Not long after, at the urging of referee Marina, the game restarted.
Soon, the effect of Chu Zheng's one-stop goal with strong personal heroism was reflected in the Manchester City players.
Manchester City's morale has been greatly boosted.
Before Manchester City scored a goal, although the Manchester City players played well, they gave people the impression of being physically and mentally exhausted and unable to lift their spirits on the court.
Every time they face Tottenham's frantic rush, many Manchester City players show an attitude of avoidance, fearing physical contact.
Every time I get the ball, I see Tottenham players coming up and playing the ball quickly, which makes Manchester City's passing look a bit blind and disorderly. It makes people feel that every player is afraid of losing the ball from their feet and allowing the opponent to successfully counterattack.
Everyone is blaming the blame.
But after the game restarts, once the ball is lost, you will see that the Manchester City players' fighting attitude becomes tougher.
Even if they are at a disadvantage in a head-to-head confrontation with Tottenham players, they will not give up easily.
Instead, he took advantage of his flexibility to harass Tottenham players, and his resilience was clearly demonstrated.
There have also been extremely obvious changes in passing. Players have become more active in running, more daring to make risky passes, and become more purposeful.
In the 39th minute of the game, facing Ali's pressure in front of the goal, Bravo once again took the risk of smashing the ball, narrowly avoiding Ali's attack, and then quickly hit the ball from the left side of the penalty area.
Facing Danny Rose coming up the wing, Zabaleta no longer quickly passed the ball long as before, but found the right moment to suddenly move forward along the edge, then ducked over and grabbed the ball.
Quickly passed Chu Zheng before Lamela approached.
After Chu Zheng got the ball, he became more simple and rude. Before Tottenham's defensive focus had shifted, he accurately guided his right foot with his right foot, accurately finding Sterling on the left side of the frontcourt.
Sterling took the ball and rushed along the wing. After getting down, he decisively swept the ball in front of the goal.
Aguero grabs the point in the middle.
However, under the interference of Vertonghen and Alderweireld, his shot was blocked by goalkeeper Lloris.
This attack made the Manchester City fans in the stands rejoice.
These changes were also seen by Guardiola and Pochettino on the sidelines.
Seeing Chu Zheng, who is becoming more and more active on the field and running in an increasingly wider range, Pochettino's eyes were filled with wonder.
What a good player is.
Chu Zheng's performance today is the standard answer.
But Pochettino soon got rid of his inner admiration for Chu Zheng.
For him, the top priority is to score another goal.
Otherwise, even if they can maintain this high-pressure situation against Manchester City, even if his players can run for 90 minutes, it will be in vain.
Tottenham players are human beings too, and they certainly cannot run as fast in the second half as they did in the first half.
As the players' physical fitness declines, the intensity and effect of this high-pressure press will also weaken.
Once Manchester City is given the opportunity to play Guardiola-style pressing and passing football, they may be the unlucky ones.
This is something Pochettino absolutely doesn't want to see.
Next to him, Guardiola was also watching Chu Zheng silently, the affection in his eyes almost overflowing.
This is what he likes most about Chu Zheng.
He doesn't care about configuration, but has the temperament of a spiritual leader of the team!
No matter whether the performance of other teammates is sluggish or not, it will hardly affect his competitive state.
Not only is he unable to influence, he can also inspire and drive other players through his outstanding performance.
Guardiola discovered Chu Zheng, a potential super talent, when he was at Bayern Munich.
This is why Chu Zheng can maintain a high level and stable competitive state whether he is at Wolfsburg, Leicester City, or now Manchester City.
It is because of Chu Zheng's increasingly comprehensive personal skills that he does not rely on his teammates' configuration.
At this point, Guardiola feels that Chu Zheng and Messi are quite similar.
In recent years, the media has been discussing that if Messi leaves Barcelona, his condition may plummet, saying that Messi is a system player.
The term system player has emerged in recent years, and it generally refers to certain players who can only perform well in a specific tactical system.
To put it bluntly, a certain player's performance depends on a certain tactical system.
As soon as this kind of statement came out, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and other stars were included in it.
Chu Zheng has also been discussed by the media and fans for some time.
But for the term "system player" invented by the media and fans, Guardiola thinks it is nonsense and a false proposition.
Football is about teamwork, and no player can escape from the tactical system.
Unless he can fly the ball directly into the opponent's goal.
Therefore, in fact, every player can be said to be a system player.
It's just that different players have different relationships with the system.
Take Chu Zheng for example, he is the fastest player to integrate into Manchester City's new tactical system.
Why?
Because Chu Zheng has comprehensive personal skills and a brain with a super high IQ, no matter what you ask of him, he can do it, and he will meet your tactical requirements to perfection.
