Chapter 764 A Difficult Race

When the referee blew the whistle to end the game, the Emirates Stadium seemed a little quiet. Only thousands of away fans were celebrating excitedly.

But the Manchester United players on the field were a little exhausted, even Bruno's legs were shaking.

The pressure Arsenal put on the team in the final stage was so great that Manchester United couldn't even fight back.

Fortunately, the team's defense was very good, and finally withstood Arsenal's offensive pressure. Everyone tried their best, and no one slacked off.

The final result was that Manchester United reversed Arsenal 2:1, which made Arsenal's players look a little bored.

This victory allowed Manchester United to temporarily narrow the gap with Liverpool to 1 point, and the two teams competed fiercely on the standings.

A day later, Liverpool defeated Sheffield United 2:0 at home, expanding their lead to 4 points again, but Manchester United had one less game.

The 21st round of the Premier League ended, announcing the end of the Premier League's Christmas Devil schedule, and the Premier League was temporarily suspended, and the Premier League teams ushered in the first FA Cup match of the season.

Manchester United's draw was not very good, and they drew the Wolves, who performed very well in the past two seasons, and they were still playing away.

Moreover, although the Premier League's Christmas Devil schedule has ended, Manchester United's next schedule is no different from the Christmas Devil schedule.

Under normal circumstances, Manchester United will have 2 rounds of FA Cup matches, 2 League Cup semi-finals against Manchester City, and 4 Premier League matches in the rest of January.

In other words, Manchester United will have 9 games to play throughout January. Among them, there are two games against Manchester City, and there is also one against Arsenal and Liverpool. Among the remaining opponents, there are also mid-level Premier League teams such as Wolves and Burnley, and few of them are easy to deal with.

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On the afternoon of January 4, in the third round of the FA Cup, Manchester United challenged Wolves away.

Because they had fought Arsenal for 90 minutes at the Emirates Stadium 67 hours ago, and the first leg of the League Cup semi-final with Manchester City would be held 72 hours after the end of this game, Mourinho made a major adjustment to the starting lineup for this game, but Bruno still started.

At Molineux Stadium, Wolves played very actively, and Manchester United was always suppressed on the field.

Weak behind, Bruno had to retreat frequently to help, and coupled with the loss of midfield, it was difficult for him to get opportunities.

Even if Wolves had not been poor at seizing opportunities, they might have lost a big score.

Bruno ran hard in the frontcourt, constantly turning up and down, and he tried hard to fight for every opportunity.

But except for Bruno, the main player, the rest of the players were substitutes for Manchester United. Compared with the Wolves, who were almost all elite and playing at home, their strength was indeed slightly inferior.

Under the coaching of Nuno Santo, Wolves have recruited many Portuguese stars, such as Ruben Neves in front of Bruno, winger Pedro Neto, and veteran Moutinho on the bench. And with these Portuguese players as the team, they have built this powerful Wolves team.

However, Manchester United's defense is good, and the Wolves have not been able to break the goal, and the score remains 0:0.

………………

Romain Saiss, a Moroccan midfielder, was highly expected by Nuno Santo in this game, and he pressed Bruno step by step throughout the game.

Coupled with Ruben Neves, who is not tall, but fast and brave, and a coach Nuno Santo who is good at training defense, Bruno did not get a chance throughout the game.

But he could clearly feel that as the game was coming to an end, the Wolves players began to feel a little overwhelmed.

The opportunity is getting closer!

Bruno kept encouraging himself.

Although he was very rational and knew clearly that the opportunity might not come, he still continued to run.

If he ran, he might have a chance, but if he didn't run, he would have no chance at all.

He could feel his physical energy was rapidly draining away, but he still gritted his teeth and supported himself.

Seventy minutes... Seventy-five minutes... Eighty minutes... Eighty-five minutes... Time passed quickly.

Wolves no longer increased their offensive strength. It seemed that they were satisfied with the score of 0:0 and were planning to save their strength to play in the play-offs at the Millennium Stadium.

But Bruno and his teammates obviously didn't think so, because for Manchester United, playing another play-off would undoubtedly be the worst result, and it would be better to be eliminated in this game.

