It was already March to play against Portsmouth.

As time goes by March, the winter battle has come to an end, and the league has reached its final sprint.

Manchester City can focus on the league, which is good news for them, but bad news will follow - Chelsea lost in the Champions League and they lost to Barcelona led by Rijcalde.

The Champions League defeat is bad news for Chelsea, but it is also bad news for Manchester City, because it means that Chelsea can focus on domestic events. Although they also have the FA Cup to play, Manchester City's bench depth is not as deep as Chelsea, and Chelsea supports two-front battles with no pressure.

It can be said that from now on, the two teams will fight for the league championship.

Manchester City has 4 points with an advantage, but with only 10 rounds left in the league, 4 points does not have an absolute advantage, so Wan Sheng emphasized to the team, "We must win the game so we must win!"

Not making mistakes is more important than being outstanding suddenly.

Even if you draw or lose to your competitors, you must win the small team so that you can win more points and be more powerful in league competition. After all, the league is a point system. Winning Manchester United, Chelsea will be 3 points, winning Sunderland, and Wigan Athletics will also be 3 points.

So Manchester City attaches great importance to this game against Portsmouth.

Before the game, Wan Sheng watched a lot of Portsmouth's game videos and gained a further understanding of this team. In summary, this is a team on the verge of relegation. The offensive ability is quite poor, the frontcourt players lack the ability to seize opportunities, and the defense is also very weak. But thinking about it, Portsmouth is currently ranked fifth from the bottom in the league, so such strength is not surprising.

Although it is a weak team, it is not easy to win the game. After all, it is a away game, so Wansheng still reminds the players to be serious before the game.

But when it was time to play, the players on the field were still a little careless.

No one expected that the goal was Portsmouth. In the 8th minute of the game, forward Karadas broke into the penalty area line. Distin fell to the ground by making a defensive mistake. The goalkeeper Wang Xiaolei, who appeared, was still standing in the far corner, and his position was quite bad. Karadas got an excellent opportunity. He seized the opportunity and sent the ball into the net with an accurate low shot.

This ball came so surprisingly!

Portsmouth never expected the goal to come so quickly, and the Portsmouth fans were extremely surprised.

After celebrating the goal, Portsmouth was not overwhelmed by the goal. They knew that the team's strength was still not comparable to Manchester City. So they decisively strengthened their defense.

Manchester City was eager to score but failed for a long time, but frequent threats and attacks made Portsmouth more determined to defend.

In the second half, Wan Sheng replaced Robbie Fowler, hoping that this experienced veteran could score a goal, but Portsmouth still had a tight defense. It was difficult to break through their dense defense with the cooperation of the frontcourt alone. Manchester City had to change their strategy. It was still to use frequent high balls to find opportunities.

Finally, when the game reached the 71st minute, the offense gained. Morris's pass from the outside found Darren Bent, who accurately pushed the ball into the goal guarded by Westward.

1:1.

This is also the final score.

A draw against Portsmouth away is equivalent to losing for Manchester City, because their rival Chelsea won Tottenham. Although they had a difficult win, they only won 1-0 with a goal in the final stoppage time, but if they won, they won. Chelsea scored 3 points, Manchester City only scored 1 point, and the gap between the two teams was only two points left.

By this time, many media began to be dissatisfied with Manchester City.

Many people were optimistic about Manchester City before, because Manchester City is the first in the league, they have 4 points advantages and perform quite well in the league. They both killed their rivals Manchester United and defeated Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and other strong teams. Such a result surprised many people.

But now the situation is different, because Chelsea has no restrictions on the Champions League and can focus on the league.

There is no doubt that Chelsea's strength is that they are all stars of tens of millions of pounds on the bench, and Manchester City is incomparable in terms of lineup. In front of Chelsea, Manchester City is like a small team at a glance. Not to mention the depth difference between the bench, just the main lineup, Manchester City can only play Morris and Anelka, and what about Chelsea? Lampard, Terry, Drogba, Marklele, and Essin are big stars. What's more terrifying is that these stars were combined into a whole by Mourinho, and they can be called the "blue battleship" after Real Madrid.

The lineup is incomparable, and both teams are dedicated to the league, so the game between Manchester City and Portsmouth is interpreted as "season weakness at the end of the season".

Many small teams are like this. They are very strong in the early stages of the league and their results are no worse than those of the giants. However, by the end of the season, many external reasons have affected their results.

For example, Wigan Athletics, as a newly promoted team, can compete for the top four spots in the first half of the Premier League, but after Christmas, injuries, lineup and opponents' adaptation, the results have greatly affected. They have fallen down three places all the way, with extremely advantageous results, and can only barely compete for the qualification for European competitions. Many analysts believe that it is good to stay in the top ten skills of Wigan Athletics.

Manchester City have performed well from the beginning of the season to the present, but this does not mean that they can persist until the end of the season. In the last ten rounds, their results are likely to decline.

In this way, they naturally cannot compete for the league championship.

This is the report from the Manchester Sports newspaper. "Portsmouth is still in the relegation zone. They may not have expected to get a point from Manchester City, even if they play at home. After all, Manchester City's performance is a bit too good. But they did it, and Chelsea should thank Portsmouth."

"In this round, Manchester City drew 1-1 against Portsmouth. They were caught up by Chelsea with 2 points, and the advantage was only 2 points. We can imagine that Chelsea will soon overtake and become the top of the league. Manchester City will not have any more opportunities at that time."

As a major media in Manchester, Manchester Sports is a loyal supporter of Manchester United. In fact, they don’t like Chelsea either, but if they choose one of Chelsea or Manchester City, they will directly choose Chelsea because Chelsea is just a competitor. Manchester City is a mortal enemy for a century. So they won’t say good things about Manchester City.

