Chapter 555 The Quiet Rise of Chelsea

On August 13, the 2016-2017 Premier League season officially kicked off.

In the opening match, last season's runner-up Leicester City lost to newly promoted Hull City away from home, which was a big upset.

Leicester City's lineup has not changed much. Under the strong request of coach Agnelli, the club's top management did not short-sightedly sell last season's main players.

But after a whole season, the outside world has a comprehensive understanding of this dark horse, so Leicester City quickly lost its aura of dark horse, and the loss to the newly promoted team is evidence of this.

As the defending champions, Manchester City's performance in the first round was not good.

In the first round they faced the challenge of the Black Cats Sunderland at home.

Despite being awarded a penalty just four minutes into the game, Manchester City failed to expand their lead. Instead, the opponent seized the opportunity to equalize the score in the 71st minute of the second half.

Although Manchester City subsequently launched an attack on Sunderland, the opponent's defense was very tenacious and the game was in a stalemate.

Just when fans of both sides thought the game would end in a draw, in the 89th minute, Lin Quan's long shot caused the opponent's defender to make a clearance error, and he kicked the ball into his own goal.

In this way, thanks to the goal scored by the opponent's defender, Manchester City was lucky enough to get a good start.

It's just that these 3 points were a bit of luck! Compared with Manchester City, Manchester United, their arch-rival in the same city, won very easily.

On the road, Manchester United ended the battle in just over 20 minutes. Mata, Rooney and Ibrahimovic scored in succession, helping Manchester United to a 3-1 victory over Bournemouth.

There is no harm without comparison. After the introduction of Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic, Manchester United's offensive firepower has been further enhanced.

On the other hand, the departure of Kroos has obviously weakened Manchester City's strength.

After comparing the two sides, the Red Devils fans immediately became happy.

They felt that this year was the perfect opportunity for the Red Devils to crush Manchester City and regain the top spot in Manchester! However, another game that followed poured cold water on Manchester United.

On August 14, at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal and Liverpool teamed up to bring fans a wonderful and exciting game.

Both teams played offensive football in this game, which made the fans very excited.

In the 30th minute of the first half, the young tiger Walcott quickly redeemed himself after missing a penalty kick, helping the team score the first goal.

But the smiles on Arsenal's faces didn't last long. In the first half stoppage time, Liverpool's Coutinho equalized the score! After the start of the second half, Liverpool's offensive surged, with Lallana, Coutinho and Mane scoring goals one after another, quickly widening the score to 1:4!

When seeing this score, the home Arsenal fans almost collapsed.

Their defense was completely blown up by the opponent, and the performance of the two young central defenders was simply horrible! However, the Arsenal players on the field did not give up. Chamberlain and Chambers scored in the 65th and 75th minutes, giving Arsenal hope of equalizing or even reversing the game.

However, the successive injuries of Walcott and Ramsey dashed their hopes.

In the end, Liverpool had the last laugh in an offensive war, defeating Arsenal 4:3 and successfully conquering the Emirates Stadium! Liverpool's strong rise has made the Reds fans full of expectations for the team's performance this season.

Looking at the team's young players with unlimited potential such as Mane and Coutinho, I feel that the future is full of hope.

Liverpool's brilliance was so bright that many people did not notice that Chelsea, with a new coach, defeated West Ham United, who ranked higher than them last season, 2:1 in the final match of this round.

After Chelsea experienced a dismal season, the team owner Abramovich learned from his mistakes and decided to hire a famous coach for the team.

And Italian Conte became his target.

Conte led Juventus to three consecutive Serie A titles and also served as head coach of the Italian national team.

In this year's European Cup, if Italy had not been so unlucky and met the defending champion Spain so early, their results might have been better.

Abramovich has never been a stingy person. After hiring Conte at a high price, he generously approved a transfer budget of hundreds of millions of pounds for Conte to support Conte in making drastic reforms to the team.

Conte was not polite either. He spent 140 million euros to buy several strong players who were urgently needed in various positions of Chelsea to strengthen the team's lineup.

It is worth mentioning that among the players purchased is central defender David Luiz who was transferred from Chelsea.

When he left Chelsea, the transfer fee was 50 million pounds, but now it only costs 34 million pounds to buy him back. In this round trip, Chelsea actually made a profit of 16 million pounds.

Chelsea has spent so much money, so naturally they hope to achieve something in the new season.

But Chelsea's record last season was so bad, and the fans' attention was attracted by other big clubs, so few people paid attention to Chelsea today.

…

After the first round of games, Liverpool received high praise from the outside world, with Coutinho and Mane both selected into the Premier League's best team of the week.

The outside world is very optimistic about these two young players, especially Coutinho. Many people have already regarded him as the best candidate for superstars such as Lin Quan, Ronaldo and Messi.

If he can continue his current excellent form, his promotion to a superstar in the future is just around the corner.

Unlike Liverpool, although Manchester City won the game, it still received negative comments and even criticism from the outside world.

"Gundogan obviously hasn't adapted to the rhythm of the Premier League games. His Premier League debut looked terrible. Objectively speaking, the score of 6.5 is a bit too high!"

"After losing Kroos, Manchester City's midfield strength has been greatly affected. Although Lin Quan is still in excellent form, without the strong support of the midfield, it is difficult for him to fully display his strength in the frontcourt!"

"Manchester City needs to re-examine their squad strength and transfer matters. Perhaps they need to seize the opportunity before the transfer window closes to strengthen the team!"

In the first game, Gundogan was put into the starting lineup by Guardiola, but was replaced after only 65 minutes.

Obviously, Guardiola was not very satisfied with his performance.

Therefore, the criticism from outside is not groundless. However, it is a bit too arbitrary to completely deny Gundogan based on just one game.

