Chapter 343: Beat Monaco, Ranieri was sacked

After returning from Germany, Manchester City rested for two days before heading to Birmingham to challenge Aston Villa.

Aston Villa itself is not very strong, but their playing style is relatively rough. When encountering them, even a wealthy team cannot be careless. If they are not careful, they can easily capsize.

Fortunately, the Manchester City team was in excellent condition and had already taken a two-goal lead in just 20 minutes.

Even if Aston Villa resorted to foul tactics, it was of no avail, and eventually lost to Manchester City 0:3.

After winning this round of games, Manchester City leads the standings with a complete victory record.

However, Chelsea was very stubborn. In this round of the game against Arsenal, Chelsea, playing at home, relied on the goals of Hazard and Diego Costa to cleanly eliminate the Gunners 2:0.

As a result, they are still only 3 points behind Manchester City.

Manchester City's neighbor, Manchester United, met their younger brother Everton in this round, and finally defeated their opponent with a score of 2:1, winning 2 consecutive victories and rising to fourth in the league rankings.

In this game, Falcao and Di Maria scored goals one after another, which slightly dispelled some doubts about them.

After playing in the Premier League, Manchester City returned home without stopping and ushered in a EFL Cup game.

Manchester City's opponents were not strong in this game, so Pellegrini sent a large number of substitutes.

Even so, under the leadership of Yaya Toure, Lampard and Zoko, Manchester City still beat Sheffield Wednesday with a score of 7:0 and advanced to the next round.

Manchester City, which won in the third tier, seems to be continuing the glory of last season.

The outside world is very optimistic about their first league title defense in team history!

This optimistic voice reached its peak after Manchester City beat Tottenham 4:1 at home in the eighth round of the Premier League.

"Eight consecutive wins!" Who can stop Manchester City? 》

"The Birth of a Giant: The entire Premier League witnesses the rise of Manchester City!" 》

"Tottenham are simply a toy of Manchester City. Every time they meet Manchester City, they will be beaten miserably!"

"Tottenham's performance this season is not bad, and they are ranked very high in the standings, but in this game, it looks like they don't know how to play football!"

"Yeah, it feels like I was born to be restrained. I can't kick it no matter what!"

"Actually, Tottenham's performance in this game is already good. At least they scored a goal. Last season, Manchester City slaughtered Tottenham 6-0 at home!"

Fans were not surprised that Manchester City won at home. The Etihad Stadium has always been a devilish home stadium that is difficult for other Premier League teams to conquer.

But they were very confused about the fact that Tottenham were severely punished every time they met Manchester City.

Although Tottenham is not a wealthy club, it is the leader in the second lineup under BIG5.

There is indeed a gap in strength between them and the championship group, but it is not as big as this.

But every time they met Manchester City, it was as if they suddenly couldn't play football, and they were massacred by big scores at every turn!

Last season, Manchester City scored 11 goals from Tottenham in two home and away games, beating Tottenham completely.

This makes Tottenham fans completely suffer from Manchuphobia. Among the 20 teams in the Premier League, Manchester City has been promoted to the team they least expect to encounter!

Just when the outside world was shocked by Manchester City's eight consecutive victories and their strong state of defeating Tottenham by a huge score.

A senior reporter published an article in his column:

"The Premier League is dying!" 》

The subtitle is - The strong Manchester City may destroy the foundation of the Premier League!

The reporter chose a very eye-catching title, which seemed to be a headline-grabbing one.

But his article does have something to it. It lists a lot of data and technical analysis, and it seems to at least have something to say.

This reporter believes that the Premier League has always relied on fierce competition among many giants and the huge suspense of winning every season to attract viewers.

If Manchester City continues to be so strong and forms a monopoly on the championship, then the Premier League may lose their biggest selling point.

By then, the attractiveness of the Premier League will inevitably drop significantly, just like the Bundesliga.

In the past few seasons, due to the rise of Dortmund and the decline of Bayern's dominance, the Bundesliga's overseas ratings have increased and its influence has also expanded a lot.

However, with the decline of Dortmund in recent seasons, Bayern has once again restored its dominance in the domestic league. Last season, under the leadership of Guardiola, it created the second longest unbeaten record in the five major leagues.

