Chapter 558 Barcelona and Manchester City, the struggle in the Champions League

On September 17, the fifth round of the Premier League begins.

Chelsea, who had just been held to a draw in their last game, were defeated by Liverpool at home in this round.

After two rounds without a win, their ranking suddenly dropped to sixth place, overtaken by Liverpool.

Liverpool are in good form recently. Since their upset loss to Burnley in the second round, they have been unbeaten in three games, and the opponents they have defeated in the last two games are not weak.

In the last round, they defeated last season's runner-up Leicester City with a clean score of 4:1. In this round, they defeated the blue team Chelsea in the away game.

The two victories have greatly improved the outside world's evaluation of Liverpool. Even Liverpool fans have begun to gradually regain their confidence at this time.

Compared with Liverpool, this defeat has suddenly lowered the outside world's expectations for the Blues. Many people feel that this is the Chelsea they are familiar with!

Chelsea's previous three consecutive victories seemed to be just an accident.

Although Conte does seem to have two skills, Chelsea's current strength is still a bit far away from winning the championship, at least it cannot compare with Manchester City at the top of the list.

The reason why I feel this way is entirely because Manchester City won again in this round of the league, and they beat their opponents 4:0.

If that wasn't shocking enough, how about 10-man Manchester City's 4-0 victory?

I don’t know if it was the referee’s deliberate targeting. Manchester City, who played at home in this game, received 5 yellow cards and 1 red card.

The person who was ejected with a red card was winger Mbappe who came on as a substitute. He fell twice in the penalty area. Both times the referee considered it to be diving. He received two yellow cards in just 15 minutes and was expelled. .

Mbappe was wronged. He wanted to explain to the referee, but the referee didn't listen at all.

The poor child cried almost all the way to the end.

Guardiola gave Mbappé a big hug on the sidelines, worked on him psychologically for a long time, and finally calmed him down.

Although Manchester City was sent off one man, this did not have any impact on the outcome of the game.

In this game, Manchester City blossomed a lot. Lin Quan, Aguero, De Bruyne, and Van Dijk scored goals one after another. The team was in a hot state, and there was no sign of fatigue at all. You know, they just had just three days ago. Participated in Champions League matches.

Maybe participating in the Champions League is not a debuff?

In this round of the Premier League, all four teams participating in the Champions League have won.

Arsenal beat Hull City 4:1 away from home, Leicester City beat Burnley 3:0 at home, and even Tottenham, who lost in the Champions League, beat Sunderland 1:0 at home. .

Manchester City is reporting good news frequently, but Manchester United next door is looking gloomy.

After losing to Manchester City at home in their last game, Manchester United's morale took a big hit.

In this round, they were a guest at Cavidge Road Stadium and unexpectedly lost to Watford.

And the loss was quite miserable, as the opponent scored three goals.

This makes Manchester United fans extremely depressed. The confidence they finally accumulated in the first three rounds has now become shaky.

Fortunately, Mourinho made timely tactical adjustments and led the team to a 4:1 victory over Leicester City in the sixth round of the league on September 24, finally halting Manchester United's declining morale.

Manchester United were in excellent form in this game. The team's offensive was overwhelming and all kinds of wonderful coordination were dizzying. Before the first half was over, they had already scored 4 goals, which made the fans at Old Trafford watch. Very addicted.

Ranieri's Fox City was defeated, and the on-site camera lens captured Ranieri's helpless look as he was anxiously running around on the sidelines, but he was helpless.

Leicester City's record this season has been ups and downs, basically winning one game and losing one, and the losses are all strong dialogues.

In other words, Ranieri's team does not have the strength to fight a tough battle and can only bully the weak teams in the middle and lower reaches of the league rankings.

It is obviously impossible for such a team to win the championship, and may not even be able to secure the top four spots.

Many people feel it is a pity that the dark horse who was so impressive last season was brought back to his original form so quickly.

It seems that they are going to fight with their old enemy the Red Devils. Manchester United has won three goals, and the Red Army has to win four goals!

Liverpool, also playing at home, slaughtered the visiting Hull City with a score of 5:1.

