The team's captain and main defender Morgan was injured, and Pearson's top priority was to choose a replacement.
Huth, whose performance is getting better, has basically locked in a starting position.
In other words, Wasilewski, Moore, Upson, and Maguire, who just came on loan in the winter window, will compete for another starting central defender position.
According to the order of the team's central defenders, former Poland international Wasilevskiy is Morgan's first substitute.
However, Vasilewski's reaction and speed were too slow.
If he and Huth are paired as a central defender, they will basically be blown away when they encounter a speedy forward.
Therefore, Pearson immediately eliminated this veteran central defender who had no other advantages except experience.
Upson is in the same situation as him. He is basically at the end of his career. His physical function has declined drastically and is simply not enough to cope with high-intensity competitions.
So they didn't consider it.
Moore, who has the best physical fitness among all central defenders, was originally a new defensive star that the team focused on cultivating.
During the British Championship, due to the fierce offensive firepower in the frontcourt, opponents rarely posed a threat to the back line, and his defensive ability was not greatly tested.
However, after arriving in the Premier League, which has a higher level, faster pace, and requires players to maintain concentration in high-intensity games, his physical advantage disappeared in an instant.
At the same time, shortcomings such as poor defensive positioning, recklessness, and easy distraction are also exposed in every game!
After a wave of elimination, the Blue Fox coaching staff headed by Pearson was surprised to find that the best candidate to replace Morgan was Maguire, who had just been loaned out in the winter window!
Compared to other central defenders, Maguire is the youngest.
He is tall and his reflexes are not slow.
Although his experience is not as good as others, his turning speed is also slower.
But in terms of defensive awareness and frontal air defense ability, they are not bad at all.
And he has an advantage that other central defenders lack.
That means having a certain ability to play the ball!
Once he is pressed by his opponent in the frontcourt, Maguire can use his excellent footwork among central defenders to pass the ball.
As a result, during team training, Maguire put on the orange vest representing the main force for the first time and formed a central defender partner with Huth.
The more experienced Huth was slightly behind, while Maguire was responsible for the interception.
Although it was only the first time for the two to work together, they performed well.
This also makes Pearson feel very lucky.
I thought that loaning Maguire would only add depth to the central defender position.
But he didn't expect it. He was pretty good, even stronger than other central defenders!
On the other side, Maguire did not expect that he would gain the trust of the head coach in the hands of the team's main central defender.
Therefore, he worked harder and more focused during training, and even asked Ling Feng to practice more with him after the team training session.
Naturally, Ling Feng did not refuse.
In his opinion, Maguire is the most promising central defender in this Leicester City team.
You know, Maguire is a star who can play the main role in the Premier League giants and the Three Lions in the future, and set a record for the transfer fee of a defender!
Judging by the game's overall rating, he has at least the potential of an 85 overall rating!
Ling Feng is even thinking that if the team can recruit Maguire next season and level up in advance, the team's lineup will only be stronger.
Then, the possibility of competing for the Premier League championship will be even greater!
. . .
The next day, in order to watch the draw ceremony for the Europa League top 16, Ling Feng called all his teammates to his home.
Everyone was sitting around on the sofa and carpet in the living room, their eyes fixed on the 60-inch LCD TV.
On the TV, there was a live broadcast of the draw at the FIFA headquarters in Switzerland.
With the appearance of the famous Inter Milan star Materazzi in suits and ties, the lottery ceremony officially began.
This season, Serie A is very competitive in the Europa League.
A full five teams have reached the top 16 of the Europa League!
They are Inter Milan, Naples, Roma, Fiorentina, and Turin.
This is also the season in which the most Serie A teams have reached the top 16 since the Europa League was restructured!
In recent years, with the slow decline of Serie A, the performance of Italian football in European competitions has become increasingly unsatisfactory. In the previous seasons, the Milan duo had achieved success in the Champions League, but at that time the Europa League The playing field has never been a happy place for Italians.
In recent years, Serie A has continued to be weak in the Champions League, and the points in the Europa League have begun to be equal to those in the Champions League. Therefore, the Europa League has gradually become the main battlefield for Serie A.
