Chapter 900 Only One Person
"Master Huan, do you think there is something wrong with our league?"
Richard Scudmore stared seriously at Yang Huan who was sitting opposite him and asked very seriously.
Yang Huan, who was originally smiling, became a little serious after hearing this question and seeing the serious expression on Scudmore's face. He frowned slightly and asked, "Why do you ask that?"
Scudmore did not answer, but gave a long sigh.
"In the past two or three seasons, our European performance has not been ideal. If Southampton had not won two consecutive Europa Leagues and the Champions League last season, I can hardly imagine how bad our situation would be."
In the past few seasons, the Premier League's European competitions have indeed been supported by Southampton.
This is why Southampton has become famous in the UK and won the recognition of fans across the country in just a few years, because the Saints have retained the last fig leaf for English football!
But behind this glory is the downturn of other Premier League teams.
Manchester City and Arsenal are eliminated in the round of 16 every year, Chelsea is now in the relegation zone, Manchester United's performance has plummeted after Ferguson retired, and as for Liverpool, it goes without saying that the Reds have not had an easy time in European competitions since Benítez left.
This season, three of the four Premier League teams advanced from their group stages, but only Southampton made it to the quarterfinals.
Arsenal was eliminated by Monaco, Manchester City was beaten to a pulp by Barcelona, and except for Southampton, other Premier League teams were simply taught a lesson by other leagues in the Champions League.
Not to mention facing top teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, even against teams like Atletico Madrid and Dortmund, the Premier League giants have no chance of winning.
Now, Arsenal can even lose to Monaco, how can it not be disappointing?
"Now sponsors and broadcasters have some opinions."
When Yang Huan heard this, he laughed instead, "What objection could they have?"
Without waiting for Scudmore to answer, Yang Huan sneered, "They make their money with the broadcasting rights of the Premier League. Even if the Premier League team is wiped out in the European war, they will still count the money until their hands cramp. What the hell do they say!"
This is absolutely the truth.
In terms of current commercial value, the broadcasting rights of the Premier League are still underestimated, so the value of the next broadcasting rights contract will be even higher.
As for whether it is a bubble, who knows? Who can tell for sure?
Do you really think those broadcasters are fools?
They are all big companies. When drawing up contracts, they go through extremely detailed calculations. If they don't have the ability to recover their costs, why would they offer such a high price?
Besides, the Premier League now makes money from the whole world, but the American Football League only makes money from North America. If we really want to talk about bubbles, wouldn't we have to say that the American Football League has more bubbles?
All those who are not professionals but think that the Premier League broadcasting rights are a bubble are talking nonsense.
Even if the Kirch Group of Germany went bankrupt that year, it had nothing to do with the high prices they paid for the World Cup and Bundesliga broadcasting rights. It was their own business problems, okay?
"But, Master Huan, you can't deny that, in recent years, except for Southampton, we really don't have any impressive European results. On the other hand, La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A have achieved a lot in European competitions, and the points in European competitions are also closing in. If this continues, I'm afraid it will be difficult for us to keep the four Champions League places."
This is actually an honest statement.
After hearing this, Yang Huan frowned and looked thoughtful.
"In fact, the problems in the Premier League have nothing to do with other leagues, or whether the opponents are strong or not. They are all our own problems, and we can only solve them by ourselves."
Scudmore nodded, he understood that.
Because of this, he will visit Southampton first, and then he will visit other teams in succession.
He hopes to listen to the opinions of these teams and then try to find a development path for the Premier League.
"Now many people are reminiscing about the feat of three Premier League teams reaching the Champions League semi-finals for three consecutive years, but they completely overlook the fact that we only won one Champions League title in those three years, and the final was a Premier League civil war. This also reflects the problems of the Premier League from another perspective."
"That is, even at our best, we lacked an edge in European competitions!"
"Or rather, the Premier League teams at the time were at most on par with other European giants."
Scudmore nodded again, affirming what Yang Huan said.
