Chapter 767 Unintentional intervention

Manchester United beat Burnley 3-0 at home, which stopped the slump of losing to Liverpool at Anfield, but they failed to narrow the gap with Liverpool, because a day later, the Reds beat Wolves 2-1 at Molineux Stadium and widened the gap with Manchester United again.

The Reds are in great form this season, with 24 wins and 23 loss in 1 league games, leading the Premier League standings.

However, Manchester United's performance is not bad either. They achieved 24 wins, 21 draws and 2 loss in the first 1 league rounds, closely following Liverpool with a difference of 4 points.

Behind the two red teams, the other teams couldn’t even see the taillights of the two teams.

Ranked third is Manchester City. The Blue Moon achieved 24 wins, 16 draws and 3 losses in the first 5 rounds, and got 51 points, averaging more than 2 points per game. The performance is not bad, but the gap with the top two teams in the standings is really big. It is 14 points behind Manchester United.

This means that if Manchester City wants to catch up with Manchester United this season, they have to average 14 point more than Manchester United per game in the remaining 1 league games!

As for Liverpool, they are 18 points ahead of Manchester City!

Following Manchester City is another blue team - Leicester City! The Foxes currently have a record of 15 wins, 3 draws and 6 losses, with 48 points, making them the biggest dark horse in the Premier League this season.

Lampard's Chelsea is currently ranked fifth with 40 points. Due to the transfer ban on Chelsea, Lampard's first season as coach did not receive any reinforcements. Faced with the difficulties of recruiting players, Lampard chose to vigorously explore new players. Although the Blues were bloodbathed 4-0 by Manchester United in the first round, the performance of the Blues soon improved. In the Premier League in October 2019, Lampard led Chelsea to three wins, 10-4 away to Southampton, 1-1 at home to Newcastle, and 0-4 away to Burnley. This made Lampard the best coach of October and also brought Chelsea closer to the Champions League zone.

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The following weekend, Manchester United faced the fourth round of the FA Cup. Mourinho played with a full substitute lineup, and even Bruno did not travel with the team.

Since Tranmere is a team that has been playing in the lower leagues for many years, Manchester United has not played against it very often. In history, the two sides have only met once, that is in the 1976-1977 season, when Manchester United defeated their opponent 5-0 in the League Cup.

In today's match, Manchester United, with a pure substitute lineup, slaughtered Tranmere 6:0 away from home and advanced to the fifth round of this season's FA Cup.

But in another stadium, a big upset occurred. Liverpool was tied 2:2 by Shrewsbury Town away from home, and the two sides will replay at Anfield in early February.

Although Shrewsbury's chances of promotion are still slim, they have won a lot. This mid-to-lower-level team in the English League One has almost no hope of promotion in the English League One, so they have high hopes for the FA Cup. However, they encountered the powerful Liverpool, which is undoubtedly a very bad result.

However, their home draw with Liverpool gave them an opportunity to earn a lot of money. Because according to the tradition of the British football world, when Premier League teams encounter lower-level league teams, they will give the ticket revenue to the lower-level teams, which is considered as support for the lower-level league teams.

At Shrewsbury's home ground, ticket revenue is very limited due to the limited capacity of the stadium. But the rematch at Anfield is different. Not only will Shrewsbury's players get more exposure, but ticket revenue will also make them a lot of money.

Anfield Stadium is a large stadium that can accommodate more than 50,000 fans. The ticket revenue for a game is basically over one million pounds, which is a huge amount of revenue that many low-level league teams do not have in a season. It is of great benefit to improving the team's operations.

However, for Liverpool, this is a bloody loss. Not only will they lose the ticket revenue, but the team will also be distracted by the game. This is undoubtedly a loss for Liverpool, who are fighting on multiple fronts and aiming to defeat their arch-rival Manchester United and win the first Premier League title in the team's history. This is worse news than losing directly to Shrewsbury.

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Manchester United's last game in January will be against their city rivals Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on the evening of January 1. This is the second leg of the semi-final of this season's English League Cup. The winner of the two Manchester City teams will advance to this season's League Cup final.

In another semi-final that ended a day earlier, Aston Villa defeated Leicester City 2:1 at home, eliminating the Foxes with a total score of 3:2 and becoming the first to advance to this season's League Cup final.

Manchester United is undoubtedly at a disadvantage as they drew 3-3 with Manchester City at home in the first leg.

What makes Manchester United even more dilemma is that three days later, Manchester United will face Wolves at home again, which is the 25th round of the Premier League.

Currently, Manchester United is 4 points behind Liverpool in the league and is in a very bad situation.

Under such circumstances, Mourinho decided to focus on the league. After all, compared to the league championship, a League Cup championship is completely useless!

However, Mourinho did not arrange for Bruno to rest again. He still wore the captain's armband and led the team.

At the Etihad Stadium, Manchester United lined up a 4321 Christmas tree lineup, with goalkeeper Romero, four defenders Dalot, Phil Jones, Lindelof, Williams, three defensive midfielders Fred, Bellingham, McTominay, Bruno and Mahrez as forwards, and Greenwood as the lone striker.

At the beginning of the first half, in the first 6 minutes, the two sides exchanged offense and defense, but the game was very stalemate and no one got the ball. In the 7th minute, Pogba made a right-footed pass into the penalty area from the middle of the frontcourt. Aguero entered the penalty area and leaned forward to head the ball, but the ball was saved by Romero.

Afterwards, Mahrez cut in from the right frontcourt and broke into the penalty area, avoiding the angle and making a low shot with his left foot, but the ball was blocked by Ederson's legs. Then, Manchester City quickly counterattacked, Aguero received the ball in the middle of the frontcourt and made a diagonal pass, and De Bruyne broke into the penalty area from the left side and shot with his left foot, but the ball went over the crossbar.

After 27 minutes, Manchester City made a long pass from the backcourt, Pogba stopped the ball on the right side of the penalty area and made a cross with his left foot, Aguero made a quick shot in the middle of the penalty area, but the ball went wide of the left post.

In the 35th minute, Fred took a free kick from the left side of the frontcourt into the penalty area. Bernardo Silva headed the ball to the other side. Bruno shot with his left foot from the right side of the penalty area and scored. Manchester United unexpectedly took the lead.

After the change of sides, Manchester City finally got into the game and launched a fierce attack. Sterling and Aguero scored goals but were both called offside and the goals were invalid.

In the end, Manchester United unexpectedly won 1:0 away from home, eliminating Manchester City 4:3 on aggregate and advancing to the final.