Chapter 457: Manchester City has become Europe's No. 1 public enemy
La Liga has been strong for a long time. In the past few years, it was mainly supported by Barcelona. In recent years, with the rise of Atletico Madrid and the strong recovery of Real Madrid, La Liga has suddenly seen three strong teams with the strength of the top four in the Champions League. It would be strange if they didn't have a good record in European competitions!
However, having a team at the top four level is not enough, because the final championship will not belong to them.
Since the 2010-2011 season, La Liga has not won the Champions League for five years, and during these five years, the Premier League has won three Champions League titles.
Judging from the number of championships alone, the Premier League clearly has the advantage.
Although the performance of the traditional giants in the Premier League is declining, it is enough for them to have a strong Manchester City.
This one alone surpasses the top three teams in La Liga!
In the past two years, the three giants of La Liga have all been defeated by Manchester City, and Barcelona has even lost twice.
This makes La Liga fans very desperate, Manchester City is too strong.
Therefore, Premier League fans envy the outstanding European performance of the three La Liga giants, while La Liga fans envy Manchester City's extremely dominant position.
In fact, not only ordinary La Liga fans are envious, even the top executives of some La Liga giants have been affected by Manchester City's performance in recent years.
The technology of the Premier League teams was not very good, but in recent years, with the addition of a large number of high-level coaches and players, some of their teams have caught up with or even surpassed La Liga in terms of technology.
Take Manchester City for example. Manchester City is clearly following the technical style, not the traditional Premier League team style.
This style was originally considered an alternative in the Premier League, and only Wenger's Arsenal originally adhered to the technical school.
However, with Manchester City's great success, this model is being promoted and learned in the Premier League.
In time, Premier League teams will inevitably become both physical and technical, making them more difficult to beat.
What is most worrying is that some Premier League fans who originally looked down on the Premier League because they thought the teams had crude skills and rough playing style may change their perception of the Premier League due to the development of the Premier League's technical schools, and may even switch to watching the Premier League.
This has gradually become a trend in the past few years. In the Premier League, the matches between Arsenal and Manchester City are attracting more and more spectators, especially Manchester City, whose overseas spectators are growing significantly.
A large part of these growing fans were originally the audience of La Liga, but now they have turned to the Premier League.
This will definitely have an impact on La Liga's broadcasting revenue!
The broadcasting revenue of major leagues is very important to the teams. The reason why there are so many giants in the Premier League is mainly because the Premier League does the best in commercial promotion. Premier League teams can obtain a large amount of income from the Premier League every year.
If they are allowed to snatch away the audience and even the cake from other leagues, the rise of the Premier League will probably be unstoppable.
By then, the Premier League will become stronger and stronger, while other teams will become weaker and weaker, just like Serie A in recent years.
Therefore, La Liga teams need to make a breakthrough in European competitions and break Manchester City's monopoly on the Champions League title.
This not only concerns the honor of the three giants in La Liga, but also their life and death in the league! For this reason, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and even the Bundesliga Bayern and other teams have reached a tacit agreement: no matter who encounters Manchester City, they will fight to the end. Even if they cannot defeat Manchester City, they must cause the greatest consumption to them! This year's champion can be any team, but not Manchester City! ...
Manchester City did not know that the other teams had reached an anti-Manchester City alliance in private, but they knew that an anti-Manchester City alliance had already been formed in the Premier League.
It seems that they are unwilling to see Manchester City monopolize the Premier League championship for a long time. Now when all the major Premier League teams meet Manchester City, they are like being injected with chicken blood.
There was no need for any pre-match mobilization, their players were all in high spirits and wanted to bring Manchester City down from the altar.
In the 16th round of the league, Manchester City faced Swansea at home.
The opponent is ranked 15th in the league, at the bottom, while Manchester City is at the top. Such a game should be no suspense in the eyes of all parties before the game.
However, Manchester City did not play well in this game. Swansea's defense was very tenacious and their movements in defense were also very large.
In the 33rd minute of the first half, David Silva was fouled by the opponent and fell to the ground injured and unable to continue the game. Manchester City had to make a passive substitution.
