Chapter 64: The Low-key Challenger

The top teams have dropped the chain one after another, and the result of this is naturally that Manchester United continues to widen the gap in points.

In this round of league transfer, the "Independent" said slightly pessimistic on the front page of its newspaper: "Maybe this season's Premier League, the league championship is already very clear." ”

This season's Premier League is very different from the past.

The defending champions are still in trouble, Jose Mourinho's side have won just four games so far, and the favourites at the start of the season are now struggling to relegate themselves from the bottom of the league. Jose Mourinho entered the Bridge for the second time, and almost everyone thought at the time that the madman had found his place and that he might stay at Chelsea for a long time, just as Alex Ferguson was to Manchester United, and Mourinho would become the godfather of Chelsea. However, the current situation is unimaginable in any way.

Leicester City, who are now at the top of the table, were outright relegation teams last season. The closest team to Manchester United now is actually this relegation team last season, which is undoubtedly quite a slap in the face for other strong teams in the Premier League.

The strong teams collectively dropped the chain, and Manchester United profited.

However, United's recent sluggish performances, especially in the last few games, have clearly made it more difficult for United to win, which has given a glimmer of hope to other fans in England.

Maybe Manchester United will suddenly suffer a wave of defeats in the middle of the season's devilish schedule?

This is not impossible in the Premier League. Arsenal have played this role a lot in the past. Arsenal tend to perform well in the early stages of the season, but after Christmas, they start to drop the chain, and it is not until the end of the season that Arsenal are in contention for fourth place.

Manchester United's next league opponent is Leicester City, but before that, the Reds actually have a Champions League group stage game to play.

However, there is not much talk in the media about Manchester United's opponent in the Champions League group stage, PSV Eindhoven, and more attention is paid to Manchester United's league opponent Leicester City.

The Independent put it bluntly: "It's clear that Manchester United's performance is slipping down and it's going to be much harder for them to win a game than they were at the start of the previous season. Leicester City, under Ranieri's tutelage, has won four consecutive victories with a particularly distinctive defensive counterattack, and now they are eleven points behind Manchester United, perhaps at this point in the current league progress, Ranieri's team goal may be far more than just relegation. ”

There are also teams that have analyzed Leicester City's lineup, such as Vardy, the leading scorer who is currently ranked second in the scorer list, and Mahrez, who is third in the assist list, and Kante, the defender who is responsible for intercepting and sweeping, as well as central defender Morgan, goalkeeper Schmeichel Jr., these players' abilities are not worse than those players of the big teams in terms of their performance this season.

Ranieri, the tinkerer, quietly formed a team that was not inferior to any giant.

Of course, any team with a performance like Leicester after more than a dozen rounds, the media can always draw their conclusions from the middle.

It's just that the media's praise for Leicester City has made the Leicester City manager quite distressed.

In Ranieri's view, there is still a gap between Leicester City and other giants in terms of hard power, but at present, with this set of tactical play, other teams do not know much about Leicester City's tactics, and even some teams do not attach too much importance to Leicester City, ignoring the existence of this small team, and the weak performance of the strong teams this season has made Leicester City now climb to the second place in the standings.

Now other teams can't afford not to pay attention to Leicester City, after all, points are the last word, and the points achieved by Leicester City allow them to shoot second in the league, and naturally other teams will never ignore this team.

Leicester City are destined to be the subject of study by other teams.

And now there are even a lot of media outlets that call Leicester the team most likely to beat Manchester United.

In Ranieri's view, these are all moves to roast Leicester on a fire.

Therefore, on the one hand, Ranieri showed weakness in the media very low-key: "We know that sooner or later we will lose, and our goal this season is only to avoid relegation." Saturday will be a big challenge, we're great, but we also have weaknesses. We just want to experience it now and show our great spiritual qualities. I know that Leicester City's squad is difficult to compare with Manchester United, some people say that it is a peak matchup, which is wrong, the game between Leicester City and Manchester United is not a peak matchup, the game between Liverpool and Manchester United is, the game between Arsenal and Manchester United is, the game between Manchester City and Manchester United can also be used in the peak matchup, but between Leicester City and Manchester United is not, it is just a normal league game and we will try to beat strong opponents at home. Now it's said we can stay at the top of the table, but for us it's still our goal to get 40 points and finish relegation. ”

On the other hand, Ranieri has intensified the team's training intensity, and he is saying something different to the players.

Vardy was clearly a little unhappy with Ranieri's weak performance against the media, although he didn't show it, but the mood of the English big man can easily be seen by the old charlatan.

Leicester have been so good this season and Jamie Gundy has been indebted to Jamie Vardy's performance. Jamie Gundy has scored in 10 consecutive Premier League games. Originally, Vardy had the hope of surpassing you to become the first player in history to score in 11 consecutive rounds, but this record was broken by Li Qingshan in advance - Li Qingshan has now scored in 12 consecutive Premier League games, and if it is not for the failure to score against Watford in the 13th round, Li Qingshan still hopes to continue this record.

However, it is still possible for Vardy to challenge the record of scoring in 12 consecutive games, and as long as he scores in the next two rounds of the league, he can break Li Qingshan's new record.

Claudio Ranieri's job revolves around calming the emotions of his players, and for Leicester City, the league is the only front they need to play at the moment.

Manchester United, on the other hand, must deal with the Champions League first.

In the Champions League in midweek, Manchester United played with the visiting PSV Eindhoven.

PSV Eindhoven beat Manchester United at home and they were not so lucky on the road.

With Li Qingshan's two goals in the second half, Manchester United won the opponent 2-0.

When this game was over, there was good news for the other game in the group, as CSKA Moscow and Wolfsburg drew 2-2, leaving United four points ahead of second-placed Wolfsburg, who had already qualified for the group one round with the final round remaining.