Chapter 360: Three consecutive wins of chopping melons and vegetables, the next game will be against another three consecutive wins!
A complete victory, 3 points were obtained. According to the new league task, Chen Xiaoliang, who won the man of the game with 1 goal and 1 assist in his Premier League debut, obtained 14 training points (30→44). The clean sheet throughout the game also gave Chen Xiaoliang the opportunity to get breakthrough points (15→17).
With another of Ten Hag's old servants at Ajax, Timber, joining the team and being included in the substitute list for the last game, Manchester United's summer transfer window has really come to an end.
The vast majority of players' numbers remained the same, with a few newcomers wearing previously vacant numbers.
Needless to say, Chen Xiaoliang's No. 7 jersey is worn by Kvadrat, who continues to wear his favorite No. 77. Cesco took over the No. 9 jersey, which was previously worn by Martial.
Livakovic wore No. 31, and Timber wore the No. 4 jersey previously worn by Phil Jones, who left the team as a free agent.
As the team had sufficient players, the club loaned out Elanga and Peristeri for training. The former went to Middlesbrough, who had just lost, and the latter went to Sunderland in the Championship, where he would join up with another young loaned player, Diallo.
Manchester United's opponents in the first three rounds are not strong. In the next round, they will face Nottingham Forest, which barely avoided relegation last season. In the third round, they will face Burnley led by Kompany. Manchester City bought Perrone and loaned him to Burnley. In the fourth round, the BIG7 civil war will begin, facing Chelsea, which has no European war mission this season.
In addition, the draw for the Champions League has not yet begun, so the team has had plenty of training and rest time during this period. A game a week also gives the players the opportunity to continue to adjust their condition and reserve physical strength during the holidays.
Regarding the selection of captain for the new season, Ten Hag remained silent. He wanted to sell Maguire, but no one was willing to take over.
Coupled with the arrival of Timber and Lindelof's heroic performance at the end of last season, Manchester United's current captain has been awkwardly ranked fifth among central defenders, only higher than Mengi, a young player promoted from the youth team.
However, the 21-year-old Mengi's main task is still in the reserve team league, while Maguire is earning a weekly salary of 220,000 pounds and sitting on the bench every week.
It’s not that there are no teams that want him. Mid- and lower-level teams all want to buy this capable English central defender at a low price, but the mid- and lower-level teams can only offer a weekly salary of around 80,000 pounds at most, which Maguire himself cannot accept.
His contract will not expire until June 30, 2025, when he will be 32 years old, so the contract in front of him is obviously the last big contract of his career, so he chose to stay and work harder for a chance to play.
Ten Hag is not a stubborn person. Since the middle of last season, Maguire has been frequently placed on the bench, but the Englishman is very professional. He has never complained about his situation to the coaching staff and players, and has done his best to fulfill his duties as captain.
But everyone knows, including himself, that this situation will not continue into this season, and his position as captain will definitely be handed over. As for whether it will be B Fee or Chen Xiaoliang, it depends on who the players support.
Why not look at who the coaching staff supports? Because even a fool can see that the coaching staff obviously wants to help Chen Xiaoliang get promoted. Not only do they want to, but the owner Hamad Al Thani, who appears at the Carrington training base almost every day, also chats with Chen Xiaoliang with a smile on his face every day.
It's no wonder that they have special skills. In the entire Carrington base, apart from the boss's compatriots on the board of directors, there are only three people who can speak Arabic, Hamad Al-Thani.
's personal translator, Chen Xiaoliang, and the young player Zidane Iqbal from Iraq...
Others try to get close to him, but they can't...
Ten Hag also does not want to waste Maguire's weekly salary of 220,000 pounds. He and the coaching staff are studying the tactics of three central defenders.
For this purpose, he also specially sought the opinions of several midfielders and defenders in the team, such as De Gea, Lima, Varane, Casemiro, Chen Xiaoliang, B Fee, as well as full-backs such as Dalot and Luke Shaw.
