Chapter 419: Three consecutive Manchester derby matches! Pull down the man on the throne!
Two wins over Barcelona and successfully advanced.
The main players had a day off the next day because they had to return to the league game in two days and face Aston Villa at home, who were performing well and currently ranked 7th in the league.
Emery's coaching level has once again been unanimously praised for being able to surpass the chaotic Tottenham and rank behind the other six major teams in the fiercely competitive Premier League.
Chen Xiaoliang still got up and opened the system. Another victory allowed him to draw another star card of Barcelona legend Busquets in the [Big Club Mission].
Chen Xiaoliang took a closer look at the two words in the middle and instantly laughed out loud, unable to help but laughing like a pig.
[Busquets Peak Acting Attribute Card (One Minute)]
[Function: Temporarily add non-player attribute acting skill 20. After physical contact with the opponent's player, fall down with a very natural and extremely realistic action, conquer all fans and referees with the best actor-level performance, and greatly increase the probability of the opponent receiving a card.]
[Note: This skill cannot fool emotionless cameras]
He looked at the card pack again. There were eleven cards in total, including Suarez biting card, Materazzi swearing card, Gerrard slipping card, Aguero 9320 lore card, etc. According to the system rules, ten cards can be exchanged for one point of 19-20 attributes.
But the functions and effects of these cards are good, so Chen Xiaoliang decided not to add them for the time being, and wait until he gets more and keeps a few particularly essential ones to improve their attributes.
The highlight of the night is watching the second leg of Arsenal vs Manchester City at home.
At the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal was in high spirits, surpassing Manchester City in terms of the players' fighting spirit on the field and Arteta's command on the sidelines.
Rice, Odegaard and Havertz's performance on the field can definitely compete with Rodri, De Bruyne and Bellingham.
Saka and Kaori Mitoma are not inferior to Grealish and B Silva at all.
But the final victory or defeat depends on the beginning and the end.
Whether it was Martinelli or Nketiah, they were too weak compared to Haaland, who turned the Arsenal penalty area upside down on the other end.
Whether it was Gabriel, Ben White or Zinchenko, they all seemed unable to withstand the pressure at the last moment of fighting for honor.
Arsenal took the lead twice at home, but were equalized twice by Manchester City. Finally, in the first half of extra time, Foden, who came on as a substitute for De Bruyne, made a clever follow-up shot in the melee in front of the goal after Haaland's two shots were blocked by Ramsdale.
But the female referee Stephanie Frappart from France, based on the prompts from the video referee team, penalized Haaland for an early foul in the fight, so the subsequent goal was invalid.
Guardiola was furious and started yelling at the referee on the sidelines. When the fourth official failed to stop him, he was sent to the stands by the first female referee in the Men's World Cup.
Subsequent replays repeatedly proved that Haaland did seem to have pushed the player.
After 120 minutes of battle, Arsenal drew with Manchester City for the fifth time in half a year, and the two teams entered a penalty shootout.
Arsenal took the first four penalties, with Odegaard, Havertz and Kaori Mitoma making the first four, and Rice's penalty was saved by Ederson;
Manchester City took free throws later, and the first four penalties were scored by Kovacic, B Silva, Rodri and Alvarez.
In the end, all the pressure came to Saka, the fifth player to come on for Arsenal. Only if he scored could he keep the possibility going.
However, everything seemed like a continuation of the 2020 European Cup final, and Saka missed the penalty again.
Manchester City defeated Arsenal in a penalty shootout after a 4-4 draw in two rounds and advanced to the semi-finals.
Guardiola in the stands rarely put his index finger on his lips and made a gesture to shut up the Arsenal fans under their crazy insults.
In the two games in the lower half, Newcastle beat Benfica 1-0 at home, eliminated the opponent 2-1 in two rounds, and met Paris Saint-Germain, who drew 1-1 with Atletico Madrid away, in the semi-finals.
As a result, the Champions League semi-finals became a scene of three Premier League heroes fighting Lu Bu, Manchester United against Manchester City, and Newcastle against Paris Saint-Germain.
There was only one day of recovery training (training value 34→38). At noon on March 31, Chen Xiaoliang led half of the rotation players to welcome Aston Villa at home.
Aston Villa, currently ranked 7th, has 42 points, 22 points behind Arsenal, which has played one game less and is ranked 6th with 64 points. It is impossible for them to enter the Europa League zone. Their goal is to prevent being overtaken by teams like Tottenham and Brighton behind them, maintain the 7th place and advance to the Europa Cup next season.
