Football King Bale

Chapter 681: The Gunners Fall Behind

With the Champions League group stage coming to an end, Bale and Manchester United have turned their attention to domestic competition. After all, the draw for the first round of the Champions League knockout round is still a few days away, and the start of the Champions League knockout round will not start until February next year, which is still two full months away, which is very early.

Before the start of the Champions League knockout rounds, Manchester United will also face a series of devilish schedules in the country, including the famous Christmas devilish schedule.

However, before the New Year, the most troublesome and helpless thing for Manchester United people is not the Christmas Devil schedule, but the upcoming Club World Cup.

Although there is no need to fly all the way to the Far East to participate in the game this year, this year's schedule is irritating the people of Manchester United. Manchester United's first match of this year's Club World Cup is on December 17. Not surprisingly, on December 21, they will also play a Club World Cup final.

However, in England, Manchester United will usher in the League Cup quarter-finals on December 18, and then usher in the 17th round of the Premier League on December 21, which will inevitably conflict with the Club World Cup schedule. .

Obviously, the Club World Cup schedule will not change unless Manchester United does not participate. Therefore, we can only find ways to adjust the domestic competition schedule.

After consultations between Manchester United and various parties, the 17th round of the Premier League was moved to the evening of December 23, but the League Cup quarter-finals with Stoke City could not be adjusted anyway.

Because the first leg of the League Cup semi-finals will be played in early January according to the schedule, the quarter-finals must be completed before the New Year. But from mid-December to the New Year, Manchester United almost maintained a rhythm of one game every two or three days. How could they add games in the middle?

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Regarding this schedule arrangement issue, Manchester United management has been trying every means to coordinate since Manchester United reached the quarter-finals of the League Cup, but until now, the problem has still not been solved.

In the end, there was really no other way, and Manchester United had to adopt Bell's suggestion: divide the troops into two groups and play the Club World Cup and League Cup at the same time!

Obviously, this requires Manchester United to make a choice between the World Cup and the League Cup. After all, Manchester United cannot have the main lineup on both sides. If the main players are evenly distributed, I am afraid it will only end up with nothing.

Manchester United's decision is that Ferguson will lead the main team to play in the Club World Cup, while Giggs, the player and assistant coach of the team, will lead a group of Manchester United substitutes and young people drawn from the reserve team to play in the League Cup away game against Stoke City.

For this result, the people of Stoke City were so happy that they almost went crazy.

When the quarter-final draw came out, Stoke City was in despair. After all, their opponent Manchester United was really too strong. They were the real devil, and whoever touched them would die. But now Manchester United's schedule cannot be coordinated and they can only send the reserve team to play, and the result will be different.

If you can't play in your first team, can you still play in your reserve team?

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On December 14, on the eve of Manchester United's departure for the Club World Cup, the 16th round of the Premier League officially started.

The opening match begins at the Etihad Stadium, with Manchester City facing Gunners Arsenal at home.

This is a true battle between dragons and tigers, and a game that no one can afford to lose.

After 15 rounds of league games, Manchester City only ranks fifth in the Premier League standings.

There is already an 8-point gap between Manchester United and Arsenal at the top of the list. If they lose again in this game, they will be 11 points behind the top spot.

Arsenal also cannot afford to lose. Although they are still tied for first place with Manchester United, if they lose this game, they are likely to be pulled down by Manchester United.

Everyone knows that the most terrifying thing about Manchester United is its tenacity and stability. Every time they exert strength in the league, it is during the Christmas Devil schedule.

Once Arsenal falls behind before entering the Christmas Devils schedule, then by the time the Christmas Devils schedule is over, they may be thrown away by Manchester United without even seeing the taillights!

Under such circumstances, the two sides launched a fierce offensive battle at the Etihad Stadium, and it was also a goal battle. Aguero took the lead with a volley, Walcott scored with a push, then Negredo scored with a close shot, Fernandinho extended the score with a long shot, Walcott scored twice, Silva added the icing on the cake, and Fernandinho scored a goal from a long shot. Nandinho scored another goal before the end, Mertesacker and Toure each scored 1 goal in stoppage time, Manchester City beat Arsenal 6:3 at home!

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This game between Blue Moon and the Gunners shocked England. Arsenal may lose away from home, which is expected, but losing so miserably is unexpected.

Since the beginning of this month, the issue of Arsenal facing Everton, Naples, Manchester City and Chelsea again and facing a death schedule has been hotly discussed in the public opinion. Now that three games have passed, the Gunners have only achieved one draw and two losses. Not only have they been squeezed to second place in the group in the Champions League, they may also be pulled down by Manchester United in the league. It seems that the season collapse that has been repeated in recent years will reappear.

In the battle between Arsenal and Manchester City, the Gunners completely defeated their opponents. Not only did they fall behind in statistics, their defense was also hit hard by six goals.

