Starting from playing as a defensive midfielder for Real Madrid - Chapter 391

c384 Welcome to hell.

The mentality of Manchester City players really collapsed at this moment.

After working hard for a season and leading their direct competitors for most of the league time, they still fell at the last step.

Even though many Manchester City players had actually made psychological preparations before the game, when this moment really came, they still failed to accept the cruel reality.

People’s hearts were confused and scattered, and no matter how well the tactics were arranged, they could not be implemented.

But Guardiola was unwilling to blame his disciples at this time.

He sat in the coaching seat, staring at the Manchester City players who were confused on the court, with a bitter smile on the corner of his mouth.

Tried his best.

Whether it was him, the members of his coaching staff, or all the players in Manchester City’s first team, they had tried their best to compete with Chelsea for the league championship this season.

It was of course a pity to fall at the last step, but as the current helmsman of Manchester City, Guardiola could not spend too much time feeling sad like his disciples.

He could only force himself to accept the facts and constantly cheer himself up in his heart so as not to lose the confidence to continue to challenge Chelsea.

Besides, the league is not really over yet. Even if Manchester City has lost the initiative to win the league, they still have a chance to turn the tables in theory…

After comforting himself, Guardiola walked to the sidelines and made a gesture to the Manchester City players on the field to relax and keep a cool head.

At this time, he didn’t expect his players to equalize the score.

He just hoped that in this way, his disciples could unload their psychological burdens and play this game normally.

There are still a few rounds of leagues to follow. As long as Chelsea doesn’t win the championship in advance, they can’t give up hope.

It is very important for Manchester City to maintain a stable and healthy mentality now.

After seeing Guardiola’s gestures many times, the emotions of many Manchester City players on the field gradually stabilized.

However, seeing Chelsea quickly return to the half-court to defend after the celebration, Manchester City’s frontcourt players really couldn’t raise their confidence in attacking.

The last game time was running out. Under the expectant eyes of all the Blues fans, the regular time of the game soon came to an end.

As soon as the two minutes of extra time were up, the referee on duty blew the whistle to end the game!

The most watched focus battle of the 34th round of the Premier League came to an end.

Chelsea beat Manchester City twice this season!

Even though Chelsea once fell behind its direct competitors in the middle of the season, it performed nearly perfect in the two most important league games of this season and lived up to the expectations of its supporters.

The decisive victory of these two “six-point battles” also played a decisive role in Chelsea’s position at the top of the league at the end of the season.

Chelsea still needs to play five more league games after the extra games. At present, they are only three points ahead of Manchester City, but the whole Chelsea team is full of confidence in winning the league championship at this moment.

After the game, Li Ang also applauded and thanked the fans at home many times with his teammates.

This season, Chelsea, like last season, still maintains an unbeaten record at home.

The efforts of Chelsea’s coaches and players are important in achieving such excellent home results, and the hardcore fans at Chelsea’s home stadium also played a very important role in this.

They have created the fanatical devil atmosphere of Chelsea’s home stadium in recent seasons, and put great psychological pressure on every away team player who comes here to challenge.

Of course, they have given all Chelsea players full encouragement and confidence!

In the next round of the Premier League, these hardcore fans of the Blues will still appear in the stands of Stamford Bridge and fight side by side with Chelsea’s players.

In an interview after the game, Li Ang praised the perfect support performance of his fans, and undisguisedly called on the Blues fans to continue to “entertain” the challenged Tottenham in the next game.

After his remarks were reported by various British media, they naturally caused a lot of discussion among the Premier League fans.

But no matter how fans of other teams view Li Ang’s remarks, at least fans of several major teams in the London area like to see Li Ang confront Tottenham.

As the “public enemy” of almost all Premier League teams in the London region, Tottenham’s image is not good in the hearts of these team supporters.

Under the leadership of Pochettino, Tottenham’s fighting power has soared rapidly this season. Now they are ranked fifth in the Premier League, only two points away from Arsenal, which is fourth.

So now even if Arsenal faces their city rival Tottenham, they do not have absolute confidence that they can win 100%.

Other Premier League teams are slightly weaker than Tottenham.

Their supporters have no confidence in the team’s victory over Tottenham, but they are still very confident about Chelsea, and they are also happy to see Chelsea severely defeat Tottenham at home.

