Chapter 42: A near miss, "ugly" 2 consecutive wins
Chapter 42: A near miss, two consecutive wins of "ugly"
《All four Premier League BIGs advance to the Champions League quarterfinals》
《Premier League Golden Era! 》
"The hunt for Premier League teams has begun, is this the end of the Bundesliga teams?"
The biggest upset: Villarreal
"Who will win the big gift package Benfica?"
……
As soon as the Champions League quarter-finals came to an end, news reports surrounding the freshly-determined top eight teams in this season’s Champions League dominated the world’s sports hot lists.
Among them, the news that four Premier League teams all made it through to the round of 16 and the quarterfinals of the Champions League was the most eye-catching.
The so-called "Premier League heyday" has once again become a gimmick for British media to gain traffic.
But to be honest, this time when faced with the praise from English sports newspapers, the vast majority of fans chose to agree rationally.
Of course they would object if the exaggeration was too much, but most fans still agree that the Premier League team is likely to win the Champions League this season.
This phenomenon has further contributed to the atmosphere of blind confidence within the Premier League.
For a moment, it seemed as if this season's Champions League champion had already been decided by the Premier League team.
Manchester City fans, who are already strong, are looking forward to the championship parade after the end of the season.
However, these optimistic and confident fans seem to have forgotten the road to qualifying for the Champions League in the 08-09 season.
That season, the four Premier League teams also made it to the final eight of the Champions League, and three even made it to the final four!
But the result was that the "Three Heroes Hunting Barcelona" battle that was hyped up by many fans ended with Barcelona winning the championship.
How similar are today's trends to those of the past?
Li Chen looked at the carnival scenes set off by Premier League fans on the Internet and found it extremely absurd.
"The favorite is doomed to fail. The game hasn't even started yet, but they've already taken the lead. Where does this stupid habit come from..."
After lamenting that the atmosphere in football is becoming more and more impetuous, Li Chen no longer paid attention to this wave of public opinion.
Two days later, I witnessed with my own eyes that Manchester United was arranged by UEFA to meet with Real Madrid in advance at the Champions League quarter-final draw ceremony.
Li Chen even gave up on this season's Champions League in his heart.
Not to mention arranging a big gift package team for Manchester United, even arranging for Manchester United to play against Bayern, Li Chen felt that there was still some hope.
After all, Bayern has a lot of problems now, and midfield defense has become a chronic disease.
As long as Manchester United can hold on, remain patient and fight back, they can have a 50-50 chance of advancing.
But let Manchester United play Real Madrid now?
Li Chen said that he was not yet capable of this.
However, Manchester United has made a lot of money to get to this point. There is nothing to be ashamed of if they cannot beat Real Madrid. Just play in your own style and do your best.
Li Chen even thanked UEFA in his heart for allowing Manchester United and Real Madrid to meet in this round.
This allows him to give up the Champions League without any psychological burden and fully prepare for the upcoming FA Cup and league.
On the afternoon of March 3th, the FA Cup quarter-finals officially kicked off, with Manchester United and Southampton taking the lead and starting a fierce battle at Old Trafford.
Just as Li Chen judged before the game, Southampton, which has not yet completely escaped the relegation zone, really has no energy to be distracted by the FA Cup.
Their previous road to advancement was basically due to the fact that the opponents selected in the draw were too weak.
But in this round they were drawn against Manchester United, who were determined to win the championship, and their journey to qualify for the FA Cup this season has come to an end.
Manchester United, with high morale after defeating Atletico Madrid twice, fielded all their main players at home and launched a fierce attack on Southampton at the beginning!
Thanks to Ronaldo's huge deterrent power on the front line, Rashford also seized the opportunity and scored a goal by receiving the ball on the left side of Southampton's penalty area in just the ninth minute!
Greenwood, who also started today, was not to be outdone.
In the fifth minute after Rashford scored, he took the ball on the right and cut inside. After dribbling past two players, he shot a wonderful volley that broke through the Southampton goalkeeper's defense!
Manchester United, who had taken a two-goal lead early on, slowed down their attack at the signal of Li Chen.
Afterwards, Manchester United, who had retreated early, was able to withstand Southampton's counterattack.
After a long period of fruitless attack, Southampton did not dare to continue to press forward. In the end, the two teams tacitly maintained the score of 2-0 until the end of the halftime game.
