Chapter 314: The Steady Winning Streak that Crushed Manchester City’s Morale

This year's Champions League quarter-finals are just like last year's. It can be said that every game is full of gold content.

The teams that broke into the final Champions League quarter-finals are all from the four major European leagues and are currently ranked in the top four of their respective leagues.

In each match, the two teams are naturally strong and weak, but there is no such thing as saying that any of the Champions League quarter-final teams is a big gift package.

Like the match between Real Madrid and Manchester City.

Even though the vast majority of fans believe that Real Madrid will successfully break into the Champions League semi-finals, they also believe that Manchester City will cause Real Madrid a lot of trouble.

The same is true for the match between Chelsea and Juventus.

Chelsea, who just defeated Barcelona with great ease, is indeed in its heyday.

But Juventus, who shut out Porto with four goals in two rounds in the last knockout round, is currently leading the Serie A league and has almost locked the Serie A championship. It is not an easy role to deal with.

The current Premier League hegemon and the Serie A hegemon are still very attractive to fans.

Just thinking that they have to wait for another month to see the exciting Champions League match, fans from all over the world suddenly feel itchy in their hearts.

Chelsea and Juventus are also tightening their springs and going all out to harvest points in the league.

They want to strive to establish an absolute leading advantage in the league before the Champions League quarter-finals officially start, and reduce the pressure of subsequent games.

In comparison, Juventus's domination of Serie A seems to be much more stable than Chelsea's domination of the Premier League.

Not long after the 27th round of the Serie A, Juventus is already 15 points ahead of Roma, the second in the standings!

Chelsea has finished the 29th round of the Premier League, and is now only 11 points ahead of Manchester City.

Of course, Chelsea has played one less round. If Chelsea beats Leicester City in the subsequent make-up game, their lead over Manchester City will be much greater.

But this is the "hypothetical" lead that fans like to discuss now.

In the Chelsea team, neither the coaches nor the players are thinking about the subsequent make-up games.

Practice hard, win hard, and move forward hard.

The entire Chelsea team no longer frequently looks at the subsequent schedule and rounds.

They don't expect Manchester City to suddenly collapse and fall behind, sending them to win the championship earlier.

After last year's league championship experience, the young players in the Chelsea team can also be patient and maintain their form in the sprint stage of the season.

Because they know very well that at this stage, whether it is a big win or a small win, as long as they can continue to win steadily, it will put the greatest pressure on Manchester City.

Coincidentally, they can pinch a soft persimmon in the next round of the league~

In the 30th round of the Premier League, Chelsea will go away to play Hull City, which is currently ranked fifth from the bottom in the Premier League.

Hull City, which currently needs points for relegation, has a very strong fighting spirit.

If the other top six teams in the league go to Hull City's home to fight them at this time, it is really hard to say that they will win.

But Chelsea is different.

Based on the demands that Chelsea players make of themselves and the demands that fans make of Chelsea now.

In the next round of the league, if Chelsea fails to beat Hull City, it will be a huge mistake and problem of Chelsea itself.

At this stage, basically only Hull City’s own fans and Manchester City’s fans will support Hull City.

The match predictions released by major media or sports programs in England before the game were completely one-sided in supporting Chelsea to win.

On March 21, the 30th round of the Premier League officially kicked off. Manchester City took the lead and won West Bromwich 3-0.

After a whole day of fierce battle, all 7 Premier League games came to an end.

On March 22, Liverpool welcomed the challenge of Manchester United at home.

Suarez played superbly and performed a hat trick, helping Liverpool to beat Manchester United 3-2 and successfully recovered a city after losing the first Red Derby this season!

At the same time, Everton beat Queens Park Rangers 2-1 away.

Chelsea and Hull City played the final game, attracting most of the Premier League fans to watch the game on time.

Chelsea, who had rested for a whole week, chose all the main players in this round of the league.

Hull City also played with all the main players, arranged a 352 counterattack formation, and wanted to play an offensive and defensive battle with Chelsea at home.

But Chelsea did not try to take over the rhythm of the game from the beginning of the game as they expected.

Chelsea, who arranged a 4231 starting formation today, did not fight fiercely against Hull City, who kicked off first.

They even deliberately let Hull City's ball-holding midfielder pass their own half.

This was obviously a tactic deliberately arranged by Chelsea's coaching staff. It depends on what Hull City's players and coaching staff think.

Chelsea has lost the initiative in the game anyway, and it is Hull City's own business whether to take it or not.

On the Chelsea side, Li Ang directed the midfield defense and built a dense defensive layer in their own half.

