i want to be king

Chapter 948 Chelsea's last fig leaf
On the evening of December [-]th, Stamford Bridge Stadium, London.

The referee Mark Clattenburg was guessing for the two captains of Manchester City and Chelsea. In front of the coaching bench of the home team, Chelsea coach Villas-Boas looked a little nervous. He looked around and then turned to look at the grandstand behind him.

Tonight, Chelsea's owner Abramovich, accompanied by the club's management, sat in the stands.

This battle is a big test for Boas.

Chelsea paid him a termination fee of 500 million euros, which created the highest termination fee record for a head coach in the history of world football. But now, Chelsea's results are really not satisfactory, and Boas himself feels that he can't see it.

Either way, win tonight!

In terms of the starting lineup, Boas still continued the lineup he used against Valencia in the Champions League.

Goalkeeper Petr Cech, Ashley Cole, Terry, Ivanovic and Bosingwa in the back line, Meireles, Romeu and Ramirez in the midfield, and Juan Mata, Drogba and Sturridge in the frontcourt.

The entire lineup is exactly the same as in the midweek Champions League.

This is what Villas-Boas intended. He hopes that the team can continue the tactics and state of the midweek Champions League match against Valencia.

In that game, the team's defense was very good, and the offense was also very sharp. It can be regarded as one of the best games played by Chelsea this season. Villas-Boas hopes to see that Chelsea team tonight.

Terry and Drogba were one of the best players in that game, and they were also the most indispensable pillars of the team, so Boas did not dare to move, but he has abandoned Lampard for many consecutive games in the midfield.

For him, this is a kind of persistence to his own vision at the beginning of the season, and it is the last fig leaf for him to maintain the authority of the head coach. If even Lampard is involved, then he can really be said to have suffered a crushing defeat in this contest.

By that time, his prestige in the locker room will be completely wiped out.

Villas-Boas turned and looked towards the pitch, down to the City lineup.

Blue Moon also adopts a four-three-three formation tonight, with Courtois as the goalkeeper, Marcelo, Pepe, Kompany and Zabaleta in the defense, Busquets in the midfield, David Silva and Tony Kroos in the center, Hazard, Su Dong and Sanchez in the frontcourt.

With the deepening of the season, both Manchester City and Guardiola have gradually figured out the rules regarding the cooperation between Hazard and Marcelo, and the cooperation between the two players on the left has gradually found a feeling.

The main reason is that Manchester City plays ball possession, so although both players need the ball, under Manchester City's ball possession system, there will be no conflicts. On the contrary, it further improves Manchester City's ball possession ability in the frontcourt.

Guardiola also adopts different lineup configurations according to different situations and different opponents.

Boas felt a little unwilling.

Hazard was originally a player that he and Chelsea both favored, but Manchester City gave him the upper hand.

The Belgian winger has also proved his quality and has performed very well for Manchester City this season.

Although Chelsea also has Juan Mata, if there is another Hazard, the players in Boas' hands will be more generous, and the formation will be more routine.

But it was Su Dong who scared Boas the most.

He is too familiar with this player. Whether it was when he was an assistant coach before, or when he coached Porto last season, and met in the Europa League final, Su Dong is the superstar that impressed him the most.

His only hope is that Terry and Ivanovic can hold Sudong tonight.

Even though he knew it was very, very difficult.

…………

…………

With the referee Clattenburg's whistle, Manchester City, who took the lead in kick-off, was kicked by Su Dong to Sanchez.

The Chilean winger quickly kicked back and kicked it straight to Busquets.

Since Chelsea is playing at home and they have blue jerseys, Manchester City will be wearing red and black away jerseys tonight, which makes the players of the two teams on the field very distinct.

As soon as Busquets stopped the ball, Chelsea's Drogba had already forced him up.

The Spanish midfielder was forced to pass the ball back to the defence.

After several consecutive downs, it was given to Marcelo on the left.

The Brazilian left back stopped the ball and moved forward. He saw the timing and passed a straight pass to Hazard, who had already broken into Chelsea's half.

When the Belgian winger stopped the ball, he was intercepted by Bosingwa and was forced to cut inside, but Juan Mata in the frontcourt actively returned to the defense and flanked Bosingwa back and forth, while Meireles in the middle was also surrounding Hazard. The three formed a triangle to trap Hazard.

Hazard is not tall, dribbling the ball is very slender, with a low center of gravity, and he is very skillful in changing speed and direction. The ball seems to be stuck to his feet. He just sent a horizontal pass to Meireles behind the three defensive players.