After the start of the second half, Southampton took the lead in attacking, but Manchester United, who were prepared, took the opportunity to counterattack and once again broke through the defense line!
This time, Ronaldo scored the goal as he wished. The timely pass from Rashford allowed him to score comfortably.
Shortly after Ronaldo scored the goal, Li Chen replaced him with Martial, allowing him to enjoy the warm applause from the home fans alone early on.
This is the Portuguese superstar's fourth goal in the FA Cup this season.
It is also his 33rd goal in all official competitions for Manchester United this season!
At this moment, commentators from all countries were amazed at Ronaldo's performance.
At the age of 37, he has scored 33 goals before the end of the season, including 20 Premier League goals and 9 Champions League goals.
The value of this personal data is simply beyond measure.
The Portuguese superstar is still on his miraculous journey, without stopping, and he doesn't need to stop.
Relying on the three goals scored by the starting trident today, Manchester United defeated Southampton at home without any bloodshed and successfully advanced to the FA Cup semi-finals!
A day later, Liverpool beat Huddersfield 2-0 away, closing the curtain on the FA Cup quarter-finals.
Chelsea lost 2-3 to Manchester City and was eliminated.
Manchester United and Everton, Manchester City and Liverpool will face off in mid-April to decide the final spot of this season's FA Cup.
Before the start of the 30th round of the Premier League, the main players of each powerful team will have to go through a round of international match day baptism.
Thanks to the team's outstanding performance in the second half of the season, many of Manchester United's core players have been called up by their respective national teams.
Rashford, Sancho and Greenwood, whose performances have improved, were also selected to lead the England national team.
Martial should have been called up by the French national team.
Sky Sports recently captured Deschamps and his assistant watching Martial's first game in the Old Trafford box.
But at the crucial moment, Martial suffered hamstring discomfort after the FA Cup match against Southampton.
Therefore, we can only say goodbye to this campaign of the French national team with regret.
Li Chen verbally expressed his regret for what happened to Martial, but at the same time he was secretly delighted in his heart.
There is no way around it. The relationship between the club head coach and the national team head coach is inherently one of mutual dislike.
But no matter how much he dislikes it, he cannot stop his players from returning to their country to participate in national team competitions. So for Martial, a minor injury before the international match day does not affect the subsequent league preparations, but also prevents him from participating in international competitions, which is the best situation for him.
Guarding the empty training base, Li Chen and his assistants designed the tactical details for the next few rounds of the league, while watching Martial doing physical therapy and then guiding him to conduct individual recovery training.
The good news is that before the start of the 30th round of the Premier League, Martial has completely recovered from his injury and is in good health.
But the bad news is that all the main players who returned from the national team competitions appeared to be more or less physically and mentally exhausted.
Especially Fred, who rushed back to Brazil to play two World Cup qualifiers, and was directly judged by the team doctor as unfit to continue participating in the next league.
This situation left Li Chen speechless, and he cursed the Brazilian head coach Tite several times in his heart!
When we received the news that the medical team also did not recommend Luke Shaw to participate in the next Premier League game despite playing two friendly matches.
Li Chen, who was mentally prepared, just nodded calmly.
He will not gamble with the health of his players, and those who need rest should have a good rest.
Li Chen directly excluded Luke Shaw and Fred from the starting lineup for the next round of the league.
Instead, Telles and McTominay entered the starting lineup.
This disrupted the tactical planning of Manchester United's coaching team.
This also led to Manchester United choosing a more conservative starting lineup in the 30th round of the Premier League.
4231.
Without Fred's large-area coverage and protection, Li Chen naturally did not dare to let Matic play as a single defensive midfielder, and could only choose to let Matic and Xiaomai form a double defensive midfielder.
B Fee returned to the attacking midfielder position.
Without Luke Shaw's strong forward penetration, Li Chen did not let Ronaldo continue to play as an "inside forward", but instead pushed him to the center forward position.
In this way, Manchester United's starting lineup and personnel position arrangement are similar to those during the Solskjaer era.
It is certain that the offensive efficiency will be greatly reduced, and there will definitely be big problems when playing against strong teams.
Fortunately, Manchester United will face Leicester City in this round.
The Foxes, currently ranked only ninth in the Premier League, are no longer as strong as they were in previous seasons.
Without two main players and affected by the FIFA virus, Manchester United's strength has indeed declined a lot.
