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

Chapter 764 A Difficult Schedule

When the referee blew the whistle to end the game, the Emirates Stadium seemed a little quiet, with only thousands of away team fans celebrating excitedly.

But the Manchester United players on the field were all a little exhausted, even Bruno's legs were shaking.

The pressure Arsenal put on the team in the final stages was so great that Manchester United couldn't even launch a counterattack.

Fortunately, the team's defense was very good and they finally withstood Arsenal's offensive pressure. Everyone tried their best and no one slacked off.

The final result was that Manchester United reversed Arsenal 2:1, which made Arsenal players look a little bored.

This victory allowed Manchester United to temporarily narrow the gap with Liverpool to 1 point. The two teams are competing fiercely in the standings.

A day later, Liverpool beat Sheffield United 2-0 at home, extending their lead to 4 points, but Manchester United had one game less.

The 21st round of the Premier League ended, marking the end of the Premier League's Christmas devil schedule, and the Premier League was temporarily suspended. Premier League teams ushered in the first FA Cup match of the season.

Manchester United's luck in the draw was not very good, as they drew Wolves, a team that has performed very well in the past two seasons, and they were playing away.

Moreover, although the Premier League's Christmas devil schedule has ended, Manchester United's next schedule is no different from the Christmas devil schedule.

Under normal circumstances, Manchester United will have two rounds of FA Cup matches, two League Cup semi-finals against Manchester City, and four Premier League games in the rest of January.

That is to say, in the whole month of January, Manchester United will have 1 games to play, including two against Manchester City, one against Arsenal and one against Liverpool, and the remaining opponents include mid-level Premier League teams such as Wolves and Burnley, few of which are easy to deal with.

………………

On the afternoon of January 1, in the third round of the FA Cup, Manchester United challenged Wolves away.

Because they had fought Arsenal for 67 minutes at the Emirates Stadium 90 hours ago, and the first leg of the League Cup semi-final against Manchester City would be faced 72 hours after the end of this game, Mourinho made major adjustments to the starting lineup for this game, but Bruno still started.

At Molineux Stadium, Wolves played very actively and Manchester United was always suppressed on the field.

With his back weak, Bruno had to frequently retreat to support him. Coupled with the loss of power in the midfield, it was difficult for him to get opportunities.

In fact, if Wolves had not been poor at seizing opportunities, they might have lost by a big margin.

Bruno ran at full speed in the frontcourt, going up and down continuously, trying hard to seize every opportunity.

However, Manchester United, whose players except Bruno are all substitutes, is indeed slightly inferior to the Wolves, who are almost fully equipped and playing at home.

Under the coaching of Nuno Santo, Wolves have recruited many Portuguese stars, such as Ruben Neves in front of Bruno, winger Pedro Neto, and veteran Moutinho on the bench. And with these Portuguese players as the team, they have built this powerful Wolves team.

However, Manchester United's defense was good and Wolves were unable to break through the goal, and the score remained 0:0.

………………

Romain Saiss, the Moroccan midfielder, was highly expected by Nuno Santo in this game and he pressed Bruno step by step throughout the game.

Coupled with Ruben Neves, who is short but fast and brave, and a coach Nuno Santo who is good at coaching defense, Bruno did not get any chance throughout the game.

But he could clearly feel that as the game drew to a close, the Wolves players were beginning to feel overwhelmed.

The opportunity is getting closer!
Bruno kept encouraging himself.

Although he was rational and knew clearly that the opportunity might not come, he still continued to run.

If you run, you may have a chance; if you don’t run, you will have no chance at all.

He could feel his energy draining away quickly, but he still gritted his teeth and held on.

Seventy minutes... seventy-five minutes... eighty minutes... eighty-five minutes... time passed quickly.

Wolves no longer increased their offensive strength and it seemed that they were satisfied with the score of 0:0 and were planning to save their strength for the play-offs at the Millennium Stadium.

But Bruno and his teammates obviously don't think so, because for Manchester United, playing another play-off is undoubtedly the worst result. It would be better to be eliminated in this game.

Some people in the Wolves team don't think so.

