On January 15, at around nine o'clock in the morning, Manchester City's sky-blue bus once again drove out of the training base and went straight to the neighboring city of Liverpool.
In this round, Manchester City will challenge the Toffees Everton as a visiting team at Goodison Stadium.
Everton is one of the most active Premier League clubs in the summer transfer window. Although it has not introduced big-name stars, the transfers of Ashley Williams, Gueye and others prove that coach Koeman has a good vision.
Gueye averaged 4.9 successful tackles per game this season, even surpassing Chelsea's Kante and ranking first in the Premier League.
His worth of more than 7 million pounds can be said to be of high quality and low price, and Gueye is also the player who has passed the most passes in the Everton team this season.
Ashley Williams, who was bought to replace Stones who left the team, is also of high quality and low price. He has performed stably in Koeman's tactical system and has become a regular in Koeman's starting lineup.
But it is a pity that Everton has suffered injuries one after another this season. Frequent injuries to players have affected Everton's ability to compete in the European competition.
Injuries to Bolasie, McCarthy, Besic, Pennington and others have put Koeman's personnel deployment into a tight dilemma.
In the 20th round of the Premier League, Everton faced Southampton from afar at home. The embarrassed Koeman even sent two Everton youth team players to start.
However, Koeman does have unique insights into discovering and cultivating young players. The two young players performed admirably and eventually helped Everton defeat Southampton 3-0.
After the winter transfer window opened, while Everton continued to seek opportunities to strengthen the lineup in the transfer market, there were also constant rumors about the transfer of players in the team.
In particular, Everton's leading striker Romelu Lukaku, who has scored 11 Premier League goals this season and is ranked fifth in the Premier League scorer list, has been having constant scandals with wealthy teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea, and Inter Milan.
In addition to Lukaku's 11 Premier League goals, he also has 5 assists, second only to the team's assist leader Bolasie.
Regarding Lukaku's transfer scandal, Koeman also expressed his attitude, that is, allowing Lukaku to go to a bigger stage to show himself.
But this is somewhat duplicitous.
Because if Everton wants to continue to compete in the European competition in the second half of the season, it will be impossible without the firepower support of Lukaku.
Once Lukaku leaves, the Toffees' offensive strength will definitely be greatly reduced.
Currently, after 20 rounds of the Premier League, Everton is ranked seventh in the standings, with 30 points, 8 wins, 6 draws and 6 losses.
In the past three rounds of the Premier League, Everton has won two and drawn one, undefeated in three rounds, and has an extremely obvious momentum to chase points.
Although there is an 11-point gap with fifth-placed Arsenal in the European competition, there is still half a season left, and Everton is not totally without a chance.
The atmosphere on the Manchester City bus was particularly relaxed and pleasant.
They chatted, wore headphones and went crazy while listening to the music, laughed and joked with each other, they were doing everything.
After the bus drove onto the highway, he saw the players getting more and more noisy. Guardiola, who was sitting in the front row, looked back and did not interfere.
He himself was in a pretty good mood.
In the 20th round of the Premier League, Manchester City faced the challenge of Burnley, who was hovering outside the relegation zone, at the Etihad.
Although Burnley failed to keep a clean sheet in the 90th minute, Manchester City still dominated the game and easily defeated Burnley 3-1.
The next day, Manchester City hit the jackpot.
In this round of the league, Premier League leader Chelsea plays away to Tottenham at the new White Hart Lane Stadium.
As a result, Conte's 343 formation, which was highly praised by the media, did nothing under the impact of Tottenham's madmen, and finally surrendered 2-0.
Chelsea and Manchester City lost and won, and the situation in the standings was instantly reversed.
Manchester City returns to the top of the standings with a 1 point advantage.
This good news really made Manchester City ecstatic from top to bottom.
In addition to Chelsea being beaten by Tottenham, Arsenal were also attacked by the Cherries in the away game at Dean Court Stadium in Dorset, southern England.
The two sides finally shook hands and settled for a draw at 3-3.
Now in the standings, Arsenal is already 5 points behind Manchester City, Tottenham is 4 points, Liverpool is 3 points, and Chelsea is 1 point.
One more point is an extra point of safety for Guardiola.