Chelsea hasn't played this kind of game tactic for a long time, but today they showed 100% respect for Hull City.

Even though this kind of respect is not what the entire Hull City team wants.

The live camera was very interesting at this moment, facing Mourinho who was sitting in the coaching seat and communicating with Holland with his mouth covered.

In fact, Mourinho has always been very wary of relegation teams.

He has rich coaching experience in the Premier League, and of course he knows how crazy some relegation teams will burst out in order to stay in the Premier League in the second half of each season.

Conventional strength comparisons are easy to make mistakes at the end of the season.

However, ordinary coaches are prone to suffer from this.

But for famous coaches like Mourinho who have led their teams to play Premier League games for a long time, even at the end of the season, stable abuse is still their specialty.

So there was the abnormal squatting scene of Chelsea at the beginning of today.

Mourinho doesn't mind spending more than 20 minutes of game time to test the offensive quality of Hull City today.

If it exceeds the expectations of the Chelsea coaching staff, then make corresponding tactical adjustments in real time.

Within the expectations of the Chelsea coaching staff? That's even easier.

At that time, Chelsea, who has taken over the control of the game, will kill the suspense of the game with the fastest offensive rhythm!

It's nothing more than adding a tactical safety rope before the real offensive is launched.

With Li Ang in the midfield, Mourinho had no doubt that his tactical strategy was fully implemented by the team.

As the game time passed, the rhythm of the confrontation on the field slowly slowed down.

In the eleventh minute of the first half, Li Ang received a back pass from Kroos, circled to avoid the pressing of Hull City striker N'Doye, and then decisively carried the ball to the front.

Soon, he saw a familiar face in the right area of ​​the midfield.

That was Robertson, who started as the left winger for Hull City today.

Robertson, who just turned 21 this month, is very young. Last season, he fully demonstrated his talent in Dundee United in the Scottish Premier League.

After being introduced by Hull City this season, he has already made more than 20 appearances in the Premier League.

It can be seen that the coaching staff of Hull City is very optimistic about Robertson and gave him sufficient playing time, but did not let him play for the entire season.

Robertson's offensive and defensive talents are quite outstanding. At this moment, facing Li Ang's dribbling, he pressed forward without showing any weakness.

Neutral Premier League fans in front of the TV looked at the somewhat different body size comparison between Li Ang and Robertson, and couldn't help but applaud Robertson's courage.

But just like he was happy to educate other Premier League newcomers, Li Ang also taught Robertson a lesson very directly at this moment.

He is a strong midfielder with a height of 1.85 meters and a weight of 84 kilograms. Facing a full-back with a height of 1.78 meters and a weight of less than 65 kilograms, what technical means do he need to break through?

Forcefully squeezing through Robertson's defensive side, Li Ang's continuous force almost knocked Robertson to the ground!

In the end, Robertson had no choice but to take action and use a tactical foul to keep Li Ang.

Stopping Li Ang's breakthrough was good news for Hull City, but Robertson received a severe verbal warning from the referee directly, which was quite unprofitable.

Li Ang was still very satisfied with the referee's penalty. When he stood up, he still blinked at Robertson in a very psychological way.

The live camera captured this scene, and countless fans couldn't help laughing.

Robertson certainly wanted to return it, but after carefully considering his offensive level and Li Ang's defensive ability, he finally calmly endured it.

In the 20 minutes of trial time deliberately given by Mourinho, Hull City did not seize the opportunity to prove that their offensive strength was enough to threaten Chelsea's defense.

This is actually very reasonable. After all, if it was so easy to play an explosive performance, Hull City would not have barely climbed out of the relegation zone until now.

At the beginning of the season, Hull City took a wave of points with its tough performance.

As a newly promoted team, Tiger City is indeed qualified to be proud of this.

But as other Premier League teams become more and more familiar with Hull City, their ranking is getting lower and lower, and they are targeted and have no temper.

Without the "surprise" on the offensive end, Chelsea will give them the "shock" they deserve.

Mourinho made a decisive tactical adjustment just after the 23rd minute of the second half.

Chelsea, who had been playing steadily before, also began to press forward.

Hull City finally felt the pressure of the game they should feel.

But when Chelsea pushed all the offensive organization points directly to the front of Hull City's defensive third zone, the game was decided.

Li Ang and Kroos played Hull City's three defensive midfielders around.

The difference in these people's abilities is not as simple as a gap.

Hull City put three defensive midfielders to strengthen the hardness of the midfield defense, but was completely pulled apart by Chelsea's smooth conduction in the frontcourt.

In the 34th minute of the first half, Li Ang saw De Bruyne just pass the ball back to Kroos from the sideline, and suddenly started to move forward without the ball to the left side of Hull City's half!