Maguire's strong frontal defensive ability, especially his physical confrontation and high-altitude ball ability, forms a sharp contrast with his poor turning flexibility and speed. However, if there are two other central defenders and two defensive midfielders protecting the two sides of the flanks and the left and right sides of the penalty area in a three-center-back system, his weaknesses can be largely covered up.
But with this comes a new problem. In the three-center-back system, with the double defensive midfielders and the wing-backs/wing-forwards on both sides, seven positions are removed, leaving only three positions in the frontcourt. In this way, Maguire will play, and the others will have to sit on the bench.
For this reason, after training every day, Ten Hag would meet with the coaching staff in the conference room to study. They had studied almost all the tactics of the well-known coaches who currently use three central defenders, analyzing each case one by one and assuming what effect would be achieved if used in Manchester United's current lineup.
Therefore, a strange scene appeared at the Carrington base. After the training, Chen Xiaoliang took a group of players to stay for additional training, and Ten Hag took a group of coaches to stay for research. Then the restaurant at the base opened for dinner in the evening, and everyone met in the restaurant again. So after a few days, Ten Hag simply pulled these people who had extra training together to discuss.
After all, this is not just the coach's job. For example, Kva, who is used to playing as a left winger in a 4-2-3-1 formation, can he play as a left midfielder in a three-center-back system, adding a lot of defensive and one-on-one defensive tasks? The coaching staff also needs to listen to the players' opinions.
In short, new players such as Chen Xiaoliang, Kva, Cesco and others have all realized that Ten Hag is a workaholic and has very strict requirements for details.
This is very different from Mourinho. The Portuguese madman does not ignore details. He also has very detailed requirements in defense, but he will formulate an overall tactic in offense. Under this tactic, the players have considerable room for personal development.
Secondly, he pays great attention to the spirit of the team. He will repeatedly instill a sense of mission in the players and consciously treat them as brothers - even though there is a 30 or 40-year age difference between them. This makes the players who believe in him feel that fighting for him is something full of idealism and a lofty mission.
In this regard, perhaps no one among the famous coaches in the entire European football world can match him.
Compared to the long and narrow Italy lying on the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, England is only a small place, but the density of football here amazes Chen Xiaoliang.
On the bus from Manchester to Nottingham, a 112-kilometer, 1.5-hour journey, you can see large and small stadiums, adults and children in uniform uniforms playing football along the way.
McLaren, an experienced coach who once served as the England national team coach, told Chen Xiaoliang that football in England is actually very competitive. There are more than 7,000 clubs in England, and they regularly participate in leagues of various levels.
Although most of them enjoy the happiness brought by football in their spare time, some of them also pay special attention to their performance in amateur leagues. This has given rise to the profession of "professional baseball player" in amateur competitions.
Many players who have retired from high-level professional teams or who cannot make a lot of money will go to play for amateur teams, win a town cup, or help get tickets to the FA Cup, or simply help the sponsors of small teams win a game locally to expand their influence.
Chen Xiaoliang told McLaren that this also happened in the Red Country, but it was mostly concentrated in basketball. The main reason was that there were too few players in the Red Country, which led to fewer games, and in turn fewer games led to fewer players.
Soon the players arrived at Nottingham's home city stadium, but interestingly, this stadium is located on the south bank of the River Troon. According to the legal boundary, it is actually outside the boundaries of Nottingham city.
After 6 days of training, I accumulated 24 training points (44→68), which I stored safely in the system.
After a night's rest, the game was still at noon. Chen Xiaoliang started again, while Ten Hag chose Eriksen and Wan Bissaka to start in this game, and let the two Portuguese players B Fee and Dalot rotate as substitutes.
In addition, Sancho got the chance to start and Anthony also sat on the bench.
Nottingham Forest played in a 3-4-1-2 formation, and the most famous player in the team was undoubtedly Costa Rican goalkeeper Keylor Navas.
Navas, nicknamed "Navas the Wall", was bought by Real Madrid after he became famous in the 2014 World Cup. He became the main goalkeeper and helped the team win three Champions League trophies. But later, with the arrival of Courtois, he went to Paris Saint-Germain after a year of competition.
