After defeating Chelsea at home, Leiden Oriental's ranking rose to fifth place, and Manchester United ranked first. After the first draw, the Red Devils won five consecutive games, including key wins in victory over Leeds and Arsenal. In the fourth round, they defeated Arsenal with two goals from Keane at Highbury Stadium, which made Manchester United overwhelmed their confidence.

However, the situation at Arsenal is not very good. After losing to Manchester United, they lost to Liverpool. Now they only accumulate tens of thousands, and are only tied for seventh place after Leiden East and Chelsea.

Anelka's loss from leaving is not so easy to make up. Henry is not the king of Hebrey who scores goals in the future. He still needs time to adapt to the new league and new tactics - the tactics that Wenger has created for him, turning him from a winger into a center.

After six rounds of league games, the Premier League entered a rest period. There were no matches in the Premier League in the next eleven days, but the stars of the strong team basically had no rest time because during this period, they had to participate in two consecutive national team games.

Yaskleinen, Finnan, Hypia, Deselli, Daniel, Karaze, Garney, Jinklaze, Boban, Glenshare, Marklele, Holland, Phillips, Robbie Keane, Suk... Leiden East was directly moved away from the entire main lineup and half of the substitute lineup. Even Gerald, who is not the main team of Leiden East, was summoned to Keegan to the national team, because there were not many players in the middle of the national team's midfield. Originally, Xiao Ming planned to practice Gerald's tactics as the main team during this period, but now it was lost.

The training ground that suddenly became empty naturally could not perform any tactical drills, so Xiao Ming could only watch the coaches who also became bored from the sidelines and put all their energy on the young players who were not selected for the national team.

The two Kerr, Perth and Davis have received unprecedented attention. The coaches are training these young men based on their expertise. Ashley Kerr's latest extra training is one-on-one defense on the wing. Wilkins believes that what he lacks the most now is this. Joe Kerr strengthened strength training under the guidance of Reitz. Perth is still the same rule, training head-on confrontation and judging the landing point. Davis's task is to strengthen his own characteristics - the success of wing breakthroughs and the accuracy of defense.

Davis didn't get many opportunities to play after transferring to Leiden East, but in Xiao Ming's mind, he is as important as Holland - these two players are honest people who don't get any opportunities to play but have no complaints. They have at least the chance to play. Such players are also indispensable in a team. Like Perth, they are also one of the important components of the team.

During this period, Xiao Ming also had time to think about the shortcomings of the current lineup. He originally thought that Fanny's attack would be greatly affected after being injured, but in fact, in the three league games after Fanny's injury, Leiden East also scored seven goals. Phillips' outstanding condition did not affect Leiden East's offense, but instead gave Keane Jr. more opportunities to perform, and the midfield support was not much worse than before. Leiden East's forwards have never been the type who can create opportunities by themselves but seize opportunities. No matter who is like this, so as long as the firepower provided by Leiden East midfield does not weaken, their offense will not have any impact - instead, the defense makes Xiao Ming feel a little worried.

In the six league rounds, Leiden East conceded ten goals, of which three were lost against Everton and Newcastle, and one goal was also lost in the remaining four games in each game - six rounds of the game, and every game was lost. This is a problem with the defense line or tacticality.

Garney's arrival did make Leiden East's offense much stronger on the wing, but the impact on defense was also huge. Garney is a full-back with much better off offense than defense. In addition to being a perverted body and physical fitness like Robert Carlos, he is even better than this Brazilian monster in terms of offense and weak offense. Defense is not what he is good at, and making him defend only waste his own offensive talent.

In front of him, Jin Klaze also happens to be a player who is better offensive than defense. Although Xiao Ming used Boban to retreat, Jin Klaze's tactical changes in the middle organization eliminated the overlapping problems caused by the technical characteristics of two excellent left offensive players, but it did not help in defense. Marklele is indeed a very excellent defensive midfielder, but he is only a person after all, and his defense in the middle has already involved his enough energy. If he fills up more on the left, the defense in the middle will be completely exposed to the opponent's firepower.

Last season, the biggest reason why Leiden Oriental was able to take into account defense while mainly attacking players in the midfield and not conceded many goals was that the two full-backs had good defensive abilities, Jin Klaze was average in defense, but Daniel behind him was good at defense. The two could complement each other. Glenshare and Sun Jihai on the right also formed a very good complement. However, when facing wide players with excellent physical fitness, it seemed a bit difficult for these two to defend.

