Chapter 299 I will definitely repay you!

After the Guardian reporter conducted a routine pre-season interview with Ferguson, he laughed and teased Ferguson, saying that even a blind man could see that Ferguson's head was smoking!

This statement is a bit exaggerated, but it can really describe the predicament Ferguson is facing now.

Manchester United is in a very bad situation now. Even Ferguson feels that if it is not handled well, it will be a disaster for Manchester United, and the Premier League championship in the new season will still be out of the question.

There are objective factors that have caused Manchester United's current predicament, but there are also internal reasons for Manchester United.

Solskjaer had a knee injury last season and rested for 5 months after surgery. Unexpectedly, he had another knee surgery in early August this year. This surgery is very critical and determines whether Solskjaer can continue his career, but at least before October, Solskjaer will not be able to play football again.

The same situation also happened to Saha. The French striker who entered Old Trafford at a high price during the winter break last year was highly expected by Ferguson. However, he did not expect that in a warm-up match, Saha sprained his knee and would be absent for a period of time. He might not be able to return to the first round of the league away at Stamford Bridge.

If Solskjaer and Saha were both natural disasters, then Van Nistelrooy's tragedy was a man-made disaster.

Van Nistelrooy had an injury before. After returning to the training ground, Ferguson and the coaching staff hoped that he could catch up with the third round of the Champions League qualifiers. After all, for Manchester United, these are definitely the two most important games before the season, which determine Manchester United's revenue of more than 10 million in the Champions League this season, and they must not be missed.

In order to enable Van Nistelrooy to appear in the third round of the Champions League qualifiers in a better state, Ferguson and the coaching staff prepared a high-intensity training plan for him, hoping to help him adjust his state and rhythm as soon as possible. However, Van Nistelrooy, who had just recovered from injury, persisted for a few days and was injured again, and had to undergo hernia surgery.

After Solskjaer, Saha and Van Nistelrooy fell one after another, Uruguayan striker Fran, who was never reused in Manchester United, accepted Villarreal's offer and announced his transfer to La Liga, while Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, after playing in the European Cup, went against Ferguson's wishes and directly joined the Portuguese Olympic team to play in the Athens Olympics.

Coupled with the failure to introduce Heinze and Rooney, Ferguson is now facing a very serious situation, and it can even be said to be very embarrassing, because in the next two weeks, Manchester United will not only face the powerful Chelsea in the Community Shield and the league, but also have to face two third-round qualifying matches for the Champions League, and the opponent is a Romanian team, which is not bad in strength.

There are a total of 8 injured players, and the main attackers are almost all exempt from the battle. Ferguson now has no available strikers at all. Even on the back line, he can only arrange a shabby combination of Fortune, Sylvester, O'Shea and Gary Neville. The midfield is Giggs, Djemba, Keane and Bellion, Scholes plays as a front midfielder, and Alan Smith rushes forward.

Compared with Manchester United's shabby half-substitute lineup, Chelsea played with the main lineup.

Goalkeeper Van der Sar, Evra, Cannavaro, Terry and Maicon in the back line, Deco and Makelele in the double defensive midfield, Ronaldinho, Lampard and Rooney in the front field, and Drogba as the lone striker.

Putting the two lineups together, Manchester United's momentum was much lower from the beginning, but Ferguson was also a man who could take it or leave it. He did not hesitate at all and directly put up a defensive formation. Even Alan Smith on the forward line actively participated in the defense. The whole team almost shrank in their own half and waited for opportunities.

In the first half, the two sides drew 0:0. Chelsea's overall state seemed not ideal. The rhythm of the game was slow, especially Ronaldinho. Although the Brazilian performed well and created many opportunities, it seemed that there was still a certain gap from his average level, which always made people feel that he was missing something.

For example, in the 31st minute, Rooney broke through Fortune on the right and knocked back. Lampard shot in front of the goal, but Howard saved the ball with one punch. Ronaldinho followed up with a shot. There was no defensive player in front, and even the goalkeeper had fallen to the ground, but the Brazilian's shot hit the side net directly.

After the America's Cup, Ronaldinho missed the pre-season training and preparations. His condition was obviously affected. Ye Qiu also showed some understanding for this. On the contrary, the newly joined young player Rooney has performed very well recently.

In this game, Fortune focused on defending Rooney, who was in his position, but the English boy did not seem to be restrained at all because of Fortune's defense. He had a powerful shot in the first half that hit the crossbar. I believe that this shot must have accelerated Ferguson's heartbeat. Then he got a header and a chance to grab a point in front of the goal, but he missed the goal by mistake.

In the first half, Chelsea had the upper hand, but they could not score. Ye Qiu decided to make adjustments during the halftime break, but this time he did not use Ribery, who was the 12th player in the best XI.

When Chelsea's players walked out of the player tunnel one after another, Ferguson and assistant coach Queiroz were counting the number of Chelsea players. They soon found that Ronaldinho was sitting on the bench and Joe Cole was the starter.

"What the hell?" Queiroz muttered.

Ferguson frowned. He has always had a unique sense of tactics and game situations that belongs to him and cannot be explained to others. This is the experience and insights he has accumulated over many years of coaching career. At this moment, seeing Joe Cole on and Ronaldinho off, a game came to his mind.