From the beginning of the season to the present, Guardiola has clearly seen the cruelty of the Premier League.
The pressure he faces when coaching in the Premier League is several times that of when he was at Bayern and Barcelona. In this land, there are no real underdogs.
It can be said that the Premier League has vividly demonstrated the cruelty of the professional league, so that he does not dare to relax even for a minute.
But while feeling tremendous pressure, Guardiola was also very excited.
He likes the feeling of seeing strong opponents everywhere, and he likes challenges.
In the double seat on the left side of the penultimate row of the bus, Chu Zheng was wearing black headphones and was concentrating on reading a book, turning a deaf ear to the excitement around him.
Not long after, Guardiola stood up, clapped his hands, and signaled the players to take time to rest.
Suddenly the bus became quiet.
Aguero, Sterling and others who were in high spirits quickly returned to their seats. No one dared to disobey Guardiola, otherwise the consequences would be similar to what happened to Yaya Toure.
De Bruyne, who was chatting and laughing with national team captain Kompany in the last row, quickly returned to his seat.
Seeing De Bruyne return, Chu Zheng took off his headphones and asked: "Has your house been decorated?"
De Bruyne nodded and shook his head and said with a smile: "It's better now, but there's still some smell. Michelle and I were worried about affecting little Mason, so we decided to move here next month."
De Bruyne originally lived near the center of Manchester. Although the space at home is large enough, the outdoor activity space is much less.
Ever since he visited Chu Zheng's new home in the small town of Alderley Edge, this guy was attracted, so this guy became Chu Zheng's neighbor.
But this guy felt that the previous owner's decoration was too old-fashioned, so he renovated the house again.
De Bruyne's new home is right next door to Chu Zheng's house. It can be reached by climbing over the half-human-high low wall in Chu Zheng's yard, and then walking through a forest less than 100 meters away.
At around 13 o'clock in the afternoon, Liverpool's Goodison Park Stadium was filled with people.
In the double-tier stands on all sides of the scene, Everton fans made crazy noises to cheer for their team and put pressure on Manchester City.
This game happens to be around 9pm in China, which is the prime time for watching football.
Everton:(352)
Goalkeeper: Robres
Defenders: Holgate, Ashley Williams, Murray
Midfielder: Coleman, Tom Davies, Barry, Ross Barkley, Baines
Forwards: Lukaku, Miralas
Manchester City:(4231)
Forward: Aguero
Attacking midfielder: De Bruyne, Chu Zheng, Sterling
Midfielder: Yaya Toure, Zabaleta
Defenders: Clichy, Stones, Otamendi, Sagna
Goalkeeper: Bravo
Seeing the starting lineups of both sides, Zhan Jun read the list and said with a smile: "There have been 39 historical encounters between the two sides in the Premier League. Manchester City has 14 wins, 8 draws and 17 losses, which is a slight disadvantage."
"But in the past 7 league games against Everton, Manchester City has achieved an unbeaten record of 4 wins and 3 draws."
"Manchester City has been very strong recently. After defeating Burnley 3-1 in the 20th round of the Premier League, it not only returned to the top of the Premier League standings, but also advanced strongly with a 5-0 victory over West Ham United in the third round of the FA Cup last week.
, the recent situation can be said to be very good!”
"Since Manchester City and Everton have been eliminated from the EFL Cup early, compared with other Premier League teams, the recent schedule of the two teams can be said to be not so intensive, and both have received sufficient rest time. This is crucial for Manchester City to compete for the championship.
The situation is extremely favorable.”
"In the winter transfer market, Manchester City, which has been in constant transfer news, has recently finalized two loan signings. Guardiola successfully poached one of Pochettino's strong players from Tottenham, England right back Keir
Al Walker.”
"In addition, Manchester City has also reached a loan agreement with the Portuguese Super League club Benfica. Currently, Manchester City is stepping up its registration for Ederson."
"The Brazilian striker Jesus signed by Manchester City this summer has also left the Brazilian team Palmeiras. Last Friday, Manchester City completed the registration for him. Maybe it won't be long before we can see this Brazilian forward.
forward."
"The arrival of three new players may alleviate the dilemma of Guardiola at the center position, and at the same time improve the leaky defense line..."