Chapter 1267: Boas
With the Carabao Cup in the last four and the Champions League out of the group, City's focus now remains on the league.
Make sure they have a good enough lead in the league because they will be playing in the Club World Cup soon.
At that point, they will have a game postponed, which will give Tottenham a chance to catch up. After all, they are now only four points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur.
In addition, the long-distance travel to the outside of the game will definitely make the team tired, which will affect the state of the players.
In the next league game, Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers played first, and as a result, they beat Bolton Wanderers 3-0 at their home stadium, and Bale scored twice, and the table was excellent and in good form.
A day later, Manchester City came on and they weren't to be outdone.
Manchester City beat Norwich 5-1 at their home stadium.
Remain four points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur.
Manchester United faced a stubborn resistance from Aston Villa away and although it was a tough game, it was a win, with a narrow 1-0 win over Aston Villa.
The gap between the three teams has not been widened.
※※※
The rest of the fixtures are scheduled as Manchester City play their final Champions League group stage game in midweek, when they travel to Atletico Greece.
Then back in England and away to Chelsea.
Then we set off for the Club World Cup.
The specific itinerary is as follows: on December 4, the Greek Athletic flew from Manchester to Cyprus, an island nation on the border between Europe and Asia, and although the name of the Greek Athletic has "Greece" in its name, it is not a Greek team, but a Cypriot team.
After playing the match against the Greeks on December 6, he returned to England and Manchester from the border between Asia and Europe. Fly to London on December 9 to take on Chelsea.
After their match against Chelsea on 10 December, they will fly directly from London across Eurasia to the Japanese archipelago, the easternmost island in Asia, and to Yokohama for the eighth edition of the World Club Champions Cup.
Manchester City's first Club World Cup match will be played on the afternoon of December 15.
If they make it to the final - which is almost no suspense, they will definitely make it to the final - then their final will be on the afternoon of December 18.
Originally, in the 16th round of the league, Manchester City was going to host Arsenal, and the time of this game was also December 18, but it was the evening of the 18th.
Manchester City couldn't get back anyway, so the game was postponed.
The next day, December 19, the entire Manchester City squad departed for home.
On 23 December, they host Stoke City, their opponents in the 17th round of the league.
Three days later, on December 26, in the 18th round of the league, Manchester City challenged West Bromwich Albion away.
On 31 December, Manchester City took on Sunderland away to conclude their final competitive game of the year.
On 3 January 2012, Manchester City hosted Liverpool for their first game of 2012.
The schedule is very dense and City still have to fly around, even if they have a special plane to pick them up, it will be very frustrating.
In the midst of such a back-and-forth, the devil knows what will happen?
So for the sake of safety, Benitez has to take advantage of the current win in the league to win more, hoping to get rid of the pursuers behind and throw them as far away as possible.
In this case, the next 15th round of the league, Manchester City's away game against Chelsea is very important.
The match between Manchester City and Chelsea was supposed to be played on December 12, but in consideration of the Club World Cup, the match was brought forward and kick-off will kick off on the evening of December 10.
It was one of the first games in this round of the league.
Manchester United's home game against Wolverhampton Wanderers kicks off at the same time as them.
※※※
Carlo Ancelotti was the manager of Chelsea's first two seasons, but Ancelotti's tenure at Chelsea was not a success as he was never able to help Chelsea beat Manchester City, either in a single game or throughout the season.
Chelsea were also knocked out of the Champions League last season after failing to win the league title, which caused Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to lose patience and trust in Ancelotti, so he sacked Ancelotti at the end of last season.
Today, Ancelotti is coached at Paris Saint-Germain, which is also a local tyrant team supported by the capital of a Middle Eastern consortium.
Chelsea's current manager has been replaced by Villas-Boas.
It is the former Porto manager, the young manager who led Porto to the Portuguese league, the Portuguese Cup and the UEFA Cup last season.
After his success in Porto, the European media dubbed him "Mourinho's second" or "Mourinho's successor".
Since he is Mourinho's successor, it is natural that he will come to coach Chelsea.
