Chapter 379 You are paying the players’ bonuses

Author: Ant who loves watching football

"Good morning, Mr. Pan Yi."

When Pan Yi arrived at the Cobham training base, the security guard on duty at the door greeted him warmly and opened the door.

If when Pan Yi first came to Chelsea to coach, some people still had concerns about his prospects, now everyone at Chelsea Club is full of admiration for him.

After all, the Premier League championship and the Champions League final are real achievements, not to mention the bunch of broken records.

Many staff who work at the club are Chelsea fans themselves. Of course they are happy from the bottom of their hearts when they see the team playing so well, and they are also grateful to Pan Yi for bringing all this.

Even if you are not a Chelsea fan, even if it is just a job, if the "company performance" is booming, the employees will have a good life.

Whether you are a security guard, a chef, a locker room manager, a court maintenance staff, an accountant...

If the team's performance is not good and revenue is affected, it is possible to receive a salary cut or even dismissal.

For example, in 2020, when everyone was having a hard time, in order to save the team's costs, Arsenal fired Jerry Quay, the mascot actor who had worked for the club for 27 years.

And by getting rid of this team mascot that has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, Arsenal can only save 25,000 pounds per year, which is equivalent to 2,000 pounds per month...

For a wealthy club that once stood at the top of the Premier League, it actually had to kick out its old man just to make a little money. So what is impossible to happen?

And if something worse happens, such as the team falling out of the Champions League or being relegated, the staff will really be in danger.

After all, as the team's income decreases and the team's competition level decreases, many standards will decrease accordingly, and many positions will become dispensable, or there will be no need for so many people.

By then, layoffs will be inevitable.

Therefore, for the security guards at the Cobham training base, the Pan Yi in front of them is simply the savior of the team. How could they be disrespectful?

"Good morning, Mr. Victor. Has your puppy been found?"

Pan Yi also said hello to the security guard before walking into the gate of the base.

After working here for nearly a year, Pan Yi is very familiar with every staff member.

He can call every staff member by name, chat with everyone, and even remember some trivial things about the other person's home.

It is precisely because of this that people here are more willing to regard Pan Yi as a family member and are more willing to share their joys, sorrows and joys with him.

"Haha, don't mention it, it was actually hiding in the neighbor's garage, and was discovered by Lucy later." Victor, the security guard, said with a smile, and then reminded, "By the way, Mr. Abu has already arrived very early.

I should be waiting for you in the office now."

"Okay, thank you." Pan Yi thanked him, but he couldn't help but murmur in his heart that the boss came so quickly.

Of course, the two of them made an appointment to meet this morning, and Abu said he had something to talk to him about.

So Pan Yi also arrived at the base early, and it's not even time for formal training yet!

But since the boss is here now, you should hurry up.

So Pan Yi went straight to the training building after entering the door.

As soon as he got closer, he heard the familiar sound of kicking a ball from the direction of the training ground.

This immediately made Pan Yi slow down his hurried pace, especially when he walked to the training building and simply stopped to watch.

A small player is practicing shooting.

Judging from the scattered balls in the half, he must have been here for a while.

Taking a closer look, this person is none other than the scoring champion who just won the Premier League Player of the Year award, Hazard!

"Hey, this kid has really become more self-disciplined." Pan Yi was secretly pleased.

This is really nothing like Azar in his previous life!

I actually came to practice extra so early.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

With a muffled sound, the balls flew towards the goal one by one.

Some hit the target directly into the blind spot, while others missed the target or hit anti-aircraft guns.

Pan Yi looked at Hazard from a distance and suddenly understood why he wanted to practice extra.

In fact, since he officially joined the Blues in June 2012 as Chelsea's top player that season, Hazard has quickly become the darling of Stamford Bridge.

And he also repaid the fans' love with his excellent performance, scoring 12 goals that season.

In the next season, he scored 17 goals and provided 7 assists. As a result, he won the Chelsea Player of the Season award and the Premier League Young Player of the Year award.

This season, Hazard also performed well, and the Premier League Player of the Season award is the best proof.

However, he became the Premier League assists leader, but his goals this season were fewer.

8 league goals, 4 Champions League goals, a total of 12 goals, which is less than last season.

