Chapter 486: Change of Commander

Yang Huan sat in the back seat of a Lagonda Subversive crossover, looking out through the rain-blurred windows at the drizzling rain outside, and felt the scenery on the southbound highway rapidly receding.

His thoughts flew far away.

It is already November, and the situation in the European leagues has gradually become clear.

In the La Liga, the strong and powerful Atletico Madrid, led by the strong coach Diego Simeone, has been doing well in the new season of La Liga.

So far, after eleven rounds of La Liga, Atletico Madrid has achieved an impressive record of ten wins and one draw. The only draw was a draw with Levante in the first round of the league, after which they won ten consecutive games.

You know, in these games, Atletico Madrid has won by big scores of 3-0 and 4-0.

Especially the 4-0 victory over Athletic Bilbao at home and the 4-2 reversal against Real Betis away, which were talked about and praised endlessly, and amazed fans all over the world.

The front trident consisting of Tevez, Mandzukic and Diego Costa makes Atletico Madrid the most lethal and offensive team in La Liga, and it can be said that they are almost invincible.

Although they have remained unbeaten with ten wins and one draw, which is the best start in Atletico Madrid's history, Diego Simeone's team is currently only ranked second in the La Liga standings, behind Barcelona, ​​which has the same points but has scored more goals.

This also made many fans of the Colchoneros feel sad.

However, the team's explosive fighting power this season has made Atletico Madrid fans full of expectations.

How could they have the same points as Barcelona?

Doesn't that mean that the Colchoneros have a chance of winning the La Liga title?

Judging from Atletico Madrid's performance in the new season, summer signings played a crucial role.

After Tevez joined Atletico Madrid, he showed the strength of a top attacker, especially when combined with Diego Costa. The two formed the most difficult combination in Atletico Madrid's frontcourt. Coupled with the tall and strong Mandzukic, Atletico Madrid's frontcourt attacking lineup made almost all La Liga teams hate it.

Even Griezmann, who joined the team this season, has to be relegated to a rotation or even substitute position.

There is no way, Diego Costa and Mandzukic performed too well

In the midfield, Moutinho occupies the main attacking midfielder position, Gabi and Mario Suarez are the unshakable double defensive midfielder combination, plus Illarramendi, Raul Luxembourg, and Oliver Torres, a young player who was promoted to the first team this season, Atletico Madrid's midfield is also quite powerful.

The defense line still uses the combination of Felipe, Miranda, Godin and Juanfran from last season.

But the presence of Otamendi, Peruzzi and Jose Mourinho adds depth to the lineup.

In addition, the appearance of Courtois in the goalkeeper position stabilized Atletico Madrid's goal.

After a summer of running-in, Diego Simeone completely activated Atletico Madrid's lineup, showing the iron-blooded momentum of the Colchoneros, and becoming a unique alternative landscape in the La Liga arena, in addition to Barcelona and Real Madrid.

There is no way. With this lineup of Atletico Madrid, they are only suitable for playing tough guys, not pretty boys.

If Atletico Madrid's ten wins and one draw are amazing, then Monaco can almost be said to be invincible in the French Ligue 2.

In the first round of this season's French Ligue 2, Martino's team faced Tours, a strong team that almost got promoted to French Ligue 1 last season, and Monaco staged a one-sided massacre.

Just eight minutes into the game, Mitrovic, who was on loan from Southampton, scored the first goal for the home team.

In less than three minutes, Mangala took advantage of a corner kick and scored again.

Afterwards, the trident combination of Mitrovic, Aubameyang and Depay staged a crazy goal show at the Stade Louis II, breaking through Tours' goal again and again, and finally locked the score at 7-0.

This isn't a level contest at all.

Tours coach Sikora expressed his despair after the game, saying that Monaco would be the only candidate for the French Ligue 2 title this season.

Mitrovic scored three goals, Aubameyang scored two goals, Depay and Mangala scored one goal each.

This is the result of Monaco's first race of the new season

But if that were all, there would be nothing to be surprised about.

The key point is that after the first game, Monaco defeated Tours, Laval, Istres, Guingamp, Arles, Le Havre, Dijon, Lens...

The French Ligue 2 has played a total of 14 rounds. Monaco has an impressive record of 37 league goals and 14 consecutive wins, leading the French Ligue 2 and shocking the entire French football world. People think Monaco will become the French version of Southampton.

It can be said that the outstanding performances of Atletico Madrid and Monaco were beyond Yang Huan's expectations.

Before the league started, Yang Huan really didn't expect that these two teams would perform so well.

But he was not surprised, because he knew very well that the lineups of these two teams deserved this result.

Needless to say, Atletico Madrid's lineup is definitely capable of challenging for the La Liga title.

At first glance, Monaco's lineup is full of young rookies, but upon closer analysis, they are all future famous players.

The goalkeeper is Navas, one of the most amazing goalkeepers in the Brazil World Cup, and even the substitute is Croatian international Subasic.

On the defensive line, Marquinhos, Zouma and Mangala were all talented central defenders who became famous in Europe two years later. Digne, Kurzawa, Denis Hepi and Aurier were also famous players in Ligue 1.

Midfielders Verratti, Rabiot and Kondogbia are the hottest midfield rookies in Europe two years later, especially Verratti, the core of the Italian national team's midfield, who is hailed as Pirlo's successor.

