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

Chapter 985: Low-key Bruno
Pogba said in an interview that in his opinion, after not having many signings for three consecutive seasons and losing striker Mbappe last summer, Manchester United's strength this season is not as good as in previous seasons. If they want to win more championships, they must learn to give up some games.

"...For a team like Manchester United that lacks depth on the bench, it is impossible to have both the Champions League and the league. If you want both, the final result is likely to be that you will not get good results in either competition... I am not saying this to ask Manchester United to deliberately give up the Champions League, but as a player with rich experience in fighting on two fronts, I am just giving them a little experience..."

In response, Manchester United's top mouth Cancelo retorted: "Thank you for the advice from the Manchester City players, but I find it hard to believe whether their experience is effective. Because in my memory, the last time Manchester City won the championship was the League Cup three years ago, which means that the current Manchester City is actually just a loser. I don't know how he has the face to talk about his experience to a championship team that has won countless honors, and to be honest, I really can't believe the experience of losers..."

This is just rubbing salt into Manchester City's wounds.

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As Cancelo said, the last time Manchester City won a formal competition was in the League Cup in the 2018-2019 season.

Since Bruno and Mourinho both joined Manchester United in the summer of 2016, the most dominant club team in football history was born!
It can be said that in the past six years, the Premier League belongs to the era of Bruno and Mourinho.

Leaving aside European competitions, a total of four champions can be produced in a single round in the UK each season, and a total of 4 champions have been produced so far. However, Manchester United has won 21 of them. Only the League Cup in the 19-2018 season and the FA Cup in the 2019-2019 season were won by Manchester City and Arsenal respectively.

Among them, in the 2018-2019 season when Manchester City won the League Cup, Manchester United was eliminated in the third round with an all-substitute lineup. It can be said that Manchester United strategically gave up this event and was suspected of picking up a leak.

On the contrary, it was Arsenal who won the FA Cup a year later, actually defeating Manchester United to win the championship.

As for the European arena, although Manchester City has been able to participate in the Champions League steadily in recent seasons, the only European championship in their club's honor room is the European Cup Winners' Cup in the 1969-1970 season.

In the following 52 years, the Blue Moon never tasted the taste of European championship again.

Guardiola, who was originally expected to lead Manchester City to a breakthrough in the European arena, not only failed to achieve the goal of a breakthrough in the European arena, but even failed to maintain his domestic base. The only championship he has won in six years is a League Cup!

Now that Cancelo brings up this matter, it will naturally anger everyone in Manchester City.

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In a tense atmosphere, Bruno did not join in the war of words. A reporter came to him and wanted to hear his opinion.

"I have no opinion. It's only mid-April, there's still more than a month until the end of the season, there are still six or seven league rounds to go, and the Champions League and FA Cup are only in the semi-finals. The outcome of one game doesn't mean anything. Don't act as if this one game can decide the championship. Let's focus on the game itself."

He is very indifferent.

Although Bruno was very low-key and calm, he was not low-key at all after the game started. As the core of Manchester United, Bruno was naturally the player that Manchester City paid special attention to.

Rodri followed him closely, limiting his range of movement, while others were ready to press forward and double-team him at any time.

In this situation, how could Bruno keep a low profile?
However, Bruno was not surprised by such a situation, nor did he feel any headache. Whether in the virtual space competition of the training master system or in real competitions, he had encountered such situations countless times.

For example, in the second leg of the league match a month ago, Guardiola even used an extreme tactic of using two top midfielders, Rodri and Pogba, to double-team Bruno throughout the game.

At that time, Manchester City did freeze Bruno for a while, but ultimately failed to freeze Bruno throughout the entire game. With Bruno's outbreak in the latter stages of the game, Manchester City's double-team was broken, not only allowing Bruno to achieve perfect data of 2 shots and 1 assist, but also cost Pogba the price of being sent off with a red card.

It would be hypocritical for him to be surprised at this moment.

He has accumulated a wealth of experience to deal with such situations.

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The strategy to deal with this annoying defense is very simple, just run.

Keep running, from left to right, from back to front, don't stay on the court, don't stand still, keep changing your position, then sooner or later the defensive players will not be able to keep up with his rhythm.

That's what Bruno did.