Once Adama Traore got the ball and Mata returned to defense, the Spanish winger wanted to rely on his personal ability to break through Fred.

He needs to perform in front of Nuno Santo, prove his strength and fight for a starting position.

But just when Adama Traore tried to break through Fred, Mata, who was returning to defense, suddenly rushed out from behind, kicked the ball away from his feet, and tripped the Spanish winger at the same time.

But the referee did not call a foul.

………………

After Fred got the ball, he quickly passed it forward with a low pass, directly to Bruno.

Bruno had his back to the attacking direction and Seth was behind him. He knew very well that he couldn't turn around after receiving the ball. As soon as he turned around after receiving the ball, he would be immediately entangled by the Moroccan.

At this moment, Bruno's mind was extremely calm, as if the air around him had condensed. The only thing in front of him was the flying football and Roman Saiss behind him.

He gently lifted his right foot, facing the flying football, and used the outside of his foot to push the high-speed football past his right side. At the same time, he turned to the left, shook off Roman Tournament's entanglement, and chased after him at the fastest speed.

"Beautiful pass, from Bruno!"

"Manchester United launched a counterattack, Bruno passed the ball from the right and broke through the Wolves' defense."

……

Bruno gritted his teeth, caught up with the football as quickly as possible, and rushed towards the goal with the ball all the way.

Wolves' defense speed was also extremely fast. Bruno's national team teammate Ruben Neves was the first to return to his position. Facing Bruno who was rushing towards him, he immediately wanted to get close to him and try to hold up Bruno, his national team teammate, with his body.

But before he could get close, Bruno suddenly stopped and dribbled the ball to the inside, scaring Ruben Neves into changing his mind and trying to block it. But Bruno dribbled the ball with his left foot, changed direction again, passed Ruben Neves, and successfully dribbled the ball into the penalty area.

"Nice pass! Bruno broke through Ruben Neves, entered the penalty area, and faced goalkeeper Rudy directly!"

………………

Rudy is very experienced. He decisively left the goal and attacked the moment Bruno broke through Ruben Neves. He grasped the timing just right and opened his arms as far as possible to block Bruno's shooting angle.

But he was already 34 years old, and his physical function was a little slower than that of a young goalkeeper, so before he could get close, Bruno lightly flicked the ball over Rudy's head, drew a parabola, and slowly fell towards the goal behind him.

A Wolves central defender, Coady, quickly chased back to the front of the goal, trying to block the shot, but unfortunately, the end result was that both he and the ball crashed into the goal line.

Beep! ! ! !

"The goal stands!"

"Bruno! Bruno!!"

"In the 88th minute, Bruno scored a goal for Manchester United!"

"This is a reward for his hard work in this game."

"A fantastic individual performance by Bruno who single-handedly broke through the Wolves defence."

"1:0, Manchester United takes the lead!"

“This could be a buzzer beater!”

"Indeed, Manchester United had a difficult time playing away from home with a substitute lineup, and Bruno was closely guarded by the opponent throughout the game. Nuno Santo repeatedly stated before the game that freezing Bruno was the top priority of Wolves' defense in this game. As a result, the Manchester United captain once again shocked everyone."

"His fighting spirit is indeed quite tenacious. We can see that under his inspiration, Manchester United players did not give up even when they were in a passive situation. Now, their persistence has paid off!"

"Wolves played too conservatively at home, especially in the last ten minutes. They seemed ready to play in the play-offs away from home."

………………

The referee finally blew the whistle to end the game.

1:0, Manchester United defeated Wolves with Bruno's goal and advanced to the fourth round of the FA Cup.

At the moment the game ended, Bruno sat on the grass exhausted. He had done his best.

"Congratulations, Bruno." Moutinho walked over angrily, took off his jersey and handed it to Bruno.

The 33-year-old Moutinho came on as a substitute. At that time, Wolves were already prepared to play in the play-offs, so after he came on the pitch, he just helped the team control the rhythm.

Moutinho executed Nuno Santo's tactics very well and almost kept the score tied throughout the game, but unexpectedly Bruno scored a goal in the final stage of the game and won the game.

