From the man behind the football king to the football king.

Chapter 679 Don’t Worry

After boosting the morale of Manchester United players, Mourinho began to deploy tactics and detail adjustments for the second half of the game.

At the beginning of the second half, Mourinho made two substitutions. He replaced McTominay and Mata, who performed relatively mediocrely today, with Bruno and Harry Kane.

In today's game, Mourinho made some rotations. Mbappe, McTominay and Mahrez were on the front line, while Harry Kane and Rashford were sitting on the bench.

In addition, Mata started in the attacking midfielder position, replacing the team captain Bruno.

Even though Bruno only needed one more goal to unlock the achievement of 2018 Premier League goals, even though this was Manchester United's last game in , and even though this was Manchester United's last home game at this stadium, Mourinho still chose to let Bruno sit on the bench.

Kante did not start either, Fred did.

The reason for the large-scale rotation is that we are currently in the extremely dense Christmas schedule. Without proper rotation, the players' physical fitness will hardly last through such a dense schedule.

Although Bruno is in good physical condition, he has played too many games this season. Starting from the Community Shield in early August, Bruno played a total of 8 games for Manchester United and the Portuguese national team in 5 months, an average of 31 games per month!
However, the score of 0:1 at halftime and the opponent's good performance in the first half made Mourinho dare not be careless, and he made decisive adjustments in the midfield.

………………

Eddie Howe was sitting in the coach's seat. Although his team was being besieged by Manchester United, he was not panicking. This was because similar scenes had occurred many times in the first half of the game, but none of them could break through Bournemouth's city.

Eddie Howe believes that his players can still resolve Manchester United's attack this time.

Bruno got the ball in the middle.

Manchester United passed the ball back and forth in front of Bournemouth's penalty area, but failed to find a suitable attacking path.

Harry Kane came out to receive the ball and Bruno passed it to him.

"Harry Kane had the ball outside the penalty area. As a center forward, he didn't stay in front of the goal, but pulled it out," said Andy Gray.

In order to break open Bournemouth's defense, Mourinho asked the front-line attacking players to keep running, looking for opportunities and moving back and forth during the halftime break.

This time, Harry Kane was pulled outside the penalty area again.

Bournemouth's central defender Ake rushed out and built a defensive line on the penalty area.

Born in 1995, Natan Ake made his debut in Feyenoord's youth training camp. He is a versatile midfielder and defender who can play in multiple positions such as left back, left wing back, center back and even midfielder.

In 2011, Ake moved to Chelsea, and then was loaned out for training, and officially transferred to Bournemouth in the summer of 2017.

Harry Kane controlled the ball and pretended to pass it, but Aké stretched out his foot to intercept it. But Harry Kane was just faking it, and when he saw Aké stretched out his foot to intercept it, he immediately changed his move to break through.

Ake came up to entangle the opponent. He thought he could use his excellent physical fitness to squeeze Harry Kane away and steal the ball, but Ake soon realized the difficulty of his opponent.

"This guy is really good at protecting the ball!"

………………

Harry Kane held off Ake, who tried to steal the ball twice but to no avail.

Suddenly, Harry Kane tried to turn around, and Ake quickly moved his body to intercept him. Harry Kane pulled his body back and twisted his butt to the other side, and Ake was pushed away by the twisting butt.

Bournemouth full-back Cook quickly came over to defend.

This is the moment Harry Kane has been waiting for.

Before Cook and Ake could close in, Harry Kane passed the ball and slipped the ball through the gap between the two-man defense line.

"Beautiful through ball!"

"Bruno!"

Bruno received the ball on the left. He did not choose to continue dribbling or shooting, but directly kicked the ball to the right side of the penalty area.

"Mbappe!"

Bournemouth's defense was focused on Harry Kane's penetrating pass and Bruno who got the ball.

Everyone thought that Bruno would choose to dribble directly into the penalty area, or choose to shoot. No one expected that he would pass the ball from the left to the right.

The football passed by the goal.

Mbappe suddenly made a forward run, passed through Bournemouth's entire defense line and appeared behind them.

"Mbappe! Not offside!!" commentator Martin Taylor shouted at the top of his lungs.

………………

Mbappe was excited after successfully avoiding offside, he knew this was his chance.

With Mahrez's performance getting better and better recently, Mbappe has a strong sense of crisis and he now attaches great importance to every scoring opportunity.

Because of the tough schedule, the head coach rotated the team's lineup and he got the chance to start today. Mbappe is full of fighting spirit. He wants to prove that the head coach made the right decision to start him and that he deserves to start.

