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The unexpected relegation from the Premier League last season was a devastating blow to West Ham United. In this summer, countless teams waved their checkbooks to poach the Hammers, taking away one star after another from Upton Park that fans are familiar with, leaving only a little bit for West Ham United. transfer income - the Hammers sold an entire starting lineup in exchange for only about 40 million pounds in transfer funds, while Leeds United, which barely stayed in the Premier League, spent on the transfer of two players, Ferdinand and Kewell. The money earned is almost the same as this figure, which is enough to show how much loss West Ham United suffered in the summer transfer market!
George's Tottenham Hotspur are naturally one of the poachers. However, compared with the previous life, Tottenham's actions this time were obviously much lower-key. They did not take the opportunity to attack West Ham United's main striker combination of Defoe and Kanoute, nor did they have West Ham United. They just used their conscience of 9 million pounds. Price took away Michael Carrick.
You know, when Joe Cole, who is more famous than Carrick and whose development prospects are more promising by experts, moved to Chelsea this summer, West Ham United only received a transfer fee of 6.6 million pounds. This shows how conscientious Spurs are regarding Carrick's transfer!
It is precisely because of such a sharp contrast that before the start of this game, West Ham United fans were relatively mild in their attitude towards Tottenham and Carrick, not as fierce as they were towards Defoe. (Note: Defoe submitted a transfer application to the club less than 24 hours after West Ham United was confirmed to be relegated, and therefore became one of the most hated players by West Ham United fans.)
However, since this clash with West Ham United is in the League Cup, George does not need to worry about whether Carrick will be absent-minded or in poor condition when facing his old club today... because he There is no plan to put Carrick on the playing list at all!
By the way, in order to allow the players to have enough motivation to pursue victory in the League Cup and FA Cup matches, and to achieve the purpose of allowing the players on the bench to improve their abilities and maintain competitive status, George not long ago He publicly made a promise to the players at the team meeting - unless there is force majeure such as player injury, he will start all Tottenham Hotspur's domestic cup matches this season with non-main players as starters to deal with these events!
George's promise greatly encouraged those Tottenham players who did not get many playing opportunities in the league. Although after George took over, Tottenham has treated players more humanely than before, and the team's cohesion is much higher than last season, but for any ambitious player, Wasting time on the bench is not something they can accept. Therefore, these players naturally support George's decision.
Although compared to the overall higher level of the Premier League, the FA Cup and League Cup do not often encounter some teams from lower leagues, but having games to play is much better than sitting on the bench, right? Not to mention, if they perform well enough to reach the semi-finals or even the semi-finals, they will have the opportunity to compete with the main players of the top clubs.
In this way, with only a simple promise, George successfully mobilized the enthusiasm of the players. Next, as long as George can fulfill his promise and not do anything that is untrue to his word, then George will not have to worry about Tottenham's motivation in the domestic cup competition this season.
Therefore, in the third round of the League Cup against West Ham United, George fulfilled the promise he had made to the players - goalkeeper Casey Keller, right back Phil Neville, center back It's Vermaelen and Dawson, left back Matthew Taylor, Mascherano and Kompany as double midfielders, Basturk in the center, Frank Ribery and Ronaldo on the wings, Luca ·Tony serves as a single arrow on the front line!
However, unlike most Tottenham players who are happy to get a starting chance in the League Cup. Regarding being able to represent the team in the League Cup as a starter, Basturk's heart can be said to be mixed. After all, starting in the League Cup naturally means that the head coach will give priority to using Carrick on the league battlefield!
Although he was somewhat dissatisfied with the current situation that Carrick held the main position while he could only start when the opponent took a rest, Basturk did not tell anyone about this matter, let alone express it to the media. He is not dissatisfied, but still trains conscientiously, intending to prove to George through practical actions that he is also qualified to become the main force of the team!
Of course, another reason why Basturk did not take the initiative to ask George for help is that he still needs some time to adapt to the rhythm of the game and the football environment in England when he first arrived. After all, although they are both the top five European leagues, the Bundesliga and the Premier League are still different in many aspects, which requires Basturk to make targeted adjustments to his playing habits according to the Premier League's competition environment. Therefore, in order to avoid affecting his position in the team, Basturk did not immediately attack Carrick's position.