David Silva quickly followed up, kept the ball, and sent a through ball in the face of Hazard's cross.

The ball went straight to the penalty area from Ivanovic.

Su Dong, who was already cruising near Terry and Ivanovic, suddenly started and sprinted forward at the fastest speed.

Terry was thrown away almost as soon as Sudong started. Ivanovic chased for a while, but was quickly squeezed behind Sudong, and goalkeeper Petr Cech abandoned the goal and tried to grab the ball first.

But Su Dong insisted on getting ahead of Cech, and poked David Silva's pass with his foot, allowing the ball to avoid Cech's attack.

After the whole person gave way to Cech, Su Dong's speed did not decrease. After catching up with the football on the left side of the small penalty area, he easily pushed with his left foot.

The ball went straight into the bottom of the goal net.

"GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!"

"The game lasted less than a minute, strictly speaking, only 1 seconds, my god, Manchester City only took 26 seconds to break Chelsea's goal."

"Su Dong's back was inserted and the anti-offside was successful. After one-on-one, he passed the attacking goalkeeper Petr Cech. He scored an empty goal and opened the scoring for Manchester City, [-]-[-]!"

"Before the game, Guardiola was still emphasizing repeatedly that when facing Chelsea, the first goal is very important. As a result, I did not expect that Manchester City scored Chelsea's goal in the first 26 seconds. Is there a better start than this?"

After Su Dong scored, he rushed out of the stadium excitedly, ran all the way to the corner stand where Manchester City fans were, thanked the group of fans who followed the team's expedition to the south, and kissed the ring on his left hand at the same time.

Now, the whole world knows that he's getting married after this season, and kissing the engagement ring is a no-brainer.

……

In the stands of the Stamford Bridge Stadium, Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich watched with a livid face, watching Manchester City players surround Sudong in the stadium, celebrating the opening goal.

"He almost became our player." Abramovich said in a deep voice.

Back then, Mourinho wanted to introduce Su Dong several times, and even applied to Abramovich face to face many times. He repeatedly emphasized that Su Dong would become the top scorer in the world.

But at that time, Abramovich only thought about Shevchenko. Even later, between Sudong and Shevchenko, Abramovich chose the Ukrainian nuclear warhead without hesitation.

As a result, the whole world knows that Shevchenko failed to play at the expected level at Chelsea, let alone lead Chelsea to the top of the Champions League, which made Abramovich the laughing stock of countless people.

Even now, there are still many people secretly laughing at Abramovich's stupidity behind his back.

At this moment, watching Su Dong scored his own goal in just 26 seconds of the opening, Abramovich said in his heart that he has no regrets, it is impossible. After all, if he had Su Dong, maybe he would have won the Champions League.

Where else is it needed like now?

After Peter Kenyon left the club in [-], his right-hand man, Ron Gourley, replaced the skinhead as chief executive.

But at this moment, when he heard Abramovich's sudden and even inexplicable words, he blurted out and wanted to say that the team should introduce a strong center to replace Drogba, preferably a center like Su Dong.

But when he got to the point of speaking, he swallowed the words again when he saw that the chairman Bruce Barker and the boss assistant Marina Granovskia remained calm.

In the past few years at Chelsea, especially during the period of working with Peter Kenyon, Gurley saw very clearly that Chelsea is simply Abramovich's voice, and everyone here has only one purpose, and that is to make the boss happy.

As long as the boss is happy, then anything can be done.

Just like Boas.

At the beginning, the boss was full of expectations for him, and even spent a termination fee of 500 million euros to recruit him.

That is 500 million euros, which can already buy a first-class star.

The results of it?
Now that the season is not halfway through, Boas has completely lost the trust of Abramovich, and is basically on the verge of dismissal. If he loses this game, he will dismiss get out of class tonight, and no one will be surprised.

Gurley even had a feeling that Abramovich might be here to supervise the battle because he wanted to fire Boas on the spot.

It's true for the manager, it's true for the chief executive, it's true for everyone at the club.

If there is anyone who is irreplaceable, it can only be Abramovich.

Thinking of this, Gurley didn't want to say anything more.

Because he knew that no matter what he said, it was actually useless.

In many cases, it is simply not something he can change. Chelsea's genes and operating rules have been doomed since the day Abramovich bought the team.

In contrast, Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi consortium has given the management a lot of room to play, and they basically don’t care about things. Even Chairman Mubarak is like a mascot.

Perhaps, the Premier League is ushering in, or in other words, has ushered in the Manchester City dynasty.

(End of this chapter)