Therefore, in Guardiola's view, this is one of Chu Zheng's most valuable advantages, and this advantage alone is enough to kill most players in an instant.
However, surprises always come unexpectedly.
In the 44th minute of the game, there was a melee between Kolarov, Fernando, Fernandinho, Eriksen and Sissoko on the left side of the Manchester City penalty area.
The ball changed hands three times, and Eriksen snatched the ball back again and quickly brought it back along the wing.
Just as he brought the ball back about 3 meters, Eriksen was shocked when he saw Chu Zheng approaching and quickly passed the ball across his ribs.
Navas directly attacked in the middle.
Son Heung-min quickly turned around and passed forward to Ali in the right rib area at the top of the key.
Before Ali's ball could stop, Otamendi grabbed it from behind.
The next second, Alli, who was ill-prepared, was knocked away and the ball was taken away by Otamendi.
After running two meters, Lamela rushed in front of Otamendi and stretched out his foot to chop him.
Otamendi dunked forward with his right foot to the left, and even the man dribbling the ball passed from the left.
After successfully breaking through, he saw that Chu Zheng had already run to the arc of the center circle in front of him, so he passed forward without saying a word.
In the center circle, the moment Chu Zheng took the ball, Danny Rose, who rushed horizontally from the right rib area, fell directly to the ground and made a sliding tackle.
Chu Zheng braked on the spot, and at the same time quickly spiked the ball with his left foot to his right foot, and narrowly escaped.
Seeing that Navas had started to pull towards the wing on the right side, Chu Zheng did not stop the ball with his right foot, but pushed the ball directly to the right rib the moment he touched the ball.
This action makes people look like using fried balls to pass the ball, which is very enjoyable to watch.
The next second, as soon as Chu Zheng passed the ball, Lamela approached from the back right side of Chu Zheng.
At this time, many people understood that Chu Zheng was not trying to show off his skills, but that he had predicted Lamela's attack. Immediately, countless people were shocked by Chu Zheng.
Even if Chu Zheng's pass was delayed by 0.5 seconds, it would be blocked by Lamela.
At this time, Tottenham's left wing is empty, which is an excellent offensive opportunity for Manchester City.
It's a pity that Navas wasted Chu Zheng's offensive plan.
After Navas got the ball, he didn't run very far before he was intercepted by Vertonghen who moved across the ribs to cover the ball.
After intercepting the ball, Vertonghen quickly got up and passed to Lamela on the left rib of the center circle.
Manchester City quickly switched from offense to defense, encircling Tottenham's possession of the ball in the midfield.
As a result, the two sides once again had a minute-long fierce fight in the center circle, and the ball changed hands continuously.
During this minute, the ball spent most of the time flying over the players' heads, causing the Manchester City players to suffer a huge disadvantage during the battle for the top.
Soon, the ball was pushed by Tottenham from the back line to the right rib of the center circle.
Sissoko quickly got into position and jumped in front of Fernando and Kolarov beside him.
In the center circle, Eriksen pushed the ball forward without stopping, and then quickly moved forward.
Fernando turned around and stepped too late to intercept, and the ball went straight to Son Heung-min in the ribs behind him.
At this time, because Kolarov came up just now, there is no one in front of Son Heung-min on the left side of Manchester City.
Fortunately, Stones reacted quickly and quickly came to the ribs from the center, blocking Sun Xingmin in time.
Son Heung-min could not fully speed up and had to slow down.
As soon as there was a lull, Fernando and Kolarov behind him quickly chased back, forming a 5-on-3 situation against Tottenham.
Seeing that he was about to be attacked from both sides, Son Heung-min found the right opportunity and quickly passed the ball to the left center.
At the top of the arc, Ali stopped the ball, faced the right rib, and made a pass to Eriksson, who was running diagonally from the right rib to the middle.
Otamendi was caught off guard and had his crotch pierced.
Fortunately, there is Zabaleta behind him.
However, Zabaleta, whose vision was blocked due to Otamendi's body, was unable to stop the ball.
The ball hit his right foot and rolled laterally towards the top of the arc and towards his right rib.
Son Heung-min ran past him a little and quickly retreated to get the ball.
At this time, Manchester City's defense had been completely disrupted by the interspersed movement of the three Tottenham players.
There was a huge gap between Stones and Kolarov in the penalty area, allowing Alli to get through.
As soon as Ali arrived, Son Heung-min got in front of Zabaleta and fired a through ball.
On the right side of the penalty spot, Ali met the ball and pushed it directly into the far lower corner of the goal.
In front of the goal, Bravo made a save, but the ball was too close.
