News about Alpine and Manchester City was quickly overshadowed by hot spots from the Champions League.

According to the Champions League last-16 knockout stage, eight matches were staggered over two weeks, while in the last week's four games, Chelsea were beaten by Inter Milan over two legs, missing out on the Champions League quarter-finals and stopping in the round of 16 again.

This once put Scolari under heavy pressure, and even broke the news that the Chelsea management asked him to leave the class early, but just after Manchester City won the championship early, Chelsea officials quickly clarified, saying that Scolari will still be Chelsea's manager next season, and the Brazilian coach immediately gave an interview to the media in good spirits, saying that the team will do its best to attack the FA Cup.

With Liverpool in the group stage and Chelsea in the round of 16, all Premier League fans are pinning their hopes on the two traditional teams of Manchester United and Arsenal, but the fates of Arsenal and Manchester United are completely different.

Manchester United have not been strong enough in the Premier League, but Alex Ferguson's side have been doing well in the Champions League, with a 3-2 win away from home in the first leg of the round of 16 to boost their hopes of progression.

In midweek this week, after returning to Old Trafford, Manchester United defeated AC Milan 4-0 and won a hearty victory, which also made Gao Han and others who watched the live broadcast of the game quite embarrassed.

The fall of Serie A is already an indisputable fact.

During Gao Han's tenure at Inter Milan, Serie A was still competing with La Liga for the title of Europe's No. 1 League, but in just a few years, there was a huge decline in the Apennine Professional League, and many people pointed the finger at Gao Han, believing that he single-handedly contributed to the telephone door time and caused the decline of Serie A.

But is this true?

Figures including Inter Milan president Facchetti, Italian coach Lippi, Sacchi and Carlo Ancelotti have repeatedly said that the decline of Italian football has nothing to do with the cold, and that the phonegate incident is just the fuse, and the real dead knot lies in the structure of the Italian league.

Everyone knows that the vast majority of professional teams in Italy do not have their own stadiums, which has led to a rather poor income in terms of home stadiums, as they have to pay a high annual stadium rent and the commercial development of the stadiums is difficult due to ownership issues.

However, after Inter Milan announced the construction of a new stadium, Juventus followed suit, and other Serie A teams are following suit, and the situation is improving.

But there is one problem that cannot be solved in a short period of time, and that is youth training.

In the past few years, except for young players such as Bonucci, Hamsik, and Marchisio cultivated by Gao Han at Inter Milan, and players such as Davide Thornton and Balotelli cultivated by the Nerazzurri's academy, there have rarely been eye-catching stars in Italian football.

This is the biggest sticking point for Italian football.

Sacchi even said in his column that Gao Han had raised the potential problems of Italian football more than once as early as when he was coaching Inter Milan, but he was never taken seriously, and later he also talked about it many times in Covicciano, and now it has been proved that Gao Han's original prediction was extremely accurate.

"The fact that Juventus is developing and rising in a healthier and more sustainable way is enough to prove that the phonegate incident is not the root cause of the decline of Italian football, the real problem is in our youth training, in ourselves. ”

But Saki also said that Italians are always good at shirking responsibility, and Gao Han has become an unlucky backbiter.

However, although Gao Han has been away for many years, his reputation in Italian professional football circles has grown, not only because he taught the new generation of Italian coaches in a few classes in Covicciano, but also because of his predictions back then.

In this season's Champions League, AC Milan lost 0-4 away to Manchester United, Fiorentina lost 0-4 at home to Bayern Munich, and among the three teams in Serie A that reached the knockout round of 16 of the Champions League, two were bloodbathed, and only Inter Milan is still independently supporting the banner of Serie A.

Everyone knows that even now, Prandelli is still enjoying the shade of the cold.

Compared to Manchester United, Arsenal's knockout game is much more thrilling.

The Gunners first lost 1-2 away to Porto in the Portuguese Super League, which surprised everyone, but they did not expect that after returning to the Emirates Stadium, Arsene Wenger's side slaughtered Porto 5-0 and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals with an aggregate score of 6-2.

However, after a big win over Porto in the Champions League, the Gunners soon faced a serious rival in the Premier League.

In the 31st round of the Premier League, Arsenal fought to retain the top four places in the league and welcomed the London Hammers at home to West Ham United.

Just five minutes into the game, Denilson opened the scoring for the Gunners, but just before half-time, Vermaelen's red card pushed Arsenal into the abyss, forcing the Gunners to play with one man less throughout the second half.

West Ham rallied back in the second half, but Arsenal were forced to defend on the counter-attack, holding off a series of West Ham attacks and sealing the win with a penalty from Cesc Fabregas in the 83rd minute.

In the end, the Gunners beat West Ham United 2-0.