After winning this victory, Liverpool's winning streak has reached three games, surpassing Arsenal in points and reaching third place.

This makes Arsenal feel a huge threat. The competition for Champions League seats in the Premier League this year is unprecedentedly fierce.

Except for Manchester City, the leader at the top of the list, the points difference between 2-7 is very small, and you may fall behind if you are not careful.

Although Arsenal has rich experience in securing the fourth place, no one can guarantee success every time.

So, when facing the visiting Blues Chelsea, the Gunners used all their strength to score three goals in 20 minutes, beating Chelsea silly.

With this victory, Arsenal overtook Liverpool with a goal difference and returned to the top three in the league.

But what makes them extremely depressed is that their city rival Tottenham actually won and was ranked ahead of them.

Arsenal has 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, with 13 points, while Tottenham has 4 wins, 2 draws with 14 points, one point more than them.

What's even more annoying is that Tottenham are still the only team in the Premier League this season that still maintains its undefeated record.

Arsenal fans became angry when they thought of this:

Sometimes watching your opponent win is more painful than losing.

Although the competition for places 2-7 is fierce, it does not pose much of a threat to Manchester City at the top of the list.

In this round, they defeated Swansea 3:1 away from home. Lin Quan, Aguero and Sane scored three goals, and they won very easily.

…

After the sixth round of the match, the Manchester City team rested for two days and then flew to the away game to prepare for the second round of the Champions League group stage.

In this round, their opponent is the Scottish Premier League giant Celtic.

The Celtics are not very strong, so the mentality of everyone in Manchester City is very relaxed, and few people take their opponents seriously.

However, they soon paid the price for their underestimation.

In the away game, Celtic forward Dembele showed his prowess and helped the team break through Manchester City's gate in the third minute.

Then in another scramble, Manchester City's defender made a mistake and created an own goal.

In less than 20 minutes, Manchester City was already two goals behind.

This result can be said to be completely beyond everyone's expectations.

The Manchester City players were a little confused and seemed to have not recovered yet.

As far as Barcelona at the Prussia Park Stadium, news about another stadium has been learned.

"Man City are behind!"

Assistant coach Unzue came over and spoke in Enrique's ear.

"Oh? Celtic scored a goal?"

"Not only did they score a goal, Manchester City were also stunned. They are now two goals behind!"

Another coach Moreno said with joy.

He couldn't help but feel excited. Barcelona, ​​who had just played against them, knew very well how strong the Celtics were.

This team was slaughtered 7:0 by them just half a month ago!

Such a weak team can actually force Manchester City into this situation. This really makes people doubt the state of Manchester City.

Enrique raised his eyebrows, suppressing the excitement in his heart, and made quick calculations in his mind.

Falling behind by 2 goals in less than 20 minutes. If the Celtics are self-aware and immediately shrink their formation and start a defensive counterattack, then even a team as strong as Manchester City may have difficulty reversing the game.

If the Celtics were in better shape, seized the opportunity to counterattack, and scored another goal, then the probability of Manchester City losing would be close to 100%.

Once Manchester City loses, Barcelona, ​​as the biggest competitor in the same group, will have an advantage in the competition for first place in the group.

Even if Manchester City is lucky and equalizes the score, as long as Barcelona can win Monchengladbach, they can still lead Manchester City by 2 points!

As for whether we can win Borussia, who needs to say?

Borussia Monchengladbach is just an ordinary team in the Bundesliga. They only have a little experience playing against Bayern. They are no match for Barcelona at all.

Thinking of this, the corners of Enrique's mouth couldn't help but curl up.

Being able to beat Manchester City coached by Guardiola, for him, there is simply nothing better than this.

However, just when Enrique was secretly proud, a burst of earth-shattering cheers broke out above the stadium.

"what happened?"

Enrique was horrified and quickly looked towards the field.

I saw Monchengladbach's players celebrating wildly on the field, while Barcelona's players were dumbfounded, looking at their own goal in frustration.

Inside the Barcelona goal lies a playfully beating football.

Barcelona's goal was also breached.

