Chapter 564: Thrilling Advancement

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A total of 81 points were scored in 38 games in a single season, with an average of 213+ points per game, which is not a small difference from last season's crazy 100 points, but it can also be regarded as a rare performance.

It is only because the polarization of the Premier League in the past two seasons has been too obvious that Arsenal, who have obtained such high points, will only be ranked fourth in the standings, and at the same time set a new record for the highest number of points in the English top flight.

But if you only count the 19 rounds in the second half of the league, the Gunners still show the momentum of the defending champions, with 16 wins, two draws and one defeat, making them the team with the most points in this phase along with Liverpool, who also came close to completing a comeback to claim their first league title in 32 years from Manchester City, who had previously led Manchester City.

After one of the worst injuries in their history, Arsenal have bounced back strongly, fighting hard in the league and in the cup as well. Not only did they win the Carabao Cup for the third time in the team's history, but they also advanced to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, which was a very gratifying result.

And the most surprising thing is that they not only reached the semi-finals of the Champions League without being favored all the way, but also achieved a huge advantage of three goals in the first leg of the meeting with the defending champions.

So after the end of the Premier League and three or four days before the second leg of the semi-finals, the British media still praised Li Mudi and his players, which formed a sharp reversal of the verbal criticism six months ago, and people have to sigh that these people's discipline has long been gone.

At the same time, predictions and analyses of the final results of the four semi-finals of the two European competitions have also managed to grab the headlines of major media outlets, and the poor "third big cup" has been forgotten by people, presumably UEFA is still a little embarrassed at the moment.

In the Champions League, the Briton is naturally optimistic that Arsenal and Manchester City will meet in the final, as they both gained a certain advantage in the first game.

The former's 3-0 is naturally no need to elaborate, the latter although defeated Camp Nou, but got a valuable away goal, and the score of 1-2 is still relatively easy to deal with for the blue moon who will return to home, and only one goal can ensure that they break into the final stage for the second year in a row, which does not seem to be too much of a problem for Manchester City, which can be called the top three in Europe in attack.

And the results did prove that the experts can sometimes be reliable, the Catalan giants' defensive strength has indeed declined to a certain extent from the peak of the year, in the face of the attack group led by De Bruyne fell into a total passivity, the Blues scored two goals in the first half but did not disappoint the British.

It's just that no one could have imagined that Messi and Dembele and others could break out under such great pressure, so that the home team, which scored early and took the lead through the away goal advantage, fell into a desperate situation several times.

In fact, Manchester City started this game very strongly, and Sane's goal in the fourteenth minute ignited the entire Etihad Stadium. There is no one in Barca's defenders who can become the German fast horse in terms of speed, and they can only watch as the opponent takes advantage of an inadvertent passing mistake by Barça's academy-trained central midfielder Carles Alenia, easily shakes off all defenders and easily dribbles past his own goalkeeper to push the ball into the empty net.

The frenzied celebrations of the fans at the time could easily have given the illusion that Manchester City had been given tickets to the West Stadium.

However, the ticket did not stay in the pocket of the blue moon for long, and after the aggregate score became 2-2, the home team players on the field fluctuated in their thinking, or rather looked a little underestimated because the goal came too easily. Pep Guardiola's insistence on continuing to play with the attacking tactics is understandable, as the advantage was too narrow to keep them calm enough for almost 80 minutes, so it would be advisable to go for a second goal if possible.

But when Gabriel Jesus fired home the post in the 19th minute and John Stones came close to scoring again from a De Bruyne corner three minutes later, the entire Manchester City squad had already made promotion a given, which led to undue negligence in their defence afterwards, and Coutinho seized the opportunity to send a subtle through ball to Ousmane Dembele to score the vital goal and put Barcelona back in the final.

Fortunately, Casemiro once again showed his world wave attribute that always erupts at critical moments before half-time, and with a long-range shot of more than 30 meters, Ter Stegen reluctantly fished the ball out of the net behind him for the second time in the game, and the two sides also entered the half-time break to tie the aggregate score, dragging the suspense of victory into the final 45 minutes.

After the rematch, Barcelona coach and Argentine Antonio Mohamed Matiejevic boldly pushed Messi, who was a midfielder at the beginning, to the attack, and let the Brazilian international Arthur, who had just returned from injury, replace Alena who had made a big mistake before, and the intention to strengthen the attack was clear. Daring to put on such a strong attacking formation at the Etihad Stadium, everyone has to give the former Vigo Celta manager a big thumbs up for his courage.

However, Guardiola didn't know which tendon was wrong at this time, and his performance was completely overpowered by the away coach who was far inferior to his own reputation and reputation ten meters away, and he chose to stay put, and continued to act according to the previous deployment after the opponent made such a big adjustment, which directly led to cracks in Manchester City's back line under the repeated impact of Barcelona players.

Messi, who is about to celebrate his 35th birthday in two months, suddenly dreamed of returning to his peak, completely tearing through the home team's defense with an aura of three people in a row, and finally helping Dembele complete the easy goal with an understatement to make Barcelona complete the overtake in the aggregate score, and also took the lead in away goals, pushing the Premier League title to the edge of the cliff.

At this time, Guardiola immediately replaced Raheem Sterling and Dutch central defender Deligott, who can launch a long ball attack at the back, and used his powerful attacking power to press the visitors' line back into the half, firmly grasping the dominance of the attack.