But he never expected that after arriving at Paris Saint-Germain, he was replaced by Donnarumma as a starting player despite his good performance. In order to start, he simply chose to be loaned to Nottingham Forest in the winter window last year. After the team successfully avoided relegation, he chose to be bought out and stay permanently.
Although he is no longer young at the age of 36, he is still a very good goalkeeper, which Manchester United's offensive players realized after the start of the game.
As if he had accumulated enough energy after a summer of rest, Navas was particularly exaggerated in this game.
In the 6th minute, Kva broke through two players on the left and made a triangle pass to Sancho in the penalty area. The latter's shot was blocked by Navas.
In the 11th minute, Manchester United took a corner kick. Eriksen took a corner kick from the left. Varane headed the ball and Kva's shot in front of the goal was blocked by Navas with his foot.
In the 27th minute, Manchester United made a comeback. In the counterattack, Rashford received a long pass from Chen Xiaoliang in the backcourt and had a one-on-one opportunity. He rushed into the penalty area and shot into the far corner after deceiving Navas' center of gravity. However, Navas blocked the ball with his toes and the ball hit the post and rolled out of the bottom line.
These three saves were just amazing saves when facing excellent opportunities. The rest of the saves of ordinary shots were commonplace. In just 30 minutes, Navas had made 7 saves. If it weren't for his efforts, Nottingham Forest, which was lagging behind in this game, would have been beaten into a sieve by Manchester United.
Even in the 39th minute, Chen Xiaoliang found an opportunity in a positional battle and attempted a powerful 28-meter long shot, but it was saved by Navas near the goal post.
The harder they couldn't score, the more they attacked, but the score didn't change. Instead, Nottingham Forest almost changed the score first by hitting the ball against the post from a corner kick.
Seeing that the tactics were executed well, the team could not score any points due to the outstanding performance of the opponent's goalkeeper. In the halftime, Ten Hag replaced Sancho with Cesco and adjusted the offensive tactical route.
Simply put, it means reducing the number of direct attacks and focusing on indirect attacks instead.
Navas is 36 years old after all. While his reaction and shot-saving abilities remain at a high level, his physical functions will inevitably decline with age.
In the 51st minute of the second half, Chen Xiaoliang forced an overtake on the right side and overtook the Brazilian Lodi who was acting as the left wingback, and then made a cross at a 45-degree angle. The ball went straight to the back post. After Cesco arrived, he overpowered the opponent's 33-year-old right center back Felipe and headed the ball to the middle. Rashford who followed up received the ball and shot forward. Navas who was blocked at the back post had no time to move over, but Rashford kicked the ball away due to the interference of the opponent's defender.
But it doesn’t matter. Obviously Manchester United has found a way to deal with Navas. Once they start using this offensive method, Navas will involuntarily hesitate when choosing his position:
"Is the opponent going to shoot directly this time, or cooperate in the penalty area?"
If he were 10 years younger, he could leave enough room to deal with the first option, and then use his explosive power and goal line speed to cover the second option, but at the age of 36, he obviously can no longer do both.
In the 67th minute, Kva made a counterattack, cut in from the left and passed the ball to the top of the penalty area. Eriksen, who was pressing forward, aimed at the right side of the goal and kicked a curved ball with the arch of his foot. Navas flew again to save the ball, but Rashford and Chen Xiaoliang, who had already entered the penalty area, rushed towards the ball that was saved.
Seeing that Rashford on his left was about to collide with him, Chen Xiaoliang stretched out his left hand and pushed Rashford hard to the front left!
At this moment, not only Manchester United's own players, but even the Nottingham Forest fans in the stands exclaimed!
At this time, Navas, who had stood up urgently, had already rushed over. Chen Xiaoliang headed the ball lightly, and the ball passed over the ferocious Navas and flew to the front left.
Rashford, who was angry because of being pushed just now, immediately understood, rushed forward, leaned forward and headed the ball into the empty goal!
0-1, Manchester United, playing away from home, is leading by one goal!
