Chapter 370 Sweeping Arsenal and Advancing to the Champions League Quarterfinals

Guardiola just said he wanted to enjoy football, but only three days later, Manchester City overturned.

On March 1, in a strong dialogue at Anfield Stadium, Manchester City lost 2:3 to Liverpool, a regrettable defeat.

It rained heavily not long after the game started, and both sides had to fight in the rain.

The slippery ground caused by the rain greatly affected Manchester City's passing tactics. Players repeatedly made passing mistakes due to water accumulation on the ground.

On the other side, the Liverpool players, who wanted to take revenge against Manchester City at home, played extremely bravely in this game.

They ran and sprinted desperately, regardless of the slippery surface and the danger of injury, and used counterattacks again and again to attack Manchester City's defense.

In fact, judging from the scene, Liverpool was very passive on the scene. Their ball possession rate was only 32%, but their counterattack was very threatening.

Especially the counterattack launched from the wing after a successful defense is accurate every time.

In the 11th minute of the game, Henderson opened the scoring to help Liverpool take the lead.

Although Manchester City equalized the score in the 23rd minute with Lin Quan assisting De Bruyne with a long shot from outside the penalty area, only 3 minutes passed before Liverpool scored again.

This time, there was a problem on the wing. Coutinho performed a wonderful extraordinary performance. After cutting inside, he used a long shot that shocked everyone and broke Navas's fingers.

In the 75th minute of the second half, Lin Quan succeeded in countering offside from De Bruyne's through ball and scored with a single goal, once again leveling the score.

For the next ten minutes or so, neither team's offense was able to penetrate the opponent's defense, and it looked like the game would end in a draw.

However, in the 3rd minute of stoppage time, Gerrard, the legendary captain of the Red Army who had officially announced that he would leave Liverpool at the end of the season, stood up. He used a trademark long shot to hit the ball into the dead corner and beat Manchester City.

After completing the winning goal, Gerrard excitedly took off his jersey, rushed to the stands with the most fans, and celebrated crazily.

His teammates also went crazy, chasing him, hugging him, kissing him, and celebrating this hard-won victory.

As for the Red Army fans at Anfield, they were already excited.

Before the game, the outside world was not optimistic about them at all, thinking that they could not be Manchester City's opponents.

However, they slapped everyone in the face with a hearty victory.

Seeing that his team was defeated by his opponent, Guardiola scratched his head, as if he did not expect this to happen.

This was too bad luck. The game was over in a few dozen seconds, but the Manchester City player who was guarding Gerrard accidentally slipped due to the slippery ground, giving the opponent a chance to shoot.

Guardiola is not a person who cannot afford to lose. He took the initiative to go to the Liverpool coach and shake hands with him.

Manchester City's loss made the outside world very excited. They felt that they had found a way to limit Manchester City's midfielder tactics.

Everyone became eager to try.

In the 28th round of the league, Leicester City was the first to stand up and try.

After summarizing Liverpool's victory over Manchester City, they believed that Manchester City's defensive weakness was on the wings.

After the full-back position moved forward and became a midfielder, when attacking, Manchester City's formation became 235, with five players on the front line.

In addition to the two wingers and a center forward, two offensive midfielders will also advance from the ribs, giving Manchester City multiple attack points near the opponent's penalty area line.

The advantage of this is that it makes the opponent's defense more difficult. Even if the attack fails, you can rely on your numerical advantage to immediately counterattack the opponent's player holding the ball, destroy the opponent's counterattack and look for opportunities for a second attack.

After Manchester City changed their tactics of playing as a defensive midfielder, their counter-attack success rate at the front of the opponent's penalty area was very high. Many goals were scored after successful counter-attacks by taking advantage of the transition between offense and defense.

Because they are closer to the opponent's goal and have more opportunities for second attacks after on-the-spot counterattacks, Manchester City's number of shots in each game is terrifying.

With super shooters like Lin Quan and Aguero in the team, giving Manchester City so many shooting opportunities means conceding a lot of goals.

In the three games before losing to Liverpool, Manchester City relied on this method to defeat their opponents.

However, this trick failed for Liverpool.

The reason is that Liverpool is a wealthy team after all, and their players are much stronger than ordinary teams.

Although Manchester City's on-the-spot counter-attack success rate is very high, there are times when it fails.