This is partly because Chelsea's offensive firepower this season is very strong and its firepower is also very scattered; apart from anything else, substitute center Bamford alone has scored 15 goals in various competitions!

On the other hand, in Chelsea's offensive system, Hazard is more responsible for the hot spots on the wing, responsible for attracting the opponent's players and then moving, or directly passing into the penalty area for teammates to shoot.

This is why Hazard leads the Premier League in assists.

But now Azar is not satisfied with this.

He knew in his heart that the reason for his low number of goals was not only the above two reasons, but also his own reason, which was that he was indeed lacking in shooting skills.

From the perspective of an ordinary player, if he can score more than a dozen goals and add more than 20 assists in various competitions in a season, such results are really amazing.

But as a man determined to compete for the Ballon d'Or, this is far from enough.

In 2012, Messi completed the feat of 91 goals in 69 games! This also included 24 assists.

Of course, Messi has performed superbly this season. It may be difficult for even him to replicate such a miracle. It seems that it cannot be used as a standard.

And if it was his relatively "ordinary" last season, that is, the 2013-2014 season, Messi represented Barcelona in 46 appearances in various official games, scoring 41 goals and providing 14 assists.

During the same period, Cristiano Ronaldo represented Real Madrid in 30 appearances in La Liga, scoring 31 goals; in the Champions League, 11 appearances, scoring 17 goals; in the Copa del Rey, 6 appearances, scoring 3 goals.

If measured by this coordinate, Azar is indeed still far behind.

The main difference here is in scoring efficiency.

Although the joke "He is as good as Messi and as good as Heskey in shooting" is too much when applied to Hazard, it actually makes some sense.

That is, his speed and dribbling are really top-notch in the world, but in many cases, they just fall short.

On the court, it is actually very difficult to continuously pass people and then shoot, because your physical fitness may not be able to keep up in a short period of time.

In some cases, due to insufficient decision-making ability, the shot is not decisive enough, and often hesitant in front of the goal and miss opportunities.

Of course, sometimes it is because of insufficient shooting ability.

This is why there are "extraordinary deaths" like Adama Traore, Saint-Maximin, and Gervinho in the world...

If they could successfully shoot and score after passing through, then all these players would be as good as Messi, but unfortunately they are not.

What makes Hazard even more uncomfortable is that he failed to score in the subsequent rounds of the Premier League.

Especially in the two games against Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals, no success was achieved.

Although Chelsea still won the game relatively easily and advanced to the final, it was a bit unacceptable for the scoring champion who now has high demands on himself.

Even on some fan forums, some people questioned whether Hazard's current role is not as good as Gnabry, or even worse than Lingard.

Can Chelsea consider changing the main winger? Especially when they have to face the powerful Barcelona in the final.

This also makes Azar unable to swallow this breath!

Therefore, he has been practicing shooting more recently, just to make up for his "shortcomings"!

For Pan Yi, Hazard's status in his mind has certainly not changed at all.

Gnabry and Lingard are indeed very good, but to say they are better than the current Hazard is absolute nonsense.

Just because they scored goals or assisted in some games but Hazard did not, we cannot say that they are better than Hazard.

And even if you calculate the data using excel, Hazard's total number of goals and assists far exceeds theirs, which makes this argument even more untenable.

As a professional football coach, Pan Yi certainly sees more than that.

Sometimes, the role of a football player cannot be reflected in excel.

Hazard has done a lot at Chelsea to create opportunities and stretch space for others. If he hadn't been attracting double-teams from the wing, how could other teammates have such comfortable shooting opportunities?

Lukaku won the Premier League Golden Boot, and a lot of credit must go to Hazard.

There are also wing-backs, especially Marcos Alonso. If it weren't for Hazard, would he have so many opportunities to grab points when he rushes into the penalty area?

Hazard's shot was indeed due to poor connection and insufficient explosive power after the breakthrough, but he himself would also realize this, so he would more often choose to pass the ball to others after passing people to create opportunities for others.

Doesn’t this also mean that he has a good mentality and a sense of teamwork?

How could the head coach not love such a player?

Of course, Pan Yi was quite happy to see Hazard wanting to improve his shooting.
To be continued...