What is even more worrying is that the Gunners players generally lacked energy on the court, Sneijder almost disappeared, Giroud missed several good opportunities, and even Ramsey, who has always been famous for his physical strength, also appeared to be weak in continuous battles. Exhausted, without the heroic performance of running back and forth between offense and defense in the past,

The reason is probably due to Wenger's rotation policy, which has been criticized for a long time. Unless the main players are troubled by injuries, the professor rarely makes major adjustments in the league and the Champions League, and at most replaces two or three people in the starting lineup. , As a result, the substitutes will not get a chance to exercise, and the main players will not get a rest.

The most obvious example is Vermaelen. Even if the Gunners captain's condition has declined significantly, with his strength, he will not have a record of only 3 appearances in the league before, with a total of 113 minutes. When Koscielny was injured and left the field in this campaign, Vermaelen, who came on as a substitute, seemed to be in a hurry, which was closely related to the collapse of the defense.

In comparison, Ferguson did a very good job at this point. Although this caused Manchester United to have some problems at the beginning of the season, as Manchester United's rotation became more and more successful, Manchester United has returned to the right track.

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In addition, although the Gunners, who are aiming to win the championship, defeated strong teams such as Dortmund and Naples in the Champions League this season, their record in the domestic arena is mediocre. In addition to beating Liverpool 2:0 and defeating Tottenham 1:0, which is still in the running-in period, Arsenal lost to Manchester United and Manchester City in the league, was eliminated by Chelsea in the League Cup, and was tied with Everton.

If they want to compete for the championship, the Gunners must perform more convincingly against teams in the top half of the standings.

It rained all night. Arsenal, who were placed in the group of death in the Champions League, only got second place in the group. They will face another first-class team in the knockout rounds, and they also faced their mortal rivals in the FA Cup. Tottenham are drawn together, and the prospects are really not optimistic.

However, after losing to Manchester City in this round, Arsenal will have a precious 9 days of rest. For the mentally and physically exhausted Gunners, it will be a good opportunity to adjust their condition for the next round of London Derby with Chelsea. But if the Gunners still find it difficult to win in the next round, I'm afraid the "collapse syndrome" that is often talked about is really more than just talk.

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Not long after Arsenal lost at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester United also ushered in a match against the host at Villa Park.

Although they will fly 2,100 kilometers to North Africa for the first game of the Club World Cup in three days, Manchester United still showed their best in this league. Except for Robin van Persie and Carrick, who suffered injuries again, Rooney and Bale both started. Among them, Lu Xiaopang even ushered in his 500th game with Manchester United. Their strike partner is Welbeck.

In the midfield, Kanter, Modric and Pogba partnered, while the defense consisted of Rafael, Van Dijk, Phil Jones and Evra, with De Gea guarding the goal.

The Villars played very proactively at home. Only 24 seconds into the first half, Luna brought down Rafael with a sliding tackle near the baseline of the frontcourt, but the referee Lee Mason only ruled a foul.

The referee's penalty gave the Villars courage, and they suppressed Manchester United in the next ten minutes.

However, the Manchester United people were also inspired and scored the first goal to break the deadlock.

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In the 15th minute, Rafael broke through from the right and passed in. Bell's header near the penalty spot hit the bottom of the left post and bounced. Welbeck's right-footed supplementary shot from the edge of the penalty area broke the deadlock. Heibei broke the deadlock. There has been a goal drought in the league for the past four months.

In the 18th minute, Villa defender Baker's pass was intercepted in his own half. Manchester United launched a quick attack. Pogba passed a low pass from the right. Welbeck fell to the ground before Bell from 7 meters away and scored twice. Rewrite the score to 2:0.

Heibei, who scored two goals in a row, was extremely excited. In this game, he could be regarded as vindicating himself.

Heibei's shooting skills have been criticized by the outside world in recent years. His running, fighting and other technical aspects are good, but he lacks too much in terms of scoring ability, but he is a striker, and his main task is to destroy the team. Zhai, poor shooting skills is his biggest sin. Therefore, he has become a loser in the eyes of Manchester United fans.

Bell was a little depressed. It seemed that today was not his lucky day. First, his inevitable header was rejected by the goal post. Now he was planning to trigger the decisive shot, but Heibei intercepted it first. Hu, what a fool.

However, when the game entered the second half, Bell finally opened his goal account.

In the 52nd minute, Bell intercepted the ball from the right side of the frontcourt. After Rooney got the ball, he split it from the middle to the right. Bell got the ball in time and moved forward calmly on the right side of the penalty area. He pushed the ball with his right foot into the near corner, triggering a decisive blow and closing the score. Rewritten to 3:0.

In the end, the score was maintained until the end of the game.

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