Spurs fans are of course very dissatisfied with the current state of public opinion, and they have also started to fight back on the Internet in advance.

But Tottenham’s coach and players were quite low-key before the game.

There is no way. Tottenham is now in a critical stage of the league’s top four. They have little hope of winning against Chelsea, but if they can get one point at Chelsea’s home, then they will also be considered to have earned it.

So the entire Tottenham team did not want to “anger” Chelsea at this critical moment of grabbing points.

If Chelsea was forced to go all out to fight them regardless of the Champions League, then they would really lose more than they gain.

I don’t know if the low-key goodwill of the entire Tottenham team really worked.

After resting for 5 days after playing Manchester City, Mourinho, who attended the pre-match press conference, gave a list of 18 starting players, which was really full of substitutes.

This is definitely good news for Tottenham. Pochettino even directly said at the pre-match press conference that he wished Chelsea to go further in the Champions League semi-finals.

Of course, if we interpret it further, Pochettino’s meaning is also very clear, that is, he hopes that Chelsea can put more energy into the upcoming Champions League semi-finals, and don’t pursue them.

As for Mourinho’s final selection plan, several major English sports media also published articles to express their understanding.

The Champions League semi-finals with Atletico Madrid are destined to be two fierce battles. Chelsea naturally needs to make some choices in the league and cannot let several core players consume too much physical energy.

Therefore, rotation is very necessary for Chelsea. If Mourinho chooses not to rotate in this game, then these British media may have more complaints.

On the afternoon of April 23, with some expectations, the entire Tottenham team came to Stamford Bridge.

In this stadium, the warm-up Tottenham players naturally received a lot of boos.

Li Ang can’t say that he has any hostility towards the current batch of Tottenham players. On the contrary, there are many old friends in the Tottenham team who have a good relationship with him.

But as a player who has transferred to Chelsea for three seasons, Li Ang certainly can’t say that he has a good impression of the Tottenham team.

It’s right to chat with old friends and say hello before the game.

But when the game officially started, Li Ang also threw personal friendship aside and gave Tottenham’s core organizer Eriksson a hard blow on the defensive end at the beginning!

His decisive tackle destroyed Tottenham’s offensive possession and also knocked Eriksen directly to the grass.

If you watch the slow-motion replay, fans can clearly see that Li Ang did not actually commit a foul.

But his tackle was a bit too big, and Eriksen looked like he fell badly, so the referee on duty decisively whistled a foul on Li Ang.

Li Ang shrugged, spread his hands to show his innocence, and then simply took his position on the defensive end.

He didn’t really care whether the referee whistled a foul or not. He gave Tottenham a warning at the beginning of the game, which made Tottenham’s offensive players feel scared on the offensive end. This was what he cared more about.

In the past, such dirty work was basically done by Matic, but today Matic was resting at home, so Li Ang, who started as a defensive midfielder, could only go back to his old job.

At present, the effect of Li Ang’s show of strength is still very prominent. After Eriksen suffered a serious injury, Son Heung-min and Lamela were also a little afraid of Li Ang.

Tottenham’s two wingers also chose more passes and transfers on the offensive end, lacking the previous breakthrough threats.

Pochettino was very helpless when he saw this scene. He even had to walk to the sidelines in the 5th minute of the game and shouted to his disciples to be more active in getting the ball and doing things.

Fortunately, Tottenham has a core of organizing and getting the ball in the backcourt, Dembele. The Belgian midfielder is very versatile. He is very good at participating in the offense and passing the ball after getting the ball.

Therefore, when Eriksen did not perform well, he could completely take over the organizational burden on Eriksen’s shoulders.

The technical advantages of Tottenham’s two full-backs are enough to support Tottenham’s use of a relatively simple two-wing flying tactic to create an efficient offensive threat.

After Son Heung-min and Lamela moved inward at this moment and played more roles in getting the ball, Danny Rose and Kyle Walker naturally got more opportunities to get forward on both wings.

Tottenham’s frequent forward and bottom-line play is also one of their regular offensive routines this season.

When facing teams in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League, they are often able to quickly open up the situation on both sides and create threats.