Last year, three Serie A teams, Juventus, Napoli, and Fiorentina, reached the final eight and earned a lot of European points for Serie A.
In addition to Serie A, the teams promoted to La Liga are defending champion Sevilla and "Yellow Submarine" Villarreal.
Among the four Premier League teams participating in the Europa League, Liverpool and Tottenham were eliminated, and only Leicester City and Everton advanced.
The Bundesliga also has a lone team in Wolfsburg.
It is worth mentioning that among the five major European leagues, Ligue 1 is the least satisfactory.
Guingamp, the only team to reach the knockout rounds of the Europa League, was also killed by Dynamo Kiev.
The teams outside the five major leagues are Besiktas of the Turkish Super League, Dynamo Kiev and Dnipro of the Ukrainian Super League, Zenit St. Petersburg and Dynamo Moscow of the Russian Super League, and Club Brugge of Belgium. .
Many media people believe that this year's championship is likely to be won by a Serie A team.
Soon, the TV screen first edited the short games of all the promoted teams, and then officially entered the draw process.
Everyone in the living room also began to discuss:
"Among these teams, Dnipro is probably the best."
"If we can draw it, we will definitely advance to the next round."
"I think so."
"On the contrary, I think it would be more interesting to draw Chinese rice or Naples. We will have the opportunity to play against these strong teams!"
"Meazza and Maradona, when will we have the opportunity to play in these great stadiums"
In Ling Feng's view, among all the teams, there are four with the strongest overall lineup and strength, namely Inter Milan, Naples, Wolfsburg, and Sevilla!
Ling Feng feels that if you want to go further in the Europa League, it is best to avoid these four teams.
Since there is no longer a principle of avoiding teams from the same league, there is a possibility of civil war between teams in the same league in the results of this draw.
The team that is drawn first will play the first leg of this knockout round at home.
The first one to be pulled out was La Liga powerhouse Villarreal.
And its opponent is the defending champion Sevilla!
What is full of drama is that a civil war broke out in La Liga in just the first wave of draws!
Compared to the surprise of other teammates, Ling Feng didn't even twitch his eyelids.
Drawing lots is never just a matter of drawing lots.
It’s not just a day or two that UEFA has manipulated the “secret” of the draw for the sake of program effectiveness.
He feels that Leicester City's outstanding performance in the Premier League and Europa League this season has allowed UEFA to see the possibility of hype.
Then we specially arranged a very topical and strong opponent for them.
However, Ling Feng is confident that no matter which team is drawn, their Leicester City will be able to fight!
As time goes by, the results of the lottery are gradually announced:
Zenit draws Turin
Napoli drew Dynamo Moscow.
Florence drew Roma.
With everyone looking forward to it, the draw finally drew Leicester City.
And their opponents are:
"Leicester City's opponents will be."
"Wolfsburg!"
Live footage was immediately shown to the club executives from the two teams who came to participate in the draw.
Wolfsburg's top brass smiled, but Leicester City's top brass frowned.
The result of this lottery cannot be called good.
This season, Wolfsburg has made a strong recovery under the leadership of powerful players such as Draubner, Dost, and Gustavo, setting off a shocking offensive wave in the Bundesliga.
Wolfsburg, backed by the Volkswagen Group, ambitiously launched a challenge to Bayern's salad plate!
Currently, Wolfsburg is only behind Bayern in the Bundesliga standings, ranking second, and is 10 points ahead of third-placed Borussia Monchengladbach!
The core player of this Wolfsburg team is, of course, the future world's number one offensive midfielder - "Tintin" Kevin De Bruyne! ! !
Last winter window, just as Ling Feng was emerging in the British Championship, De Bruyne was also sold by Chelsea to Wolfsburg of the Bundesliga, starting his own journey to become a superstar.
De Bruyne, who had already spent a season with Werder Bremen, connected seamlessly and quickly adapted to the rhythm of the Bundesliga.
The head-to-head showdown with Bayern at the end of January could be regarded as the famous battle of his career.
During the game, the Belgian national team midfielder who was known for playing football personally overturned the Bundesliga giant with two goals and an assist!
