Chapter 966 Respective Key Battles
Chapter 966 Respective Key Battles
When the national team game ended, the international players of their respective teams returned to the team one after another, and so did Manchester City.
The two consecutive national team games and the long-distance travel made the players look very tired.
But it happens that Manchester City will go to an away game to challenge Liverpool next.
For Benitez, this is the second time he has faced his former club after coaching Manchester City.
If you only look at the results of last season, it seems that he is not qualified to return to Anfield with his head held high.
Because last season, Manchester City finally ranked fourth, while Liverpool, coached by his successor Kenny Dalglish, ranked second and almost won the championship.
Manchester City beat Manchester United away at the last minute last season, but it is a pity that Liverpool themselves did not seize the opportunity.
But judging from his performance this season, Benitez is definitely qualified to make Dalglish feel ashamed.
In the UEFA Champions League, Manchester City created the best result of the English team participating in the season,
In contrast to Liverpool, the team led by Dalglish only scored four points in the four rounds of the Champions League group stage, and it is very dangerous to qualify for the group stage.
In the league, Dalglish's team also encountered difficulties.They made great strides from the very beginning of last season, and even ranked first at one point, and competed fiercely with Manchester United for the league title.
Ranking second in the end is already a very good result.
But this season, it's nothing more than a poor performance in the Champions League, and his performance in the league has also plummeted, forming a sharp contrast with last season.
After the twelfth round of the league, they are ranked seventh...
Compared with the second place in the same period last season, this result is really far behind.
When the two teams met last season, Liverpool's morale was high, while Manchester City suffered their first crisis of the season.At that time, everyone thought that Liverpool would win even in the away game, and Mark Hughes would be dismissed because of the failure of this game.
But who knows, Rong Guang had a big explosion in the game, scored three goals and staged a hat-trick, which not only saved Mark Hughes' coaching position, but also caused Liverpool to suffer a setback.
The encounter this season has just gone through a national team match. There are many international players participating in both teams, so the physical condition of the players on both sides is not very good.
And there will be a Champions League group match next.
Fortunately, Manchester City said that they have already qualified first in the group ahead of schedule, and they do not have such urgent requirements for the results of the Champions League group stage in the middle of next week.
But Liverpool is different.
They will play an away game against the Hungarian team Debrecen in the middle of next week.
The team's initial status in this group was the fourth-tier team.
But it is not easy for Liverpool to win them.
Liverpool's first Champions League group match this season is to challenge Debreson at home. Before the game, everyone believed that Liverpool would definitely win easily. The only suspense was to win a few goals.
As a result, Liverpool finally won by only one goal at their own home court, and almost failed to win.
This is also Liverpool's only victory in the Champions League group stage so far this season.
So the away game in the middle of next week is very important for Liverpool.They must win this game if they want to retain any hope of qualifying from the group.
At the same time, we must count on Lyon to lose to Fiorentina in the away game, so that the two teams can be evenly divided.Then Liverpool beat Fiorentina at home in the last round, and hoped that Lyon could not win Debreson at home.Because once Lyon wins, when the two teams have the same points and compare the relationship between the two sides, Lyon has one win and one tie.
So for Dalglish, now he may not have time to think about the league at all, and first try to qualify from the Champions League group stage.
The club legend who led Liverpool to the Champions League final in Heiserburg now faces a daunting challenge.
So against the Manchester City game, he actually didn't care at all.
Even at home, he did not send the main force, and he did not intend to fight Manchester City to the death.
Manchester City also did not send all the main players, but it was not to save energy for the Champions League group stage in the middle of next week. They needed to rest because too many main players played for the national team.
In this game, both sides fielded the second-team lineup.
Rong Guang is the most dazzling star in this lineup.
In addition, David Silva also got the chance to start in the game.
He replaced Robinho, and Sturridge replaced Berbatov as the team's center forward.
The three of them formed the team's new offensive trident.
Liverpool has no intention of fighting here, and Manchester City played very smoothly.
They scored a goal each in the first and second halves, and finally defeated Liverpool 2-0.
Rong Guang scored the goal that sealed the victory for the team in the second half, and the person who assisted him was David Silva.
After defeating Liverpool, Manchester City has 34 points after [-] league rounds and is still in the lead.
However, Chelsea behind them were also chasing closely. Ancelotti's team beat Wolves 4-0 at home.
Still only one point behind Manchester City.
Although Manchester City has one game less than Chelsea.But in this level of competition, it doesn't make sense to have one less game and one more game.
Sometimes it is momentum that determines victory or defeat. When your momentum is like a rainbow, you can be as powerful as a bamboo, cutting melons and vegetables all the way to kill.When you don't have momentum, it becomes difficult to even hit mid-range teams.
The momentum mainly depends on the accumulation of victories.
