Pep Guardiola had just said he wanted to enjoy football, but only three days later, Manchester City overturned.

On March 1, Manchester City lost 2:3 to Liverpool in a strong dialogue at Anfield Stadium and unfortunately lost.

Heavy rain fell shortly after the start of this match, and both sides had to fight in the rain.

The wet and slippery ground caused by the rain greatly affected City's passing tactics, and the players made a number of passing errors due to water on the ground.

On the other hand, the Liverpool players, who are bent on revenge on Manchester City at home, played extremely bravely in this game.

Ignoring the danger of injury on the slippery pitch, they ran and sprinted desperately, using counterattack after counter-attack to attack City's defence.

In fact, from the field of view, Liverpool are very passive on the field, their possession rate is only 32%, but their counter-attack is very threatening.

Especially the counterattack launched from the side after the defense is successful, one hit and one accurate.

In the 11th minute, Jordan Henderson opened the scoring to give Liverpool the lead.

Although City equalised in the 23rd minute with a long-range shot from outside the box by Lin Quan, it was only three minutes before Liverpool scored again.

This time it was a problem on the wing, with Philippe Coutinho putting on a brilliant dribble, cutting inside and smashing Navas's stunning long-range shot past Keylor Navas.

In the 75th minute of the second half, Lin Quan received De Bruyne's straight plug against offside and scored a single goal to equalize the score again.

In the following ten minutes, neither team's attack could penetrate the opponent's defense, and the game was set to end in a draw.

However, in the third minute of stoppage time, the legendary Reds captain Steven Gerrard, who had already announced that he would leave Liverpool at the end of the season, stepped up and smashed the ball into the corner with his trademark long-range strike to beat Manchester City.

After the stunner, Gerrard excitedly took off his jersey and rushed to the stands with the most fans, celebrating wildly.

His teammates also went into a frenzy, chasing him one by one, hugging him, kissing him, and celebrating the hard-earned victory.

As for the Reds fans at Anfield, they have long been boiling.

Before the game, the outside world did not look at them at all, believing that they could not be Manchester City's opponents.

However, they slapped everyone in the face with a hearty victory.

Seeing his team being killed by his opponent, Guardiola scratched his head and didn't seem to expect this to happen.

It was too unlucky, and the game was over in a few dozen seconds, but the Manchester City players who defended Gerrard accidentally slipped due to the slippery ground, allowing the opponent to get a chance to shoot with their feet.

Pep Guardiola is not one to lose, he took the initiative to go to Liverpool's coach and shake hands.

City's defeat was heartening for the outsiders, who felt they had found a way to limit their wing-back tactics.

One by one, they all became eager to try.

In the 28th round of the league, Leicester City was the first to stand up and try.

Summing up Liverpool's win over Manchester City, they concluded that City's defensive weakness was on the wings.

After moving forward to a full-back, City were in a 235 formation with five players up front.

In addition to two wingers and a centre-forward, two attacking midfielders will also be cut forward from the flanks, giving City multiple attacking points around the opposition penalty line.

This has the advantage of increasing the difficulty of the opponent's defense, and even if the attack fails, it can rely on the numerical advantage to immediately counterattack the opponent's player with the ball on the spot, disrupt the opponent's counterattack and look for a second chance to attack.

Manchester City's counter-attacking success rate at the edge of the opposition penalty area was very high after switching to a wide midfield, and many of the goals were scored after a successful counter-attack.

Because they are closer to the opponent's goal, and there are more opportunities for a second attack after a counter-attack on the spot, Manchester City has a horrific number of shots on goal every game.

With the likes of Lin Quan and Sergio Aguero in the squad, giving City so many shots on goal means conceding a lot of goals.

In the three games leading up to the defeat to Liverpool, Manchester City relied on this to defeat their opponents.

However, the trick didn't work for Liverpool.

The reason is that Liverpool is a giant team after all, and their players are much stronger than ordinary teams.

Although Manchester City's success rate of on-the-spot counter-robbery is very high, there are times when they can't grab it.

Once the counter-attack fails and the opponent fights back, Manchester City's two wingers and even five players in the front line will not be able to retreat in time.