Not long ago, in the quarterfinals of the European Cup, Portugal played against England, and Rui Costa came on as a substitute.

It was also a substitution under the advantage, and it was also a positional substitution. Ye Qiu replaced Ronaldinho, who was obviously not in good enough condition, with Joe Cole, obviously to strengthen the team's last pass.

"Gary!" Ferguson walked to the sidelines, waved to Gary Neville, and pointed at Joe Cole.

After receiving Ferguson's instructions, Gary Neville nodded, indicating that he understood and would watch this kid carefully.

As a teammate of the national team, Gary Neville is not unfamiliar with Joe Cole at all. He knows Joe Cole's strength very well.

With the referee's whistle, Drogba kicked the ball to Rooney. Rooney, who made his first appearance in an official match for Chelsea, did not seem to be afraid of the stage at all. As the saying goes, a newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger. Rooney was fierce and powerful under the pressure of Djemba. After turning around to protect the ball, he waited for his teammates to press forward before he knocked the ball back to Terry on the back line.

Don't underestimate this ball protection, which is also one of the routines that Ye Qiu focused on arranging, because when Rooney was protecting the ball, Chelsea could press forward smoothly, including the back line, and when Terry received Rooney's knock back, Chelsea's front court had obviously entered Manchester United's 30-meter area.

Of course, if Ye Qiu was not confident in Rooney's ability, he would not take such a risk, because once the ball was broken, it would be very dangerous to counterattack directly.

After Terry got the ball, he passed it directly to Makelele who was retreating without waiting for Alan Smith to approach.

One very interesting thing is the position and movement of Makelele and Deco.

Everyone who has played football knows that when encountering tight defense, the most difficult part of advancing the ball is that it is easier to receive and take the ball with your back to the attacking direction, because there is no threat. The real difficulty lies in how you take the ball head-on.

Without taking the ball head-on, it is impossible to complete the advancement and form a threat.

And there are only two ways to do this, one is teamwork, and the other is the individual ability of the players.

For the double defensive midfielders who are crucial to controlling the team's ball advancement and offense-defense conversion, how to cooperate at this point is also critical. So at the moment when Terry was about to pass the ball, if the game screen was frozen, you can see that Makelele's position was higher than Deco, and the interesting thing about the two is that Makelele was running back with his back to the attacker, while Deco was facing the attacker head-on.

When Makelele ran back from the front to receive the ball, Scholes, who was guarding Deco, was obviously affected. He wanted to double-team and press immediately, but Makelele did not let the ball stay at his feet, but passed it diagonally behind Scholes and in front of Deco.

When Scholes wanted to press Makelele, Deco had already inserted from behind him at the first time, and faced the attacking direction directly after getting the ball. Under Manchester United's pressing, Chelsea's attack this time successfully completed the transition from facing the goal with two touches, and Deco dribbled the ball forward and backward, successfully threatening the 30-meter area.

Facing the attacker, Deco had many options, and any of his choices obviously affected Manchester United's defense, so Manchester United's defensive players stared at him as if they were facing a great enemy. This time he chose to pass the ball diagonally to Joe Cole on the left.

Joe Cole pulled to the left sideline, and Deco's pass was lightly unloaded by his left foot. Wow, the ball was like lead, sticking to his instep and not moving. Gary Neville chose to closely guard Joe Cole at the first time, but at the same time, Lampard quickly cut in from the middle to behind Gary Neville, and Keane subconsciously followed Lampard.

Lampard's move directly pulled Keane away, and Joe Cole protected the ball and quickly dribbled the ball horizontally from the left along the penalty area line to the middle. The whole process happened in the blink of an eye, leaving no room for Manchester United players to breathe or think.

Gary Neville followed Joe Cole, but the latter made a diagonal pass at the top of the penalty area before Djemba got close to him, and distributed it to Manchester United's right rib. Rooney pulled between Manchester United's left back Fortune and left center back Sylvester, and rushed to the bottom line quickly after getting the ball, and directly broke through Sylvester who was trying to steal the ball.

It's not that the Frenchman was reckless, but at that moment, he absolutely couldn't let Rooney hold the ball smoothly in the penalty area, otherwise, he would have directly kicked the ball, so no matter what choice he made at that time, the risk was very high.

But Sylvester was not a coward. When Rooney broke through him, he followed Rooney closely and didn't give Rooney any chance to stop and shoot at the goal. This is the benefit of experience. He lets you break through, but doesn't let you stop. If you don't stop, you can't shoot. If you shoot in a hurry, it's difficult to hit the right position and exert force.

However, Rooney is also a bit of brute force. He can't shoot, so he simply doesn't do it himself. He directly uses his speed advantage to highlight a gap, then lobs the ball and passes it to the back point. This is also the cleverness of the English boy.

Sylvester raised his foot to intercept, but the ball was obviously higher than his raised foot, how to intercept?

O'Shea is indeed not short, 1.91 meters tall, and he is not without resistance against Drogba, but the most rare thing about Drogba is that he has height, explosive power, and sensitivity, and most importantly, his physical confrontation is absolutely abnormal.

