is 24 years old and Pirlo is 27 years old. The average age of AC Milan's starting lineup is years old, making it the team with the oldest average age in Italy and even in the entire top five leagues. You can't say that AC Milan's lineup is not luxurious. These players were all top stars back then, but the problem is that time is unforgiving! No matter how good a player is, he will get old one day, and AC Milan is currently in such an awkward stage of lack of young talents. In fact, compared to them, there are quite a few players over 30 years old in Inter Milan's starting lineup. Zanetti and Materazzi are both 33, followed by Crespo at 31 and Cordoba and Vieira at 30. But Inter Milan also has many young players, such as 25-year-old Maicon, 22-year-old Torres, 18-year-old Lin Feng and so on. Thanks to this group of young players, Inter Milan's average age is only years old, which is much younger than AC Milan's lineup. Ancelotti is well aware of the weaknesses of AC Milan's lineup. The veterans recover their physical fitness relatively slowly and cannot withstand a long war of attrition. It is a huge test for them to persist to the end in a long war of attrition throughout the entire season! But if they focus on one game, AC Milan is still not afraid of any opponent. But Ancelotti still hopes to win the game quickly, otherwise if it drags on to the second half, the physical fitness of his veterans will decline, and the opponent is likely to take advantage of this, so it is best to kill the suspense of the game in the first half and cut off the opponent's hope of counterattack. So after the opening, AC Milan, playing at home, skipped the process of testing and launched a fierce attack on their old rival. Just 37 seconds into the game, Gattuso won a free kick on the right side. Pirlo did not choose to shoot directly, but passed the ball diagonally to the penalty area. Stankovic headed the ball but the ball hit the back post. Milan defender Kaladze volleyed with his left foot from 3 meters in front of the goal but the ball flew away! ! AC Milan missed a great scoring opportunity at the start! The frustrated voices of Milan fans were heard at the scene, and some people were so angry that they beat their chests and stamped their feet. How great it would be if it was Inzaghi who appeared in Kaladze's position! Although they missed the chance to score, Milan's attack was still fierce. As the youngest player in the team and also the player with the most responsibilities and pressure, Kaka did not shirk his responsibilities, but took on the responsibilities that belonged to him and those that did not belong to him and moved forward courageously! In the 3rd minute, Kaka dribbled past the defense like performing an acrobatic trick, fooling Vieira who was defending him. Vieira was so angry that he fouled Kaka from behind and received the first yellow card of the game. Seeing Vieira get a card, Mancini couldn't help but shake his head. This guy is useful, but his temper is just too hot! He has only been at Inter Milan for a few months and has received a lot of yellow cards and even a red card.
There was no need to commit a foul in that position just now. There were teammates in front of him. Was it really that serious? Mancini was thinking about reminding Vieira during the half-time break to control his emotions and movements so as not to get sent off with a red card again! But when he thought about Vieira's temper and playing style, he felt that his reminder would probably have no effect. If he is not popular, is he still Vieira? At worst, I can make preparations in advance and replace him before he gets sent off with a red card, so as not to give him the chance to make mistakes! (End of this chapter)