This has made Bundesliga games dull and boring again, and overseas ratings have also suffered.

"Conscientious reporter, what you said makes sense. We cannot let Manchester City dominate!"

"Yes, we should call on other teams to unite and attack Manchester City with the same guns!"

"Count me in as Manchester United!"

"Chelsea counts as one!"

"The Gunners are interested in joining!"

"The Red Army has long disliked Manchester City!"

"Tottenham, I, Tottenham, are also willing to contribute..."

Fans of all teams collectively said: "Get lost!"

…

Although these are things created by some fans on the Internet, these Premier League teams have their own grievances and resentments among each other, and it is unlikely that they will put aside their grievances and join forces for Manchester City.

After all, if you want to monopolize the Premier League championship, Manchester United in the Ferguson era has already monopolized it.

At that time, the major teams didn't say anything, so why are they starting to babble now that it's Manchester City's turn?

It's not because Manchester City is an upstart in their eyes and has no background. They were used to bullying Manchester City before, and they couldn't adapt to Manchester City being above them.

It doesn't matter, once Manchester City beats them a few more times and wins a few more Premier League titles, they will get used to it!

Having said that, the effects of being a public enemy of the league soon became apparent.

Because Manchester City is going to challenge Monaco away from home in the third round of the Champions League group stage, and just one day after this game ends, they will go away to London to challenge West Ham United.

These two games were too close together, so Manchester City applied to postpone the league.

They had made such an application last season. In order to support the Premier League teams in playing well in the Champions League, the Premier League supported them and successfully postponed the game after coordinating with Aston Villa.

But this time, Manchester City's application was rejected.

Not only did the league have a perfunctory attitude and were unwilling to help, but even West Ham United rejected Manchester City's application.

Being able to play against Manchester City when they are tired and in poor condition is something West Ham United hopes for, so naturally they are unwilling to postpone the schedule.

After the application for postponement of the ninth round of the league was rejected, it had a considerable impact on Manchester City's preparations.

Monaco is in the south of France, about 2,000 kilometers away from Manchester, so the distance is not close.

The team travels back and forth between the two places, and five or six hours are wasted just on the plane.

But this game is also very important for Manchester City. Monaco ranks second in the group in terms of strength and currently ranks second in points.

It can be said that they are the only team capable of threatening Manchester City's first place in the group.

If this game is given up and the opponent is given three points, Monaco's points will be tied with Manchester City, which is not a good thing for Manchester City.

On the contrary, if they go all out to win this game, Manchester City's lead over Monaco can be expanded to 6 points.

With three games left in the group stage, it will be difficult for Monaco to tie the score, and Manchester City's situation of qualifying as first in the group is basically stable.

Once it is determined that they will qualify first in the group, they can consider giving up strategically in the remaining games and concentrate on the league.

In this way, the team's main players can get some breathing time before the Champions League knockout rounds begin.

In the end, Pellegrini decided to use all his strength and send troops to Monaco!

Like Chelsea, Monaco's owner Rybolovlev is also a Russian oligarch.

I don’t know whether it was because of his true love for football or because he saw Abramovich’s great success in the Premier League. In 2011, the Russian rich man spent a huge amount of money to buy the Monaco club.

After buying the team, he hired tinker Ranieri and spent huge sums of money on the transfer market to introduce big-name players.

In just a few seasons, Monaco has spent hundreds of millions of euros on countless stars.

Having invested so much money, he naturally needs better results to repay his investment.

So Rybolovlev gave Ranieri a death order, requiring him to at least achieve one of the two goals of winning the Ligue 1 title or the semi-finals of the Champions League.

However, neither goal seems easy for Monaco.

Although Monaco has invested a lot, there is another team in the Ligue 1 that has invested even more crazily than them - Paris Saint-Germain!

In the field of gold and dollar football, even Manchester City has to bow to Paris Saint-Germain.

The money Monaco spent was only a fraction of the opponent's and was nothing at all.

Therefore, the tinker is destined to be unable to fulfill the Russian boss's request.

Moreover, Ranieri has a characteristic. He leads those mid-to-lower teams with a certain foundation and has an excellent record.