Xiao Ming asked Daniel to return to the right because he considered stabilizing the defense on the right. His original idea on the left was to use attack instead of defense - but now it seems that the effect is not very good. Garney didn't have time to return to defense, Jin Kraze couldn't defend, and the left was like a vacuum.

Although full-back assists occupy an increasingly important position in the team's overall offense in later generations, the disappearance of the wing forwards and the rise of double midfielders and even three midfielders. The full-back attacks and the back midfielders are responsible for filling in positions - this advantage is that there is enough space to insert and more people who can participate in the defense when defending.

"Maybe it's time to straighten Gerald and let him play on the right midfield, but he's more active in the middle so that when Marklele makes up for the left, he can take into account the defense in the middle and empty the right to allow Daniel to participate more in the offense." Xiao Ming thought to himself while watching the training.

On September 4, the eighth round of the fifth group of the European Cup qualifiers will also be the last time the England national team will play at home in this qualifier. Four days later, they will set off for Finland to have the last life-and-death battle.

In this round of the game, Finland was bye, and the opponent of the English national team was Luxembourg, the weakest opponent in the group stage. If you defeat the opponent, you can tie Finland's 12 points in points. If you have to defeat Finland, you will be able to defeat Finland in both rounds and become the second in the group and qualify for the playoffs. Sweden, who is the first in the group, has a score of sixteen points. In this game, as long as you defeat Bulgaria, you can qualify in advance.

Amid the shouts of more than 70,000 English fans, the England national team played the most exciting game in this qualifier.

Philips scored twice, and the scorer began to show his strength when he had an absolute advantage in the England midfield. Husky, who came on the bench, also scored one goal, McMannaman and Beckham scored fourth and fifth goals, and Michael Irving's goal before the end of the game set the score at 6-0.

After winning this game, England and Finland scored the same points, and both goal difference and mutual matches had the advantage. After Sweden defeated Bulgaria at home and obtained the European Cup ticket one round ahead of schedule, the situation in this group was already very clear - England defeated Finland in the next round, England qualified. If the loss to Finland and Finland qualifies, if both sides tied, England had to pray that Sweden, which qualified early, could defeat Finland to win the second place in the group.

In other words, England must win the next game before they can take their hopes into their own hands.

England often collapses under heavy pressure—this is a truth.

In the game four days later, England no longer had the momentum of sweeping Luxembourg in the last game. They were entangled by the opponent at home in Finland. Finland, which was strictly guarded, did not give England any chance. Although England's defense was equally excellent, this was not enough to win.

When the final whistle sounded, all the English fans were ashamed.

Zero to zero, England and Finland scored the same, but in the last round of the qualifiers on October 9, they will do the wall-the only thing they can do is pray that Sweden will defeat Finland.

"The Premier League has trained two of the most important players of the Finnish national team, but failed to train the players who defeated them!" The Times lamented after the game.

The best performance of the Finnish national team in this game was their mainstay in the defense - central defender Hypia and goalkeeper Jasquelinenen. Hypia made Hiller useless throughout the game, and Jasquelinenen even saved a free kick that Beckham would be determined to score before the end of the game, preventing England from taking away three points from them.

"The worst defense in the team's training is Phillips. Phillips is the player with the most goals in the Premier League this season, but he sat on the bench for a full ninety minutes." Xiao Ming began to stand up for his disciples: "The most effective offensive method when facing intensive defense is long shots. Gerrard has proved the power of his long shots in the club, but he also sat on the bench for ninety minutes. Leiden East has excellent players, but they have no chance to play in the national team. Then someone began to blame Leiden East for training the enemy of England - is this a rational attitude?"

Since entering the Premier League, Xiao Ming began to show his sharp minions. The most obvious thing is his weakness or protection - he never publicly criticizes his players, and when the outside world criticizes them, he will also come out to protect them as soon as possible - this move was learned from Mourinho in later generations. Xiao Ming thinks this is a very effective method, not to mention that his biggest advantage over Mourinho is that there will never be a senior club executive behind him who messed with him, whether in front of the media or in the locker room.

Leiden Oriental fans are naturally on Xiao Ming's side. Although they also regret that the England national team may miss the European Cup, others may not think so.

