The two teams walked into Elland Road Stadium under the guidance of the referee.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Elland Road Stadium. Let's give the boys of Leeds United a little encouragement, okay?" The on-site commentator Ere Geddy also began to lead the atmosphere.
But he was only responded by a burst of applause, and most of the home team fans were still complaining about Leeds United's starting lineup.
At this time, the strikers of both teams were already standing near the center circle waiting for the referee's whistle.
Looking at the not-so-warm atmosphere at the scene, Li Shiguang also frowned slightly.
After all, except Howard, all other players in the current Leeds United team were recruited by Blackwell from the free market or promoted by the youth team before Li Shiguang was reborn.
If it weren't for the system, Li Shiguang really couldn't name any of them. (The author has consulted a lot of information and has indeed not found a relatively complete lineup of Leeds United in the 2004-05 season. But this is not important! In addition to Howard, several other new players will appear one after another, and the description of subsequent games will also focus on these players.)
After Blackwell announced the starting lineup yesterday, Li Shiguang found that only Howard entered the starting lineup, and the other new players he introduced were only on the substitute list. Later, Li Shiguang personally went to Blackwell to ask about it.
The reason given by Blackwell was also very sufficient. The players bought by Li Shiguang had just joined the team and had only been running-in with the team for less than a week. He could only put them on the bench first and make adjustments today according to the situation on the field.
Although he knew that Blackwell was dissatisfied with his failure to discuss with him in terms of recruiting players,
But the old man is still the head coach of Leeds United after all, and it is not good for him to interfere too much in arranging the team lineup.
In any case, he will dig a head coach in the winter window to get Blackwell out.
Leeds United does not need a head coach who goes against the boss.
.............
With the referee's whistle, Leeds United's first home game of this season officially kicked off.
As soon as they came on, Derby County's players took advantage of their kick-off and launched a fierce attack on Leeds United.
The head coach of Derby County also saw that Leeds United was in a state of unstable morale, so he directly asked Derby County's players to speed up the rhythm at the beginning and strive to score goals as soon as possible.
In just 20 minutes of the game, Derby County has completed 9 shots, 3 of which almost opened the door guarded by Howard.
Fortunately, Howard, who was loaded with the Buffon template at this time, had a reaction attribute of up to 97 and saved the ball on the goal line.
Seeing the current situation on the field, the fans who were already dissatisfied could no longer hold back and started to abuse the players of Leeds United.
"You bunch of rubbish! Can you kick the ball across the half court?"
"You are not playing with your heart at all!"
"Look at your defense, the entire back line made mistakes one after another, it's a joke."
"The game has only started for more than 20 minutes, and the opponent has already had 9 shots. If you play like this, you bunch of rubbish will only play in the English League One next season!"
"Didn't you see how dangerous that ball was just now? If it weren't for Howard..."
"Huh? That's right, Howard's reaction just now was really fast. If it weren't for him, we would have fallen behind."
Amid the shouting and cursing, some strange sounds suddenly appeared.
In the first 20 minutes, Howard should be the best performer in Leeds United.
And some fans who were not so excited actually found that Howard's condition miraculously improved after the game started.
During the warm-up, Howard's saves would occasionally slip out of his hands.
But after the game started, under the opponent's high-intensity bombardment, Howard performed extremely stably. Except for the few high-threatening shots just now, he saved the ball out of the goal, and all other shots were firmly confiscated by him without slipping out of his hands.
At this time, Derby County completed another long-range shot from the outside, which was again captured by Howard.
Because Howard had just joined the team for a week, and his performance in the previous training was just mediocre, plus his butter hands were well-known, so the Leeds United players did not actually have high expectations for him.
But you have to know that Buffon is a national team and club player.
The double captain has strong spiritual attributes and leadership qualities.
At this time, Howard, who was modeled after Buffon, not only improved his confidence rapidly after completing several wonderful saves, but also showed a hint of leadership qualities.
He walked towards the small penalty area line with one hand holding the ball, pressed down with the other hand, and then shouted loudly to his teammates: "Slow down! Don't be led by them and disrupt their offensive rhythm, so that we can find opportunities to counterattack!"
Seemingly infected by Howard, the Leeds United players took the initiative to slow down the rhythm and began to try to pass the ball to Derby County through a large number of back-to-back passes.
After nearly half an hour of bombardment, the physical strength of the Derby County players also dropped rapidly.
In this way, the second half of the first half of the game ended in a relatively calm atmosphere.
Blackwell, who had just returned to the Leeds United dressing room, was angry. Before the game, he arranged a simple high-profile tactic for Leeds United, trying to break through the opponent's goal through headers or set-pieces.
In the first half, he saw that the team did not implement the tactical intentions he arranged after catching their breath. He yelled at the players with a sullen face: "What are you doing? Don't you understand what I said? Press forward, long pass, pass to the opposite penalty area! Do you understand?!"
So after the start of the second half, Leeds United began to press forward in a big way, and no longer slowly advanced to the Derby County penalty area through short passes, but through long passes to the opponent's penalty area again and again, but it was a pity that such passes were almost all confiscated by the opponent's goalkeeper.
Unfortunately, the Leeds United players, whose average values in Li Shiguang's system were only 50-60, did not have strong personal abilities.
On the contrary, Derby County made Leeds United's goal in a panic through several efficient defensive counterattacks.
Fortunately, Howard's attributes have been pulled to the extreme at this time, and he made all kinds of high and low blocks to keep the goal intact.
Seeing Howard's heroic performance, the Leeds United fans in the stadium have changed their attitude towards Howard before the start of the game and started to praise him in various ways. Some fans have even begun to praise Li Shiguang.
"Oh, my God, did you see that? He was able to save the ball just now."
"Yes, I apologize for my insults to him before the start of the game."
"Timothy, my house is next to your apartment, and I'm single!"
"Hey, take off your mask, I know you are not Howard!"
"Oriental boy, I take back what I said before, you are quite accurate in judging people."
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