Chapter 564: Premier League Scandal Shocks the World

After nearly half an hour of struggling, the game finally resumed.

In the end, Manchester City, with two players sent off, was unable to recover and lost to Chelsea 1:2 at their home ground.

After the game, the entire Premier League was in an uproar.

Not only the British media paid close attention to this game, but the news media in other European countries also reported this event as a front-page headline.

"Conquering Etihad, winning eight consecutive games, the Blues are unstoppable!"

This was the headline of a report in the pro-Chelsea media.

"Manchester City lost at home, not to their opponents, but to the referee!"

This was the headline from the pro-Manchester City media.

"Chelsea conquered Etihad for the first time in three years, Manchester City lost after receiving consecutive red cards, the Premier League's decisive battle came to an end, and the result was surprising!"

This is a report from a neutral media.

But no matter what position the media stands on, they all described in detail the referee's confusing enforcement in their reports.

In particular, he believed that the penalty for Lin Quan's dive was the culprit that caused the game to get out of control.

After the game, not only were the major news media very lively, but on social media, a large number of fans who watched the game immediately took to social networking sites to complain.

"This is outrageous. Did this referee come here with a mission? Can't he just stand by and see Manchester City win?"

"It's really outrageous. Even Emperor Lin can be judged as diving. I don't know what to say!"

"Lin Huang has never dived before. Even when a penalty was wrongly awarded, he apologized to the opposing goalkeeper and directly gave the ball to his opponent. He had no intention of taking advantage of the opponent. How could such a person be considered to have dived? I think the referee himself is dirty at heart, so he sees everything as dirty, right?"

"Indeed, before Lin Huang was convicted of diving, although this idiotic referee had made several debatable decisions, and even deliberately favored Chelsea, they were still within the acceptable range. But he did this. If I were a Manchester City player, I would not be able to hold back!"

"Tell me, is there a possibility that this referee came here with a mission?"

"You mean, the people above told him to do this?"

"I didn't say that, but I think, if he is just a small referee, would he really dare to do such a thing if no one instructed him to do so? Anyone who is not blind can see that his judgment is very problematic. If he is held accountable in the end, he might even lose his job! So this matter will not benefit him at all, so why did he do it?"

Unsurprisingly, the referee Anthony Taylor who officiated the game became the target of public criticism.

It was precisely because of his farcical law enforcement standards that what should have been a football feast for the entire Premier League and even the world turned into a farce and a joke.

Due to the importance of this game, various conspiracy theories began to circulate on the Internet, and some people even believed that it was the English Football Association or the Premier League officials who instructed Taylor to do so.

At first, this statement was only circulated in a small circle, and most people did not know or believe it.

However, as public opinion fermented after the game, this conspiracy theory gained support and spread from more and more people.

The English Football Association and the Premier League initially planned to deal with the matter coldly, but after learning about the conspiracy theories about the game on the Internet, they could no longer sit still.

On December 5, the English Football Association took the lead in holding a press conference, announcing that it would conduct a serious investigation into the refereeing records in leagues at all levels to maintain fairness and justice in the English football circle.

The English Football Association thought that this statement would be able to dispel outside doubts and provide an explanation to the relevant teams.

But after they made their public statement, fans were not impressed at their evasive attitude.

"What do you mean by strict inspection of referee's law enforcement records? Are you planning to put all the blame on the referee?"

"Haha, what a great way to turn a big thing into a small one, and a small thing into nothing. I think this matter is most likely related to the English Football Association!"

Compared with the statement of the FA, the statement of the Premier League is much more sincere.

The league attaches great importance to this game. Not only has it arranged the best commentators and live broadcast resources, it has also paid out of its own pocket to promote it to some countries and regions. The purpose is to use this high-level game to open up the market, increase the influence of the Premier League, and expand the league's pie.

As a result, the stage that had been set up was messed up by Anthony Taylor.

Many fans who watched the live broadcast of the game probably couldn't help but suspect that the game was fixed.

As a result, people began to doubt the fairness of the entire Premier League, which can be said to be fatal to the brand image of the Premier League.