When he reached out his hand to the path of the ball, the ball had already jumped ahead and rolled directly into the goal from the lower left corner of the goal and hit the side netting.
"boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The moment the goal was scored, the new White Hart Lane stadium once again experienced a strong shock! The cheers were like a stormy sea!
Pochettino, who was sitting on the coach's bench on the sidelines, jumped up when he saw the ball go in, with a look of ecstasy on his face.
He really didn't expect that this goal could be achieved in 3-on-5.
Next to him, Guardiola looked speechless.
Forty-five minutes in the first half, every minute and every second was torture for Guardiola, destroying his confidence in the team's defense bit by bit.
It also made Guardiola see that the defense line he built himself was not as strong as he had seen before. The excellent performance in the first few rounds was just a castle in the air, and it could not withstand someone like Tottenham.
The impact of kicking.
Not long after, referee Marina blew the whistle to end the first half.
In the Manchester City locker room, the score was overtaken near the end of the first half, which more or less affected the morale and psychology of the Manchester City players.
Therefore, there was no usual noise in the locker room, and everyone seemed a little taciturn, which made people feel that the atmosphere in the locker room was a bit depressing.
Chu Zheng was wearing a white towel and resting against the locker with his eyes closed.
He only has one feeling now.
Tired! A kind of exhaustion seeping from the seams of his bones was spreading rapidly in his body, making Chu Zheng too lazy to even move his fingers. He wished he could sleep on the spot for ten days and a half.
From the beginning of the season to the present, Chu Zheng's physical fitness value has not only returned to the peak value of last season, but also exceeded 90 with the team's physical reserve training.
However, the recent double matches in a row and Manchester City's aggressive and fast-paced tactical play have placed a huge burden on Chu Zheng's physical fitness.
When he thought about having to rush back to China to play in the World Cup preliminaries after playing this game, Chu Zheng felt a negative emotion about being tired of football from the bottom of his heart.
Chu Zheng knew very well that this was not his true thought, but was just a rest signal sent to him by his brain after feeling his body's fatigue.
But when people are in the arena, they can't help themselves.
Not long after, the door to the locker room was pushed open.
“sit down!!!!!”
“Nobody talks!!!!!”
"Sit down!!! Drink some water and take some time to rest!!!!"
As soon as Guardiola walked in, he shouted loudly, and the locker room suddenly became completely quiet. No one dared to disobey Guardiola.
Chu Zheng also opened his eyes, straightened up and looked at Guardiola, who was standing in front of the tactical board in the center of the locker room with his hands in his pockets and a cold face.
"I know it's hard for you guys to play, and it's hard for me too!"
"I'm not God, I know that!"
"But don't make a bad face for me. This is the last thing I want to see in the team."
"I try my best to do what I can, that's it!" Guardiola said loudly while standing in front of the tactical board and writing and drawing.
"Forty-five minutes into the first half, you only played good football for less than 20 minutes!"
"But I still saw what I expected to see!"
"In the last ten minutes of the first half, you learned how to play football bravely!"
"No matter what the result is today, I hope you can remember this game."
"I hope that no matter where we play in the future this season, we can fight with courage and defeat the opponents in front of us!"
After finishing speaking, Guardiola stopped, turned to look at the players in the locker room, and said with a serious expression: "If our goal is the Premier League championship and the Champions League championship, this is a test that all of us must go through."
As soon as he finished speaking, Guardiola stopped there and began to explain the tactical changes in the second half to everyone.
Amid Guardiola's passionate tactical explanation, the fifteen-minute intermission went by in a blink of an eye.
Not long after, the whistle sounded to start the second half.
"Pochettino didn't make any substitutions at halftime!"
"Not only the personnel at Tottenham have not changed, but the tactics and strategies have also not changed!"
"They played very well in the first half, and there is no need to change!" Zhang Lu chuckled.
Zhan Jun nodded, changed the subject, and said with a smile: "As for Manchester City, Guardiola directly replaced Fernando with David Silva."
"The positions of the frontcourt players have also changed."
"Navas came to the left and Sterling was moved to the right."
"Looking at Chu Zheng's running area after the game started, he seemed to be a single midfielder!"
"Even with a single defensive midfielder, Guardiola still plays in a 4141 formation."
"Chu Zheng's position change is understandable, because Chu Zheng has the ability to play as a defensive midfielder!" Zhan Jun looked puzzled, "But the change of positions between Sterling and Navas is intriguing!"
Zhang Lu laughed and said: "Navas moved to the left, maybe because he has certain defensive abilities and can relieve some of the pressure on Kolarov. Sterling moved to the right, maybe because he hopes
Sterling breaks inside and creates opportunities in the frontcourt!"