Manchester United almost changed their lineup:
Goalkeeper Livakovic continues to start;
Dalot, Maguire, Lindelof and Luke Thomas formed the back line;
Milinkovic-Savic and McTominay partnered as defensive midfielders, while Chen Xiaoliang continued to start as central midfielder;
Ganacho, Benzema and Anthony are at the forefront from left to right.
As for Aston Villa, the biggest players are former Liverpool and Barcelona player Coutinho and World Cup best goalkeeper Damian Martinez.
Although there are a number of strong players to assist them, including winger Ollie Watkins, Brazilian midfielder Douglas Ruiz, and rising midfield star Jacob Ramsey, the gap in strength between the two teams is still too big.
What's more, the biggest gap is not just the players' value and ability, but their confidence in winning.
After winning a series of tough battles, even the old fans sitting in the ticket area began to feel that Manchester United has returned to the team in the league before 2013, which was as stable as an old dog and could play well in any position rotation.
In the 57th minute of the second half, Ganacho received a lob pass from Chen Xiaoliang outside the penalty area, and made an offside run and used the outside of his right foot to push the ball towards the goal, but was blocked by Martin. However, Benzema, who had predicted the situation in advance, was already in position and easily blocked the ball into the empty goal.
With this goal, Manchester United won 1-0 and continued their unbeaten journey.
In other highlights of the 31st round, Arsenal, who lost the Champions League battle for 120 minutes, was badly injured and lost 1-3 to Liverpool, who had finally "escaped" from France, at the Emirates Stadium.
Manchester City relied on the depth of its bench to beat Crystal Palace 2-0 away from home and continued to lead the league by 2 points with 2 more games played.
The hellish confrontation between these two teams this season has attracted the attention of media around the world.
According to this process, with 7 and 9 league rounds left, the two Manchester clubs are likely to both remain unbeaten in the season and reach 100 points at the same time.
The last time the competition was so fierce was in the 2018-19 season, when Manchester City won the championship with 98 points and Liverpool finished second with 97 points.
The current record is Manchester City's 100-point championship in the 2017-18 season.
But the only season without defeat is the 2003-04 season for Arsenal, when they had 26 wins, 12 draws and 90 points.
Who will win the Premier League this season? This has become a hot topic among fans, bookmakers and the media.
There was even a betting company that offered odds of 1.75 to both teams at the same time.
Fortunately, the answer will not last long. With the riots in France not over yet, the premise of the Champions League schedule means that Manchester United will have to play three consecutive games with Manchester City.
On April 7, they will play the second leg of the league Manchester City derby at Old Trafford, and on April 10, they will face Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final at home.
After only two days of rest, Manchester United will travel to Stamford Bridge to challenge Chelsea in the league on April 14, and then return to Manchester City. On April 18, they will visit the Etihad Stadium for the second round of the Champions League semi-final, and will play against Manchester City for the third time in twelve days.
In addition to these tough battles, there is also the FA Cup semi-final on April 16 before the three games against Manchester City.
Manchester United vs Brighton and Manchester City vs Liverpool.
That is to say, in the 12 days from April 7 to 18, the two teams will play five games each, which the media specifically listed:
Manchester United - Manchester City, Manchester City, Chelsea, Brighton, Manchester City;
Manchester City - Manchester United, Manchester United, West Ham, Liverpool, Manchester United.
This schedule, this time, this script, except for the coaches and players of the two teams who were cursing, fans all over the world praised it.
UEFA and the English FA were also not idle. In order to cooperate with this drama, they not only encouraged the media to create topics, such as using provocative questions to seduce the head coaches of both sides in the pre-match press conference, but also produced special pre-match promotional videos for the top players of both clubs.
In addition, a large number of celebrities and famous people were invited to watch the game.
Ferguson, Beckham and members of the Class of 1992, Kompany, Mark Hughes, Aguero, Roberto Mancini, Pellegrini, these famous players from both teams will be present.
Ed Sheeran, a famous Manchester City fan known as "Teacher Huang", will also sing a song.
In addition, Red Country players Dong Fangzhuo and Sun Jihai, who have played for both teams, will also appear in the VIP stands.
Preparations outside the stadium are in full swing, and both teams are equally intensively preparing for the match.
On the Manchester United side, De Gea has returned, but he has missed nearly 4 months of games, which makes his current condition rather worrying. Ten Hag asked him to participate in the reserve team league to quickly regain his form.
