After a small victory over Charlton at home, Tottenham's record in the Premier League this season has also become an astonishing eleven wins and one draw, leading Chelsea in second place in the standings with 34 points. A full five points more. As for the defending champion Arsenal, the Gunners, who have not won in the past three league rounds, are already seven points behind the leader!
The reason why Tottenham led Arsenal by so many points after just three rounds was that they were on par with them before, mainly because the mentality of Arsenal players was seriously affected after losing to Manchester United. In addition, both the FA and the Premier League were annoyed by Wenger's unscrupulous remarks at the post-match press conference, as well as the previous revelations that Arsenal players evaded taxes by signing real and fake contracts, which indirectly affected the referee's judgment of Arsenal games. The penalty scale caused the Gunners to draw two consecutive draws in the league, which not only further widened the points gap between them and Tottenham, but also handed over the second place in the standings to Chelsea!
(Note: Arsenal veteran Ray Parlor was careless in the divorce dispute with his ex-wife and inadvertently submitted information with his true personal income to the court. As a result, it was found that his salary income at Arsenal was much higher than externally. The published figures. Then the British media and judicial authorities followed the clues, pulled out the carrots and brought out the mud, and found that Parlor was not an isolated case. Everyone from the Arsenal coaching staff to the players, without exception, had signed real and fake contracts to evade taxes. This collective tax evasion incident caused a serious blow to Arsenal's image, making the Gunners very passive in public opinion, and also made Arsenal a thorn in the side of the British judicial department.)
For Arsenal, which advocates technical flow, the impact of referee changes in penalty scales is self-evident. Even if the referee didn't have any bias when making the penalty, and just relaxed his whistle slightly, it would be enough to give Arsenal a drink.
However, George was not in the mood to watch the jokes of his rival in the same city right now. Because at this time, the negative impact of a consecutive week of double matches on Tottenham finally began to show up!
Although under George's careful operation, Tottenham is already one of the teams with the best bench depth in the Premier League, but even so, the players will still be somewhat inadequate in the face of multi-line combat.
For example, now, in the fourth round of the League Cup against Middlesbrough, George has deeply realized this. Although he has conducted a large-scale rotation of the starting lineup to ensure that the players' physical fatigue will not be a problem, even if the players' physical fatigue can be alleviated through rotation, the mental fatigue is unavoidable.
No matter how many fans criticize McLaren because of the fact that the England national team failed to qualify for the 2008 European Cup in his previous life, they would like to eat his flesh alive. But during his tenure at Middlesbrough, McLaren's performance and achievements can indeed be regarded as the best local coach in England.
Although the results of a League Cup championship and a UEFA Cup runner-up are not very impressive to most well-known head coaches, for the English coaching world that was once short of success, the 43-year-old McLaren has already He could be said to be the most capable of the young generation of England coaches at the time. Of course, in this life, after the old Robson retired, George, who had more outstanding achievements, naturally took up the banner of England's local coach, while McLaren played a soy sauce role.
Although the popularity is much lower than in the previous life, looking at the starting list sent by Middlesbrough in this League Cup game, no one will dare to underestimate the team led by McClaren - the goalkeeper is the Australian national goalkeeper Schwarzer, Reiziger, Ehiogu, Southgate and Colin Cooper lined up in the defense, while Downing, Doriva, Ray Parlor and Zenden formed the midfield , Dutch center Hasselbaink and Slovak international Nemeh partnered up front. Such a lineup with good experience and ability is enough to give any team a headache!
Not to mention, Middlesbrough also has powerful players such as Viduka, George Boateng (not the familiar pair of brothers) and Kedrew on the bench. This also means that McLaren has enough capital to fight a war of attrition with the depleted Tottenham today!
Naturally, it was impossible for George not to be aware of this little calculation in McLaren's mind. Therefore, before the game started, George repeatedly emphasized to the players the importance of seizing opportunities and setting the ball, in order to prevent the game from entering the situation he least wanted to see!
Casey Keller, Phil Neville, Dawson, Vermaelen, Baines, Kompany, Davies, Mendieta, Darren Anderton, Ribery and Klose, This is Tottenham's starting eleven for this game!
When the opponent uses all their main players, they send out a starting lineup composed mainly of substitutes and rotation players. On the one hand, George does this to allow these players to maintain their condition better, so as not to cause trouble at critical moments due to the long-term sparse battle formation; On the other hand, it is also because of the situation - who makes Tottenham have a more important North London derby to play three days later?
Since Mendieta did not stay in Middlesbrough to play football in this life, but chose to join Tottenham as Xavi Alonso's substitute, his playing time was naturally reduced a lot. However, a blessing in disguise is a blessing in disguise. After arriving at White Hart Lane, Mendieta, who played the absolute core role in the rotation, once again found the all-powerful feeling he had at the Mestalla. Under the protection of teammates such as Davis and Kompany, the Basque was able to fully display his offensive talents on the court without having to waste limited energy on the defensive end.
Although Mendieta's current strength is only 70-80% of his peak, it is quite enough for Tottenham. At least, it was difficult for Middlesbrough, which only deployed Parlor as a defensive midfielder on the field, to limit the Basques' performance.
In the 25th minute, Darren Anderton took a tactical corner kick. Mendieta passed the ball to the middle of the penalty area on the right side of the court. Klose, who was flying in the air, overwhelmed the elderly Ehiogu and South. Gate, headed the ball into the gate guarded by Schwarzer, one to zero!
The Middlesbrough players, who were not willing to fail, pulled one back through Hasselbaink shortly after the start of the second half. However, just five minutes later, Vermaelen took advantage of a free kick in the frontcourt and scored with a powerful kick. A powerful header helped Tottenham exceed the score again!
After that, although the two teams each created some opportunities, neither player could convert them into goals. Nemeh's shot five meters in front of the goal was blocked by Casey Keller, and Davis's heavy shot passed Schwarzer's fingers, but unfortunately it was missed by the goal post. Shut out!
Just like that, when the whole game ended, Tottenham relied on goals from Klose and Vermaelen to beat Middlesbrough, which was almost full of players, 2-1 in the away game and tenaciously won the league. Victory in the fourth round of the Cup, it was extremely difficult to get a place in the top eight of the League Cup!
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