Chapter 555 The Quiet Rise of Chelsea
On August 13, the 2016-2017 Premier League season officially started.
In the opening game, last season's runner-up Leicester City lost to newly promoted Hull City in an away game, causing a minor upset.
Leicester City's lineup has not changed much. Under the strong request of coach Agnelli, the club's top management did not sell last season's main players short-sightedly.
But after a whole season, the outside world has a comprehensive understanding of this dark horse, so Leicester City quickly lost its dark horse aura, as evidenced by its loss to the newly promoted team.
As the defending champion, Manchester City's performance in the first round was not good either.
In the first round, they faced the challenge of Black Cat Sunderland at home.
After receiving a penalty kick just 4 minutes into the game, Manchester City failed to expand their lead. Instead, the opponent seized the opportunity to equalize the score in the 71st minute of the second half.
Although Manchester City subsequently launched a siege on Sunderland, the opponent's defense was very tenacious and the game remained in a stalemate.
Just when fans from both sides thought that the game would end in a draw, in the 89th minute, Lin Quan's long shot caused the opponent's defender to make a clearance error, causing an own goal and kicking the ball into his own goal.
In this way, with the goal of the opponent's defender, Manchester City was lucky enough to get a good start.
It's just that these 3 points were a bit of a fluke!
Compared with Manchester City, city rivals Manchester United won very easily.
In the away game, Manchester United ended the battle in just over 20 minutes. Mata, Rooney and Ibrahimovic helped Manchester United beat Bournemouth 3:1.
There is no harm without comparison. After the introduction of Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic, Manchester United's offensive firepower has been further enhanced.
On the other hand, Manchester City's departure has significantly weakened their strength.
Comparing the two sides, the Red Devils fans immediately became happy.
They feel that this year is the perfect opportunity for the Red Devils to trample Manchester City under their feet and regain the top spot in Manchester!
However, another game that followed immediately poured cold water on the heads of Manchester United people.
On August 14, at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal and Liverpool joined forces to bring a wonderful and exciting game to the fans.
The two teams played aggressive football in this game, which made the fans excited to watch.
In the 30th minute of the first half, young tiger Walcott quickly completed redemption when he missed a penalty kick, helping the team open the scoring.
But the smile on Arsenal's face could not last long. In the stoppage time of the first half, Liverpool boss Coutinho equalized the score!
After the start of the second half, Liverpool's offensive was overwhelming. Lallana, Coutinho and Mane scored consecutively, quickly extending the score to 1:4!
When seeing this score, the Arsenal fans at home almost collapsed.
Their defense was completely overwhelmed by the opponent, and the performance of the two young center backs was simply appalling!
However, the Arsenal players on the field did not give up. The goals scored by Chamberlain and Chambers in the 65th and 75th minutes gave the Arsenal people hope of equalizing or even reversing the game.
However, the successive injuries of Walcott and Ramsey put their hopes in vain.
In the end, in an offensive battle, Liverpool had the last laugh, beating Arsenal with a score of 4:3 and successfully captured the Emirates Stadium!
Liverpool's strong rise has made Red Army fans full of expectations for the team's record this season.
Looking at the young players with unlimited potential in the team, such as Mane and Coutinho, I feel that the future is full of hope.
Liverpool's brilliance was so great that many people didn't notice that Chelsea, under the new coach, defeated West Ham United, the Hammers who ranked higher than them last season, 2:1 in the final game of this round.
After Chelsea experienced a dismal season, team owner Abramovich learned from the pain and decided to hire a famous coach for the team.
The Italian Conte became the target of his pursuit.
Conte led Juventus to three consecutive Serie A titles and also served as the coach of the Italian national team.
In this year's European Cup, if Italy had not had bad luck and met the defending champion Spain early, their results might have been better.
Abramovich has never been a stingy person. After hiring Conte at a high price, he approved a transfer budget of hundreds of millions of pounds for Conte and supported Conte's drastic reforms of the team.
Conte was not polite. He spent 140 million euros to buy several strong players who were urgently needed by Chelsea in various positions to strengthen the team's lineup.
It is worth mentioning that among the players bought was center back David Luiz, who originally transferred from Chelsea.
When he left Chelsea, the transfer fee was 50 million pounds. Now he only spent 34 million pounds to buy him back. This time, Chelsea actually made 16 million pounds.
Chelsea has spent so much money, naturally hoping to achieve something in the new season.
But Chelsea's record last season was really bad, and the fans' attention was attracted by several other giants, so few people paid attention to today's Chelsea.
…
After the first round of the game, Liverpool was highly praised by the outside world. Both Coutinho and Mane were selected as the best team of the Premier League this week.
The outside world is very optimistic about these two young players, especially Coutinho. Many people have regarded him as the best candidate for super giants such as Lin Quan, Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi.
If he can continue his current excellent form, he will be promoted to a super giant in the future.
Contrary to Liverpool, although Manchester City won the game, they were still criticized and even criticized by the outside world.
"Gundogan obviously did not adapt to the rhythm of the Premier League. His Premier League debut looked extremely bad. Objectively speaking, the score of 6.5 points is a bit too high!"
"After losing Kroos, the strength of Manchester City's midfield has been greatly affected. Although Lin Quan is still in excellent form, without the strong support of the midfield, it is difficult for him to fully exert his strength in the frontcourt! "
"Manchester City needs to re-examine the strength of their lineup and transfer matters. Perhaps they need to seize the opportunity to strengthen while the transfer window is not closed yet!"
In the first game, Gundogan was put into the starting lineup by Guardiola, but he was replaced after only playing 65 minutes.
Obviously, Guardiola was not very satisfied with his performance.
Therefore, the criticism from the outside world is not without purpose, but it is a bit too arbitrary to completely deny Gundogan based on just one game.
