On the night of 5th, Shanghai Jiading Huilong beat Wuxi Wu Hook 2-1 at home, gaining another crucial 3 points on the way to relegation. From the 12th round, 0 wins, 4 draws and 8 losses with only 4 points, 7 points away from the relegation line, the last 5 rounds of 3 wins and 2 draws to keep undefeated. After a series of personnel changes, Shanghai Jiading Huilong seems to have worked its magic. Currently, they are temporarily out of the relegation zone, accumulating 15 points.
Change the manager, change the formation, bring in the strongest reinforcements
Jiading Huilong, who finished 13th in the Central League last season, have a lot on their minds at the start of this season. The team made massive signings, including bringing in three foreign players from Ghana. However, after reverting to the home-and-away system, it was clear that the players had not adapted to the pace and pressure of away games. Team insiders also admitted that "there are indeed players whose abilities are not up to the level of playing in the Central League." In addition, the level and form of foreign aid is not good, and the team is not performing well at the beginning of the season. After the sixth round, he won one game and suffered three consecutive defeats, which forced the then head coach Li Yi Nan to submit his resignation.
Struggling in the relegation zone is clearly not in line with Shanghai Jiading Huilong's expectations this season. After a bad start, the club's top management made it clear that they want to find a more suitable coach and new recruits to make up for it, so as to improve the team's overall strength.
In June, former Dalian center forward Yang Lin joined Jiading Huilong as the head coach, which is a kind of heartening pill for the team. After taking over the team, Yang Lin started to pay close attention to discipline and physical strength, based on defense, and changed the 442 formation to 5 backs.
But finding candidates to fit the positional requirements of the new formation in the second transfer is not easy. Unlike the first transfers where you can go straight to someone, most of the players are under contract at this point and there is not much choice, with more players having to come to the team on loan.
In this case, after talking to the coach, the club still decided to make a huge change to the team's current overall formation. Within the available options, efforts were made to find suitable players no matter what. Subsequently, generals such as Alex, Jefferson, Bao Shengxin, Xie Zhiwei and Du Changjie joined the team, which also provided the possibility of reintegrating the team.
In the process of personnel bonding, the club's senior management was very supportive of the new coach's transformation of the team's formation. Shanghai Jiading Huilong is based on defense after changing from the previous 422 formation to a five-back lineup. "In the previous games, we did look not so good in the stats of goals conceded, so we then also wanted to solve this problem first. On top of the defense, the quality improved so that we could find a chance to solve the problems at the offensive end." The number of goals conceded by the team has decreased significantly in the last few rounds, even with zero opponents in three matches. The coaching staff said:Â "It feels like the whole team is slowly getting back on track."