In response to outside criticism, Guardiola stood up and said: "Gundogan is an excellent player. I fully believe in his strength, but he needs some time to adapt to the rhythm of the Premier League!"

Guardiola's support put Gundogan at ease. In fact, after the first game, he himself felt uneasy.

Premier League teams are too fond of physical confrontations, and the referees are very strict. Many actions that are considered fouls in other leagues are actually ignored here.

As a newcomer, Gundogan was not used to the pace of the game and the standards of penalties, so he performed poorly.

But the outside world may not understand his difficulties, so he is very worried that he will be abandoned by fans and coaches.

Fortunately, Guardiola did not give up on him and remained patient with him.

But this does not mean that Gundogan can sit back and relax. He must hurry up and adapt to the pace of the Premier League games.

Thinking of this, after the daily training, Gundogan chose to stay and continue training, especially strength training, to improve his physical confrontation ability so that he can adapt to the rhythm of the Premier League faster.

Guardiola noticed Gundogan's efforts, so he continued to trust him in the second game and put him in the starting lineup again.

In the second round, Manchester City's opponent is Stoke City.

There are two familiar faces in the Stoke City team. One is Bojan, a former Barcelona player who was once hailed as Messi's successor. The other is Arnautovic, Lin Quan's old teammate in Werder Bremen.

Bojan was once a legend of the Barcelona youth team. He broke a series of records of the youth team, many of which were once set by Messi.

So before he was transferred to the first team, Barcelona fans had high expectations for him.

However, the fans' expectations were soon dashed. Bojan's performance in the first team was far below expectations. After sitting on the bench for four years, he was sold to Roma at a low price by Barcelona.

However, in Serie A, Bojan still failed to regain his form. After a few years, he returned to Barcelona. Finally, he was sold to Stoke City for a humiliating price of 1.8 million.

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This painful experience was simply a nightmare for Bojan. Especially when he saw Messi and Lin Quan, who also came from Barcelona's youth training, become superstars one after another and dominate the court, he felt extremely painful.

Perhaps in order to prove that he is no worse than anyone else, Bojan played very actively in this game. He even received a yellow card for a defensive foul at the end of the first half.

In the second half, Bojan continued to fight hard and finally got his reward, scoring a penalty in the 49th minute.

However, this goal did not change anything, as Manchester City had already scored three goals before he scored.

Aguero scored twice in the first half, and Lin Quan scored directly from a free kick in the second half. Stoke City, who were trailing by a large margin, were doomed to defeat.

Seeing Bojan working so hard on the court, Guardiola couldn't help but sigh.

Bojan once played under Guardiola, and Guardiola had high expectations for him.

Guardiola has always been very trusting and caring towards the players coming out of La Masia youth training camp.

During his time as coach of Barcelona, ​​he was very willing to give young players opportunities to play, especially those from his own youth training camp.

But Bojan's ability did not meet his requirements. Guardiola gave Bojan a chance, but he failed to seize it. Instead, he fell into a vicious circle of fighting alone because he was eager to prove himself. He could only give up on such a player who destroyed the team.

Now it seems that Bojan still has a bit of hatred towards him!

He sighed again, shook his head and decided not to think about it because the team scored again.

This time, the one who scored was the young player Mbappe who had just come on as a substitute! He used his speed to eat up the opponent's full-back and scored a very wonderful goal.

Although Stoke City had basically given up resistance when he scored the goal, Guardiola still applauded Mbappe.

This young French player has shown very impressive growth this season.

Guardiola thought he would have to train him for a few more years before he could play in a game, but he didn't expect Mbappe to give him a big surprise.

It seems that I have to adjust the rotation arrangement for the new season. Mbappe is in a stage of rapid growth. During this period, he must be given sufficient game time so that he can accumulate experience in actual combat and accelerate his growth.

But at the same time, his playing time should be controlled to avoid overdrawing his physical strength or accidental injuries.

For young players, injuries are always their biggest enemy. One serious injury may turn all their talents into nothing.

Manchester City's victory away from home slightly reversed some of the outside world's evaluation of them.

In particular, the performance of the team's new signing Gundogan has greatly improved the outside world's evaluation of him.

In this game, Gundogan received a score of 7.5 points, which is much better than the previous game.

Although he is still at a disadvantage in physical confrontation, his progress can be clearly seen.

Moreover, Gundogan is very smart. After mastering the penalty standards of Premier League referees, he used these standards reasonably on the defensive end and made a significant contribution to the team's defense.

Guardiola was very satisfied with his performance and praised him highly at the post-match press conference.

This further boosted Gundogan's confidence, making him train harder and perform more confidently on the court.

There were many upsets in the second round. Liverpool, who conquered the Emirates Stadium in the first round, unexpectedly lost to Burnley in the second round.

And the latter is just a newly promoted team!

The result of this game surprised the fans. For a while, they were confused about whether Liverpool was good or not. You say they were good, but they lost to the newly promoted team, and they lost 0:2. They lost without any temper.

You say he is not good enough, but he defeated Arsenal in a strong dialogue and won in a thrilling way.

In short, Liverpool's fighting power is in a Schrödinger state, hovering between good and bad.

Just when fans were doubting Liverpool's fighting ability, Arsenal was tied by Leicester City away from home.

Um……

Is it possible that neither Arsenal nor Liverpool are strong?

In addition to the two brothers Arsenal and Liverpool, teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham have all defeated their opponents.

After two rounds, Manchester United currently tops the standings with a 1-goal advantage, followed closely by Manchester City.

What is also surprising is that Chelsea quietly won two consecutive victories and ranked third in the standings.

This result made the outside world begin to pay attention to the Blues led by Conte.

(End of this chapter)