Under the ravages and shadow of Drogba, O'Shea didn't even have a chance to jump up, and saw the Ivorian jump lightly and directly head Rooney's pass into the nearby Manchester United goal, 1:0!

Even Drogba himself didn't expect the chance to score a goal to fall on him. He was always defending for his teammates. He originally thought Rooney would shoot himself, but unexpectedly, Rooney couldn't get rid of Sylvester and could only pass the ball.

Drogba was so excited after scoring that he didn't know what to say. After rushing to the sidelines, he kept mumbling. No one could hear what he wanted to say, but the only thing that was certain was that he was crazy! Crazy with joy!

Chelsea scored in the first attack in the second half. Ferguson on the sidelines shook his head. This was not accidental, but Chelsea used continuous passing to tear open Manchester United's defense. Among them, Joe Cole cut in horizontally from the left and keenly found Rooney who inserted into the right rib. This was definitely a wonderful stroke.

Sometimes the game is like this. If the ball is passed well, it means a goal. If the ball is passed even a little bit worse, it may cause the goal to fail. Ronaldinho seemed to perform well in the first half, but in fact it was just a little bit worse.

This goal also sounded another alarm for Ferguson. Keane alone can no longer support Manchester United's midfield.

As Arsenal and Chelsea are becoming more and more adept at playing the two-rib interspersed tactics, the protection of the defense line by a single defensive midfielder can be said to have been greatly challenged. How can you, a defensive midfielder, protect the left and right ribs at the same time?

You can play against weak teams, because the two wing attacking players of weak teams will be relatively weak and the response is not obvious. But against strong teams like Chelsea and Arsenal, the response between their two flanks is very strong. Ronaldinho's most famous offensive routine at Chelsea is actually to dribble the ball inside from the left and then pass it diagonally to the right flank, which can be said to be tried and tested.

Sometimes, many things are destined!

With Joe Cole's mall, Chelsea broke Manchester United's goal at the beginning of the second half. Ferguson immediately made adjustments and replaced Fortune and Djemba with Fletcher and Phil Neville. Ferguson was obviously very dissatisfied with the performance of these two players.

But substitutions still could not change the passive situation of being beaten, nor could they stop Chelsea's attack.

In the 54th minute, Sylvester and O'Shea made mistakes under Chelsea's strong offensive pressure. O'Shea's long-foot clearance was off target and directly kicked in front of Lampard. Lampard, who was standing near the penalty spot, naturally would not miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He kicked the ball directly and it went into the upper left corner, 2:0!

The situation took a turn. Manchester United defended well in the first half, but suddenly suffered a crushing defeat in the second half.

In the 58th minute, Chelsea launched another wave of attacks. After receiving the pass on the left, Joe Cole pretended to cut inside, but suddenly passed it to Evra who came in from behind. The French left-back quickly went down to the bottom line and made a cross after receiving the ball.

Drogba still firmly occupied the commanding heights in the penalty area this time, but under the joint double-teaming of O'Shea and Sylvester, the Ivorian had no chance and could only choose to head the ball. After a light touch, the ball fell to the back point. Rooney shook off Phil Neville and quickly inserted himself, facing the ball and poking it, and the ball went straight into the bottom of the net, 3:0!

Only 13 minutes after the start, Chelsea scored three goals in a row, and the situation changed completely. The Chelsea fans in the stands of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff were so happy that they kept singing the team's team song and shouting the names of the players. The scene was finally a bit lively.

There was no way. Although this game was the Community Shield, which was a bit similar to the Super Cup in other leagues, it actually had little influence. At least from the attendance rate of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, it was estimated that one-third of it was empty.

In fact, this has been a problem since the reconstruction of Wembley Stadium and the transfer of all finals to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. That is, the attendance rate is always difficult to satisfy people. If it is the finals of the League Cup and the FA Cup, it is better. After all, these two events still have some influence, but the attendance rate of other events is very bad.

Although Chelsea and Manchester United played in this game, the attendance rate was only about two-thirds.

It is estimated that this is also related to the fact that Cardiff is too far away from London.

After winning 3:0, Chelsea did not think of stopping the fight at all. The team still kept attacking Manchester United. Seeing that the team had no hope of turning the tables, Ferguson replaced four young players at once, basically some unknown ones, obviously to save their strength for the Champions League in the middle of the week.

The Community Shield is not a strict competition, but a charity competition, so there are no more restrictions on substitutions. Especially before the game, Manchester United called for all substitutes to play in the Community Shield. As a result, the English Football Association was very dissatisfied and finally made a compromise, agreeing to allow both teams to bring 7 substitutes, but 6 can be on the field.

In the end, this event is just a more official warm-up match for all teams.

But Chelsea still scored in the 81st minute, with Deco's shot hitting Sylvester and Howard's goal, 4:0!

This goal made Ye Qiu on the sidelines very excited. As soon as the whistle sounded, he walked to Ferguson impatiently and said something to Ferguson, who was so gloomy that he almost jumped up.

"4:0, great!"

"I really hope you can scold us before the league starts. You can call us conservative, ugly, etc., but please don't praise us. I will definitely repay you!"