The Premier League is a commercial league. Damaging the image and reputation of the entire league is destroying everyone's jobs.

Even if the English Football Association agrees to this kind of thing, the owners of the franchise clubs in the league will not agree to it.

Therefore, after the game, the English FA immediately came out and said that it would send people to coordinate the two clubs to replay the game.

This decision was naturally warmly welcomed by Manchester City. Chelsea did not agree directly, probably because they were reluctant to give up the victory they had achieved.

Of course, Chelsea also knew that the victory was not glorious, so they did not dare to refuse openly.

However, the Premier League has no control over the referees, and the dispatch and arrangement of the referee team to enforce the game requires the approval of the FA.

The English Football Association said it is not appropriate to draw conclusions prematurely before the results of the investigation are released.

This means that they intend to use the tactic of procrastination and keep dragging this matter out.

Shortly after the FA made its second statement, a tabloid called Le Monde broke a bombshell, revealing that the FA's vice chairman had accepted bribes and used his power to arrange for specific referees to officiate in certain matches.

Every referee has his own style of enforcing the law. Some are strict, some are lenient, some favor the home team, and some do not give the home whistle.

But don't underestimate this point. If used well, it can be a huge benefit to a team with a specific style in a certain game.

Therefore, even though there was no direct evidence that the referee blew the whistle to fix the match, the news still caused an uproar after it was revealed.

Football fans across the UK were in an uproar. Football is the pride and hope of countless of them, but they never expected that the white moonlight in their hearts actually hides such an unknown and dirty secret.

This has made countless people extremely disappointed, and they feel like their dreams have been shattered.

Angry fans took to the streets and ran to the FA headquarters to protest. Some radical fans even rushed into the FA headquarters shirtless in the middle of winter, as if they wanted to send these insects to see God.

Such a big commotion naturally alarmed the British police.

They acted quickly. After the newspaper revealed the relevant details, they immediately took action and took away the relevant people involved in the case for investigation.

Some fans speculated that the people behind Mundo Deportivo are from the Abu Dhabi consortium, which means that the forces behind Manchester City have taken action.

But this is just speculation and there is no relevant evidence.

This series of farces continued until around Christmas.

During this period, the league has quietly completed three rounds.

Although Mansour retaliated against the English Football Association, Manchester City's loss to Chelsea could not be changed in the end.

Fortunately, after Manchester City Club's appeal and argument, the additional suspension for the two red cards against Aguero and Fernandinho after the game was waived.

In these three rounds of the league, Manchester City, which was short of players, achieved two wins and one loss. It is currently ranked third in the standings, 1 point behind second-placed Liverpool and 7 points behind top-placed Chelsea.

After defeating Manchester City, Chelsea became more confident and won the next three games, bringing their winning streak to 11 games.

As Chelsea continues to advance, more and more people begin to believe that they will be the Premier League champions this season.

On December 26, the 18th round of the Premier League kicked off.

Before the game, Manchester City's winger David Silva returned from injury and was included in Guardiola's 18-man squad.

David Silva's return from injury is a good thing for Manchester City, but Aguero is injured again, Kompany's old injury has relapsed, and Jesus was injured in the last round against Arsenal, so Manchester City's injury camp is almost full again.

Fortunately, Guardiola has become accustomed to this situation. As long as Lin Quan is not injured, he can always find the manpower by filling in other positions.

As Manchester City will be visiting Anfield in the next round, they started to make efforts early in the first half of this round. Lin Quan scored early and then created a penalty kick, changing the score to 2:0. At the beginning of the second half, De Bruyne scored again with a free kick, and the score became 3:0. Guardiola began to deploy his troops, replacing all the main players such as Lin Quan and De Bruyne with a group of young players.

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He had originally intended to let these youngsters gain competition experience, but unexpectedly, these young players gave him some surprises.

Sane received an assist from Mbappe in the 78th minute and scored the fourth goal.

In the 89th minute, the game was about to enter injury time. Mbappe's breakthrough in the penalty area caused a foul by the opponent and Manchester City won the second penalty.