Some people in the Wolves team didn't think so.

Once Adama Traore took the ball and Mata returned to defense, the Spanish winger wanted to rely on his personal ability to break through Fred.

He needed to perform in front of Nuno Santo, prove his strength, and fight for a starting position.

But just when Adama Traore tried to break through Fred, Mata, who was returning to defense, suddenly rushed out from behind, kicked the ball away from his feet, and tripped the Spanish winger.

But the referee did not call a foul.

………………

After Fred got the ball, he quickly passed it forward with a low kick and went straight to Bruno.

Bruno had his back to the attack direction, and Seth was behind him. He knew very well that he could not receive the ball and turn around. As long as he received the ball and turned around, he would be immediately entangled by the Moroccan.

At this moment, Bruno's mind was extremely calm, as if the air around him had condensed, and there was only the flying football and Roman Seth behind him.

He gently raised his right foot, facing the flying football, and flicked the outside of his foot to let the high-speed flying football pass from his right side. At the same time, he turned to the left, shook off Roman Events' entanglement, and chased after it at the fastest speed.

"A beautiful man-ball split, from Bruno!"

"Manchester United launched a counterattack, Bruno on the right split the man-ball, breaking through the Wolves' defense."

...

Bruno gritted his teeth, caught up with the football at the fastest speed, and rushed all the way to the goal with the ball.

The Wolves' defense speed was also very fast. Bruno's national team teammate Ruben Neves was the first to return to his position. Facing Bruno who was rushing over, he immediately wanted to get close to him, and it would be best to use his body to hold Bruno, the national team teammate.

But before he got close, Bruno suddenly stopped and dribbled the ball to the inside, scaring Ruben Neves to change his mind and block it. But Bruno dribbled with his left foot, and the whole person changed direction again, dribbled past Ruben Neves, and successfully dribbled into the penalty area.

"Nice pass! Bruno broke through Ruben Neves, entered the penalty area, and faced goalkeeper Rudy directly!"

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Rudy was very experienced. He decisively abandoned the goal and attacked the moment Bruno broke through Ruben Neves, and grasped the timing just right, opening his arms as much as possible to block Bruno's shooting angle.

But he was already 34 years old, and his physical function was slightly slower than that of young goalkeepers, so Bruno lightly lifted it before he got close.

The football passed over Rudy's head, drew a parabola, and slowly fell to the goal behind him.

Coady, a central defender of the Wolves, quickly chased back to the front of the goal, trying to disrupt the shot, but unfortunately, the final result was that he and the ball crashed into the goal line together.

Beep! ! ! !

"The goal is valid!"

"Bruno! Bruno!!"

"In the 88th minute, Bruno scored a goal for Manchester United!"

"This is a reward for his hard work in this game."

"A very wonderful individual performance, Bruno single-handedly broke through the Wolves' defense."

"1:0, Manchester United took the lead!"

"This may be a lore goal!"

"Indeed, Manchester United played very hard away from home with a substitute lineup, and Bruno was under the opponent's tight defense throughout the game. Nuno Santo repeatedly stated before the game that freezing Bruno was the top priority for Wolves' defense in this game. As a result, the Manchester United captain was once again shocking."

"His fighting spirit is indeed quite tenacious. We can see that under his inspiration, Manchester United's players did not give up even when they were passive throughout the game. Now, their persistence has paid off!"

"Wolves played too conservatively at home, especially in the last ten minutes, they seemed to be ready to play away in the play-offs."

………………

The referee finally blew the whistle to end the game.

1:0, Manchester United defeated Wolves with Bruno's goal and advanced to the fourth round of the FA Cup.

At the end of the game, Bruno sat on the grass in exhaustion. He had tried his best.

"Congratulations, Bruno." Moutinho walked over angrily, took off his jersey and handed it to Bruno.

The 33-year-old Moutinho came on as a substitute. At that time, Wolves were ready to play in the play-offs, so after he came on the court, he just helped the team control the rhythm.

Moutinho implemented Nuno Santo's tactics very well and almost kept the tie throughout the game, but unexpectedly Bruno scored in the final stage of the game and won the game.