After he stood up, he looked at Chen Xiaoliang who was smiling at him, and his anger turned into joy, a smile that came from the heart.
Before, not only him, but everyone in the stadium thought that Chen Xiaoliang was afraid that Rashford would interfere with him when he had a shot to score, so he pushed him away and then shot. So not only Rashford was angry, but even the Nottingham Forest fans thought this behavior was too shameless.
Unexpectedly, everything turned around completely after just a few seconds. Chen Xiaoliang not only did not want to take all the credit for the goal, but also wanted to assist Rashford. Even the push was to let him go to a more forward position so that he could receive his header.
On the Nottingham Forest side, once the goal was broken, the breath they had been holding was naturally released.
Ten Hag also started rotating players shortly after scoring the goal, replacing Varane, Eriksen and Kwa with Timber, McTominay and Ganacho.
Manchester United, who defeated Nottingham Forest four times in the league and League Cup last season, still maintained an overall advantage after the substitutions.
Finally, in the 82nd minute, Rashford returned the favor. He received a through pass from Casemiro on the right and broke into the penalty area with a one-on-one chance. Facing Navas who was attacking at the right corner of the small penalty area, he passed the ball to the other side, and Chen Xiaoliang followed up and shot into the empty goal, and the score became 0-2!
After scoring the goal, Ten Hag replaced the two with Anthony and young player Zidane Iqbal. When they left the field, they walked side by side, talking and laughing. When they sat on the bench, their teammates next to them imitated Chen Xiaoliang's action of pushing Rashford just now.
At the end of the game, the score remained unchanged and Manchester United won two consecutive games. Chen Xiaoliang won the man of the match for the second consecutive game with his soul-stirring reversal push, 1 goal, 1 assist, 2 headers and 2 steals, and was awarded 14 training points (68→82) and 2 breakthrough points (17→19).
The focus of this round of the league was Manchester City's 3-1 home win over Liverpool. Unlike Manchester United, Manchester City's opponents in the first two rounds were both strong teams, but the results of a draw with Newcastle away and a home win over Liverpool meant that although they had 4 points and were temporarily ranked 5th in the standings, they still ranked first in the league championship odds list.
Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea all won, especially Chelsea, which beat Bournemouth 4-0 at home, scoring 6 goals and conceding 0 goals in two rounds, ranking first.
Newcastle was tied by Villa led by Emery away from home, and is currently ranked 12th after two consecutive draws at the start.
The team won both rounds without conceding any goals. Chen Xiaoliang contributed 2 goals and 2 assists. He created 4 of the 5 goals in total, which made the English media praise him to the sky. Compared with Haaland who scored two goals in two games, many media even directly said that the competition between the two this season has been decided.
When Chen Xiaoliang saw such reports, he was amused.
But these reporters didn't expect that their boasting was too conservative.
Seven days later, Chen Xiaoliang played away in Burnley, Lancashire, adjacent to Greater Manchester, and challenged Burnley, which was dubbed Manchester City's second team by fans and led by former Manchester City captain Kompany. Chen Xiaoliang played like chopping melons and vegetables and achieved a performance far better than the previous two games.
In this game, Ten Hag finally put out a three-midfield formation after careful research, but he did not let Maguire start for the time being. Instead, he let the old partner Lima and Timber form a three-center-back formation with Lindelof guarding the middle on the left and right.
For the wing forward positions on both sides, Luke Shaw was still chosen on the left, while Anthony was sent on the right.
B Fee and Casemiro played as double defensive midfielders on the left and right, Chen Xiaoliang was in front of them, and Cesco and Rashford were at the front.
As the absolute leader of the Championship last season, this season they have recruited a lot of cost-effective players and also rented three young players from Manchester City. Before the game, the media predicted that Kompany's team would cause big trouble for Manchester United.
However, no one expected that Ten Hag would teach the Belgians a lesson with his pragmatism.
Kompany, who is deeply influenced by Guardiola's coaching ideas, also likes to control the ball and create opportunities through running and through passes.