In the 65th minute of the second half, Manchester City defender Sagna, who came on as a substitute, was also fouled by the opponent and was carried off the field on a stretcher.
Guardiola finally realized that the opponent was not here to play football, but to hurt people!
There were also huge boos at the Etihad Stadium. The fans were very dissatisfied with the lethal tactics adopted by Swansea, but what made them even more dissatisfied was the referee's obvious favoritism towards the opposing team.
Even though the Premier League has a relatively lenient penalty scale, the opponent was clearly targeting a person. Such a vicious foul was not directly sent off with a red card, but a yellow card was given instead. Who were they trying to fool? Although Manchester City finally won the game 2:0, losing two players in one game meant that the three points were not worth it for them.
In another focus battle, Leicester City, at home, beat the visiting Blues Chelsea 2:1, still maintaining a 6-point gap with Manchester City.
Although the gap is still large, there is still some suspense for this season's Premier League championship.
Especially after Leicester City defeated the Blues, the outside world became more optimistic about them.
"Haha, have you noticed? When other Premier League teams meet Manchester City, they either park the bus and ask for a draw, or they park the bus and use lethal tactics. Even if they can't beat you, they will take a piece of meat from you!"
"We saw this trend last year, but it's even more common this year. In nine out of ten Manchester City games, they were playing against the opponent's defense!"
"There seems to be a voice in the outside world now. It seems that no one wants to see Manchester City win the championship, so they are trying their best to create trouble for Manchester City!"
"The first bird to stick its head out gets shot. Being a leader will inevitably attract jealousy, especially since Manchester City has won two consecutive league titles. There are so many teams that don't want them to achieve three consecutive championships!"
"Not only that, I found that players from many teams were particularly excited when they met Manchester City, especially some young players, who seemed to want to prove themselves in the game against Manchester City in order to attract the attention of other teams, especially the top teams."
The mid- and lower-level teams have a smaller fan base and a small fan base, so very few people pay attention to their games on a daily basis.
Only when you meet some wealthy families can you get more attention.
Therefore, for the players of these teams, every match against top clubs is an opportunity for them to showcase their talents.
As the defending champions of the Champions League and the Premier League, Manchester City has a very high reputation and exposure in the football world. If they can perform well in the game against them, the probability of becoming famous with one goal will be greatly increased, which will help them soar to the sky and realize their dream of becoming a top club.
After all, a player who doesn't want to join a top club is not a good player.
For young players, who doesn’t have a dream of playing for a top club?
Even if he performs well, he might attract the attention of Manchester City head coach Guardiola and be recruited to play for Manchester City.
Leicester City does not need to face these problems at all.
Everyone knows that they are just a civilian team, although they are currently ranked second in the Premier League.
But no one knows how long this dark horse can last. Maybe they will fall next month.
Therefore, other teams will not specifically target Leicester City. Except for some relegation teams, other teams will play normally when they meet Leicester City and will not deliberately park the bus.
The resistance the two teams encountered in the league was completely different, and every game for Manchester City was a tough battle.
If they continue to consume players like this, by the time Christmas rolls around, Manchester City will likely be filled with injuries, and the players' form will plummet due to excessive consumption.
Both Manchester City Club and Guardiola are aware of this problem, so the club has increased its investment in the medical team and strived to hire more capable medical experts from all over the world to enrich the team's medical team and ensure the health of the players as much as possible.
On the other hand, the team has also prepared more than 100 million euros for Guardiola to strengthen various positions of the team during the winter break.
Aguero has been injured many times this season and his attendance rate is not high, which has a great impact on Manchester City. Therefore, it is imperative to buy a strong striker during the winter break.
Now that David Silva is injured, the winger and attacking midfielder positions also need to be strengthened.
As for the defensive midfielder position, Kroos needs a suitable substitute in case of emergency.
As for the defenders, Demichelis is old and his number of appearances this season has dropped significantly. He can only serve as a rotation player and may retire next season. The team needs a suitable rotation to enrich the bench.
As for the full-backs, whether on the left or the right, they are Guardiola's biggest headache.
