The beautiful and freehand White Hart Lane stadium had clear skies and sunshine. Arsenal's goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann, was wearing a cap as he looked around the stands in front of the goal line.
He hated White Hart Lane, not only because of the hatred between the clubs, but also because of the geographical location of the stadium. Like today, after changing to half of the field in the second half, the bright and dark areas in the stadium were more obvious. The position he stood in was dazzling, so he had to wear a cap to slightly improve the situation. In any case, for a goalkeeper, a situation that interfered with his line of sight was always the most annoying. It would affect his performance in front of the goal.
Cunning Tottenham!
Damn it, when Robinson stood here in the first half, the position of the sun was clearly different from now.
When it was Jens Lehmann's turn to stand here, he had to endure the dazzling sunlight.
It was also strange.
On average, it rained ten days a month in the United Kingdom. Even if it did not rain, there would not be such pleasant and comfortable sunshine like today.
Although God was helping Tottenham, it was a pity that they did not live up to expectations.
No matter how dazzling the sunlight was, it was not as painful as the 4: 1 score on the scoreboard to the hearts of the Tottenham fans.
On this bright afternoon, the Tottenham fans were simply suffering. Lightning flashed and thunder roared in their hearts!
Arsenal was too much!
Their celebration after every goal was so arrogant!
It was as if Tottenham were weak and could be bullied. They took whatever they wanted from Tottenham and could score as many goals as they wanted.
Just as the Tottenham fans were beginning to feel discouraged, what they thought was a turning point in the game happened in the stadium.
With a 4: 1 lead, Vieira was still the same Vieira who took the lead and "left his post".
But in the attack in the 73rd minute, Vieira made a mistake. His pass did not reach Bergkamp's feet and was successfully intercepted by Carrick midway.
Carrick immediately spurred a counterattack. He sent a pass to Defoe. It was not clever, but still focused on stability.
Defoe dribbled the ball forward from the left side of the front field. His short stature was extremely agile. He dribbled the ball at high speed from left to right to confuse Arsenal's defensive line.
Yes, Arsenal did not have a defensive midfielder to stop him at all.
This put Arsenal's defenders in an awkward position. On the one hand, Defoe's dribbling was more agile. On the other hand, they had to be wary of him passing the ball to Keane.
In short, this kind of situation where the defensive line directly faced at least two offensive players from the other side was very uncomfortable for the defenders.
Defoe had no intention of passing the ball. He had been holding back for most of the match, and now that he had finally found an opportunity, how could he give it to someone else?
The moment he stepped into the penalty area, he suddenly raised his leg to shoot and hit a high quality shot. The football flew over the head of the defender and hung straight at the top right corner of the goal. It stuck close to the bottom of the crossbar and scuttled into the goal. Dead corner!
Lehmann did not make a save at all. He blamed it all on the light disrupting his vision. In fact, even if he had made a save, he would not have been able to touch the football. Defoe's shot was too beautiful!
"Tottenham Hotspur gets a goal back! Arsenal's defenders had been retreating, and no one came forward to intercept. They were afraid of rushing forward to intercept, which would lead to the space behind them being exploited. But Defoe had just stepped into the penalty area when he decisively raised his leg to shoot, and his shot pierced through Lehmann's fingers! What a wonderful goal! 2: 4, Spurs still have a chance! "
Defoe's goal reignited the hope of the Tottenham fans. They cheered excitedly for Defoe and roared for Tottenham to continue their efforts.
Wenger shook his head slightly on the sidelines.
He was going to make a substitution.
He did not blame Vieira. In fact, he could no longer stand Reyes's invisible performance on the field.
The facts were in front of him. When Reyes was unable to continue his offense time and time again, he could not gain the trust of his teammates.
In other words, Vieira would not choose to pass the ball to him. After a long time, Tottenham Hotspur would also discover this. Then, whether it was Vieira or Qin Xiong, their forward passing options would be reduced to only the middle and right sides. In other words, the probability of Tottenham Hotspur's successful defense would also increase, and it would be easier for them to predict and make timely defensive responses.
Reyes left the field in disappointment. Pires, who had recovered from his injury but was still in doubt, returned to the field.
