Chapter 742: All-Inclusive
On the afternoon of August 24, Manchester United played against Crystal Palace at home in the third round of the Premier League.
Manchester United won 4 goals in the first two rounds of the Premier League. In addition, Manchester United has never lost to Crystal Palace in the Premier League era. The impressive record of 17 wins and 3 draws in 20 encounters makes everyone believe that this will be another hearty victory.
The trend after the start of the game seemed to confirm this speculation. Manchester United firmly controlled the rhythm of the game and launched wave after wave of attacks on the goal of Crystal Palace. It seemed that the goal was just around the corner.
However, it was Crystal Palace that broke the deadlock first.
In the 32nd minute of the game, Crystal Palace won a backcourt free kick. It was this backcourt free kick that seemed to have no threat, but it led to Manchester United's loss. Guaita kicked the ball with a big kick, and Schrup and Lindelof competed for the top point to head it forward. Ayew shot low from the edge of the penalty area and scored.
1:0, Crystal Palace leads Manchester United away!
Manchester United, who fell behind, launched a counterattack, wanting to equalize the score as soon as possible, or even reverse the game.
However, reality played a joke on Manchester United again. In a seemingly not fierce confrontation, Luke Shaw was injured and quickly made a substitution gesture. Mourinho had to replace him with veteran Ashley Young.
In the end, Manchester United failed to equalize the score in the first half and entered the halftime break with a 0:1 disadvantage.
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Manchester United stepped up their offensive in the second half.
In the fourth, Young made a cross from the bottom of the left to the far post, and Mbappe's shot from the right side of the small penalty area was blocked by Van Aanholt again.
Three minutes later, Manchester United's offensive came back, Cancelo made a cross from the right, and Ashley Young volleyed from the left side of the penalty area and the rebound ball missed the near corner.
In the 55th minute, Bruno passed the ball, and Harry Kane shot high from 12 yards under Kelly's defensive interference. Manchester United players complained about the opponent's foul, but the referee Tierney refused to award a penalty.
As the game approached the 70th minute, Mourinho continued to deploy his troops. He replaced Rashford with Greenwood to strengthen the offensive.
This substitution adjustment had an immediate effect.
In the 70th minute of the game, Harry Kane stopped the ball with his back to the goal. Bruno, who followed up with the ball, broke into the right side of the penalty area and was tripped by Milivojevic. Bruno took the penalty kick himself and helped Manchester United equalize the score.
Manchester United became the second team to receive penalties in the first three games of the Premier League season. The last team was Chelsea in 2012.
But the game immediately fell into a stalemate. Although Manchester United attacked like a tide, Crystal Palace's defense was very solid and withstood Manchester United's wave after wave of offensive.
Some of the referee's penalties also caused great controversy. For example, in the 81st minute of the game, Bruno cut into the left side of the penalty area and fell under Kelly's defense. After VAR prompted the referee, Tierney went to the sidelines to watch the video replay, but still refused to award a penalty.
The Millennium Stadium was filled with boos, and the home fans were obviously very dissatisfied with Tierney's penalty.
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As the game drew to a close, a draw seemed to be getting closer.
But just as the fourth official was about to play the injury time sign on the sidelines, Manchester United scored!
In the 89th minute, Greenwood and Harry Kane played a wall pass, and Mbappe shot a curved ball into the upper right corner from 15 yards, changing the score to 2:1.
With Mbappe's near-loser, Manchester United reversed the game 2:1 at home and won three consecutive league games in the new season.
In a focus game of this round held at Anfield later, Liverpool defeated Arsenal 3:1 at home, also closely following Manchester United with three consecutive wins.
The league has only played three games, and there are only two teams that are still undefeated in the entire standings.
Surprisingly, the two teams that have maintained their undefeated record are teams that have not made many moves in the transfer market this summer.
Like Manchester United, Liverpool did not make any signings in this summer window. They only spent 1.7 million pounds to introduce defender Van den Berg and signed substitute goalkeeper Adrian for free.
Apart from this, Klopp did not make any signings. Instead, he sold striker Ince for 20 million pounds, goalkeeper Mignolet for 6.3 million pounds, and loaned Grujic to Hertha Berlin for 1.8 million pounds. Instead of spending much money, he made a small profit in the transfer market.
Manchester United is in a similar situation. So far, no players have been introduced. Instead, they got 40 million pounds by selling Herrera. And Damian, Smalling and Rojo are also seeking to transfer away.
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At noon on August 29, local time in Europe, the 2019-2020 Champions League group draw and UEFA awards ceremony were held at the Grimaldi Conference Center in Monaco.
According to the Champions League group draw rules, the Champions League champions, Europa League champions, and the champions of the top six leagues in UEFA rankings last season are placed in the same tier.
