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

Chapter 742: Take Charge
On the afternoon of August 8, Manchester United faced Crystal Palace at home in the third round of the Premier League.

Manchester United won 4-20 in the first two rounds of the Premier League. In addition, Manchester United has never lost to Crystal Palace in the Premier League era, and has an impressive record of 17 wins and 3 draws in encounters, which makes everyone believe that this will be another overwhelming victory.

The trend after the game started seemed to confirm this speculation. Manchester United firmly controlled the rhythm of the game and launched wave after wave of attacks on the Crystal Palace goal. It seemed that the goal was just around the corner.

However, it was Crystal Palace that broke the deadlock first.

In the 32nd minute of the game, Crystal Palace won a free kick in the backcourt. It was this seemingly harmless free kick in the backcourt that led to Manchester United's loss. Guaita kicked the ball, and when Schrup competed with Lindelof for the header, he got the ball forward, and Ayew shot low into the net from the edge of the penalty area.

1:0, Crystal Palace leads Manchester United away from home!
Manchester United, which was behind, launched a counterattack, trying to equalize the score as soon as possible, or even reverse the game.

However, reality once again played a joke on Manchester United. In a seemingly not intense confrontation, Luke Shaw was injured and quickly made a substitution gesture. Mourinho had to replace him with veteran Ashley Young.

In the end, Manchester United failed to equalize the score in the first half and entered the halftime break with a 0:1 disadvantage.

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Manchester United stepped up their attack in the second half.

In the 49th minute, Ashley Young made a cross from the left to the far post, and Mbappe's shot from the right side of the small penalty area was blocked by Van Aanholt.

Three minutes later, Manchester United's offensive returned. Cancelo made a cross from the right, and Ashley Young volleyed from the left side of the penalty area, but the rebound went wide of the near corner.

In the 55th minute, Bruno passed the ball and Harry Kane shot high from 12 yards due to Kelly's defensive interference. Manchester United players complained that the opponent had committed a foul, but the referee Tierney refused to award a penalty.

As the game approached the 70th minute, Mourinho continued to make adjustments. He replaced Rashford with Greenwood to intensify the attack.

This substitution had an immediate effect.

In the 70th minute of the game, Harry Kane stopped the ball with his back, and Bruno followed up with the ball and broke into the right side of the penalty area but was tripped by Milivojevic. Bruno took the penalty kick himself and helped Manchester United equalize the score.

Manchester United became the second team to receive penalties in the first three games of the Premier League season, the last being Chelsea in 2.

But the game soon fell into a stalemate. Although Manchester United launched a fierce attack, Crystal Palace's defense was very solid and withstood Manchester United's wave after wave of attacks.

Some of the referee's decisions also caused great controversy. For example, in the 81st minute of the game, Bruno cut into the left side of the penalty area and fell under Kelly's defense. After VAR prompted the referee, Tierney went to the sidelines to watch the video replay, but still refused to award a penalty.

This caused boos from the Millennium Stadium, and the home fans were obviously very dissatisfied with Tierney's decision.

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As the game drew to a close, a draw seemed to be getting closer.

But just as the fourth official was about to play the injury time sign on the sidelines, Manchester United scored!

In the 89th minute, Greenwood and Harry Kane made a wall pass and Mbappe shot a curved ball into the upper right corner from 15 yards, changing the score to 2:1.

Thanks to Mbappe's near-game winning goal, Manchester United reversed the game 2:1 at home and achieved three consecutive league victories in the new season.

In a key match of this round held later at Anfield, Liverpool beat Arsenal 3-1 at home, also closely following Manchester United with three consecutive wins.

Only three games have been played in the league, and there are only two teams left in the entire standings that remain undefeated.

Surprisingly, the two teams that remain undefeated are the ones that have not made much moves in the transfer market this summer.

Like Manchester United, Liverpool did not make any signings in this summer window. They only spent 170 million pounds to introduce young defender Van den Berg and signed backup goalkeeper Adrian for free.

Apart from this, Klopp did not make any other signings. Instead, he sold striker Ings for £2000 million, goalkeeper Mignolet for £630 million, and loaned Grujic to Hertha Berlin for £180 million. Not only did he not spend much money, but he actually made a small profit in the transfer market.

Manchester United is in a similar situation. So far, they have not introduced any players, but they got 4000 million pounds by selling Herrera. Damian, Smalling and Rojo are also seeking to leave the team.

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At noon on August 8th, local time in Europe, the 29-2019 UEFA Champions League group draw and UEFA Awards Ceremony was held at the Grimaldi Forum Monaco.

According to the group draw rules of the Champions League, last season's Champions League champions, Europa League champions, and the champions of the top six UEFA leagues were placed in the same pool.