Although he didn't know what the Turks were thinking, George was still extremely satisfied with Basturk's hard-working attitude. Anyone who has such a player who has a very correct training attitude, excellent ability and does not cause trouble will have the same idea as George. Therefore, George is considering rotating Basturk and Carrick in the league during this period, so that these resources in his hands can be more fully utilized!
What's more, for Tottenham, which relies on high-intensity frontcourt pressure and a lot of off-ball movement to ensure the quality of defense, the burden on Carrick, as the team's core organizer, is too heavy. If he is overloaded and played continuously, it will inevitably become another tragedy like Redknapp and Owen. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to reasonably allocate the playing time of Basturk and Carrick.
Some people may ask, although Basturk and Carrick are both organizational midfielders, their playing styles are quite complementary. The former is used to organizing attacks by distributing the ball after breakthroughs, while the latter is more suitable. As deep-lying playmakers, why can't they both play together? In this way, Carrick only needs to be responsible for organizing the team in the backcourt and leave the task of inserting the offense to the Turks. There is no need to let Carrick shoulder these two burdens alone like now.
The reason is simple, the most important of which is Robbie Keane, the current top scorer in Tottenham. The presence of the leading forward of the Irish national team forced George to put one of Carrick and Basturk on the bench when arranging the formation!
It has been analyzed before that if you want to fully utilize Robbie Keane's energy, you must equip him with a sufficiently agile teammate and a wingman who can protect him at any time. In Tottenham, these two aspects of work require two players to complete. Therefore, as long as Robbie Keane is still in the starting lineup, it will be difficult for Tottenham to change the current 4-4-2 formation and position. Basturk, who overlaps with Carrick, naturally can only share playing time with the former.
Although George once wanted to liberate Bierovka and let him become a free man in the frontcourt like Cristiano Ronaldo and Bell in his previous life, but after many actual combat exercises, he found that the Germans could barely cope with it once in a while. After a long time, he will unconsciously return to the left wing. By then, Tottenham's right wing attack can only be supported by Stephen Carr alone. Therefore, in order to ensure Tottenham's offensive power on the right, George must set up a right midfielder (or right winger). As a result, George can only place two players in the middle of the midfield.
Coupled with the fact that Redknapp was ill at the beginning of the season, Tottenham only had two people available in the midfield position. Therefore, under the combined effect of these two factors, George had to let Basturk and Carrick play separately to ensure that the team's central defense would not have too many loopholes, and at the same time avoid unreasonable resources. use.
Facing the much weaker West Ham United, although Tottenham Hotspur were playing away from home and played with a full substitute lineup, after ninety minutes of hard battle, the players finally relied on substitute Luka Villa, who played Toni, scored a goal in stoppage time in the second half to beat the Hammers, successfully advancing to the fourth round of the League Cup and winning eight consecutive victories!
However, despite extending his winning streak to eight games, George couldn't be happier. Because in this game, Jamie Redknapp, who had finally recovered from his injury, fell on the court again - in a simple confrontation with West Ham United players, he was less than a substitute. Ten minutes later, Redknapp was injured again and was carried off the field on a stretcher by medical staff. According to preliminary diagnosis, Redknapp, who has strained his knee ligaments, will be sidelined for at least a month!
After learning that Redknapp would miss another month due to injury, George also felt extremely helpless. George also didn't expect that after finally waiting for Xiao Lei to come back from injury, he ended up returning to the hospital bed to continue recuperating in his first appearance this season. As a result, he still only had two players, Carrick and Basturk. Midfield available.
It rained all night, and on the day after the game, George received two more pieces of bad news—the main right back, Stephen Carr, strained his thigh muscle in training and needed to be out for about two weeks; Franck Ribery In the post-match physical examination, a muscle strain was also found, and he will definitely not be able to represent Tottenham in the next two games!
In this way, as three players including Redknapp Jr. were injured and missed one after another, Tottenham Hotspur, which had already won eight consecutive victories in all competitions, cast a shadow.