In the Championship last season, their average ball possession rate of 66% ranked second among all teams. Even when facing Queens Park Rangers, their ball possession rate reached an astonishing 81%.
However, all of this was based on the fact that their squad at the time was absolutely ahead of other teams in the Championship, and it would not be possible to play like this in the Premier League.
Obviously, the previous two consecutive defeats did not make Kompany wake up. In this game, he still asked the players to play like this at home. This provided a natural stage for Chen Xiaoliang, who came from Mourinho.
In the 4th minute, with Burnley's midfield passing and control, Cesco retreated and pressed, causing Burnley's old captain Jack Cork to lose the ball. Perrone, who started the game, took the initiative to admit defeat in the competition with Chen Xiaoliang.
He is not a player with the same personality as Enzo. He is more technical in nature. In addition, he and Chen Xiaoliang played football in Rome for half a year. In his eyes, Messi is a god far away in the sky, while Chen Xiaoliang is a god who lives by his side.
Seeing Chen Xiaoliang rushing towards him like a tank, even if it was a 50-50 fight, he had to actively retract his legs to avoid being knocked over by Chen Xiaoliang.
After receiving the ball, Chen Xiaoliang passed it directly to Rashford in front of him, and then immediately started forward at full speed.
After receiving the ball, Rashford walked along the right side of the midfield, Chen Xiaoliang went to the left, and Cesco followed the two at full speed in the middle to launch a quick attack together.
At the edge of the penalty area, Rashford made a cross pass, and the ball crossed the penalty area line and rolled in front of Chen Xiaoliang on the left.
The angle was too small, so Chen Xiaoliang did not choose to shoot. Instead, he stopped the ball and passed it to Cesco who was following him.
As soon as Cesco received the ball, Burnley's Kosovo goalkeeper Muric rushed over to save the ball.
Cesco stepped on the ball and knocked it back with his heel, not only fooling the goalkeeper who was rushing out, but also fooling the defender who was chasing him.
At this time, Chen Xiaoliang, who passed the ball to him, had already turned back and ran behind him, and shot the ball!
The ball passed Cesco and flew into the right side of the goal, 0-1!
Not only this goal, but the subsequent development of the situation caused Zhang Lu in the live broadcast room to constantly say "Kompany is still too young and a bit stubborn."
Manchester United, with three central defenders, continued to give up the midfield and the ball, allowing Burnley to pass the ball and then cross the ball from the sides and the flanks, but did not give them the opportunity to pass the ball directly from the flanks to behind the penalty area.
In the 33rd and 65th minutes, Manchester United again took advantage of two counterattack opportunities. Chen Xiaoliang first assisted B Fee to score a goal with an inverted triangle, and then made a long pass to stimulate Sancho, who came on as a substitute, to pass the ball to Anthony, who shot into the far corner from the left side of the penalty area.
Manchester United's three goals gave the newly promoted team three consecutive defeats, but also won three consecutive victories.
After the game, the English media found that they had been conservative before. This time, they not only praised Chen Xiaoliang to the sky, but also praised everyone in the Manchester United team from Ten Hag to Rashford.
If the media likes to change with the wind, then the English media is the best among them.
However, the coaching staff kept emphasizing during training that the opponents in the first three rounds are either newly promoted teams or teams that were almost relegated last season, and in six days they will face the first civil war of the BIG7.
After bidding farewell to Lampard, who was called the worst coach in history by Blues fans, Pochettino transformed Chelsea. They won 2-0 against Wolves away in the third round. Like Manchester United in the first three rounds, they won all three games, scored 8 goals and did not concede a single goal. Because their first letter is C, they surpassed Manchester United, whose first letter is M, and are temporarily ranked first.
Enzo, who was scolded by fans in the second half of last season, finally stood up and sent a text message to Chen Xiaoliang: "I won't let you win this time. See you at Stamford Bridge!"
Chen Xiaoliang, as a bad friend, replied: "Promise me, don't cry."
But before that, there is another big event to participate in, which is the draw for the Champions League group stage!