But when coaching a wealthy team, the record is often very bad.

If not, he wouldn't be fired by wealthy teams so often.

Monaco's previous lineup may have been just right for Ranieri, but after the big boss spent a lot of money to buy a lot of players, Ranieri was a bit overwhelmed.

He is not very good at handling relationships with these players, so it is difficult to tap the full potential of these players.

Therefore, facing the menacing Manchester City, Ranieri consciously adopted defensive counterattack tactics.

This tactic is basically the only choice for non-rich teams when facing Manchester City.

Not to mention, Tinker is really good at something.

The defense he deployed was different from others.

Monaco's three defense lines were relatively close today, compressing the offensive space very much.

Moreover, they pressed hard and refused to give Manchester City players time to calmly organize their attack.

This makes it difficult for a team like Manchester City that is good at ground penetration. Even a team as strong as Lin Quan will find it difficult to get a chance when they lose the offensive space.

And Manchester City had bad luck today. Kroos was injured and came off the field only 15 minutes into the game.

Kroos's exit will have a considerable impact on Manchester City's offensive organization.

When the game reached the 80th minute, the score on the field was still 0:0.

In the Louis II Stadium, Monaco fans continued to make loud cheers and cheer for the team.

It can be said to be an unexpected surprise for Monaco fans to be able to push the defending champion to this point.

Especially when they were unexpectedly tied by Zenit in the last game.

Before the start of this game, the outside world was generally not very optimistic about them, and many people even predicted that they would be bloodbathed by Manchester City.

In the box of the stadium, the boss of Monaco saw that the team was suppressed in his own half by Manchester City and was beaten passively throughout the game.

His face is very ugly!

What he wants is a hearty victory, not a draw won by such a shrinking defense.

Moreover, the game is not over yet, and it is hard to say whether their tie can last until the end.

When he thought of this, the Russian boss looked at Ranieri and became unfriendly.

He spent so much money to build a luxurious lineup, but this guy led him to what he is now?

Paris next door can defeat the all-powerful Barcelona in the Champions League, why can't you defeat Manchester City?

Seeing that the game was coming to an end, the Monaco players were very excited on the court.

After playing for most of the game, I feel that Manchester City is not as powerful as I imagined!

After all, this is their home court. It would be a bit embarrassing if they were constantly being beaten by the opponent and curled up.

So, in the final stages of the game, they tried to counterattack Manchester City.

On the sidelines, Ranieri originally wanted to stop the players from such reckless behavior.

He has watched many Manchester City game videos and found that Manchester City is very good at reversing or winning the opponent in the final stage of the game.

Last season's Champions League semi-finals, when they eliminated Real Madrid away from home, was proof of this.

So even though they played well for 80 minutes, once they relax in the final stages of the game, a disastrous defeat is likely to be waiting for them.

However, just now, the club staff came up to remind him that the team owner was very dissatisfied with the team's performance in this game.

The boss hopes to see a win at home!

Ranieri is a relatively honest person. The big boss has given orders to die, so naturally it is difficult for him to disobey.

So I can only watch the players organizing the offense with fear, with a sense of luck in my heart.

If by any chance their counterattack worked and they really scored a goal, then no matter what, they would have to pull back all the players and hold on to the end.

However, it turns out that playing football with a sense of luck will not lead to good results.

In the 88th minute, Manchester City took advantage of Monaco's opportunity to counterattack the opponent's counterattack. It only took a few seconds to hit the ball from their own 30-meter area to the front of the opponent's penalty area.

Manchester City's counterattack was too fast. Many Monaco players were still rushing forward. When the opponent passed the ball to their own half, they turned around and chased it. How could they make it in time?

Lin Quan dribbled the ball into the penalty area and calmly sent the ball into the goal in the face of the attacking goalkeeper, rewriting the score to 1:0.

Lin Quan's goal silenced the entire audience, and every Monaco fan was stunned.

In the box, Rybolovlev was even more stunned!

He has made up his mind to fire that damn Italian at the end of the game!

He regretted so much that he would have terminated his contract with Ranieri after last season.

In that case, the team's record might not be so bad!

Poor Ranieri once again became the scapegoat.