Neutral media also expressed their optimism about Chelsea because Chelsea is stronger and the two points gap is only one game. If Chelsea can tie or even catch up with points, it will be difficult for Manchester City to catch up.

Manchester City's support also made concerns, and they helped Manchester City analyze the reasons for the loss.

"We should be more serious about the game. When we played against Portsmouth, many players were not in the form."

"It's a pity to concede the first goal, Distin should pay more attention to the defense!"

"If Anelka recovers from injury, he should pay as soon as possible, and the French can bring more goals to the team."

""

Wan Sheng didn't care about these remarks at all. After drawing a game and allowing Chelsea to catch up with two points, he knew that the media would not say anything good. So he just asked the team to prepare seriously.

The draw with Portsmouth reminded the whole team that this was more effective than how much saliva wasted by a million wins. The team trained more seriously and had a more serious attitude towards the game. So in the next round, facing Charlton, Manchester City won a 4-0 victory cleanly.

The game immediately shut up the media.

Manchester City's performance was so good. They suppressed Charlton throughout the game, making Charlton seem powerless to fight back. From the beginning of the game, the situation was controlled by Manchester City, and the same was true for the score. Manchester City scored two goals in the first and second half, showing absolute strength and suppression.

The reason why the media couldn't speak was not only that. In another match, the North London derby battle, Chelsea lost 0:1 to his arch-rival Fulham.

This is a focus battle, and once Chelsea loses, controversy is inevitable. Chelsea seems to have a natural halo of ridicule, and Mourinho can always find excuses to lose.

In the Champions League loss to Barcelona, ​​head coach Mourinho sneered at the red card Orno, "They have blackened us twice in two years." The "they" in the Portuguese's mouth can be understood as both Barcelona and referee.

Now losing to Fulham, Mourinho has no comment on Galas' red card, but Drogba was blown away a goal, so the Portuguese said again, "I can guarantee you the vote, but the assistant referee didn't see clearly at the time. I didn't see the handball on the sidelines, and he didn't see it either, because he didn't raise the flag to signal. After the goal, the Fulham player rushed to the referee to put pressure on the referee. The reason why the referee made such a judgment was not because he saw it, but because he was under pressure."

Mourinho cunningly avoided the point of whether Drogba was handball, and pulled people's attention to the referee.

Manchester City defeated Charlton strongly and widened its point advantage to 5 points. The pressure on Wan Sheng was reduced sharply, so he was also in the mood to say something, "The referee seems to have become Chelsea's natural enemy. As long as there are unfavorable punishments, fouls, red cards, or goals are cancelled, you can always hear him (Mourinho) sending dissatisfaction. But there are many unfavorable punishments for Manchester City, and we never say much."

"Maybe this is his (Murinho) strategy. He wants people to divert their attention and not to see the reason why Chelsea lost, and then everything is because of the referee, because of other external reasons."

In the end, Wan Sheng joked, "If we finally win the league championship, maybe he (Murinho) would say, 'It is the referee who determines the title', and the British referees' Association should feel honored because they have the ability to decide the season championship!"

Wan Sheng's words reached Mourinho's ears, making the Portuguese look dark, and he said, "He is not qualified to point fingers at our game."

"The league is far from over, it's too early to be happy now!"

This is a reminder to Wan Sheng, of course it is ironic, but Wan Sheng doesn't care. "He wants to say that Chelsea still has a chance? Then I will let him know why Chelsea has no chance!" His voice was sonorous and powerful, which made the Manchester City media listen to it.

This is almost equivalent to a championship declaration!

So everyone focused on the 32nd round of the league, with Chelsea playing against Manchester City at home.

"This is also a chance for Chelsea!" The Times analyzed, "If Chelsea can win this game, they have a great hope of catching up with Manchester City, but if it is a draw or even lose, their chances will become very slim, because it is difficult to expect Manchester City to make several consecutive mistakes."

This was also a completely different voice before.

Before Manchester City and Charlton's match, many media thought that Manchester City's performance would decline, but now they think that Manchester City will stabilize its performance, after all, its strength is there.

This is the impact of an absolute victory.

Those neutral media saw the strength of Manchester City, so they turned to support Manchester City with a more advantageous attitude. As for how strong Chelsea is, this sentence has been said for a whole season, but it still ends up being Manchester City at the top of the list?

As for this game between Chelsea and Manchester City, many people are still looking forward to it.

In order to win the championship, Chelsea will definitely give their all. Their advantage is still very obvious, because they played at home, but the last time the two teams fought, Manchester City won 3:2. That battle is still fresh in memory. Manchester City has also shown extraordinary strength, so it is hard to say who wins and who loses, but the excitement of the game is definitely unquestionable.

Before the battle, there will be a 31st round of the league. Chelsea will play first in this round. Unexpectedly, Birmingham, who was at home, drew 0:0 with Chelsea.

This result is quite surprising!

Many people have said before that Manchester City will make mistakes at the end of the league, for many reasons, such as their lineup, bench depth, injury situation or simply lack of background, etc., but no one expected that Chelsea made a mistake first. After losing to their archery to their archery rival Fulham, they drew away with Birmingham and only got one league point.

In this game, Chelsea attacked the entire game, and it was difficult to break the funnel defense line of Birmingham who lost 12 goals in the last three games.

As the Sun satirized, "Birmingham's previous goals were probably prepared for this solid defense." Of course, this is just a mockery, but Chelsea's draw was real.

Manchester City's game ended soon, and they won Middlesbrough 1-0 at home and scored 3 points again.

After this round, relying on Chelsea's mistakes, Manchester City's lead has expanded to 7 points. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!