But today, facing Chelsea, the team with the highest defensive efficiency in the Premier League, Tottenham’s forward play of full-backs was relatively average.

In the final analysis, it is because Chelsea’s two starting full-backs today, Azpilicueta and Kalas, are strong enough in single defense.

Even if Li Ang and another defensive midfielder Van Ginkel did not make up for the defense in the first time, Azpilicueta and Kalas were able to gain the upper hand in a one-on-one personal strength contest.

Danny Rose and Kyle Walker were very active in the offensive end, but they had too few opportunities to successfully pass the ball from the bottom.

Once they were closely guarded by Chelsea’s full-backs, they could only choose to pass the ball back.

In the first 15 minutes of the game, Chelsea, who rotated a large number of main players, put more energy into the defensive end to test Tottenham’s offensive strength today.

But when they found that several of Tottenham’s frontcourt offensive players were in average condition today, Chelsea’s quick counterattack gradually became threatening.

The delay of Leon and Van Ginkel was enough to ensure that Chelsea could grab enough ball possession in the midfield and backcourt.

And De Bruyne, who started at the 10th position today, had the ability to turn a rotten thing into a magical threatening pass in the counterattack.

The two-wing attack combination of Salah and Gnabry is indeed not as efficient as the starting Hazard and De Bruyne in terms of grasping offensive opportunities.

But they will get enough counterattacks now!

There is also a Llorente who can hold the ball steadily in front of the Tottenham penalty area to cooperate with them. Apart from anything else, they have no shortage of opportunities to break through and shoot.

The Chelsea fans at Stamford Bridge have been cheering and applauding, giving encouragement to Salah and Gnabry.

Under the constant encouragement of the fans, the breakthrough performance of the two is getting better and better, and the only thing left to create further shooting threats is the accumulation of opportunities.

When the game reached the 25th minute of the first half, Li Ang, who had been defending honestly for more than half of the first half, suddenly took the ball and joined the attack!

He used a change of direction with a significant change of rhythm near the top of his own center circle to pass Eriksen first.

However, facing Dembele’s interception in the front position, Li Ang did not continue to advance with the ball, but passed the ball to Chick who also joined the attack.

After being warned by Mourinho, Chick dared not stick to the ball anymore. He took big strides to advance with the ball after getting it.

Thanks to the fact that Li Ang had attracted a lot of defensive attention from Tottenham’s midfielders and backcourt players, Chick was not intercepted during the advancement.

In the end, Chick successfully passed the ball to Salah, who had been waiting for a long time on the wing, at the front of Tottenham’s defensive third zone.

After getting the ball, the Egyptian winger did not make any fake moves to test it. He directly led the ball and passed Danny Rose who was attacking!

This time, before he could reach the end line with the ball, Salah directly sent a cross with his reverse foot.

Llorente ran in front of the goal and took away Tottenham’s central defender Vertonghen. Li Ang, who was advancing, stopped the ball with his chest at the front of Tottenham’s penalty area!

Alderweireld, another central defender of Tottenham, quickly attacked to intercept, but Li Ang then passed the ball to the left again!

Gnabry rushed out from the wing and took the ball directly into the Tottenham penalty area. Kyle Walker failed to keep an eye on him this time!

The young German winger was very confident and made a slight adjustment before shooting directly!

He chose to volley directly into the far corner of the goal.

The disadvantage of Tottenham goalkeeper Lori’s insufficient arm span was revealed at this moment. He failed to save Gnabry’s shot!

In the end, the football almost rolled into the goal by rubbing the inside of the far post of the Tottenham goal!

Gnabry, who rarely got a chance to start and scored a goal, seemed very excited at this moment. He seemed to want to take off his jersey to celebrate.

But the sharp-eyed Li Ang hugged the silly boy first, avoiding him from getting a yellow card. Then Li Ang pushed him to the corner flag area and motioned him to ask the fans for cheers!

The fans at Stamford Bridge burst into cheers that swept the whole stadium!

For Chelsea’s players, this was naturally the sound of nature, but for Tottenham’s players, such cheers were a bit too terrifying!

The commentator of Sky Sports in England looked at the fanatical atmosphere at Chelsea’s home stadium and blurted out subconsciously:

“Welcome to West London Hell!”