Reporter Cheng Shan uncovered: 2019 season, Wuhan Zall nearly fell into the abyss of relegation, but accidentally among the sixth league. 2020 season, they went through the play-offs before relegation success, the degree of hardship can be seen. 2021 season, Wuhan team in the first stage of the first five rounds of only 3 goals lost 8 goals, accumulating 2 points ranked in the end of the Chinese Super League, and even help the tiger to win the first victory. Fans were calling for Li Xiaopeng's dismissal. However, with only one-sixth of the season gone, there is plenty of room for adjustment, and it would be rash to prematurely assert that Li Xiaopeng is incapable of leading the team. Why did Wuhan fail to meet expectations? Let's look back at the numbers from previous seasons and re-examine the team.
A look back at the tactical style of the Li Tie era
Returning from the Premier League, Li Tie has played the role of a "desperate man" at both Liaoning and Everton, known for his rough and tough and tenacious spirit. However, his style of leadership has not attracted much attention.In the 2019 season, Li Tie led Wuhan Zall to a good result, but the reason behind it is little known.
Look closely at the data of Zhuoer at that time, you will find that Li Tie pushed not the fast and concise of the English Premier League, but the skill flow style based on foot passing and control.
This is inextricably linked to Li Tie's experience of joining the Jianlibao team to study in Brazil when he was young.In the 2019 season, Zhuoer's average possession rate reached 49.8%, and the success rate of short passes was as high as 83.8%, which ranked fourth in the Chinese Super League. The total number of passes amounted to 12,203, second only to Beijing Guoan, Guangzhou R&F, Guangzhou Evergrande and Shanghai SIPG. Among them, Wuhan's number of direct kicks is even higher than the top of the Chinese Super League in the 2019 season.
Li Tie's passing, long passing and top-control statistics are all in the lower reaches of the table, which fully demonstrates that he attaches great importance to foot passing and skill flow play. Therefore, when forming the team, he not only valued the players' body and speed, but also paid more attention to the players' solid basic skills and foot passing skills to ensure that they could be integrated into the whole tactical system.
Li Tie's era had a group of players he relied heavily on, and it was their efforts that laid a solid foundation for Wuhan's sixth-place finish. Among them, Li Xing is the worthy all-round king; Liu Yi, tomorrow, Dong Chunyu, Liao Junjian, Song Zhiwei all played well; foreigners Evra, Mbia, Baptiste Tang is the core of the team. Mbia and Evra at that time are not the same as today, and their form is impressive. In the case of the whole team 8 people on the list of Super League steals list, including tomorrow, Liao Junjian, Liu Yi, Li Xing, Zhou Tong, Song Zhiwei, Mbia, and non-starter Wang Kai, fully reflects the team's unity of morale, and achieve a good result is also natural.
It takes time to regain the glory
Perhaps things will be different when Li Xiaopeng takes over the team after Li Tie's departure. Or perhaps, if the personnel change is not too much, the two men of the team's style of play and tactical style is similar, may also be able to maintain stability. However, what Li Xiaopeng took over was not the team left by Li Tie, but the "mess" on the verge of relegation in the 2020 season. After experiencing foreign teachers, local marshals, change of dynasties, and even a variety of reshuffling drama, even if the same group of players who also experienced the glory of 2019, 2020 trough, mentality, state of mind are also different, so it is difficult to use the level of their best period to measure the team.
In the 2020 season, Wuhan Zall was nearly relegated, which had nothing to do with the accidental injury of core player Li Xing. 2021 season, Li Xing came back and resumed his role as the center of offensive and defensive transition under Li Xiaopeng's tactical system. However, due to the change of domestic players, the tactical play with Li Xing as the core has not yet been fully formed, at least in the first five rounds of matches, Li Xiaopeng has been making different attempts and adjustments to the starting lineup, the starting lineup of each round of matches is not the same. In fact, Li Xiaopeng has been trying to fight for a win, and has never defined his team as a relegation team just because they were nearly relegated last season. In terms of playing style, he has advocated both offense and retaining the team's ground passing characteristics as much as possible. However, due to the large difference between the foreign aid combination and the level of the 2019 season, the tactics have to be strengthened to a certain extent in the aspects of side road passing, goal wrap, and penalty area scrambling, etc., but this can't solve the problem fundamentally.
So where is the root of the problem? It lies in the plummeting level of foreign aid. Taking Evra as an example, in the 2018 season, he scored 16 goals, and the time required for each goal was 144 minutes; in the 2019 season, he scored 12 goals, and the time required for each goal was 163 minutes; in the 2020 season, he scored only 8 goals, and the time required for each goal was 174 minutes; in the first 5 rounds of the 2021 season, he scored only 1 goal, and it took him 396 minutes. Evra has 13 shots on goal, ranking sixth in the Chinese Super League, and 5 shots on goal, but has only scored 1 goal. 13 shots on goal and only 1 goal, this efficiency proves that Evra is not in the best shape; and the other striker, Akin, was originally a player in the Chinese First Division, and has almost no effect in the Chinese Super League. Striker powerlessness has become a major problem plaguing Wuhan Zall. If the foreign aid problem can not be solved in time, Li Xiaopeng's future road is still a long way to go. Even if Baptiste Tang returned, but because of the previous without system training, Wuhan team's attacking power is still not optimistic.