But with steady play and the advantage of home court, Manchester United and Leicester City should have no problem fighting to a 64- tie.
The idea of playing as safe as possible when playing against inferior opponents that Mourinho has instilled in Li Chen over the years has played a key role.
Manchester United, with a slightly conservative tactic, failed to suppress Leicester City at home, but they also consolidated their defense and did not give the Foxes too many offensive opportunities.
Iheanacho was completely defeated by Bailly today.
He was unable to play his fulcrum role on the front line, so Barnes and Maddison who tried to break through on the wing fell into Manchester United's defensive trap one after another.
Throughout the first half of the game, Manchester United was working on the defensive end. Whenever Leicester City made a move, Li Chen would follow up with timely adjustments on the defensive end.
After halftime, Leicester City, who had been trying to attack more actively, gained nothing, while Manchester United calmly dragged the game into the second half.
In the 57th minute of the second half, Li Chen made two substitutions, replacing Greenwood and Sancho who started today with Rashford and Elanga.
As a result, Manchester United's rhythm on the offensive end changed from being more inclined to control, and they became more focused on the speed of counterattacks and the threat rate of forward passes!
In this offensive system, Bruno Fernandes, who is better at delivering threatening passes, had a rare chance to enjoy himself.
Li Chen did not ask him to suppress his offensive desire and talent. Instead, he built a half-court offensive system around him.
Including Ronaldo, Manchester United's front trident all ran around B Fee's threatening passes, constantly sprinting around Leicester City's defense and occupying space.
In the 64th minute of the second half, Manchester United's continued efforts finally reaped the tactical rewards!
After receiving a long pass from B Fee, Elanga boldly broke through and was eventually dragged down in the Leicester City penalty area in a close confrontation with Evans!
The referee on duty hesitated for a moment and originally did not intend to award a penalty, but after being prompted by the video assistant referee, he finally watched the replay and decisively chose to change the decision!
Evans did use force to pull down Elanga. Although his action was very covert, it could not escape the attention of VAR.
Faced with this hard-earned penalty opportunity, B Fee, who was in excellent form today and a little excited, wanted to volunteer to take the penalty.
Seeing this, Ronaldo seemed to want to give in, but Li Chen on the sidelines stopped B Fee's intention with a stern attitude.
In the end, it was Ronaldo who took the penalty kick from the 12-yard spot.
His powerful penalty kick left Schmeichel helpless in judging the direction.
In the end, Manchester United took a 1-0 lead at home thanks to Ronaldo's penalty, and the final score of the game was fixed at 1-0.
The scene in which Bruno Fernandes was severely prevented from taking a penalty by Li Chen during the game became the focus of discussion among major media and fans after the game.
However, Li Chen, who took the initiative to communicate with B Fee after the game, directly used "the right to take penalty kicks next season" as a bargaining chip to stabilize the Portuguese midfield.
So although Manchester United seemed to have some problems in the eyes of outsiders, it actually returned to normal very quickly.
Six days later, Manchester United took Everton by surprise when they visited Goodison Park.
In the first 20 minutes, Manchester United's aggressive attack created many threatening opportunities with Sancho and Mata, the two wingers.
At the critical moment, B Fee, who came in from behind to participate in the attack, volleyed the ball to help Manchester United break the deadlock!
After scoring the goal, B Fee took the initiative to run to the sidelines to hug Li Chen and celebrate, using practical actions to dispel the outside world's speculation about internal discord in Manchester United!
After taking the lead, Li Chen decisively adjusted the positions of the players on the field and directly signaled the players to shrink their formation.
After that, Manchester United played a defensive counterattack and did not give Everton any chance to attack.
In the 56th minute of the second half, Luke Shaw again dribbled the ball to the side and gave Ronaldo a chance to shoot.
Ronaldo, who had only shot twice before this game, used his third shot of the game to help Manchester United secure the victory!
Although after the game, many British media complained about the conservative tactics used by Li Chen in the two league games.
Some media even directly called it an ugly victory.
But Li Chen didn't care at all.
What he cares about is that after two rounds of the league, Manchester United once again has a complete main lineup.
And now, he is going to Anfield to find Klopp to get back the ground Manchester United lost!
It will be released in Sanjiang on October 10th and will be on the shelves at midnight on October 13th. Yes, it has been decided. I am saving the draft for it. I hope you guys can support me!
(End of this chapter)