Unfortunately, the timing of the change came a little too late, and even though Kevin De Bruyne set up Gabriel Jesus for the hosts' third goal of the game in the 79th minute, the City players, who still needed another goal to complete the promotion, could no longer contain their anxiety and ultimately failed to achieve anything.

Barcelona eliminated the new Premier League champions with a slight advantage of 4-4 on aggregate but with more away goals in a very unfavorable situation, and won the ticket to appear in Dortmund on May 8, which is a big upset.

After all, compared with the strength of the two teams' lineups, Barcelona, whose core players have gradually aged, is still at a certain disadvantage in the face of Manchester City, which is in full swing, and even the Spanish media did not dare to say lightly before the game that Barcelona, which has lost its dominance in the country in the past two years, can bargain in front of the powerful Premier League champions, but the result gave everyone a surprise.

The reaction from the British side must have been very disappointing and frustrating, with Pep Guardiola's side almost completing their most successful season since Manchester United won the treble in 1999, winning the Community Shield, Premier League, runners-up in the League Cup, the FA Cup final and reaching the Champions League final for the second year in a row.

Past facts have shown that the emergence of such a giant may not be a good thing for the league as a whole, but it can greatly improve the competitiveness of English football in European competitions, and it is still extremely helpful for the entire country to be denied the highest European club honour for more than a decade.

Unfortunately, their dreams were shattered near the finish line, and they were defeated at the feet of Messi, who was a light opponent and could still create miracles.

The next day, with the expectation of all the fans in his country, Li Mudi led the Arsenal team to the sacred Bernabeu Stadium. The Gunners boss would have arranged for the use of counter-attacking tactics, which was expected, but instead of opting for a 4-4-2 formation, he removed a striker and changed his player's position to 4-5-1, which is obviously unlikely to be unaffected by the Manchester City rollover the day before.

With no such dramatic comeback in the semi-finals in the history of the Champions League, there has never been a three-goal lead in Lee's coaching career, so few of the defending champions were expected to have much chance of winning the title in their pre-match predictions, except for the most determined Madridians. Even though their arch-rivals have just set a good example, the situation between the two teams is quite different, and Real Madrid are undoubtedly at least two levels more difficult.

But the dignity of the world's No. 1 club still requires Guti and his disciples not to give up easily, even if the team continues to work hard for the league title in the La Liga finale four days later, this Champions League semi-final will have to fight hard. So after kick-off, the home team dressed in white immediately pressed through the half court and launched a siege towards the opponent's penalty area.

Real Madrid made only one change to their starting line-up compared to the first leg clash two weeks ago, replacing Odriosola with Carvajal, who had a better ability to assist, but the general tactical idea was basically the same, all of which were to try to tear apart the opponent's defence through quick ground passes.

Since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo, Bale, Ramos and other stars, the Galaxy has lost the ability to compete for the header in front of the goal a few years ago, Lopetegui and Guti have successively introduced Mariano and the former Athletic Bilbao young striker Villarivre as the first team's forward rotation, but in addition to the latter also has a certain height and ability to compete for high-altitude balls, including Mbappe, who has basically been fixed in the center forward position, all the team's frontcourt players are not competitive in this regard.

Therefore, in the past two seasons, it has been difficult to see Real Madrid adopt a high-flying strategy, Guti's tactics are designed around the characteristics of the players' small and agile characteristics, so that the style of the whole team presents a very incomplete but can play to the extreme in a certain area.

This is the opposite of Li Mudi's current thinking, when he was in charge of Torino, he still deliberately pursued this kind of rapid offensive and defensive switching, which can be said to be imitating the style of play of the Belgian national team and his old club. However, after landing in England and being exposed to more different styles, he feels that he has grown a lot, and at the same time, he believes that the football environment in Spain and Italy is indeed relatively closed, which is not conducive to the improvement of the overall level.

Therefore, in Arsenal's team building policy, Li Mudi began to pursue the differentiation of various key positions, taking the forward line as an example, there must be both the speed-oriented Dembele, and the high-school striker Chuma, of course, the all-round Lacazette and Belasino are indispensable. This allows the team to field the most suitable person for different needs, far more powerful than a team that will only focus on one tactic.

However, the battle of the Bernabeu on this day taught Li Mudi another truth, that is, specialization in one and comprehensive technology is actually at a level, if you can't do it without any shortcomings, you can still have at least one skill to achieve the extreme, it will still be far from the so-called success, let alone perfection.

For example, in the face of Real Madrid, which launched a wave of fierce attacks, Arsenal can only focus on counter-attacking tactics, but the fast pace is what the opponent is most accustomed to.

This led to the initiative of the game completely tilting to the side of the Spanish giants, who took advantage of the home advantage can be said to be full of firepower, and if it were not for Leno's several brave plays, the Gunners' goal would have been beaten into a sieve before half-time.

In the end, Kylian Mbappe and Marcos Asensio scored in each half, and Toni Kroos also hit the post to close the gaping margin on the first leg. If it weren't for Isco and Ceballos being substituted after the rematch due to injury, Li Mudi might really have to suffer a humiliation in the place he knows best.

When the referee blew the full-time whistle in the 96th minute, the entire Bernabeu first burst into deafening boos, followed by a warm applause for the tenacity and hard work of their players.

The last of the visitors to leave the game was their manager, who was still in a cold sweat after hugging his old friend, and was stunned for a moment at the entrance of the players' tunnel, the feeling of escaping death was too exciting, but it was better not to experience it. Li Mudi has obviously gained a lot from this thrilling promotion, which has also had a huge impact on the way Arsenal operates in the next transfer window.