Kroos almost didn't stop after receiving the ball, and he picked the ball diagonally!

Li Ang was almost at the front of Hull City's penalty area at this time.

Facing the pass sent by Kroos, he made a slight adjustment, and then picked the ball into the Hull City penalty area again without stopping!

The passing and running cooperation between the two of them completely attracted the attention of most Hull City defenders in the penalty area at this moment.

Therefore, when Ibrahimovic made a run into the Hull City penalty area, there was no Hull City central defender marking him!

Ibrahimovic only jumped slightly, and then he easily headed the ball.

The football flew into the net above the near corner of Hull City's goal, and Hull City goalkeeper McGregor's save was late!

The Hull City fans at home sighed in pain, and many Manchester City fans waiting in front of the TV turned off the live broadcast of the game in disappointment.

As if Pandora's box was opened, with Chelsea's first goal, the defense of the entire Hull City team quickly collapsed.

Goals came one after another, and Chelsea had already taken a four-goal lead in the 60th minute of the second half.

Now Chelsea's coaching staff was completely relieved and gradually withdrew the core players on the central axis.

Amid the laughter on the Chelsea bench, the entire Hull City team also played GG, fearing that Chelsea would continue to catch them and score goals.

4-0 victory over the opponent, Li Ang also scored a goal and assisted, and was once again elected the best player of the game.

For Chelsea and Li Ang's fans, today is another perfect day to enjoy.

But Chelsea's stable winning streak has brought great pressure to Manchester City.

There is no way, Chelsea's record of 27 wins and 2 draws so far is really terrible.

It is so stable that it does not give competitors any chance at all.

If Chelsea draws two more games or loses a game recently, the morale and spirit of the entire Manchester City team will be very different.

It's a pity that Chelsea just doesn't want to let Manchester City breathe during this period.

After letting Everton draw a game, Chelsea ushered in another 4 consecutive league wins.

Then came the international match week at the end of March.

Most of the main players in Chelsea were called up by their respective national teams again.

It was not until March 31 that they returned to the club one after another after playing two national team games.

Mourinho saw the physical examination report given by the team doctor, waved his hand, and gave Ibrahimovic, Matic and Kroos a holiday directly.

On the afternoon of April 4, Chelsea, who had rotated half of their main players, played against Stoke City at Stamford Bridge in the 31st round of the Premier League.

Stoke City was well prepared for this game. Most of their main players had rested for two weeks and were in good physical condition.

Therefore, in the midfield confrontation, Chelsea was slightly suppressed for the first time this season.

Li Ang felt that Lampard, who played as a central midfielder with him today, was somewhat powerless in the confrontation.

So he decisively chose to retreat and organize, and stabilized the rhythm of the game with Van Ginkel.

Li Ang did not say much about Lampard's current ups and downs in the game state, he could understand.

His retreat organization can solve this part of the problem, so let's try to play the game first.

Chelsea cannot be said to lack offensive opportunities throughout the first half, even if Li Ang did not make too many forward insertions to dispatch the offense.

Because Hazard and Salah still opened up the situation on the two wings of the frontcourt with their personal abilities, Torres' performance in the starting lineup today was also on the passing line.

Chelsea was just too unlucky today. They hit the goal post twice in the first half, which really made the Chelsea fans at home feel helpless.

However, in the second half of the game, Chelsea still threatened Stoke City's goal through set-piece opportunities.

In the 76th minute of the second half, Maguire, who was highly expected by Mourinho, finally made a miracle in a set-piece in the frontcourt!

With the cover of Li Ang and Lukaku, who came on as a substitute, Ma Datou overwhelmed Stoke City's main central defender Shawcross at the back of the penalty area and scored a valuable winning goal!

Chelsea finally won 1-0 at home with Maguire's precious goal, successfully completing the recent 5-game winning streak in the league!

However, for the entire Chelsea team, better news came an hour later.

Manchester City challenged Crystal Palace away, but was defeated by the opponent in the game where they should not lose the most!

"Zaqiu Wang" rode alone in the second half of the game, overturned Clichy and Nastasic, and made the final decision, killing Manchester City!

When the score was behind, the anxious and deformed technical movements of Manchester City's offensive players and Guardiola's helpless and disappointed expression on the sidelines have become the focus of media reports after the game.

Manchester City finally made the first mistake under the pressure of Chelsea's stable winning streak and lost its competitive spirit.

After this round of the league, Chelsea, who played one less game, led Manchester City by 14 points!

Leading by five games and winning the championship in advance is no longer just a dream for Chelsea.