Although Arsenal still got the three points in the end, the game was very dangerous to win, and the game was very painful, and in the end, it can only be said that West Ham United played too badly, and the Hammers also fell to 17th place in the league table, just one step away from the relegation zone.

Coincidentally, Manchester United's situation is similarly unsatisfactory.

Fresh from a Champions League victory, Manchester United returned home to welcome the Reds Liverpool, only to be the first to score in the opening five minutes, but in the 12th minute, Wayne Rooney managed to equalise for the Reds.

But it wasn't until the second half that Manchester United scored a comeback goal through Park Ji-sung.

In the end, Manchester United reversed Liverpool 2-1.

The Gunners and the Red Devils both went ashore, but the Blues were not so lucky.

Scolari's side opened the scoring in the sixth minute against Blackburn Rovers, but it was Blackburn's Diouf who equalised in the 70th minute.

After that, no matter how Chelsea fought back, they couldn't score in the end, and the two sides ended in a 1-1 draw.

After the game, Scolari was also questioned by fans and media reporters, believing that Chelsea had 60 per cent of possession, but there was no way to take Blackburn, and in the absence of the team's scoring points, Scolari did not bring on Falcao until the 75th minute, who was very active, but made Scolari a little embarrassed.

In contrast, a refreshed Manchester City thrashed Fulham 4-0 away, especially after scoring three goals in the first half in ten minutes to seal the victory for the Blues.

A week later, the thirty-second round of the Premier League.

Manchester City took the lead and welcomed Wigan Athletic, who were fighting for relegation.

Roberto Martinez's side have not had a good season, currently sitting 16th in the Premier League, with a high risk of relegation, not strong in attack but weak in defence.

Just nine minutes into the game, Manchester City opened the scoring for Wigan Athletic, Sanchez broke through from the right and crossed, and Benzema pushed in front of goal to open the scoring for Manchester City.

But after conceding the goal, Wigan Athletic did a good job of defending and pressing and pressing, and did not give Manchester City many chances.

But in the second half, after the rematch, with the consumption of physical energy, Wigan Athletic gradually showed fatigue and could not keep up with the rhythm of Manchester City, especially from the fiftieth minute, Gao Han used the skill card to launch a round of fierce attack on Wigan Athletic.

In the 51st minute, it was Sanchez's assist on the right again, and Cristiano Ronaldo scored again.

Just three minutes later, Kaka provided the assist and the Portuguese scored a brace to make it 3-0.

In the 58th minute, it was Sanchez on the right who crossed three people in a row, and Cristiano Ronaldo scored again in front of the goal, scoring a hat-trick to extend the score to 4-0.

But after conceding three goals in a row, Wigan Athletic was defeated and morale completely collapsed.

In the 64th minute, Sanchez received an assist from Benzema and volleyed from the right to make it 5-0.

Five minutes later, City were awarded a corner, Kompany headed it over, and Cristiano Ronaldo scored with a header from inside the box to extend the score to 6-0.

Consecutive goals have made Manchester City completely crazy.

Gao Han used three substitutions in a row after winning steadily, but Manchester City still maintained the advantage on the field, and in the 87th, 88th and 90th minutes respectively, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Modric scored successively, and finally beat Wigan Athletic 9-0 at home, playing the craziest victory of the season.

Cristiano Ronaldo staged the drama of five sons in this game, increasing his single-season goals to 42 goals, not only becoming the player with the most goals in a single season in history, but also winning a bet with Gao Han.

Alexis Sanchez and Kaka both scored hat-tricks and scored a goal each, while Karim Benzema played a pass and a shot.

City produced their wildest win of the season, with 74 per cent possession once again setting a new record for the new season, while 38 shots on goal in a single game were equally impressive.

Wigan Athletic's head coach Martinez also had to say convincingly after the game, "We lost without temper, they had the best top stars and they played amazing attacks, we couldn't stop at all, especially in the second half. ”

In fact, when Martinez drank with Gao Han after the game, he also had to admit that his team consumed so much energy in the first half in order to contain Manchester City's passing and control, so that it was completely unable to keep up with the rhythm after only ten minutes in the second half.

For this coach who is very interested in the style of play and humbly asks for advice, Gao Han also knows everything and says everything.

Roberto Martinez also learned a lot from the exchange of experience with Gao Han, especially the summary and lessons learned from this game, at least let him know the gap between himself and the top coaches, and the root cause of the fiasco in this game.

After Manchester City's thrashing of Wigan Athletic at home, Chelsea also beat Aston Villa 2-1 at home, Manchester United beat Bolton Wanderers 4-0 away, Arsenal drew 1-1 at Birmingham City and Liverpool beat Sunderland 3-0 at home.

There hasn't been much change in the Premier League standings since this round of fixtures, except that Tottenham Hotspur narrowed the gap with Arsenal after beating Portsmouth at home.

(End of chapter)