Therefore, in order to ensure the safety of your own goal.

City's back four and a midfielder will shrink inward as they drop back, forming a trapezoidal defensive formation at the edge of the box.

The advantage of this formation is that the defense is more layered, so that it will not be broken all at once.

The downside is that the wings are empty, and when the opponent sends a cross or cuts inside from the wing, it is difficult for the Manchester City players to stop it in the first place.

And when playing Liverpool, it rained heavily at Anfield, and the conditions of the venue were not good for Manchester City, who were more technically oriented.

In the end, coupled with Gerrard's lucky stunner, it was Manchester City who hated defeat.

However, none of these favourable factors Leicester City have.

Therefore, they chose to use Liverpool's tactics against Manchester City, and the result was naturally a very miserable death.

Before the first half was played, the game lost its suspense.

Manchester City are already 3-0 up.

In the second half, Lin Quan, who was supposed to be replaced, was not put on the bench by Guardiola.

Lin Quan did not go down, which means that Manchester City still did not give up the attack.

As a result, Leicester City was out of luck.

When Lin Quan was substituted, the score on the field had become 5:0.

Leicester City were crushed and their players were all starting to doubt their lives.

Why did we play according to Liverpool's correct answers, but it didn't work at all, but we lost so badly?

On the sidelines, seeing the team get out of the haze of the previous loss with a big victory, Guardiola's mood became very happy.

He sat in the coach's seat and communicated with Lin Quan, who had just been replaced.

"That winger on the other side seems to be pretty good?"

Lin Quan took a sip of energy drink, glanced at the player wearing Leicester City's No. 26 shirt that Guardiola was referring to, and asked:

"You're talking about Mahrez?"

"Hmm!"

Guardiola nodded, as if in love, he asked:

"What do you think of his strength?"

"Good strength, delicate technique, good ability to break and cut inside, should be able to work as a winger and wing-back, if you grow up, it's no problem to be a thigh in a weak team!"

Lin Quan thought for a moment and commented.

He remembers that in Leicester's title-winning year, Riyad Mahrez's performances at the Foxes were quite explosive.

He scored 17 goals and provided 11 assists and was voted the Premier League's MVP that season.

Of course, that was a year later Riyad Mahrez, who is clearly not that good now.

But Guardiola's vision is very good, and he can see that this guy is not an ordinary thing in one game, no wonder he rarely looks at people when he buys people.

He guessed that the reason why Guardiola fell in love with Mahrez was most likely because the skill at the opponent's feet attracted him.

Coaches like Pep Guardiola have a preference for players with delicate skills at their feet, and all of the players he recruited, except for Haaland, were those who were delicate and well-rounded.

"That's it!"

Pep Guardiola couldn't help but think.

Manchester City's right winger is Keylor Navas, who is 30 years old, not young, and often plays as a substitute for Lin Quan, so he has the idea of leaving.

Pep Guardiola will need to re-identify a good right winger for his squad.

The previous offer to Chelsea for Salah was intended to buy Salah to replace Navas.

Unfortunately, Chelsea's reluctance to sell has frustrated Pep Guardiola's intentions.

Now seeing Mahrez, who is about the same age as Salah, Guardiola has once again moved to dig people.

When Riyad Mahrez moved to Leicester City last year, he spent just £500,000.

In the past two seasons, he has performed well, and his progress has been very obvious, so his value has also increased.

If Manchester City want to take him away, Guardiola feels that without £20 million should be unlikely.

£20 million to buy a player who is still unknown seems to be a big gamble!

So, should you buy it or not?

"You can sell it for less than 30 million pounds, of course, if you can buy Salah, of course it's better!"

Lin Quan saw Guardiola's hesitation, so he spoke.

In the position of right winger, the strength of the Egyptian pharaoh at his peak is still a little stronger.

After a cordial exchange between father and son, Guardiola's heart, which was still very hesitant, immediately became firm.

Buy!

I saved so much money during the winter break, how can I be worthy of myself and the fans of Manchester City if I don't buy and buy during the summer window?

Leicester City's loss made other teams a little confused for a while, and they didn't know if they could copy Liverpool's homework.

Some teams are retreating, but others are not believing in evil.