Since Manchester United is the champion of both the Champions League and the Premier League, which ranks second in UEFA points, the league champion, which ranks seventh in UEFA points, is also included in the first tier of teams.

In the end, the eight seeded teams were the Champions League and Premier League champions Manchester United, the Europa League champions Chelsea, the Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich, the La Liga champions Barcelona, ​​the Serie A champions Juventus, the French Ligue 24 champions Paris Saint-Germain, the Russian Premier League champions Zenit St. Petersburg, and the Portuguese Premier League champions Benfica. The remaining 8 teams were divided into the second, third and fourth tiers according to their European points in the past five seasons. Each tier has 8 teams. In accordance with the rules that teams under the same football association flag will not meet in advance and Russian teams will not meet Ukrainian teams, one team will be drawn from each tier to form a group, for a total of groups.

As a result, eight teams including Real Madrid, Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Liverpool, Dortmund, Tottenham, Naples and Ajax were listed as second-tier teams.

The eight teams in the third tier are Shakhtar Donetsk, Brugge, Olympiacos, Dinamo Zagreb, Leverkusen, Red Bull Salzburg, Inter Milan and Valencia.

The eight teams in Pot 4 are Galatasaray, Red Star Belgrade, Atalanta, Lokomotiv Moscow, Genk, Slavia Prague, RB Leipzig and Lille.

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After the draw, Manchester United, the defending champions of the Champions League and the Premier League, were placed in Group C with last season's Champions League semi-finalists, Dutch giants Ajax, Croatian team Dinamo Zagreb and Serie A powerhouse Atalanta.

Group A: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Club Brugge and Galatasaray;

Group B: Bayern Munich, Tottenham, Olympiacos, Red Star Belgrade;

Group D: Juventus, Manchester City, Leverkusen, Lokomotiv Moscow;
Group E: Benfica, Napoli, Red Bull Salzburg, Genk;
Group F: Barcelona, ​​Dortmund, Inter Milan, Slavia Prague;

Group G: Zenit St Petersburg, Liverpool, Valencia, RB Leipzig;

Group H: Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Lille.

Manchester United's grouping is actually quite good. Manchester United is a team in its own class. Although Ajax made it to the semi-finals last season, it was basically dismembered this summer. Key players such as De Ligt and Frenkie de Jong left the team, which inevitably led to a significant loss of the team's strength. Small teams like Dinamo Zagreb are the weakest among the top 32 teams, and Atalanta, which ranked third in Serie A last season, was a dark horse in Serie A last season, and its strength can only be considered average.

Liverpool's situation is similar to that of Manchester United. The other three teams in the same group can hardly pose much threat to the Reds.

However, the grouping of the other three Premier League teams is not very good, as there is a top team from the top five leagues in the same group.

Of course, with the strength of these three teams, it is not difficult to qualify from the group. However, it is not so easy to win the first place in the group.

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After the Champions League group draw, UEFA announced the results of the awards. In the end, Bruno once again became the biggest winner, winning the UEFA Best Male Athlete and UEFA Best Midfielder awards.

As the Champions League champions, Manchester United became the biggest winner of the night. In addition to the two awards won by Bruno, De Gea was named the best goalkeeper and Van Dijk was named the best defender. Even the best forward was not lost, and was won by Harry Kane.

It can be said that the best awards in men's football were all won by Manchester United!
From this we can see how powerful Manchester United's dominance is!

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2019年8月31日中午12点30分，南安普顿圣玛丽球场。

This is the first game of the 4th round of the Premier League, Manchester United will challenge Southampton away.

The game was in the 0st minute and the score was still 0:.

Manchester United launched an attack in the frontcourt.

Manchester United's attack was extremely fast and the ball moved smoothly from the middle to the left, then to the middle, and then to the right, tearing a hole in Southampton's defense.

Now it is Mbappe who controls the ball in the frontcourt.

Seeing Mbappe get the ball, Bruno, who was originally in the penalty area, turned around and ran out of the penalty area, while raising his hand to ask for the ball.

Mbappe passed the ball at the right time.

Bruno caught the ball!

"Bruno! Southampton defenders should be careful!" the commentator shouted. Bruno's recent form is really hot. After three rounds of the Premier League, Bruno has scored three goals and provided four assists.

Before the game, the media specifically reminded Southampton head coach Hasenhuttl to be careful of Bruno.

Hasenhüttl obviously also knew how terrifying Bruno was, and he had specifically explained the key defensive strategies and tactics against Bruno before the game.

Seeing Bruno receive the pass from Mbappe, Southampton's defense immediately felt like they were facing a formidable enemy.

(End of this chapter)