The strongest blade in football

Chapter 154 Poor Tactic Board (4000 words chapter)
Before the away game against Arsenal, Sky Sports announced a set of statistics——

Since 1975, Manchester City has failed to beat Arsenal in 28 consecutive away games in all competitions, 18 of which have failed to score.

Arsenal is the real sufferer of Manchester City!

Generally, the so-called invincibility for many years is mostly due to the fact that the strength gap between the two teams is too large, and they rarely meet even in leagues that are not at the same level.

Clearly, this is not the case for Manchester City and Arsenal.

In the first half of the league, Manchester City lost 0-3 at home.

Just because the defense was sent off in the first 10 minutes, leading to a collapse, this is Manchester City's worst loss this season.

Mancini does not want to maintain this disgraceful record, he has long wanted to stand up.

Manchester City has gone through a 12-day 26-game super devil schedule since the away game against Newcastle United on December 10, and their physical fitness is not as good as Arsenal.

But fortunately, Manchester City's current bench depth is terrifying.

Through rotation, the Italians have survived the first three games and achieved two wins and one tie when the players got enough rest.

It's just a perfect ending.

It is no exaggeration to say that Manchester City's current bench depth can almost be regarded as the best in the Premier League. Even if you look at the whole of Europe, it can be ranked in the top five.

In the goalkeeper position, in addition to the England goalkeeper Joe Hart, Shay Given, a veteran Premier League goalkeeper, is also sitting on the bench.

Right back position, Richards, Boateng, Zabaleta can all be competent.

In the central defender position, Kolo Touré and Kompany are the main players, Lescott and Boateng are not ordinary people, and even Boyata, who had trained with Wang Nuo in Brussels, can occasionally top him .

At the left back position, Kolarov, Boateng, Bridge, and Lescott can all play.

At the two wing positions, David Silva, Wang Nuo, Adam Johnson, Milner, Wright Phillips, and even Balotelli can play.

In the central midfield position, De Jong, Yaya Toure, Barry, Vieira, Milner, David Silva are available.

Finally, there are forwards, Tevez, Balotelli, Wang Nuo, Dzeko who has already flown to the medical examination to join, and Santa Cruz and Ruo who have not played well and have few chances to play.

This is the luxurious Manchester City. Even though there is no absolute super giant in the team, the lineup is enough to make many strong teams drool.

Of course, regardless of paper strength, there are still some unstable factors in the Manchester City team.

For example, when the winter transfer window just opened, Carlos Tevez made an untimely transfer application.

Depressed by homesickness, the Argentine has told the club he no longer wants to stay in Manchester and is leaving City

Wang Nuo and his teammates know that Tevez misses his daughter living in Argentina very much, and they call every day.

In addition, the relationship between Tevez and the boss is not very good. In the past few months, they have quarreled at least three times.

But there is no doubt that Manchester City will not let Tevez leave, at least not now.

It was the first time for Wang Nuo to set foot on the turf of the Emirates Stadium.

The lawn that has been watered once does not feel slippery at all. The length and flatness of the lawn are perfect. A fresh breath makes Wang Nuo feel refreshed.

While passing and receiving the ball with his teammates, he looked around.

The Emirates Stadium seems to be larger than Manchester City's home stadium, and the stands are also three-tiered.

There are many brightly lit rooms between the top floor and the second floor. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, people can be seen moving inside. It looks like a VIP box.

Wang Nuo likes the layout of the auditorium at the Arsenal Stadium very much. The neat pieces look very beautiful, just like cut tofu blocks.

The weather at night was very cold, but the heat of this focus event was very high. At this time, half of the fans had already entered the stadium.

During the warm-up, he saw the four referees in black also twisting their waists and legs at the sideline, exercising their muscles and bones.

One of the referees is quite familiar. It seems that Wang Nuo has a little impression of the Manchester City game before.

In fact, Wang Nuo still likes most of the British referees. Some of them may make wrong or missed judgments, but in most cases, they are good people.

Also, compared to the Belgian league, referees in England will not be too airy, they will admit their mistakes, sometimes in the game.

Wang Nuo remembered that once he was violated and fell to the ground, the referee did not give him a set ball, but when he met Wang Nuo again just a few minutes later, he said openly that he had made a wrong call just now.

Premier League referees are very good at chatting. For example, when serving a set kick, Wang Nuo heard the referee muttering next to him, "Don't let that person serve a set kick. He missed it by several miles last time!"

