Chapter 848 Losing Jingzhou Carelessly

After the league match with Southampton, Manchester United split into two groups. One group, led by Mourinho, flew to Qatar in the Middle East on the team's special plane to participate in the upcoming Club World Cup semi-finals; the other group of substitutes, led by assistant coach Carrick, stayed in the UK to continue participating in domestic competitions.

This is the second consecutive year that Manchester United has split its forces into two groups to participate in the Club World Cup and domestic competitions. Manchester United's schedule is really too tight, and it is impossible to adjust and stagger the schedule.

According to the schedule, Manchester United will play four games in the next five days.

At 2 pm on February 6, in the 23rd round of the Premier League, Manchester United will face Everton at home; at 2 pm on February 8, the semi-final of the Club World Cup will kick off at the Ahmed bin Ali Stadium in Doha, the capital of Qatar; at 2:9 pm on February 2, in the fifth round of the FA Cup, Manchester United will face West Ham United at home; at 11 pm on February , the Club World Cup final will be held at the Education City Stadium in Doha.

Manchester United had also thought about adjusting the schedule, but the team has been in a super-intensive schedule of two games a week since the international match day in late November last year. Even in the next period of time, until the end of this season, Manchester United may have to play two games a week, so in the end, the team can only be divided into two groups like last season, fighting on three fronts at the same time.

Bruno is the most special one. He first stayed in the country and participated in the 23rd round of the league against Everton with the team. Then he rushed to Doha overnight to meet up with the main players of the team and participate in two games of the Club World Cup. Then he returned to the UK with the team to continue to participate in the next games.

This means he will only miss the FA Cup fifth round match against West Ham United.

………………

At 2 o'clock in the evening on February 6th, at the Millennium Stadium, the 23rd round of the Premier League match between Manchester United and Everton at home is about to kick off.

Since Mourinho has led the team's main players to Qatar in the Middle East, most of the Manchester United players who remain in the country are substitutes and rotation players.

The starting lineup for this game is goalkeeper Romero, and the four defenders are Dalot, Tuanzebe, Lindelof and Brandon Williams. In the midfield, Bruno partners with Mata and Fred, and the forward trident is Greenwood, McTominay and the Ivorian youngster Amad Diallo who just joined Manchester United in the winter window.

The 18-year-old was signed by Manchester United from Serie A team Atalanta at a high price of 2130 million pounds in the winter transfer window. The Ivorian genius's performance in Serie A and the Champions League conquered Mourinho, especially in the fourth round of the Champions League group stage, when Atalanta defeated Manchester United at the Millennium Stadium. Diallo's performance on the wing amazed Mourinho, and then he sent transfer personnel to the Apennines to discuss Diallo's transfer. Finally, shortly after the winter transfer window opened, he wrote a check of more than 4 million and brought him to Carrington.

The Toffees are currently ranked seventh in the league and have only lost one of their last five games. They are only four points away from the top four in the league. In order to compete for a place in the Champions League next season, Everton needs to fight hard to win this game. Manchester United's two-front battle gave Everton hope of getting three points at the Millennium Stadium.

Manchester United, with a weakened team, had a perfect first half of the game.

………………

The first half of the game began. Today is the 63rd anniversary of the Munich air crash. The captains of both teams held wreaths and led their teams into the stadium.

In the 2nd minute, Manchester United had an attacking opportunity. Everton made consecutive headers to clear the ball in the penalty area. Bruno's shot from the edge of the penalty area was blocked out of the bottom line.

In the 21st minute, Manchester United had another attacking opportunity, but after Greenwood passed the ball on the right, his low shot in the penalty area was powerless and went wide of the goal.

In the 24th minute, the ball went in! Diallo, who made his debut for Manchester United, took the ball from the right and made a curved cross with his right foot. McTominay headed the ball into the goal in the penalty area. Manchester United 1:0 Everton.

In the 45th minute, Manchester United scored again! Still attacking from the right, Bruno passed the ball to Diallo, Diallo passed the ball back, Bruno shot directly from the edge of the penalty area, and the ball went into the goal. Manchester United 2:0 Everton.