In response to outside criticism, Guardiola stood up and expressed:
"Gündogan is an excellent player and I fully believe in his ability, but he needs some time to adapt to the rhythm of the Premier League!"
Guardiola's support relieved Gundogan's hanging heart. In fact, after playing the first game, he himself felt uneasy.
Premier League teams like to engage in physical confrontation too much, and referees are very strict. Many actions that are fouls in other leagues are actually ignored here.
Gundogan, who had just arrived, was very uncomfortable with the pace of the game and the scale of penalties, so he performed abnormally.
But the outside world may not understand his difficulties, so he is worried that he will be abandoned by fans and coaches.
Fortunately, Guardiola did not give up on him and remained patient enough with him.
But this does not mean that Gundogan can sit back and relax. He must seize the time to adapt to the rhythm of the Premier League.
Thinking of this, after the daily training, Gundogan chose to stay and continue training, especially strength training, to improve his physical resistance so that he can adapt to the rhythm of the Premier League faster.
Gundogan's efforts were noticed by Guardiola, so he continued to believe in him in the second game and once again put him in the starting lineup.
In the second round, Manchester City's opponent was Stoke City.
There are two acquaintances in the Stoke City team. One is Bojan, a former Barcelona player who was once hailed as Messi's successor. The other is Arnautovic, Lin Quan's old teammate in Werder Bremen.
Bojan was once a legend of Barcelona's youth team. He broke a series of youth team records, many of which were set by Messi.
So before he was transferred to the first team, Barcelona fans had high expectations for him.
However, the fans' expectations were soon dashed. Bojan's performance in the first team fell far short of expectations. After four years on the bench, he was sold to Roma by Barcelona at a low price.
However, in Serie A, Bojan still failed to regain his form. After a few years, he returned to Barcelona. Finally, he was sold to Stoke City by Barcelona for a humiliating price of 1.8 million.
This painful experience was simply a nightmare for Bojan, especially when he saw Messi and Lin Quan, who were also born in the Barcelona youth training, becoming super giants one after another and killing everyone on the court. Extremely painful.
Perhaps in order to prove that he is no worse than anyone else, Bojan performed very actively in this game. At the end of the first half, he even received a yellow card for a defensive foul.
In the second half, Bo Yang still worked very hard, and finally got rewarded, scoring a penalty kick in the 49th minute.
However, this goal changed nothing. Before his goal, Manchester City had already scored three goals.
Aguero scored twice in the first half, and Lin Quan scored directly with a free kick in the second half. Stoke City, which was lagging behind by a big score, was defeated.
Seeing Bojan working so hard on the court, Guardiola couldn't help but sigh.
Bojan once played under Guardiola, and Guardiola had high expectations for him.
Guardiola has always trusted and loved players who came from La Masia's youth academy.
During his time coaching Barcelona, he was very willing to give young people a chance to play, especially players produced in his own youth academy.
But Bojan's ability did not meet his requirements. Guardiola gave Bojan a chance, but Bojan failed to seize the opportunity. Instead, he fell into a vicious cycle of fighting alone because he was eager to prove himself, which destroyed the team's success. Player, he can only give up.
Now it seems that Bo Yang still has a trace of hatred for him!
He sighed again, shook his head and decided not to think about it, because the team scored again.
The one who scored this time was the young player Mbappe who had just come on as a substitute!
He used his speed to eat up the opponent's full-back and scored a very exciting goal.
Although Stoke City had basically given up resistance when he scored, Guardiola still applauded Mbappe.
This young French player's growth rate this season is very gratifying.
Guardiola thought it would take a few more years of training before he could play in the game, but Mbappe gave him a big surprise.
From this point of view, I have to adjust my rotation arrangements for the new season. Mbappe is in a stage of rapid growth. During this period, he must be given sufficient game time so that he can accumulate experience in actual combat and accelerate his growth.
But at the same time, his playing time must be controlled to avoid exhaustion of physical strength or accidental injury.
For young players, injuries are always the biggest natural enemy. A serious injury may wipe out all their talents.
Manchester City's victory on the road has slightly changed some outsiders' evaluation of them.
Especially the performance of the team's new aid Gundogan has improved the outside world's evaluation of him a lot.
Gundogan received a rating of 7.5 points in this game, which was much better than the previous game.
Although he still suffered some disadvantages in physical confrontation, his progress can be clearly seen.
And Gundogan is very smart. After mastering the penalty standards of Premier League referees, he made reasonable use of these standards on the defensive end and made a considerable contribution to the team's defense.
Guardiola was very satisfied with his performance and praised him emphatically at the post-match press conference.
This further boosted Gundogan's confidence, allowing him to train harder and perform more confidently on the court.
There were many upsets in the second round. Liverpool, which captured the Emirates Stadium in the first round, unexpectedly lost to Burnley in the second round.
And the latter is just a newly promoted team!
The result of this game shocked the fans. For a while, they were confused whether Liverpool could do it or not?
You say he is good, but he lost to the newly promoted team, and he lost 0:2. He lost completely without temper.
You say he is not good, he defeated Arsenal in a strong dialogue, and won in a heart-wrenching manner.
In short, Liverpool's combat effectiveness is in a Schrödinger state, hovering between good and bad.
Just when fans were doubting Liverpool's combat effectiveness, Arsenal was tied with Leicester City in the away game.
Um……
Is there a possibility that Arsenal and Liverpool are not strong?
In addition to the brothers Arsenal and Liverpool, teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Tottenham have all defeated their opponents.
After two rounds, Manchester United currently tops the standings with a goal difference, followed closely by Manchester City.
What is also surprising is that Chelsea also won two consecutive victories quietly and ranked third in the standings.
This result has made the outside world start to pay attention to the Blues led by Conte.