Once the counterattack fails and the opponent counterattacks, Manchester City's two wingers or even the five players on the front line will not be able to retreat in time.

Therefore, in order to ensure the safety of one's own goal.

When Manchester City's four defenders and one defensive midfielder retreat, they will shrink inward to form a trapezoidal defensive formation at the front of the penalty area.

The advantage of this formation is that the defense is more layered and will not be broken through at once.

The disadvantage is that the wings are empty. When the opponent sends a cross or cuts in from the wing, it is difficult for Manchester City players to stop it immediately.

Moreover, when playing Liverpool, it rained heavily at Anfield, and the conditions of the venue were unfavorable to the more technical Manchester City.

In the end, coupled with Gerrard's extremely lucky shot, Manchester City suffered a bitter defeat.

However, Leicester City has none of these favorable factors.

Therefore, they chose to use Liverpool's tactics against Manchester City, and naturally the result was a very tragic death.

Before the first half was over, the game lost its suspense.

Manchester City already leads their opponents 3:0.

In the second half, the team changed sides and fought again. Lin Quan, who was supposed to be replaced, was not put on the bench by Guardiola.

Lin Quan did not end the game, which meant that Manchester City still did not give up the attack.

As a result, Leicester City was unlucky.

When Lin Quan was substituted, the score on the field had become 5:0.

Leicester City was defeated and their players all began to doubt life.

Why did we play according to Liverpool's correct answer, but it had no effect at all, and we still lost so miserably?

On the sidelines, Guardiola felt very happy when he saw that the team had overcome the haze of previous losses with a big victory.

He sat on the coaching bench and communicated with Lin Quan, who had just been replaced.

"The opponent's winger seems pretty good?"

Lin Quan took a sip of his energy drink, glanced at the player Guardiola was referring to wearing the Leicester City jersey No. 26, and asked:

"You mean Mahrez?"

"Um!"

Guardiola nodded and asked as if he was interested in talent:

"What do you think of his strength?"

"The strength is good, the skills are exquisite, and the ability to break through and cut inside is good. I should be able to work as a winger and a full midfielder. If I grow up, it will be no problem to be a strong player in a weak team!"

Lin Quan thought for a moment and commented like this.

He remembers Mahrez's performance at Fox City during Leicester City's title-winning campaign which was quite explosive.

He scored 17 goals and provided 11 assists, and was highly voted as the Premier League MVP that season.

Of course, that was Mahrez a year later, and the current Mahrez is obviously not that good.

But Guardiola's vision is very good. He can tell in one game that this guy is not a mortal. No wonder he rarely makes mistakes when buying people.

He speculated that the reason why Guardiola fell in love with Mahrez was probably because the opponent's skills at his feet attracted him.

A coach like Guardiola has a preference for players with delicate skills at his feet. Except for Haaland, all the players he recruited are players with delicate skills and comprehensive skills.

"That's it!"

Guardiola couldn't help but think.

Manchester City's right winger is Navas. He is already 30 years old and is not young. In addition, he often plays as a substitute for Lin Quan, so he has the idea of ​​​​leaving.

Guardiola needs to find an outstanding right winger for the team.

The previous offer to Chelsea for Salah was intended to buy Salah to replace Navas.

But it is a pity that Chelsea is unwilling to sell people, which makes Guardiola's intention come to nothing.

Now seeing Mahrez, who is about the same age as Salah, Guardiola has once again started poaching people.

Mahrez only spent £500,000 when he moved to Leicester City last year.

His performance in the past two seasons has been good and his progress has been very obvious, so his value has also increased.

If Manchester City wanted to take him away, Guardiola felt that it would be impossible without 20 million pounds.

Spending 20 million pounds to buy a player who is currently unknown seems to be a huge gamble!

So, should you buy it?

"You can sell it within 30 million pounds. Of course, it would be better if you can buy Salah!"

Lin Quan saw Guardiola's hesitation, so he spoke.

At the right wing position, the Egyptian Pharaoh was still stronger at his peak.

After a cordial exchange between father and son, Guardiola's hesitant heart immediately became firm.

purchase!

After saving so much money during the winter break, how can I be worthy of myself and Manchester City fans if I don’t buy something during the summer window?

Leicester City's loss left other teams confused for a while, wondering whether they could copy Liverpool's work.

Some teams have backed down, but other teams do not believe in evil.