Even Manchester United, which had superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez, Vidic, Ferdinand and others, was almost at the same level as European giants such as Barcelona.
The difference is that at that time, Bayern Munich had not yet completely emerged from the downturn of German football and was still in the process of transformation, while Serie A was in collective decline due to the phone-gate incident. The two most competitive teams in La Liga, Barcelona was in the decline period of the Dream Team II, and Real Madrid was in the turbulent period.
So, this is what makes the Premier League so glorious.
But what about now?
There is no need to talk about the strength of La Liga. Barcelona completed the formation of the Dream Team III under Guardiola, and has not yet spent all the money it earned. Real Madrid also ushered in the second phase of the Galacticos under the command of Florentino.
Not only that, last season Atletico Madrid, led by Simeone, emerged as a dark horse and reached the Champions League final. Coupled with the points-grabbing of mid-table La Liga teams in the Europa League, the La Liga has become extremely strong.
The Bundesliga has also been on a tear in recent years. First, Bayern Munich achieved a revival, then Dortmund rose, and now even teams like Schalke 04 and Leverkusen are performing well, showing signs of catching up.
At the same time, Serie A has emerged from the shadow of the phone-gate scandal. Juventus was the first to revive, and teams such as Napoli, Roma and Fiorentina have also gradually risen. Inter Milan has emerged as a dark horse this season, and Serie A's development momentum is also very strong.
Judging from the current European competition points, La Liga is first and is far ahead of the rest, but the Bundesliga, Premier League and Serie A are all very close. If any one of them performs poorly, it may be immediately stepped on by the other two opponents.
Of course, judging from the situation, the Premier League and the Bundesliga are more likely, after all, Serie A's operations are obvious to all.
But the problem is that the Premier League is still supported by Southampton. If Southampton collapses at any time, the Premier League will be really over.
There have been media reports before that Bielsa will leave the Saints after the end of the season. This is not just a matter for the Saints, even Scudmore is worried.
In the past few years, if it weren’t for Bielsa’s hard work, how could the Saints have achieved such good results?
When everyone is expecting Bielsa to achieve Ferguson's godfather status in Saints, the Argentine madman is leaving?
What if, by some chance, he leaves and the Saints' performance declines drastically, just like when Manchester United lost Ferguson?
"If we talk about the current problems in the Premier League, I think there are many. Generally speaking, they are nothing more than the two levels of management and competition." Yang Huan tried to continue to analyze in depth.
"First of all, it's the competitive level, which is nothing more than players and coaches."
At this point, Yang Huan suddenly looked at Scudmore and said, "Richard, I don't know if you have noticed that since 2009, when Guardiola led Barcelona to sweep across Europe with their ball control tactics, the tactics of the entire European football have undergone tremendous changes."
"Guardiola's ideas have brought great stimulation to the world, so we can see that the Bundesliga has also taken the lead in transforming towards this trend in recent years. Van Gaal of Bayern Munich and Klopp of Dortmund are both typical cases of taking the lead in transformation and achieving success."
Scudmore's eyes lit up when he heard this. He vaguely understood what Master Huan meant.
"In recent years, Serie A has also been gradually transforming towards this trend, but our Premier League is far behind other leagues in this regard. Chelsea was the first to do so, but in the process of transformation, they chose to give up and return to the traditional, power-oriented style of play established by Mourinho in his first term."
Inviting Mourinho to return to the club undoubtedly makes this point more obvious.
Of course, this is not to say that Mourinho’s style of play is not good. In fact, Mourinho’s style of play is quite suitable for the Champions League to some extent.
However, Chelsea’s current player configuration is obviously incompatible with Mourinho’s style of play.
"Manchester United also tried to change. Ferguson brought in Shinji Kagawa with this idea, but it didn't work out. Later, Ferguson himself gave up the pursuit in this regard. Arsenal has not changed much for many years, and has no pursuit and lacks surprises."