Afterwards, although Moutinho led Wolves to launch a counterattack, he and Wolves had too little time left, and finally failed to equalize the score.

"Thank you." Bruno stood up, took off his jersey, and handed it to this national team teammate and senior.

Relying on Bruno's lore goal to advance to the fourth round of the FA Cup, Manchester United drew a good lot in the subsequent draw, and the opponent was the English League One team Tranmere.

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Three days later, at the Millennium Stadium, Manchester United played against Manchester City at home.

In the FA Cup last weekend, Manchester City also played with a substitute lineup. However, unlike Manchester United's difficult victory, they can be said to be hard and bloodless, because their opponent is the English League Two mid-level team Portville.

Obviously, Guardiola intends to concentrate all the main players to deal with Manchester United.

If Manchester United is Arsenal's nemesis, then they are also Manchester City's nemesis. Because since Guardiola took over the position of Manchester City's head coach in the summer of 2016, the Blue Moon has faced Manchester United 14 times and only won 1 game. In the other 13 games, Manchester City's record is 2 draws and 11 losses!

This includes the embarrassing record of Manchester City facing Manchester United 6 times in the 2017-2018 season, but 1 draw and 5 losses without a win.

This season, Manchester City has basically been eliminated from the Premier League. In this case, the cup competition has become the goal of Guardiola and Manchester City.

Compared with the FA Cup, which has just started, and the Champions League, which has not yet started the knockout stage, the League Cup, which has reached the semi-final stage, is a more realistic goal.

Last season, Guardiola barely retained his position as coach by winning the League Cup.

The first ten minutes of the game were completely controlled by Manchester United. Bruno scored in the first three minutes of the game, with an assist from Gundogan.

In the sixth minute, Bruno assisted Harry Kane to score and expand the score.

With a two-goal lead, everyone thought Manchester United had already won the game, but Bruno still did not dare to be careless and kept calling on his teammates to be vigilant.

After half an hour of stalemate, in the 32nd and 37th minutes of the first half, Manchester City attacked twice in a row, and Bernardo Silva scored twice, successfully equalizing the score.

Fortunately, in the first half stoppage time, Van Dijk made a long pass, Bruno stopped the ball in the penalty area, turned around and shot, and once again helped Manchester United surpass the score.

But in the 61st minute, De Bruyne's goal equalized the score again.

In the end, Manchester United tied Manchester City 3:3 at home. Such a result is obviously very unfavorable for Manchester United, because they will go to the Etihad Stadium as a guest in the second round, which is definitely not an easy away game.

………………

After three extremely difficult games in a row, Manchester United finally faced a relatively weak opponent.

On the afternoon of January 11, Manchester United played at home against Norwich, the second-to-last team.

Although the Canaries were promoted to the Premier League as the champions of the English Championship, their strength is limited after all. In the first 21 rounds, they had 3 wins, 5 draws and 13 losses, and only scored 14 points, 5 points behind the second-to-last Watford and 7 points behind the fourth-to-last Aston Villa.

Despite many rotations, Manchester United's advantage at home is still very obvious. After the opening, they were led by Bruno and suppressed Norwich.

Manchester United took the lead in the 27th minute. Bruno passed the ball to the right, Mata cut in from the right and passed diagonally, and Rashford volleyed into the net from the left side of the small penalty area.

Shortly after the start of the second half, Manchester United scored 2 goals in 3 minutes to expand the score.

In the 52nd minute of the game, Brandon Williams dribbled the ball on the left side of the penalty area and was knocked down by Krul. Bruno scored a penalty kick and Manchester United led 2:0.

In the 54th minute, Mata made a tactical corner kick from the right, and Mbappe scored with a header in front of the small penalty area, 3:0.

In the 59th minute of the game, Rashford was injured and Mourinho had to replace him with Mahrez.

In the 76th minute, Bruno sent a 45-degree cross, Aarons, who was marking Mahrez, barely headed it out, and Greenwood broke through to the edge of the penalty area and shot low into the lower right corner, locking the score at 4:0.

This was also the final score of the game. After that, the two sides made no progress and the score of 4:0 was maintained until the end of the game.