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In Guardiola's tactics, the two full-backs have heavy tasks to undertake, so there are high requirements on the players' abilities.
There are not many excellent full-backs in the football world who meet his requirements, and even fewer who can be purchased, so he can only go with the flow.
Fortunately, Manchester City has some excellent young full-backs in its talent pool. After they train and grow up for a few years, they should be able to take over smoothly.
In addition to the above positions, there is actually one person whose substitute Guardiola is still a little hesitant about whether to buy.
The person who gave Guardiola a headache was none other than Lin Quan.
"Lin, do you think the team should prepare a substitute for you?"
Instead of guessing on your own, you might as well take the initiative to ask the players for their opinions.
Especially when the other party is your own son, being open and honest is obviously more efficient.
"My replacement? Isn't that hard to buy?"
Lin Quan couldn't help feeling curious when he learned that Guardiola wanted to buy a substitute for him.
It is very difficult to buy a suitable substitute for a player like him whose position on the field is so erratic.
"It's hard to buy, so I mainly want to buy a right winger."
Guardiola also knows that it is not easy to buy substitutes like Lin Quan. His style is similar to Messi's, and there are too few players who play like them in football, so it is almost impossible to replace them perfectly.
So his requirements are not high. He just needs to have good footwork, outstanding dribbling and passing abilities, a decent football IQ, and a certain level of speed. That's enough.
There should be quite a few wingers who meet this standard.
A price of around 40 million is probably enough to buy some good players.
"I do know someone who meets your standards. Are you interested in him?"
"Oh? Tell me about it?"
Guardiola is still very convinced of Lin Quan's ability to judge people.
Players like Kanter were bought based on Lin Quan’s suggestion, and later results proved that these people got great value for money.
"An Egyptian who played briefly for Chelsea before, his name is Salah!"
Salah was later hailed as the player most like Messi. His small, quick and agile playing style is very similar to Messi, and his own strength is also very outstanding. Playing as a winger, he was once a nightmare for defenders of major giants.
At his peak, Salah's value once reached 150 million euros, making him a true superstar-level player.
Last year, Lin Quan recommended Salah to Pellegrini, and Manchester City also made an offer to Chelsea at that time.
But Chelsea would rather loan him out than sell him to Manchester City, and the deal was ultimately not reached.
Now that Mourinho has left Chelsea, Chelsea's record has plummeted. As a player bought by Mourinho, Salah never played well in Chelsea, and naturally has no place in the new coach's system.
Therefore, the possibility of him returning to Stamford Bridge is almost zero. If Manchester City makes an offer at this time, the deal is likely to be reached.
If Lin Quan's memory is correct, then Salah, who is on loan to Roma, will have an explosion next spring.
By then, Roma's desire to buy him out will definitely increase greatly, and it will also be more difficult for Manchester City to take Salah away.
What's more troublesome is that Liverpool will also be eyeing him. If Salah really goes to Liverpool, it will definitely greatly enhance Liverpool's strength.
Guardiola remembered Salah's name, so he immediately arranged for scouts to go to Rome to observe his performance and collect his information.
There is less than half a month left until the winter transfer window opens, so they must hurry up.
Manchester City wants to make a big move during this winter break, and Liverpool next door is also not idle.
Given that Liverpool's current lineup is completely inadequate to compete with top teams like Manchester City, at Klopp's request, Liverpool owner John Henry waved his hand and gave Klopp a large sum of money, allowing him to look for some outstanding players during the winter break to strengthen Liverpool's lineup and allow them to compete for a place in the Champions League next season.
There is no hope for the league title, but the Champions League spot is still worth fighting for for Liverpool, especially when the Blues, who have long dominated the Champions League, are falling at a rapid pace. This position will naturally be filled by Liverpool.
For Liverpool, if they can successfully enter the Champions League, it will not only help improve the club's finances, but also bring them extra income.
It can also attract outstanding players to join. After all, many players will have very clear Champions League requirements when transferring.
It is difficult for a team that cannot play in the Champions League to attract top players, just like Manchester United a few years later, where good players were unwilling to go...
(End of this chapter)