Rabiot and Kondogbia are seen as French talented midfielders whose talents are no less than Pogba.

Even Germain and Mendy are top players in Ligue 1.

The main frontcourt players are Depay, Mitrovic and Aubameyang, all of whom are famous attackers in Europe. Benzia, Thauvin, Esseric and Fekir are super rookies in France.

With this lineup, Yang Huan felt that this result was not good enough.

It should be said that the goals set by Yang Huan before the season, whether for Atletico Madrid or Monaco, were relatively safe. For example, the former was qualification for the Champions League, that is, the top four in the league, while the latter was promotion to Ligue 1.

There's not much suspense about these.

But Southampton, the team Yang Huan had placed the highest hopes on, now seems to be the one that has frustrated him the most.

Southampton lost three of the first four league games, losing to Manchester City away, Manchester United at home and Arsenal away.

This puts Southampton almost at the bottom of the league standings.

In the fifth round of the league, Southampton defeated Aston Villa 4-1 at home, helping the Saints escape the relegation zone in the standings.

But in the sixth round, they lost 1-2 to Moyes' Everton away from home and were once again placed in the relegation zone.

After that, they drew 2-2 with Fulham at home, beat West Ham United 4-1 away, drew 1-1 with Tottenham Hotspur at home, and lost 0-1 to West Bromwich Albion away.

After that, they won 3-1 away against Queens Park Rangers and drew 1-1 with Swansea City at home.

After twelve rounds of competition, Southampton ranked eleventh in the Premier League standings with four wins, three draws and five losses, accumulating fifteen points, eight points behind Newcastle, which is in the top four of the league.

This also made the fans who were full of confidence in Southampton at the beginning of the season feel disappointed, thinking that Bielsa's team's performance was too unstable, and they always suffered a painful blow immediately after playing a good game.

The only consolation is that the veteran powerhouse Liverpool's current points ranking is actually lower than Southampton.

The Reds currently have three wins, six draws and three losses, and also have 15 points, but Southampton is ranked higher with a goal difference advantage, forcing the Reds to 12th place in the league.

And although Southampton ranks eleventh, in fact, it is only eight points away from Newcastle, which is in the top four of the league. For the Premier League, which has just started the twelfth round, there is still a chance.

At least Arsenal, who have been striving to stay in the top four every year, currently ranks sixth with only 19 points, while Tottenham Hotspur ranks eighth with 17 points, with West Ham United sandwiched between the two teams.

Interestingly, after Tottenham Hotspur comes Fulham.

From sixth to ninth, all are occupied by London teams.

The top three teams in the league are Manchester City, which remains unbeaten with eight wins and four draws, Manchester United, which has nine wins and three losses, and Chelsea, which ranks third.

For Southampton, it is really sad to see such a lineup configuration end up in this state in the Premier League. Many media have even taken the initiative to prescribe solutions.

That's a coaching change.

Bielsa even made the first choice among the three major bookmakers for who would be the first head coach to be sacked in the new Premier League season, which shows how disappointed the fans and the media are with his coaching this season.

This is also the question many people have about Bielsa.

Looking at the Argentine madman's coaching record over the past years, there have always been many ups and downs.

For example, when he was coaching the Argentina national team, he was in great shape in the qualifiers, but in the World Cup in Korea and Japan, Argentina, which was regarded as the number one favorite to win the championship, was humiliatingly eliminated in the group stage. Bielsa also suffered unprecedented doubts for this, especially his 3313 tactics.

But Bielsa managed to withstand the pressure. Two years after the World Cup, he led the Argentine Olympic team to the Athens Olympics, winning the gold medal, and cultivated young rookies including Saviola Tevez, Mascherano, and Coloccini.

Yang Huan believes that Bielsa is still quite capable and is the head coach who best meets Southampton's requirements at the moment.

Therefore, as soon as he received the call from Peternian, Yang Huan flew directly from China to London without stopping.

This time, he came specifically to support Bielsa.

When the eye-catching Lagonda Subversive appeared at the gate of Southampton's Staplewood training base, dozens of reporters who had received the news long ago and were waiting outside the base immediately surrounded them.

"Mr. Yang Huan, I heard that you have lost your patience with the team's poor performance. Is that true?"

"Countless Southampton fans are dissatisfied with the team's performance. Will you respond to public opinion and fire Bielsa?"

"Some media reported that Southampton is looking for a new coach to replace Bielsa. Is this true?"

"Can you please tell me whether Bielsa will be sacked?"

The microphone kept knocking on the car window. Yang Huan, who was sitting in the back seat with a gloomy face, sighed and said to Long Wu in the front seat, "Let me get off the car!"

"Master, there are too many people here, I'm afraid..."

But before he could finish, Yang Huan had already opened the car door and got out.

All the reporters at the scene immediately surrounded Yang Huan and blocked him against the car door.

Questions came one after another, and it was unclear who was asking them or what they were asking.

Finally, Yang Huan had to raise his hand to signal everyone to be quiet.

"I'll just say one thing, just once"

Everyone at the scene suddenly fell silent, looking intently at Young Master Huan and listening to what he had to say.

"We have decided to renew Bielsa's contract"

"today"

"Now"

"Here"