Jose Mourinho's time in charge of Chelsea was Chelsea's most glorious time, and both Mourinho himself and the Chelsea team left a very deep impression on the world.
Now that Jose Mourinho has long since left Chelsea and had success at Inter Milan, and is now in charge of Real Madrid, it is unlikely that he will return to Chelsea. Since you can't find the deity, you can find a second to be the head coach of Chelsea.
So Abramovich brought in Boas, hoping that Boas could really become Mourinho II at Chelsea as the media said, and replicate Mourinho's glory at Chelsea.
However, the young coach, who was an assistant coach at Chelsea with Jose Mourinho, has now made a poor start to his second visit to Chelsea.
With 14 league games to play, Chelsea are only fourth, which is not enough for Roman Abramovich, who is aiming to win the league.
And this fourth place is still far from Manchester City, the first place in the league.
Manchester City has 12 wins, 2 draws and 0 losses in 14 league rounds, accumulating 38 points. What about Chelsea? Nine wins, one draw and four losses in 14 rounds of league games, accumulating 28 points, ranking fourth, and Manchester City are 10 points behind!
Such a statement is really not satisfactory to Abramovich.
In fact, Villas-Boas's league start was still decent, although the first round of the league was drawn away to Stoke City, but then they won consecutive games, until they met Manchester United before losing the first league game of the new season.
But Villas-Boas's Chelsea have exposed the problem that they can win against the underdogs, but they can only be underdogs against the strong ones.
This problem is honestly deadly. With Chelsea's quality, it is a matter of course to win against the underdogs, and that is the basis of their title contention. If you can't even win against a weak team, you won't be eligible to compete for the championship.
But if you want to compete with a group of strong teams for the league title, you have to rely on wins against strong teams to close the gap.
However, Chelsea have lost against Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool this season......
In the fifth round of the league, they lost 1:3 to Manchester United.
In the tenth round of the league, they lost to Arsenal 3-5 at home.
In the twelfth round of the league, Chelsea lost 1-2 at home to Liverpool.
Except that they have yet to meet Manchester City, they have all lost against the traditional last three.
And two of those defeats were on their home turf.
It's terrible, you don't win at home, and you have even fewer chances to win away from home.
Now, they have finally welcomed Manchester City on their home turf.
If he loses at home to Manchester City, Villas-Boas's days at Chelsea may be countdown.
They were also knocked out by Liverpool in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup, if not improved in the league...... Anyway, now the media has been crazy that Abramovich is about to fire Boas, and European bookmakers have also set odds for Boas to leave class......
Arguably, beating Manchester City is Villas-Boas's only hope, and if he can lead his side to become the first manager to beat Manchester City this season, then Abramovich may reconsider his decision.
Before the start of this league game, the media in England began to pay attention. Many media outlets have suggested that the match against Manchester City will be the last game for Villas-Boas, and that the important part of the game may overtake his role in the Europa League final with Porto.
So can Chelsea allow Manchester City to taste their first defeat of the season?
'We've found a way to beat City.' Boas said confidently in an interview with reporters. "Manchester City is definitely not invincible, even Achilles has weaknesses, let alone Manchester City? And so they are. ”
When the reporters in England heard Boas say this, they all looked at each other, and it was clear from their expressions and eyes that they did not believe Boas's words.
Villas-Boas has been under the watchful eye of the media since he landed in England. Everyone will compare him to Jose Mourinho, who he used to assist.
When Boas was in Portugal, the clamor for "Mourinho II" was high, but to be honest, after observing it for a while, the English media felt that Boas was more than Mourinho...... Far from it.
This difference is not only due to his leadership performance and coaching level, but also to his performance in front of the media.
He seems to have only learned Mourinho's toughness in the face of the media, and he has also learned to follow suit.
Blindly tough, only tough, will only cause people to feel annoyed.
So now there is a lot of negative news about Boas in the media, and the media is very hyped about his dismissal, but in fact, there is no evidence at all, just for the sake of black Boas.
A reporter finally couldn't help but raise his hand and asked, "Then what is the specific strategy?" ”
"No comment." Boas said confidently, still smiling.
Many English reporters rolled their eyes - it was this expression that made them almost vomit.