Mbappe took the shot himself and completed it in one go, setting the score at 5:0. When the game ended for Manchester City, news came from another stadium that Chelsea defeated Bournemouth 3:0, extending their winning streak to 12 games.

He beat me like crazy, really like crazy.

The 12-game winning streak already ranks among the top three in the Premier League's history.

The only team that has more than them is Arsenal's 14 consecutive wins in the 2002-2003 season.

Tied for second place is Manchester United's 12-game winning streak in the 2000-2001 season.

Conte's arrival brought unexpected changes to the Blues.

His three-guard system seemed very uncomfortable at the beginning, and the team even suffered two consecutive losses.

But once the players adapted, Chelsea's defense immediately improved to a higher level, and their winning rate continued to rise.

In Chelsea's 12 consecutive victories, 10 of them were shutouts.

In the remaining two games, the opponents only scored one goal each time, and the names of these two teams are Tottenham and Manchester City. There is no doubt that these are top teams.

But even so, they still couldn't get any advantage in the face of Chelsea's ironclad defense.

The unlucky Manchester United was even beaten 4:0 by Chelsea. Mourinho lost all his face in front of his old club.

The last day of 2016 is also the last round of the first half of the Premier League.

Manchester City visited Anfield to challenge Liverpool, who had one point more than them.

Considering that Chelsea's opponents in this round are relatively weak, neither Liverpool nor Manchester City can narrow the gap with Chelsea even if they win the game.

But even so, both sides attach great importance to this game.

Although winning does not necessarily mean we will catch up with Chelsea, losing will undoubtedly leave us completely behind Chelsea.

This game cannot determine the top spot, but it can determine the second place in the standings.

Although I have been to many stadiums in the Premier League, Anfield is still the most impressive stadium.

The fans here are notoriously passionate and the atmosphere at home is very hot.

Liverpool, playing at home, was like a tall chariot, rushing forward recklessly with the intention of overturning Manchester City's car.

Both teams have very strong offensive capabilities, so many fans are looking forward to seeing an exciting offensive battle.

But unfortunately, the physical confrontation between the two sides in this game was extremely fierce, and the repeated fights for the ball became the main theme of the game.

Because of the fierce pressure from the opponent, the passing success rate of both sides was very low.

In the first half, Liverpool completed a total of 212 passes, 130 of which were successful, with a pass success rate of only a pitiful 61%!

This means that Liverpool will make a mistake for every three passes.

Manchester City was not much better. In the first half, they completed 275 passes, 206 of which were successful, with a pass success rate of only 75%.

You have to know that Manchester City is a team that mainly plays with the ball, which means that they naturally pass the ball more than other teams.

Moreover, many of them were back passes in the midfield and backcourt. This kind of pass, which almost never makes mistakes, raised their data. The real data is definitely much worse than the data on paper.

The two sides were so tightly entangled in the midfield that no one could organize an effective attack from the midfield.

Seeing this, the head coaches of both teams decisively changed their playing style and focused their attack on the flanks.

This tactic soon worked, and in the 53rd minute of the second half, Manchester City scored the first goal.

Lin Quan took the initiative to cooperate with David Silva on the wing, and after a series of wall passes, he broke into the penalty area. After attracting the attention of all the opponent's defensive players, he knocked the ball horizontally to the middle, and Son Heung-min who followed up easily pushed the ball into the empty goal.

Manchester City temporarily leads Liverpool 1:0.

However, Liverpool are not easy to deal with either.

Just eight minutes later, they almost replicated Manchester City's goal, with Coutinho scoring to help Liverpool equalize the score.

For Coutinho, this may be his last game for Liverpool, and it may also be his last goal for Liverpool wearing this red jersey.

So after scoring the goal, Coutinho kissed the Anfield turf.

This move made countless Red Army fans at the scene cry. They actually didn't want Coutinho to leave.

But they also know very well that Liverpool cannot keep such a genius.

The other party has made up his mind to leave. If they try to keep him, they will end up parting on bad terms and there will be no friendship left.

Furthermore, Barcelona gave too much, 160 million euros, I have never seen such a generous offer! (End of this chapter)