In the first half of the game, with two assists, the 18-year-old Ivorian boy conquered the Manchester United fans.

However, after the start of the second half, the situation on the field suddenly changed.

Since Bruno had to fly to Qatar overnight after the game, and the team performed very well in the first half and gained a two-goal advantage, Carrick, who was acting head coach in this game, believed that the outcome of the game was decided. He replaced Bruno with Phil Jones in the midfield and Manchester United changed to a 343 formation.

The new formation made Manchester United players a little uncomfortable, and Bruno was not on the field, which made Manchester United lose control of the situation, resulting in Everton taking the lead at the Millennium Stadium after the start of the second half.

In the 48th minute, Everton scored a goal! In an attack from the left front field, Lewin's cross near the baseline was blocked by the goalkeeper, and Doucoure followed up with a shot in front of the goal. Manchester United 2:1 Everton.

In the 52nd minute, Everton scored another goal! Doucoure took the ball from the right and made a triangle pass into the penalty area, and James followed up with a low shot! Manchester United 2:2 Everton.

………………

Manchester United conceded two goals in just four minutes. The two wingbacks, Dalot and Williams, were completely unaccustomed to their new positions and were somewhat disoriented on the field.

Fortunately, Carrick responded in time. He quickly ordered Dalot and Williams to withdraw the full-backs. Manchester United changed to 541 and defended their own half.

With the whole team retreating, Manchester United finally stabilized their position and stopped losing the ball.

Moreover, with a solid defense, Manchester United gradually took control of the situation and began to launch some threatening attacks.

In the 62nd minute, Manchester United missed an opportunity. In an attack in the frontcourt, McTominay passed the ball to Greenwood on the left from the edge of the penalty area. The latter faced the goalkeeper at a small angle and his shot was saved.

In the 70th minute, Manchester United scored another goal! Mata made a cross and McTominay followed up in the penalty area and jumped high to head the ball into the goal. Manchester United 3:2 Everton.

Afterwards, Manchester United launched a fierce attack on the field, but the offensive players missed good scoring opportunities and failed to expand their lead.

Just when everyone thought that Manchester United could easily win 3 points at home, an accident happened.

There were 4 minutes of injury time in the second half, but just as the time was about to run out, Everton got a free kick in the frontcourt. Although Manchester United players protested, after all, the 4 minutes of injury time had already passed, the referee insisted on letting Everton take the free kick.

The ball was kicked to the front of the penalty area. Keane, a central defender who came from Manchester United's youth training camp, headed the ball to the middle of the penalty area. Lewin seized the opportunity and shot successfully!

3:3, Everton equalized the score again!

After the goal was scored, the referee blew the whistle three times to end the game, and did not give Manchester United another chance to kick off from the center circle. It seemed that he was just waiting for Everton to score this last goal.

In the end, Manchester United was equalized by Everton in stoppage time at home.

According to technical statistics after the game, Everton only had three shots on target in this game, and all three shots were converted into goals.

………………

After the game, Bruno attended the post-match press conference with Carrick and expressed his dissatisfaction with some situations that occurred in the game.

"There were a lot of things that were disappointing, we made a lot of mistakes in the game and we can't concede goals like this again. We have to be more focused and we have to have the same desire to score goals and defend our own goal."

"We have to score goals in every game and the same applies to not conceding goals. I think we have to learn from this."

"It's happened so many times that it's more than a little disappointing. You talk about everything that's going on, but I want to emphasize it's about learning from it and getting better."

Bruno was particularly critical of Everton's last-gasp goal: "It's really bad, you can't lose a ball like this because they took the free kick 50 yards away from our goal. You can't lose a ball like this in this situation, we must be more focused, be prepared, and become stronger, we must use everything to defend our goal."

There were problems with Tuanzebe's defensive choice and Manchester United's defense at the last moment. Before Tuanzebe made the foul, there was no Everton player in a favorable offensive position in front of him, and Manchester United's defense line had enough manpower to achieve man-to-man restriction even if he was passed.