Some referees also said to Wang Nuo after the game, "well done" and "good play".

Wang Nuo has already known several referees, and he gradually knows which referees can joke with them and which ones cannot.

And at this moment, the referee who looked familiar to Wang Nuo also saw Wang Nuo, and waved to him with a smile.

"The last time I blew on the Manchester City game, you scored a goal, you have to perform well today!" he said.

Wang Nuo suddenly understood.

He remembered that the referee was Andre Marriner, the witness of his first Premier League goal, and he enforced the Manchester Derby!
After a while, Andre Marriner blew the whistle to start the game, and the focus battle finally started.

Wang Nuo was very excited. He huddled in the bench seat and carefully observed the situation on the field.

Manchester City has always been kicked off by their opponents in the past month, and this time Arsenal is no exception.

As soon as they came up, they tried to give Manchester City a bad start.

Arsenal are not comparable to Aston Villa in the previous game. Amidst the singing of the home fans, they quickly launched a siege, pressing Manchester City to the half.

It didn't take long for the spotlight to turn to Kolo Touré, as he was the busiest man on the field.

In the 2nd minute, Kolo Touré blocked Van Persie's must-go goal in front of the goal.

In the 5th minute, Kolo Toure steals Cesc Fabregas beautifully and launched a counterattack at the same time. Unfortunately, Manchester City has too few players to attack, and it ends without a problem.

In the 11th minute, Kolo Touré defended Pesci alone and successfully blocked the shot again.

Kolo Toure's brilliant performance just represents Manchester City's overall passivity.

Wang Nuo found that the distance between the forward line and the back line was too close after the start of the game, and the two lines were closed too deep together, which gave Arsenal sufficient opportunities to attack.

The absence of David Silva due to injury has caused the team's rare opportunity to switch from defense to offense and cannot be effectively grasped.

This has created an endless loop, Manchester City's offense is difficult to improve, and the defense is getting tighter.

Fortunately, Arsenal's offensive in this field is not continuous, but selectively uses the high tide and low tide of their physical state——

After the siege for a period of time without scoring, Arsenal chose to control the ball in the midfield to relieve the declining physical fitness of their players.

This also gave Manchester City's defense valuable breathing time.

Wearing a woolen coat and a blue and white scarf, Mancini has been shouting instructions from the sidelines, and has not stopped for more than half an hour.

Wang Nuo felt that the slightly stiff performance of his teammates had something to do with the boss. He was too conservative and always shouted from the sidelines, "Go back! Go back!"

All attacks were suppressed by him.

Fortunately, Arsenal also made some mistakes.

In the second half of the first half, in the absence of Bendtner and Chamark, the two high-altitude points in the air, Arsenal chose to pass high-altitude balls from the side a few times without purpose, giving Manchester City an opportunity.

On one occasion, Kompany snatched the ball and launched a counterattack with a long pass.

Balotelli made the ball with his back, Carlos Tevez and Milner continued to cooperate and reached the Arsenal penalty area.

Manchester City had their best chance of the first half.

Unfortunately, Tevez was shoveled to the ground by Sagna before the shot, and the referee didn't say anything.

Arsenal took the ball quickly, Fabregas broke through the middle and sent a beautiful through ball behind him, and Walcott inserted at high speed.

Manchester City's transition from offense to defense led to a disjointed formation, and Arsenal's frontcourt became two-on-three.

Of course, the position of Van Persie outflanking in the middle is not good. If Manchester City does not make mistakes, Arsenal may not be able to convert this threatening attack into a goal.

But unfortunately, Richards' brain short-circuited at a critical moment.

Originally, Walcott was handled by left back Sabaletta. Richards only needed to replace Kolo Toure, who did not come back in front, and Kompany defended Van Persie in the middle.

But Richards didn't feel right, and he also forced Walcott.

In an instant, Van Persie, who was inserted in the middle, gained a very comfortable space to hold the ball.

The little tiger spotted this opportunity within a few steps, and cleverly passed the ball to the middle in advance, leaving Richards who had run halfway and had not yet formed a siege in a dilemma.

After receiving the ball, Van Persie dunked Kompany calmly and shot through Joe Hart's ten fingers!

At the end of the first half, Arsenal led 1-0!
Mancini, who was originally in a stable mood on the sidelines, suddenly looked very long.