The biggest problem facing the players is how to defend Haaland?
Manchester City's midfield is almost entirely composed of agile and skilled players. Ten Hag has announced that Timberl and Casemiro will partner as defensive midfielders, and Chen Xiaoliang will serve as central midfielder.
The two defensive midfielders blocked the pass into the penalty area in front of the central defenders, reducing Haaland's chances of getting the ball in depth, while Chen Xiaoliang was the best candidate to sweep the penalty area from the middle and force Manchester City to pass the ball to the wings.
So the remaining problem is, when Manchester City plays from both wings and uses the numerical advantage on the wing to enter the penalty area, how to reduce the number of times Haaland attacks the goal?
To this end, Ten Hag specifically practiced the three-center-back tactics .
On the Manchester City side, Guardiola has an even bigger headache.
In the absence of Gundogan and with the midfield as a year older, let alone against Chen Xiaoliang, even against Arsenal , the result of five draws and no wins proves that the running and intercepting ability of De Bruyne, B Silva and others is obviously declining.
When dealing with the back-and-forth running of Odegaard, Rice and Havertz, as well as the back and forth movement of Mitoma Kaori and Saka on the wing, they already showed signs of being unable to cope.
Without the interception in the midfield, it would be impossible to withstand Manchester United's offensive by relying solely on the defense in the backcourt by Rodri, Stones and Ruben Dias.
Compared to Haaland, who is at the front and has relatively weak ability to attack with the ball, Chen Xiaoliang's strongest point is when he has the ball at his feet. No matter it is a long pass, a through pass or a shot himself, he can suddenly create a killing intent without anyone noticing almost anywhere in the half.
The point is, no one can predict where he will be in the next offense.
Bellingham is not good at one-on-one defense, and his running ability cannot keep up with the double-team defense. In fact, Guardiola was already regretting during the winter window that he did not buy more players in the summer window, and he was not able to take action early on for individual targets, such as Gvardiol.
Compared with the outside world, especially the fierce war of words between the fans of both teams, the head coaches of the two teams deliberately lowered the heat at the pre-match press conference. No matter how the reporters from major media outlets tried to stir up confrontation, neither of them took the bait. They just calmly said that they would go all out and praised their opponents' performance this season as incredible.
As for whose unbeaten streak would be broken, neither of them responded. Before the game, the players of both teams were asked by their respective clubs to refrain from posting hateful words and pictures on their personal social media.
The reason is simple. Before the game started, extreme fans of the two teams had already started fighting in the streets of Manchester. The British government was worried that the riots in France would be copied, so it quickly issued the highest security standards order. The Greater Manchester City Council and surrounding local governments dispatched 10,000 police officers to ensure that there would be no conflicts between the Etihad Stadium and squares, bar streets, and fan camps across Manchester during the game cycle.
After 5 days of training, 20 training points, plus a 5-point winning (38→63), at noon on April 7, two buses carrying players, coaches and staff drove into Old Trafford.
For the two teams with a tight points situation, once the winner is decided, it will be a "6-point battle". If Manchester United wins, they will be 1 point ahead with two games less, which will give them a huge psychological advantage. If Manchester City wins, even though Manchester United still has two games less, the point difference will become 5 points behind, which means they must win both games less.
Not to mention the huge blow to the players after their unbeaten streak was broken.
The best example is Arsenal's sharp decline in form after their lead was eroded last season.
One hour before the game, the starting lineup that the media and celebrities had been guessing for a week was finally announced.
Home team Manchester United 4-2-3-1:
Goalkeeper Livakovic, De Gea appeared on the substitute list;
The back four: Wan-Bissaka, Varane, Maguire and Luke Shaw;
Casemiro and Lima are the double defensive midfielders, and Chen Xiaoliang is the central midfielder;
Left winger Kva, center Cesco, right winger Anthony.
Away team Manchester City 3-2-4-1:
goalkeeper Ederson;
The three central defenders are Akanji, Ruben Dias, Ake
Double defensive midfielders Stones and Rodri;
The double central midfielders De Bruyne and Bellingham;
Right midfielder Kyle Walker, left midfielder B Seat;
Center forward Haaland.
The starting lineups of the two teams, just like Manchester United's match against Barcelona, once again amazed many fans and celebrities.
On the Manchester United side, Ten Hag let Lima, who had not played as a defensive midfielder since leaving Ajax, play in the defensive midfielder position, and chose Maguire to start in the center back position. It is not difficult to guess that Lima will be positioned as a center back in defense, forming a configuration of three center backs. Maguire, who is strong in confrontation and heading, will confront Haaland in the middle, while Varane and Lima harass Haaland on both sides.