Afterwards, although Moutinho led Wolves to launch a counterattack, he and the Wolves had too little time and ultimately failed to equalize the score.

"Thank you." Bruno stood up, took off his jersey and handed it to his national team teammate and senior.

Relying on Bruno's winning goal to advance to the fourth round of the FA Cup, Manchester United drew a good lot in the subsequent draw, and their opponent was the English League One team Tranmere.

………………

Three days later, at the Millennium Stadium, Manchester United faced Manchester City at home.

In the FA Cup last weekend, Manchester City also played with a substitute lineup. However, unlike Manchester United's difficult victory, they won without any bloodshed, because their opponent was Port Vale, a mid-table team in English League Two.

It is obvious that Guardiola intends to concentrate all his main forces to deal with Manchester United.

If Manchester United is Arsenal's nemesis, then they are also Manchester City's nemesis. Since Guardiola took over as Manchester City's head coach in the summer of 2016, the Blue Moon has faced Manchester United 14 times and only won 1 time. In the other 13 games, Manchester City's record is 2 draws and 11 losses!
这其中就包括了2017-2018赛季曼城6次面对曼联却1平5负未尝胜绩的尴尬记录。

This season, Manchester City has basically been eliminated from the Premier League. In this case, the cup competition has become the goal of Guardiola and Manchester City.

Compared to the FA Cup, which has just begun, and the Champions League, whose knockout rounds have not yet begun, the League Cup, which has reached the semi-final stage, is a more realistic goal.

Last season, Guardiola barely managed to keep his position as coach thanks to a League Cup title.

Manchester United completely controlled the first ten minutes of the game. Bruno scored in the first three minutes, assisted by Gundogan, allowing him to score smoothly.

In the sixth minute, Bruno assisted Harry Kane to score and expand the score.

With a two-goal lead, everyone thought that Manchester United had secured victory, but Bruno still did not dare to be careless and kept calling on his teammates to be vigilant.

After half an hour of stalemate, in the 32nd and 37th minutes of the first half, Manchester City launched two consecutive attacks. Bernardo Silva scored twice and successfully equalized the score.

Fortunately, in the first half stoppage time, Van Dijk made a long pass, Bruno stopped the ball in the penalty area, turned around and shot, once again increasing the score for Manchester United.

But in the 61st minute, De Bruyne's goal equalized the score again.

In the end, Manchester United drew 3:3 with Manchester City at home. Such a result was obviously very unfavorable for Manchester United, because they would go to the Etihad Stadium as a guest in the second round, which was definitely not an easy away game.

………………

After three extremely difficult games in a row, Manchester United finally faced a relatively weak opponent.

On the afternoon of January 1, Manchester United played against Norwich, the second-to-last team, at home.

Although the Canaries were promoted to the Premier League as the champions of the Championship, their strength is limited after all. In the first 21 rounds, they had 3 wins, 5 draws and 13 losses, and only scored 14 points, 5 points behind the second-to-last Watford and 7 points behind the fourth-to-last Aston Villa.

Despite many rotations, Manchester United's advantage at home was still very obvious. After the opening, led by Bruno, they suppressed Norwich.

Manchester United took the lead in the 27th minute. Bruno passed the ball to the right, Mata cut in from the right and made a diagonal pass, and Rashford volleyed the ball into the net from the left side of the small penalty area.

Shortly after the start of the second half, Manchester United scored two goals in three minutes to expand the lead.

In the 52nd minute of the game, Brandon Williams dribbled the ball from the left side of the penalty area and was knocked down by Krul. Bruno scored the penalty and Manchester United led 2:0.

In the 54th minute, Mata made a tactical corner kick from the right, and Mbappe scored with a header in front of the small penalty area, 3:0.

In the 59th minute of the game, Rashford was injured and Mourinho had to replace him with Mahrez.

In the 76th minute, Bruno made a 45-degree cross, and Aarons, who was marking Mahrez, barely headed the ball out. Greenwood broke through to the edge of the penalty area and shot low into the lower right corner, locking the score at 4:0.

This was also the final score of the game. After that, neither side made any further progress and the score of 4:0 was maintained until the end of the game.

(End of this chapter)