The 29th round of the Premier League begins.

Burnley, who are second to last in the Premier League in points and desperately need three points to save their lives, chose to copy Liverpool's homework at their home stadium.

And then there was no then.

At the end of the game, the score of 4:0 made the Burnley people cry without tears.

This is also the result of Manchester City retaining their strength by replacing a large number of key players after the start of the second half in order to prepare for the Champions League knockout game in midweek.

If they were firing on all cylinders, a massacre would be inevitable.

In this round, Chelsea at the top of the table and Southampton in fourth place went head-to-head.

Surprisingly, however, Chelsea were unable to win the game after Diego Costa had scored in the opening stages.

Nemanja Matic was awarded a penalty for a foul in the box that gave Southampton a run away at Stamford Bridge.

After the draw, Chelsea took advantage of City's defeat to Liverpool to re-open the lead and shrank to one point, and the original title winning situation began to become precarious again.

To add insult to injury, Chelsea were held to a draw by Paris Saint-Germain in the second leg of the Champions League.

For Chelsea fans, this game is destined to leave them with insomnia.

Their team struggled to break through the opponent's goal in the 81st minute, and the goal at this point in time gave them hope of winning.

However, David Luiz's 86th-minute goal extinguished the dreams of Blues fans and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.

With Chelsea also playing 1-1 at home in Paris in their last game, both sides were equally aggressive and on the road.

So the game was dragged into extra time.

Chelsea once again opened the scoring in extra-time when Eden Hazard's strike sent the Blues fans at Stamford Bridge in complete flux and Jose Mourinho roared in celebration.

However, another defender from PSG stepped up.

Thiago Silva equalized again in the 114th minute of extra time!

The two sides drew 2-2, but it was fatal for Chelsea that the opposition had two away goals.

In the final stages of the game, the Blues desperately attacked the opposition goal, but they were unable to return under the stubborn defense of the big Paris.

Finally, with a whistle from the referee, the game ended.

Chelsea were knocked out on their home turf and saw their opponents progress to the quarter-finals, while they were once again humiliated in the round of 16.

'Jose Mourinho had a hard time at Stamford Bridge!'

"Haha, who made him so crazy before!"

"With Abu's temper, if Chelsea can't win the league title this season, I'll bet five cents, and the magic bird will definitely be fired!"

"He was fired by Real Madrid and Chelsea one after another, I don't know what other team will want him!"

"I don't think it's better to go to Manchester United, Van Gaal is worse than Mourinho at Manchester United!"

"What a good idea, support Mourinho to go to Manchester United again and completely hoke Manchester United!"

After Chelsea's elimination, public opinion was very unfavorable to Mourinho.

The promises he made to the fans when he returned to the Blues now appear to have failed to deliver on any of them.

Since winning the Champions League, Chelsea have fallen once in the group stage and twice in the round of 16, and the team's record has deteriorated.

Chelsea don't look like they're on the right path, they're teetering.

And it's been five years since their last league title.

If there is no gain, then I am sorry for their status as a wealthy family.

This is very worrying for Blues fans, who don't want to see their side like Arsenal who have not won a title for 10 years!

The worries of Chelsea fans are completely unfelt by Manchester City fans.

In the second leg of the Champions League, Manchester City sat at home, easily defeated Arsenal 2-0, and advanced to the quarterfinals with an aggregate score of 5:1.

Since making a breakthrough in the Champions League last year, Manchester City's luck in the Champions League has suddenly changed for the better.

Last year, they faced the three strongest clubs in a row, but this year, not only did they play in a very weak group, but they also played well against opponents in the first round of the knockout round.

Arsenal know the roots for Manchester City, the position is still very close, playing them is not at all the hard work, and the consumption of the team after the game is not large, plus there is no consumption of the League Cup and FA Cup.

Manchester City can be in the best shape to face their opponents in the next round!

There were no upsets in this round of matches except for Chelsea.

Bayern, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and other strong teams have reached the quarterfinals.

On March 19, the draw for the quarter-finals of the 2014-15 UEFA Champions League was held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

With so many top teams in the top eight, the outside world is looking forward to a strong showdown where Mars collides with Earth!

(End of chapter)