In addition to De Bruyne, there are many powerful stars and famous generals in the Wolfsburg team.
Dost, who scored consecutive goals, Croatian international "Saber" Perisic, Swiss international goalkeeper Benaglio, Brazilian internationals Gustavo and Nardo, and knife-wielding defender Ronaldo.
This Wolfsburg lineup is even stronger than the Wolfsburg team that won the Bundesliga championship for the first time in the 2008-09 season!
It is called the strongest Wolfsburg team in the past two decades by future fans!
It is worth mentioning that there is also a Chinese player Zhang Xizhe in the Wolfsburg team.
However, since the Chinese player joined Wolfsburg several months ago, he has not even been able to make the squad for the game.
Later, he was nicknamed the "sales midfielder" by fans.
The implication is that he was signed by the Volkswagen Group in order to sell cars in China.
Of course, these have nothing to do with Ling Feng's rebirth.
What he cares more about is that he, "De Bruyne", has the opportunity to meet the rightful owner so soon!
You know, at the beginning of his debut, it was because he had De Bruyne's passing attributes and [God's Vision] talent at his peak that he was able to kill in the British Championship and quickly became the absolute core of Leicester City!
To this day, De Bruyne's talent and passing ability are still the core weapons he relies on most on the court!
However, Mr. Ding has not yet reached the peak of his career, but he has also shown the strength and potential of a top star.
When you, with De Bruyne's peak passing ability, meet De Bruyne who is still on the rise, what interesting things will happen?
Ling Feng suddenly looked forward to this fight.
. . .
After UEFA's "lottery", several topical matchups emerged in the Europa League's top 16 matches.
"La Liga Civil War" Villarreal VS Sevilla!
"Serie A Civil War" Fiorentina VS Roma!
"Dark Horse Showdown" Leicester City VS Wolfsburg!
The first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals will be held in mid-March.
Before that, Leicester City must first focus on the league.
Because Chelsea is going to participate in the League Cup final.
Therefore, the match against Chelsea in the twenty-seventh round was rescheduled. After a few precious days of repair period, Leicester City ushered in the first league game in March.
They came to Manchester again, to the heart of the Blue Moon, the Etihad Stadium!
Due to their loss to Liverpool at Anfield, Manchester City is still seven points behind Chelsea, the leader, despite having one more game!
Therefore, when Manchester City returned to home this game, Pellegrini chose to put the players who performed poorly in the previous game on the bench.
Among the starting eleven, a full five positions have been adjusted.
This also includes the team captain and main center back Kompany!
Leicester City's captain Morgan happened to be absent due to injury.
Therefore, a very interesting phenomenon also occurred in this game:
The captains and main central defenders of both sides did not start the game!
For Manchester City, Yaya Toure becomes on-field captain;
As for Leicester City, the captain's armband was worn on the arm of Andy King, the "hero of three dynasties" who started the game.
Since it was an away game, and it was against Manchester City who had just suffered a defeat and needed a victory to chase Chelsea, Pearson chose to avoid its edge.
They are not competing for the championship anyway, so there is no need to fight to the death with Manchester City.
Ever since, he made a rotation:
The core of the team, Ling Feng, still started the game, but the one at the front was Chris Wood.
Separated on both sides are Albrighton and Conoket.
In the midfield position, Matty James and Andy King both got the start.
Young central defender Maguire, who was on loan from Hull City, and Australian goalkeeper Schwarzer, who came on a free transfer from Chelsea, made their first league starts.
With such a large rotation range, anyone with a discerning eye can tell that Leicester City basically gave up strategically.
The situation on the court is also reflected in the attention paid by both sides.
Manchester City got many chances in the first half and repeatedly threatened Leicester City's goal.
However, they were all resolved one by one by the brave Schwarzer.
It was not until the 68th minute of the second half that David Silva's push in front of the goal knocked on the door of Leicester City.
And this goal was the only goal in the game.
After losing to Manchester City at the Etihad, Leicester City had unknowingly suffered a three-game losing streak in the league!
(End of chapter)