Therefore, it is an established fact that Tuanzebe's foul was rash. In the defensive header, Manchester United was passed to the opponent despite their numerical advantage at the front point. In addition, in the subsequent free kick defense, Tuanzebe's early retreat allowed the opponent's attacking player to advance without being offside, and Romero was not well prepared before Lewin's shot, and he did not even fully "open his body" to make an interception, allowing Lewin to score the equalizer.

………………

For Manchester United, going from a 2-0 lead to Everton’s equalizer at the last minute was a clear “loss of points”. Moreover, while the team’s offensive performance was up to par, the continuous mistakes on the defensive line dealt a heavy blow to the team.

In addition, the Premier League has shown a clear "turbulent" situation this season, and every point loss may have a greater impact on the final ranking at the end of the season. Although Manchester United's current advantage seems to be relatively obvious, Manchester City has performed very well recently and is catching up quickly.

自从去年12月15日在英超第13轮在主场被西布朗1:1逼平后，曼城已经在联赛取得九连胜。

A day later, Manchester City defeated Liverpool 4-1 at Anfield, completely kicking the Reds out of the league title race and once again closing the gap with Manchester United by two points.

With one game less, Manchester City is only 11 points behind. If they win Everton in the make-up game two weeks later, they will only be 8 points behind Manchester United.

Although the 8-point advantage seems large, it is actually an advantage of three games. Once Manchester United has a problem in a certain game, Manchester City can really see the hope of catching up with Manchester United.

This is not good news for Manchester United.

………………

After attending the new press conference after the race, Bruno went straight to the airport and boarded his own Gulfstream G550 business jet to Doha, the capital of Qatar, overnight.

For Bruno, rest and jet lag will be completed on the plane. Once he arrives in Qatar, he will immediately start preparing for the Club World Cup semi-final without any extra rest time.

However, this is not impossible for Bruno, who has a system that allows him to sleep deeply throughout the flight.

Manchester United's opponent in the Club World Cup semi-final is last season's African champion Cairo National, who defeated host Al Duhail to advance to the semi-finals.

Affected by the schedule, Manchester United nominally played with its main lineup in this game, but in fact the lineup was still incomplete.

In the 77th minute of the game, Manchester United got a corner kick opportunity.

Left-back Luke Shaw stood at the corner spot and raised his arm to indicate that he was about to kick off.

Cairo National's goal was crowded, and as they were unable to open up the situation during the game, they needed to be extra careful with Manchester United trying to score from set-piece opportunities.

Bruno also ran into the penalty area of ​​Cairo National, and two players immediately defended him closely. Although Bruno was not tall, he had amazing jumping ability and often scored headers.

Manchester United's center forward Harry Kane and two central defenders Maguire and Van Dijk were also competing for position with the opponent's defenders. The two sides were pulling and tugging, and the situation was chaotic.

The referee blew the whistle and Luke Shaw kicked the ball into the penalty area.

Bruno jumped in front and the two players defending him also jumped. However, none of them could head the ball and it flew through the air.

Maguire headed the ball in the middle, he slightly touched the ball, changing the flight path of the ball, the goalkeeper of Cairo National subconsciously jumped, the ball was not hit out of the danger zone, and the penalty area was immediately in chaos. All you can see is the offensive and defensive players entangled, all wanting to kick the ball.

Mourinho's eyes widened, and then he saw the net shaking. He raised his arms and saw Harry Kane running out with his arms raised. He roared and rushed to the corner flag, and behind him were the Manchester United players who were also running excitedly.

"GOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLL!" Lineker's voice rang out, "Harry Kane! Manchester United striker finally scored a goal, he scored in front of the goal! 1:0! Manchester United leads Cairo National!"

Mourinho swung his fist vigorously and smashed it into the air.

He finally waited until he scored. In this difficult game and at this time point, this was a goal of great value.

More than ten minutes later, the referee blew the whistle to end the game. Thanks to Harry Kane's goal, Manchester United defeated Cairo National 1:0 and reached the Club World Cup final for three consecutive years.

There was a huge cheer above the stadium.

Because Manchester United owner Jassim is a Qatari prince, they are naturally treated as the home team here.

Bruno also raised his arms high. Beside him were Manchester United players running excitedly, and in the stands were countless pairs of excitedly waving arms!