At half-time, in the dressing room, Mancini paced up and down as usual, the players sat around him on the bench, wondering what was going to happen next.

"Who told you to run to defend Walcott?" Mancini suddenly stopped and asked Richards.

"Nobody gave up, but at the time I thought that would be better." Richards replied.

Mancini gasped.

"Who told you to defend Walcott!" Mancini asked again, doubling his volume.

In Wang Nuo's view, this is not a question at all, and the boss is probably about to explode.

"I thought that was more appropriate," Richards replied.

This time, Mancini was completely outraged, and the breath seemed to have been held in Mancini's stomach for a long time, like a bomb.

"Did I tell you that you can run to the other side without authorization? Is it up to me or you? It's up to me! Did you hear me? Whatever I tell you to do, you have to obey me !do you understand!"

Then, he flew up and kicked over the tactical board. Under such circumstances, none of the Manchester City players dared to look up at him.

Everyone was sitting around him, staring at the kicked tactical board on the ground.

In Wang Nuo's impression, this is the third time that the boss has kicked the tactical board because of anger. The last time happened to be during the halftime break with Arsenal.

Wang Nuo noticed that the equipment manager was laughing in the corner.

Well, from his point of view, it was funny, because just five minutes before, Mancini had said to him, "Ashton, put the board up."

Before the Italians could make any marks on it with a pen, they kicked it to pieces with some kind of karate-like move.

Was he ready to kick it in advance?
It turns out that the tactical board can still be used in this way, Wang Nuo complained in his heart.

In fact, everyone didn't use that board, and few people could concentrate on listening to Mancini during the intermission.

Mancini seemed to be still angry after kicking over the tactical board, and he asked everyone to hold their heads up.

"Again, and for the last time, it's up to me on the pitch, not just Richards, I mean everyone, keep my words in your head! Or fuck off like Adebayo!"

Within a few minutes of the second half, Wang Nuo was sent by Mancini to warm up.

He observed the situation while warming up. It was obvious that the game had gradually slipped out of Manchester City's control, and the players on the field were a little at a loss.

In the first half alone, Arsenal had more than [-]% of the ball and shot three times as many shots as Manchester City. Manchester City was already very passive.

Unexpectedly, after falling behind by one goal, the situation not only did not change, but became even worse.

City couldn't control the ball, Arsenal won battle after battle and in the 55th minute they hit the crossbar.

As time passed, Wang Nuo knew that if Manchester City was still passive and unable to score, Mancini would definitely increase his striker investment and fight desperately.

It's not far from the time for substitutions.

Finally, Balotelli couldn't control his temper on the spot. He conceded the ball and tackled Wilshere. When he got a yellow card, Mancini replaced him.

In this game, the media also created a highlight, that is, the dialogue between last year's golden boy Balotelli and Wilshere, who received the second most votes.

After Wilshere returned to Arsenal from Bolton last summer after his loan period expired, his performance has been remarkable and he has already occupied the main position of Arsenal.

And Balotelli did not pay attention to the Arsenal prince at the Golden Boy Awards ceremony last month. When interviewed by reporters, he uttered wild words, "Who is Wilshere? I don't know this person. "

Today, Wilshere gave Balotelli a solid lesson.

It is his organization and connection that makes Arsenal's offense more orderly, and he just passed his 19th birthday a few days ago, and he is several months younger than Wang Nuo.

I have to say that Wenger likes to give young people opportunities and allow them to make mistakes, which makes Wang Nuo extremely envious.

Balotte received a yellow card and barely played the whole game. He put on a classic poker face and muttered about his end.

Only when he was high-five with Wang Nuo, the Italian kid put on some smiles again.

"Help me teach that Jack a good lesson, my knees are a bit uncomfortable today, and I didn't play my true strength." He said.

Knowing that Balotelli has always been stubborn, Wang Nuo did not expose it, "Yes, you are 100 times stronger than him!"

He high-fives Balotelli, spits the blades of grass out of his mouth, and trots onto the pitch.

At the same time, Arsenal also made substitution adjustments. "The Tsar" Arshavin replaced the little tiger Walcott in an attempt to maintain the vitality of the attacking line.

Wenger will not be as conservative as Mancini, Arsenal still want to score!
Wang Nuo glanced at the big screen in the distance, and the time left for him was quite ample, excluding injury time, there were still 36 minutes.

Recently, under Mancini, he seems to be a bit of a super substitute.

(End of this chapter)