Facing the attacking Bournemouth goalkeeper Begovic, Mbappe showed admirable calmness. He did not look back or hesitate, and shot directly into the far corner.

Mbappe shot the ball with the outside of his foot, and the ball drew an arc and went around the left hand side of Bournemouth goalkeeper Begovic.

Begovic had no way to deal with such a close and decisive shot. He could only hope that Mbappe's shooting skills were as poor as rumored.

Then he heard the cheers of Manchester United fans in the stands of Old Trafford. The Bournemouth goalkeeper felt a chill in his heart and knew that he was finished.

………………

"GOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!"

The football almost stuck to the inside of the far post and spun into the goal!
"Mbappe! Mbappe! Mbappe! He scored, Manchester United scored, 1:1! Manchester United finally equalized the score!!"

"Beautiful!! Mbappe's shot! Manchester United changed the score to 1:1! If the game ends with this score, Manchester United will break AC Milan's 58-game unbeaten record!"

"A key goal. Facing a densely defensive team, the first goal is the most critical. This is the goal that breaks the deadlock."

"1:1, this goal means that Bournemouth's defensive tactics have failed. Now that they have been equalized, there is no point in retreating to defend. Apart from getting one point at Old Trafford, they can no longer end Manchester United's unbeaten record. Once Bournemouth presses forward, it will mean even greater trouble for them, because Manchester United is one of the teams that is best at quick counterattacks."

The Bournemouth players obviously thought of this, so they looked very frustrated, standing on the field in a daze watching the Manchester United players celebrate.

Mbappe, who scored the goal, opened his arms and ran to the stands, waving his fists at the stands to celebrate.

In the camera, Manchester United fans rushed forward like a tide and celebrated excitedly.

On the field, other Manchester United players also surrounded Mbappe to celebrate together.

This goal was so timely and crucial, it was like breaking through that layer of window paper.

This will be the goal that opens the door to victory!
………………

On the sidelines, Mourinho stood up from his seat, he just clapped, and then stood there looking at the field.

He did not celebrate wildly. He used this way to tell the players: it was just a goal, Manchester United had just equalized the score, but this did not satisfy him.

"Coach Mourinho looks very calm." Andy Gray glanced in the direction of the home team's coaching bench, "It seems that he is very confident that his team can score a goal."

Compared with Mourinho's calm and confidence, Bournemouth head coach Eddie Howe was a little panicked.

Due to the strong attacking power of Manchester United, Bournemouth's tactics today were very conservative. Bournemouth's players might be thinking about defeating Manchester United to end their opponent's unbeaten record, but Eddie Howe had no such intention.

Eddie Howe's plan was to hold on to the tie and get a point, which would be victory. If he could counterattack and win the game, that would be a perfect result.

Originally, Bournemouth's goal at the end of the first half made the situation develop towards the most perfect result in Eddie Howe's mind, and also made Eddie Howe have some ideas in his mind that he had not had before.

Now, Bournemouth's goal has been broken by Manchester United, which is a very bad thing for Bournemouth.

In the first half, Manchester United was unable to score a goal, which made the players anxious and unable to show their normal strength.

Now that Manchester United has finally scored a goal, it has broken the shackles in their hearts and their performance has returned to normal.

Manchester United's powerful offensive power is too much for Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and other giants to handle, let alone Bournemouth.

Eddie Howe obviously does not think Bournemouth's defense is more solid than that of the traditional BIG6 giants.

Therefore, once Manchester United players' performance returns to normal, their defense will be under great pressure and they are likely to continue to concede goals.

………………

Twelve minutes later, Eddie Howe no longer had to worry about anything, because it was useless to worry, as his team really lost the ball again and the score was reversed by Manchester United.

Bruno made a long pass to Rashford. Bournemouth's right wing-back knew that he could not keep up with Rashford's speed, so he could only reach out and pull Rashford down.

The referee showed Abby a yellow card.

Free kick for Manchester United.

Bruno made a beautiful arcing penalty, and Bournemouth goalkeeper Begovic could do nothing about it.

"GOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLL!!!!!"

"Bruno Fernandes, 2:1, Manchester United overtakes Bournemouth."

"A beautiful arc, Bruno scored a goal from a direct free kick. This is also the second consecutive game that Bruno has scored a direct free kick. It is also Bruno's fourth direct free kick goal this season. He deserves to be the strongest free kick expert in the world today!"

(End of this chapter)