The 29th round of the Premier League begins.

Burnley, who ranked second from last in the Premier League and in urgent need of 3 points to save their lives, chose to copy Liverpool's work at their home court.

Then there is no more.

At the end of the game, the score of 4:0 left Burnley people in tears.

This is the result of Manchester City replacing a large number of main players after the start of the second half to retain their strength in order to prepare for the Champions League knockout rounds in midweek.

If they used all their firepower, a massacre would be inevitable.

In this round, there is a direct battle between top-ranked Chelsea and fourth-ranked Southampton.

Surprisingly, however, Chelsea failed to win the game despite Diego Costa's early goal.

Matic's foul in the penalty area gave the opponent a penalty kick, helping Southampton escape at Stamford Bridge.

After the draw, Chelsea took advantage of Manchester City's loss to Liverpool to regain the lead and shrunk it to 1 point. The originally promising championship situation began to become precarious again.

To make matters worse for Chelsea, in the second round of the Champions League, Chelsea, playing at home, was tied by Paris Saint-Germain.

For Chelsea fans, this game is bound to give them sleepless nights.

Their team struggled to break through the opponent's goal in the 81st minute of the game. The goal at this time gave them hope of winning.

However, David Luiz's goal in the 86th minute extinguished the dreams of Blues fans, and the two sides drew 1:1.

Since Chelsea also drew 1:1 with their opponents at home in Paris in the last game, both sides had the same number of goals and away goals.

So the game was dragged into overtime.

Chelsea once again scored the first goal in overtime. Hazard's goal made the Blues fans at Stamford Bridge completely excited, and Mourinho also roared excitedly in celebration.

However, another PSG defender stepped up.

Thiago Silva once again helped Paris equalize the score in the 114th minute of overtime!

The two sides were tied at 2:2, but a very fatal point for Chelsea was that the opponent had two away goals.

In the final stage of the game, all the Blues soldiers tried their best to attack the opponent's goal, but failed due to the stubborn defense of Paris.

Finally, with the referee's whistle, the game ended.

Chelsea was eliminated miserably at their home court and saw their opponent advance to the quarter-finals. However, they once again suffered a humiliating defeat in the top 16.

"Mourinho is having a hard time at Stamford Bridge!"

"Haha, who made him so crazy before!"

"With Abramovich's temper, if Chelsea doesn't win the league title this season, I bet 50 cents that Magic Bird will be fired!"

"Having been fired by Real Madrid and Chelsea one after another, I don't know what other team will want him!"

"I think it's better to go to Manchester United. Van Gaal did worse than Mourinho at Manchester United!"

"What a great idea. Support Mourinho and go to Manchester United to make Manchester United completely miserable!"

After Chelsea was eliminated, outside public opinion was very unfavorable to Mourinho.

When he returned to the Blues, he made promises to the fans, but now it seems that none of them have been fulfilled.

Since Chelsea won the Champions League, they have failed once in the group stage and twice in the top 16. The team's record has gone from bad to worse.

The current Chelsea does not seem to be on the right path, but looks shaky.

And it has been 5 years since their last league championship.

If they don't gain anything anymore, it would be a shame for their status as a wealthy family.

This makes Blues fans very worried. They don't want to see their team like Arsenal without a championship for ten years!

Manchester City fans cannot feel the concerns of Chelsea fans at all.

In the second round of the Champions League, Manchester City was at home and easily defeated Arsenal 2:0, advancing to the quarterfinals with a total score of 5:1.

Since their breakthrough in the Champions League last year, Manchester City's luck in the Champions League has suddenly improved.

Last year they faced the three most powerful clubs, Huang Saren, in succession, but this year, not only were they assigned to a very weak group, but even their opponents in the first round of the knockout rounds were also easy to beat.

Arsenal knows Manchester City well and is very close to them. There is no hard work of traveling to play against them. After the game, the team's consumption is not big. In addition, there is no consumption of the League Cup and FA Cup.

Manchester City can be in the best condition to meet the next round of opponents!

Except for Chelsea, there were no upsets in this round of games.

Bayern, Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Juventus and other strong teams have reached the quarterfinals.

On March 19, the 2014-15 UEFA Champions League quarter-final draw ceremony was held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

With so many top teams in the top eight, the outside world is looking forward to a powerful showdown where Mars will hit the earth!