Chen Xiaoliang will most likely be positioned as a defensive midfielder to fill the gap left by Lima's retreat.
On the Manchester City side, judging from the positions of Kyle Walker and Stones, the media speculated that Guardiola also used a five-defender formation. In defense, Kyle Walker retreated to the right-back position, Stones retreated to the center-back position, and central midfielder Bellingham retreated to fill Stones' position and become a defensive midfielder, also forming a configuration of five defenders and double defensive midfielders.
Some people even swore that this was the tactical style that Ten Hag learned from Guardiola when he was the head coach of Bayern's second team.
But after the game started, they realized that they had underestimated Guardiola's ability to organize the game.
And what Guardiola said before the game, "Manchester City can no longer ignore such a strong opponent as Manchester United," was not a compliment at all.
In the 2nd minute, Manchester United stole the ball from Manchester City, who had kicked off first, and Manchester City quickly returned to defense and formed a defensive formation.
In the defense line, except for Akanji, Ruben Dias, Stones and Ake who were lined up in a row on the penalty area line, Kyle Walker and Bellingham were pulled to both sides and became wingbacks. B Silva and De Bruyne retreated to Rodri's left and became defensive midfielders at the same time, leaving only Haaland in front.
This is not the 4-2-3-1 defensive arrangement as envisioned, it is simply a 4-5-1 deep defense lineup.
Sitting in the live broadcast room, Kompany, the former Manchester City captain who was sacked by Burnley, who was certain to be relegated, said excitedly and helplessly: "This is the most conservative and pragmatic defensive formation I have ever seen Pep (Guardiola) put up. He gave up high-pressure defense and double-teaming in the midfield. Oh, is this still the Pep I know?"
Ferdinand said with some pride: "Because he may have realized that with the current midfield players, they can't fully cope with Arsenal's bombardment tactics, let alone defend against Manchester United's counterattack like the wind."
Henry: "But I still want to say that even so, don't underestimate Guardiola and his Manchester City. Remember, they remain unbeaten this season, they have made it to the Champions League semi-finals, and although their league odds have dropped to second, their Champions League odds are still first. In terms of results, they are not any worse than Manchester United on the other side."
While several people were talking, Kwa received a long pass from Chen Xiaoliang on the left and wanted to stop and pass. He had just created half a body length of space in front of Akanji when he was intercepted by Kyle Walker who came back to defense.
Manchester City did not launch a hasty counterattack, but instead moved forward slowly, and the formation changed back to 3-2-4-1.
De Bruyne received the ball after falling back, deliberately staying away from Chen Xiaoliang's defensive range, and passed the ball to Rodri on the left side. Rodri pushed the ball to Bellingham, who passed it straight forward to Haaland who retreated outside the penalty area to meet the ball.
After receiving the ball, Haaland carried Lima, who was obviously smaller than him, with his back for a while. Then when Chen Xiaoliang approached, he pushed the ball to the side and passed it to De Bruyne who bypassed Chen Xiaoliang and made a forward run.
De Bruyne made a straight pass to the left, and B Silva followed up and penetrated directly into the left side of the penalty area from Varane and Wan Bissaka, and made a horizontal pass to Haaland who had just returned from outside the penalty area after passing the ball.
Haaland pushed the ball with his left foot, and Livakovic quickly dived to the lower right!
But he failed to touch the ball, and the ball was blocked by Maguire, who was following Haaland, and went out of the baseline!
"Lying down and taking a test..."
The Red Country cheering group, which was specially organized to watch the game and consisted of overseas students and personnel stationed abroad, did not care about watching the game in a civilized manner and sang in their hometown accents...
The Manchester City fans who came to the away game were even more shocked.
Chen Xiaoliang turned around and gave Maguire a thumbs up, then pointed at Wan Bissaka and Varane, and then pointed at B Silva.
He said this in the locker room before the game:
"What colour the Manchester sky will be, and who has the final say in English football from now on, will all be determined in these three games."
"Please be very alert and remember one thing: if we lose these three games, all our efforts for the whole season will be worthless!"
"Does that sound stressful?"
"It's okay to have pressure. Only cowards don't have pressure."
"But please remember one thing!"
"That means the other side is under more pressure than us!"
"Today, we have to do the same as our predecessors and knock the man sitting on the throne down!"