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After the game against Liverpool, the Manchester City team returned to Manchester.
They don't need to fly, just take the bus directly.The distance between the two cities is only tens of kilometers, which is the distance from the city center to the suburbs in many domestic provincial capitals.
Take the bus and drive fast, you can go home in less than an hour.
Although there was still a Champions League game in the middle of the week, Benitez still gave half a day off after the game. He didn't have to come to the Carrington training base for training in the morning, as long as he came in the afternoon.And there is not much content in the training in the afternoon, mainly recovery training.
Let the players' bodies recover, those who participated in the game relax their muscles, and those who did not participate in the game maintain their fitness.
Preparing for the Champions League game in midweek.
In the Champions League group stage in the middle of the week, Manchester City is playing at home, and their opponent is Bordeaux.
This game is insignificant for Manchester City.But for Bordeaux, it is a very critical game.
In the last round of the group stage, they defeated Bayern Munich 2-0 away.
That took them from two points to five, while Bayern Munich remained on four.At the same time, the two games between Bordeaux and Bayern Munich are over. Bordeaux has one win and one tie. They have the upper hand in the relationship between the two sides.
And considering that Real Madrid is already out, it is Bordeaux and Bayern Munich who are now competing for the right to qualify for the group.In terms of points, Bordeaux leads Bayern Munich by one point, and Bordeaux also has an advantage in terms of victory and defeat.
If Bordeaux can beat Manchester City away in this game, they can qualify as long as they draw in the last game.
But it is not easy to beat Manchester City away.They only have one chance, and that is that Manchester City, who qualified early in the group, will not give their best in this game, and Manchester City's players have a mentality of underestimating their opponents.
Only then will Bordeaux stand a chance.
Otherwise, once Manchester City really wants to get serious, the final result will be the same as when the two sides met for the first time. Bordeaux lost 0:2 at home.
Judging from the starting list announced by Manchester City before the game, Manchester City also did not use their main players in this game.
It's just that compared to the game against Liverpool, Manchester City is no longer a second-tier lineup.
Rong Guang still starts - that's enough, the most threatening player is him.When Rong Guang did not start, the opponents can breathe a sigh of relief.
With Glory starting, it will be very difficult for Bordeaux to win this game.
Even so, before the game, Bordeaux midfielder Gourcuff still expressed his confidence.
"We all know that Manchester City is very strong, and Rong is also very strong. But in order to qualify from this group, Bordeaux will do their best. When the results of the draw came out, no one believed that Manchester City and Bordeaux could qualify from this group, but Manchester City proved that they can. Why can't we?"
Gourcuff also has the capital to say this, because Bordeaux beat Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in the Champions League this season, ranking second in the group, and a large part of the credit belongs to Gourcuff.
Gourcuff was called a genius when he just debuted before, and was later bought by AC Milan.It was originally planned that he would be Kaka's replacement, but Carlo Ancelotti, who was the head coach of AC Milan at the time, believed that Gourcuff could not be Kaka's replacement because although he had excellent in-situ skills, he lacked forward impact and Kaka's dribbling speed.So in AC Milan, the genius Gourcuff was not happy.In two seasons, he only played 36 league games, 23 of which were as substitutes.
For a talented young player like Gourcuff, not being able to play is a fatal thing.For this reason, he chose to come to the Ligue 2008 team Bordeaux on loan in the 2009-[-] season.
As a result, he performed well in his first season in Bordeaux, scoring in the first game of the league.He made 37 appearances that season and scored twelve goals.
He helped Bordeaux win the Ligue [-] championship that season and also qualified for the Champions League this season.
The outstanding performance last season made AC Milan move Gourcuff for his own use.
Especially after Kaka decided to leave AC Milan, they urgently need a midfielder who can replace Kaka.In addition, Ancelotti, who has always disliked using Gurcuff, also expired this summer and left AC Milan.
It stands to reason that the obstacles to Gourcuff's return to AC Milan have been cleared.
But this time Gourcuff himself was unwilling to come back.
At the same time, Bordeaux also decided to activate the 500 million euro buyout clause in the loan contract.
Although AC Milan tried their best to persuade Gourcuff and promised him a very good future, Gourcuff insisted on staying in Bordeaux.
In this way, in this summer, he officially moved to Bordeaux.
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Gourcuff wants to beat Manchester City away. He believes that as long as Manchester City does not give [-]% of their strength, both he and Bordeaux have a chance.
But this is actually a luxury, because there is glory in Manchester City's starting lineup.
Judging from their position on the court, both of them are attacking midfielders.
Although Gourcuff is also a very good genius, compared with Rong Guang, it is still not enough...
He knew very well that if he wanted to win, he had to count on Rong Guang not paying attention to this game.
(End of this chapter)