Since both the Champions League champions and the Premier League champions, which UEFA ranks second in points, are Manchester United, the league champions, which UEFA ranks seventh in points, are also included in the first tier.
Finally, the eight seeded teams are the Champions League and Premier League champions Manchester United, the Europa League champions Chelsea, the Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich, the La Liga champions Barcelona, the Serie A champions Juventus, the French Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain, the Russian Premier League champions Zenit St. Petersburg, and the Portuguese Premier League champions Benfica. The remaining 24 teams are divided into the second, third and fourth tiers according to the points of the European war in the past five seasons. There are 8 teams in each tier. In accordance with the rules that teams under the same football association flag will not meet in advance and Russian teams will not meet Ukrainian teams, one team will be drawn from each tier to form a group, totaling 8 groups.
In this way, eight teams including Real Madrid, Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Liverpool, Dortmund, Tottenham, Naples, and Ajax are listed as the second tier teams.
The eight teams in the third tier are Shakhtar Donetsk, Bruges, Olympiacos, Dinamo Zagreb, Leverkusen, Red Bull Salzburg, Inter Milan and Valencia.
The eight teams in the fourth tier are Galatasaray, Red Star Belgrade, Atalanta, Lokomotiv Moscow, Genk, Slavia Prague, RB Leipzig and Lille.
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After the draw, Manchester United, the defending champions of the Champions League and the defending champions of the Premier League, were finally placed in Group C with last season's Champions League semi-finalists, Dutch giants Ajax, Croatian team Dinamo Zagreb and Serie A powerhouse Atalanta.
Group A: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Club Brugge and Galatasaray;
Group B: Bayern Munich, Tottenham, Olympiacos, Red Star Belgrade;
Group D: Juventus, Manchester City, Bayer Leverkusen, Lokomotiv Moscow;
Group E: Benfica, Napoli, Red Bull Salzburg, Genk;
Group F: Barcelona, Dortmund, Inter Milan, Slavia Prague;
Group G: Zenit St. Petersburg, Liverpool, Valencia, RB Leipzig;
Group H: Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Lille.
Manchester United's grouping is actually quite good. Manchester United is a team with unique strength. Although Ajax reached the semi-finals last season, it was basically dismembered this summer. The departure of key players such as De Ligt and Frenkie de Jong will inevitably lead to a significant loss of the team's strength. Small teams like Dinamo Zagreb are the worst among the top 32 teams, while Atalanta, which ranked third in Serie A last season, was a dark horse in Serie A last season and its strength can only be considered average.
Liverpool's situation is similar to Manchester United. The other three teams in the same group are unlikely to pose a big threat to the Reds.
However, the grouping of the other three Premier League teams is not very good. There is a top team from the top five leagues in the same group.
Of course, with the strength of these three teams, it is not difficult to qualify in the group. But it is not so easy to win the first place in the group.
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After the Champions League group draw, the UEFA awards were announced. In the end, Bruno became the biggest winner again, winning the two major honors of UEFA's best male athlete and UEFA's best midfielder.
As the Champions League champion, Manchester United became the biggest winner of the night. In addition to the two awards won by Bruno, De Gea was elected the best goalkeeper and Van Dijk was elected the best defender. Even the best forward was not lost, and was taken away by Harry Kane.
It can be said that the best award for men's football was won by Manchester United!
From this, we can also see how powerful this Manchester United's dominance is!
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At 12:30 noon on August 31, 2019, St. Mary's Stadium, Southampton.
This is the first game of the 4th round of the Premier League. Manchester United challenged the Saints Southampton away.
The game was in the 31st minute, and the score on the field was still 0:0.
Manchester United launched an attack in the frontcourt.
Manchester United's attack was extremely fast this time, and the football moved smoothly, from the middle to the left, then to the middle, and then to the right, tearing a hole in Southampton's defense.
Now Mbappe is controlling the ball in the frontcourt.
Seeing Mbappe take the ball, Bruno, who was in the penalty area, turned and ran out of the penalty area, raising his hand to ask for the ball.
Mbappe's football was passed in time.
Bruno received the football!
"Bruno! Southampton defenders, be careful!" the commentator shouted. Bruno's recent form is really hot. After three rounds of the Premier League, Bruno has scored three goals and also made four assists.
Before the game, the media specifically reminded Southampton coach Hasenhuttl to be careful of Bruno.
Hasenhuttl obviously also knew the horror of Bruno, and he specifically explained the key defensive strategies and tactics against Bruno before the game.
Seeing Bruno receive the pass from Mbappe at this time, Southampton's defense immediately felt like it was facing a formidable enemy.