However, the league is about to begin, and this matter has not expanded. After all, England still has opportunities. For example, the Swedish players who play in the Premier League may perform better in October - at least not passively. Sweden once defeated Finland away, and the possibility of their victory after returning to home is also very high. In the history of world football, Sweden's performance is much better than Finland, and their strength is indeed better than Finland. Many people play in the top leagues, such as Lyonberg, Larson and Enquist, as well as center Kenny Anderson who plays in Serie A. The Finnish national team, except for Litmanin, Hypia and Yasquelenin, most of the players in Finland play football in Finland.

The most important thing is that the Champions League is about to begin.

In the seventh round of the league, Leiden Oriental faced Derby County at home.

Due to Fanny's injury and Boban just recovered from injury and did not recover to his best condition, so in this game, Xiao Ming used Gerald as the midfielder to partner with Mark Lele. Garney seemed very tired when participating in the national team. His position was replaced by Sun Jihai, and the starting lineup tended to be more balanced.

But the result was not satisfactory. Without Boban's midfield dispatch, Leiden East's ground passes became much less than before, and the two small forwards did not get many opportunities. So although Phillips and Keane Jr. scored one goal each, Leiden East was tied by Derby County at home. Sun Jihai did not seem to have entered the state without starting in several games. He made several mistakes on the court. After being tied by Derby County, Leiden East's points fell to seventh place.

"The defense problem cannot be solved immediately." Xiao Ming sighed in his heart. Although Leiden East's protection of the front of the penalty area increased a lot after Gerald's starting lineup, the biggest problem was still not solved. Especially after Gerald had to participate more in the offense, there was actually an immediate solution to solve it, that is, let Daniel return to the left and stabilize the defense on the left. However, if that was done, it would go against Xiao Ming's initial idea.

With Ashley Cole, the main left-back will sooner or later be the little black guy. If Daniel continues to play as the left-back, he may not be able to adapt to the right position immediately - this is not impossible. Even a player with a right foot will be uncomfortable after getting used to playing on the left, just like the young full-back of Inter Milan in later generations. This player initially played as a front midfielder, but later changed to the right forward and entered the front line.

When he was on the team, he was the right back, known as Zanetti's successor, but after entering the first team, since Inter Milan's right back is the world's number one right back, even captain Zanetti had to play as a midfielder, so he was arranged to play as a left back and had a good performance. After that, he played better in the left back position than on the right - that's because he still needs time to adapt to his appearance on the right.

Daniel is like this now. After playing as a left-back for two seasons, he has not performed as well as stable as the left-back position. However, if he continues to play as a left-back, then Ashley Cole's chances of playing will definitely be suppressed. At that time, there is still only one trusted full-back. Instead of doing that, it is better to let Daniel adapt to the right-side position at the expense of a certain score and determine that Garney's main force on the left-side, Garney will not remain in the form of a long time. Sooner or later, this position is Ashley Cole's.

In order to truly fly the two sides in the future and adapt to the future world football trend in advance, this kind of sacrifice is necessary.

At the same time, players like Gerald, who have a promising future should gradually increase their chances of playing and make them mature faster.

Based on this idea, Xiao Ming decided to insist on doing this, even if he paid a temporary price, he would have to let the young players grow up quickly. Otherwise, in another one or two years, these future stars would probably rot on the bench of Leiden East.

To grow young players is not only enough to get the chance to play, but also to let them realize their greatest potential in the most suitable position - if Maradona has been playing guard since his debut, no matter how much talent he has, it will be wiped out by time.

In the past, Daniel was helpless to play the left back. After all, a good left back was a global problem. However, after Ashley Cole, it would be too wasteful to let Daniel play the left back all the time - not only was Daniel's talent on the right, but also wasted a left back who could rank among all the left backs in the world in the future - it was still a local one.

Now that Garni is unwaveringly becoming the starter, he is actually paving the way for Ashley Cole. In the future, Cole will not be worse than Garni in offense, and his defense will be even better than Garni. In the 2004 European Cup, Cole made Cristiano Ronaldo, who is also talented, have no choice but to do anything, and he is not afraid of offensive players with excellent speed.

For future development, it is necessary to sacrifice results at this stage for the time being. In addition, the points lost in the first half of the season still have a chance to make up for them. Now, it is much better to lose points when sprinting at the end of the season in the total game. You should know that some games in the second half of the season cannot be afforded, but in the first half of the season... some games can still be lost.
Chapter completed!