"Manchester City is the most aggressive team. From Mancini to Pellegrini, Manchester City's goal is quite clear, and their style of play focuses on ball possession. However, Pellegrini's team only has ball possession, and they do a very bad job in pressure and pressing, which makes it difficult for them to achieve anything in the Champions League."
It is an indisputable fact that Manchester City's defense is not good.
The team introduced a large number of ball-control players and played a seemingly advanced ball-control style, but on the one hand, the offense lacked threat and the tactics were too simple; on the other hand, there was no support from pressing and oppression and the defense was very loose.
In the Premier League, Manchester City's offense relies heavily on players such as Nasri and David Silva holding and passing the ball in front of and on both sides of the penalty area.
It should be said that Pellegrini's style of play is very popular in the Premier League, because the Premier League's defense is very loose and lacks a rigorous defensive system.
Therefore, when Manchester City held the ball and passed it in front of the penalty area and on both sides, pulling the defense back and forth, Aguero would take advantage of every opportunity and always be able to beat the opponent.
But when they met Southampton, or some teams with tight defense, especially the strong teams in the Champions League, Manchester City's tactics were restricted and they could not play well.
You know, in the past few years, the progress of Europe's top teams in defense has been quite amazing.
Especially Mourinho's Inter Milan, Heynckes' Bayern Munich, Klopp's Dortmund, and Simeone's Atletico Madrid, they are all quite outstanding in terms of defensive tightness.
Not to mention teams like Barcelona and Southampton that emphasize rigorous collective offense and defense.
"Since returning to Europe in the 1990s, the Premier League has rarely produced tactical masters. Ferguson is an exception, but people like Wenger, Mourinho and Benitez all came to the Premier League after achieving success in Europe."
"However, it has only been four or five years since Guardiola's success. During this period, although there have been coaches like Klopp and Simeone who have formed a new tactical style through their own understanding of a new set of tactical concepts, in general, most head coaches are still in the process of exploring and adapting."
"So, we can also see that after the failure of Klinsmann and Van Gaal's transformation, Bayern Munich chose Guardiola and actively transformed, although Heynckes was successful in terms of results."
"Real Madrid chose Ancelotti after Mourinho failed to reform the team after Pellegrini's short-term coaching. But we can also see that Ancelotti is also facing the crisis of being sacked this season. The reason is that they are unable to bring a stable tactical system to Real Madrid that can meet the new development trend of football."
Scudmore finally understood what Master Huan meant.
When the vast majority of head coaches are still groping and adapting, the transformation of Premier League teams is even more difficult to talk about.
Because, with such fierce competition pressure in the Premier League, which team would be willing to let the head coach try and explore, especially those heads coaches who have not proven themselves. Who would be willing?
Why did Guardiola resolutely choose Bayern Munich despite numerous pleas and invitations from teams such as Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United?
Isn't it because the competition in the Premier League is fierce that he wants to go to the relatively relaxed Bundesliga to continue exploring and improving his tactical concepts?
It can even be said that Klopp and Simeone can emerge in Dortmund and Atletico Madrid, but it is almost impossible for Klopp and Simeone to appear in the Premier League because there is no such soil!
Although there have been head coaches with more advanced playing styles such as Rogers, Martinez, Laudrup and Boas, most of them are still in mid- and lower-level teams, and they themselves are not mature enough and need to further improve and perfect themselves.
As for the big clubs, let alone using them as a test field for the newly arrived head coaches, even if it was someone like Wenger, would he dare to use Arsenal as a test field easily? When Ferguson was still around, would he dare to use Manchester United as a test field?
On the contrary, when Manchester City formed the team, it happened to coincide with the rise of Barcelona, so their team building concept is more in line with the current trend. However, Pellegrini himself is not good at controlling the ball and is still in the process of exploring.
Only with Southampton, Yang Huan, relying on the advantage of a time traveler with foresight, locked on Bielsa from the very beginning, supported Bielsa unconditionally, and built a team that met Bielsa's requirements.
Because he knows that in terms of football philosophy, there is only one person who can keep pace with Guardiola, and that is Bielsa!
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