Tottenham Hotspur thought that their recovery of a goal was a good sign, so they actively launched a counterattack in the middle and front of the field after the restart.
But Arsenal also actively counterattacked in the middle and front of the field. Everyone's reaction to handling the ball after the successful defense determined the quality of the offense.
In the 77th minute of the game, after Vieira boldly pressed forward to create pressure for Brown to pass the ball, Brown made a mistake in his pass!
The ball he passed to Carrick was directly intercepted by Qin Xiong, and Qin Xiong, who intercepted the ball, passed the ball out in the next second!
A straight ball!
Vieira rushed straight forward. Bergkamp was marked, and so was Henry. In fact, the two of them provided cover for Vieira.
This made Vieira's brave and decisive plug forward very surprising to Tottenham Hotspur's defensive line.
After receiving Qin Xiong's straight ball, Vieira rushed forward with big strides and directly crossed Tottenham Hotspur's defensive line. Then, facing Robinson, Vieira shot with a kick.
Robinson made another misjudgment. He thought that Vieira would roll the ball with a push shot, so he directly fell to the ground. As a result, the football flew over his body after he fell to the ground and went straight into the goal behind him!
“5:2！ My God, how many more goals is Arsenal going to score? What is Tottenham Hotspur's defensive line doing? They seem to be sleepwalking throughout the whole game! "
It was not that they were sleepwalking, it was that their high pressing tactics against a technical team like Arsenal was simply seeking their own death!
Vieira roared at the stands. Even in the face of the Tottenham Hotspur fans' boos, he showed a ferocious expression to declare his arrogance.
This open game shocked everyone!
Three minutes later, Tottenham Hotspur actually pulled a goal back!
It was Touré again!
Tottenham Hotspur's simple pass from the side actually succeeded!
Touré once again made a header while retreating, allowing King to score a goal. It was a lob shot formed after a header, and Lehmann could only look at the ball and sigh!
Qin Xiong confirmed the idea that had been buried in his heart for a month.
Arsenal's air defense had a problem!
Yes, although there were tall and strong center backs like Touré and Campbell, there should be absolutely no problem in air defense.
But air defense was not only a matter of whether or not they could compete for headers, but also the ability to handle headers to clear the siege. Arsenal often saw these two center backs give the opponent a second chance to attack after clearing the siege with headers, and serious mistakes belonged to today's two fatal headers, such as Touré's two fatal headers that allowed the opponent to seize the opportunity to score a goal.
Qin Xiong had this idea not only because he had seen Arsenal's defensive line panic after dealing with high balls many times in the game, but also because of the most fundamental training content. Compared to Ajax's somewhat self-contained systematic and rigorous training system, Arsenal's training system, which was established by Wenger, seemed to be indifferent to the defense of set pieces and high balls. Wenger probably copied his creative free play of offense into the defense. In other words, Arsenal's own offense was used to test and hone their defense in training.
This might not be a problem in itself, because Arsenal's offensive strength was strong, but in fact, Arsenal could not represent or cover all the offensive styles in the entire football world, especially in England, where they played football that was very different from traditional English football. Therefore, their own defensive line was rarely tested by long passes in training, and naturally, there was not much training experience accumulated.
Qin Xiong shook his head and did not think about this problem anymore. After all, a team's defense or offense could not be perfect. There were probably not many teams in the world, no, there should not be a team that could not be perfect in both offense and defense. There would always be flaws and imperfections to some extent.
"The goal battle! This will definitely be a classic North London derby. Tottenham Hotspur 3: 5 Arsenal. There have already been eight goals. Will there be more? Will there be more? There are still ten minutes to the game! "
The Tottenham fans in the stands were excited. They saw the Tottenham Hotspur team's courage and spirit of not giving up, and also saw Arsenal's defensive flaws. There were still ten minutes to the game. Why couldn't a miracle happen?
Before Arsenal kicked off again, Wenger made a second substitution on the sidelines.
Fàbregas came on to replace the veteran Bergkamp.
At the same time, Martin Jol also made a substitution. Kanort came on to replace Defoe.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