Facing Manchester City's targeted defense, he also made a targeted response. He can appear almost anywhere on the court, whether in his own corner flag area or in Manchester City's penalty area, he can always be seen.

Even if he doesn't have the ball, as long as he appears in that position, it is trouble and threat to Manchester City. Although Rodri is responsible for defending Bruno, he can't abandon his position and just follow Bruno.

In that case, Bruno goes to the wing, and Rodri follows him out, so wouldn't the middle be empty? Let other Manchester City players come to the middle to make up for the deficit, so wouldn't the area where the defender was originally located be empty?
Defense is a whole, one link after another. If there is a problem in one place, it will inevitably affect the whole. The saying "a single move affects the whole body" is very appropriate when it comes to defense.

Bruno's running like this makes Rodri very painful. Should he follow him or not?

If I follow him, I will lose my position. If I don’t follow him, I can’t just sit back and watch him create threats and troubles in other places, right?

Faced with Bruno who can run so fast, not only Rodri is in a dilemma, but Manchester City head coach Guardiola is also very troubled.

Over the years, he has tried all sorts of tricks to deal with Bruno against Manchester United, but has rarely succeeded.

Failure to freeze Bruno means that Manchester City will be passive in the game and may even lose the game in the end.

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Although Guardiola is troubled, he is not helpless in dealing with Bruno.

Since Guardiola wants to help Manchester City try to win the first Champions League trophy in the team's history, it is impossible to bypass Manchester United as an opponent.

Since they are going to compete with Manchester United, Bruno is a key figure that cannot be ignored, so he must have done a lot of research on Bruno.

In Guardiola's view, Bruno is not without weaknesses. Although he is a physical monster with almost unlimited physical energy, his strength is not very strong. Although Bruno's height has increased from 1.78 meters at the beginning of his debut to 1.83 meters, and his weight has increased to 75 kilograms, these data also show that he is still not a player who is good at physical confrontation and has sufficient strength.

Why is this so? There are many reasons, maybe because Bruno feels that he doesn't like being a muscle maniac, maybe because the improvement of strength is too slow, maybe he is unwilling to invest as much energy in strength training as in physical training.

In short, Bruno is still not a player who can gain the upper hand in close combat with his opponent.

Then one way is to use the physical advantage in defense to accumulate his living space.

In the league more than a month ago, although Manchester City failed to completely freeze Bruno, they did find Bruno's real weakness.

In this game, although Guardiola did not let Rodri and Pogba double-team Bruno throughout the game, he also asked Rodri, who was marking Bruno, not to hesitate to use physical confrontation whenever he had contact with Bruno.

Of course, this physical confrontation must be done in a well-controlled manner, so as to create trouble for Bruno while not causing fouls easily.

If you commit constant fouls, you will easily be noticed by the referee and get a yellow card. Once you get a card, you will have to be more cautious when making defensive moves, which will greatly reduce the effectiveness of your defense.

Guardiola has no way of teaching Rodri about this issue of scale, and can only let the Spanish midfielder experience and figure it out on his own.

………………

Another way is a way of thinking: since Bruno is as slippery as a loach and difficult to trap, why should we focus on defending Bruno himself? Why not start with those who Bruno passes to?
Bruno is an offensive organizer. No matter what, he will always pass the ball to other teammates in the end. So if we defend his passing target, won’t it be much easier to defend Bruno?
Guardiola also adopted this strategy in this game.

With a two-pronged approach, they are determined to beat Manchester United away and achieve a landmark victory.

在2016年夏天接手曼城以来，瓜迪奥拉带领曼城一共跟曼联在各项赛事交手27场，战绩是尴尬的1胜5平21负。

For Guardiola and Manchester City, such a result is simply a shame. After all, even when Ferguson ruled the Premier League, Manchester City's record in the Manchester derby was not so bad. Not to mention that Guardiola, as a top coach, has never been at a disadvantage in the competition with any opponent.

In six years, they only won against Manchester United once, which made Manchester City very angry.

Especially in last season's Champions League semi-final, Manchester United and Manchester City met, and Manchester United actually defeated Manchester City with a huge score of 6:2 at the Etihad Stadium.

Such a near-crushing failure cannot be explained by any reason.

(End of this chapter)