…

At Celtic Park, after falling behind 2-0, Guardiola was very angry. He took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and began to direct the team to attack.

The reason why the ball was conceded so quickly and continuously in this game has nothing to do with coach Guardiola.

Because he felt that his opponent was relatively weak and it was only the group stage, Guardiola boldly tried his new tactics in the game.

In this game, he arranged a weird formation of 4141, with only one midfielder in the midfield, and it was not the main midfielder Kante, but Fernandinho.

It can be said that Fernandinho is not trying his best, but it is really difficult for him to do the work of two people.

The biggest fear of a single defensive midfielder formation is that the opponent will hit the space on both sides of the ribs, and this is what the Celtics did.

The opponent's forward Dembele is only 20 years old. Not only is he tall and energetic, but he is also fast.

Once he successfully gets the ball in the ribs, he will immediately become a threat.

Guardiola is very persistent, he is too stubborn not to change his formation.

In fact, Gundogan is on the court. If you ask him to retreat, he can return to the 4231 formation. In that case, the threat to the ribs will be eliminated immediately.

But after Gua Tu's stubbornness came up, he didn't care about anything.

I just want to use this weird formation to kill you, so just tell me what to do!

In this game, Manchester City's starting lineup had a large number of substitute players, and the main players were still sitting on the bench watching the show!

If it doesn't work, let them play in the second half. I still don't believe that I can't solve you!

At Guardiola's request, Manchester City quickly attacked.

Son Heung-min and Sane on both sides took turns attacking the opponent's wing.

David Silva and Gundogan, who are sitting in the midfield, either intervene in the offense or send in wonderful passes.

For a time, Manchester City's offensive was so overwhelming that it overwhelmed the opponent.

In the 23rd minute, Son Heung-min received a pass from David Silva and helped the team get a goal back.

In the 28th minute, Sane cut in and shot, rewriting the score to 2:2.

It took Manchester City less than 10 minutes to equalize the score.

Facts have proved that the strength gap between the two teams is indeed a bit large.

When Manchester City get serious, it's hard for Celtic to resist their attacks.

After realizing the huge gap in strength between the two sides, the Celtics retreated across the board, guarding their goal like a metal barrel and not giving them any chance.

Although they also want to get 3 points, but looking at this, if they don't defend fully, let alone 3 points, they won't get 1 point.

Since Lin Quan is not on the court, Manchester City lacks a weapon to attack the city. Facing the opponent's iron barrel formation, they will not be able to find any good way for a while.

After trying various methods and besieging the area for nearly 20 minutes, I finally found nothing.

After the start of the second half, the opponent still looked defensive.

However, the Celtics' luck is really good, or their forward Dembele was just unlucky in this game.

After the start of the second half, a big-footed clearance by their defender turned into an assist by some mistake.

Dembele stretched his long legs, used all his strength, and ran as fast as he could. He finally caught up with the football before the defensive players. Without even looking at the goal, he instinctively kicked in the general direction. , and then the ball went in again!

This guy scored a hat-trick against Manchester City and also scored an own goal.

After this game, this guy will probably become famous with one goal.

Guardiola and the Manchester City players were stunned and looked at each other.

Is this okay?

We tried our best to attack with all our skills, but we couldn't score.

You kid just ran around like this and scored again?

Where can I reason from this?

Guardiola couldn't hold himself any longer and started making substitution adjustments without even waiting for the usual substitution time.

De Bruyne comes on, replacing Sane.

Lin Quan came on, replacing Son Heung-min.

Kante comes on, replacing Fernandinho.

After the three main players all appeared on the stage, anyone with a discerning eye could see that Manchester City would use its full strength in the next game.

At this time, in another stadium far away in Germany, Barcelona players were celebrating a goal.

In the 65th minute of the second half, Barcelona's offense finally bore fruit.

Arda, who came on as a substitute, received an assist from Messi and scored the key goal to equalize the score.

Monchengladbach is much more difficult to deal with than Barcelona's soldiers imagined. It's not easy to break the opponent's goal!

Next, it was Barcelona's turn to counterattack.

As long as they can score another goal in the remaining time, then this victory belongs to them!