From the man behind the football king to the football king.

Chapter 401 Overall View

When Bruno was about to take the free kick, everyone was staring at him. Bruno is also a well-known set-piece expert in today's football. When he was at Udinese last season, he scored directly from free kicks 6 times and was the player with the most direct free kicks.

But after joining Manchester United, Bruno only scored one goal through a free kick. That was during the Double Red Club, and it has been more than two months since then. In the next 18 games, Bruno never scored directly from a free kick.

So can he continue to score goals today?
Obviously, Bruno's luck was not very good today, as the free kick failed to cross the wall.

As Bruno's free kick was blocked by the wall, and after a series of passes, no one saw that Bruno had quietly appeared in the penalty area and was paying close attention to the movement of the football.

Of course, Bruno couldn't predict that he would score a goal. His move was completely normal: increasing the number of people in front of the opponent's goal and putting pressure on the opponent during the attack.

He thought Lingard would shoot directly, but he didn't expect Lingard to be so selfless and unexpectedly made a cross.

Ibrahimovic did not expect this, so the football was cleared by Cone first, and then the football fell at Bruno's feet by some strange coincidence.

Before this Bruno had no mental preparation for shooting. But when the opportunity came, he didn't need any preparation. His body instinct made him shoot.

Until this time, everyone's attention was focused on Bruno again.

………………

Bruno flicked his leg against the kicked football, and the football flew towards the empty goal. Cone was still lying on the ground, and Pickford struggled to get up, but before he could stabilize his center of gravity, he saw Bruno stretching his foot to shoot. He quickly swooped over to stop the ball.

But he was a step too late, the ball passed between him and Cone, and then he heard huge cheers from the stands.

"The ball went in!!"

"Manchester United! Manchester United!!"

"Good goal! The ball is in! The ball is in! Less than two minutes into the second half, Bruno scored! Manchester United took the lead!! He has scored in 7 consecutive league rounds! And before that, he also scored Once he scored in 9 consecutive league rounds, tying Ruud van Nistelrooy's record of scoring in 9 consecutive league rounds in a single season. Bruno's condition this season is simply amazing! In the 18 league rounds, only the first round was against Bournemouth. And the match against Swansea in the 11th round without a goal!"

After scoring the goal, Bruno rushed to the sidelines excitedly, and then kept raising his arms to the Manchester United fans in the stands, asking them to cheer louder and louder.

"Bruno!" The live broadcast shouted Bruno's name, and the fans at the scene also roared.

It was quite shocking when more than 70,000 people shouted together.

Then the announcer said loudly: "In the 47th minute, Manchester United scored a goal! The shooter was No. 8——"

The Manchester United fans in the stands shouted in unison: "Bruno!!"

………………

Sunderland head coach Moyes was helpless. He had expected that Manchester United would continue to attack aggressively at the beginning of the second half, and he also specifically asked his players to pay attention to defense.

Despite this, Manchester United still scored less than two minutes into the second half... What else to do?
he does not know.

The Sunderland he leads are really not on the same level as Manchester United, but are they going to admit defeat like this?
No, it's still early! We were only one goal behind, there was still chance, there was still time.

He walked to the sidelines and yelled at the players who were standing there: "Don't panic! Let's continue to defend and counterattack!!"

Defensive counterattack is the only thing Sunderland can offer at the moment.

………………

Moyes has really done research on Manchester United and Mourinho.

曾经的穆里尼奥的确是1:0主义的坚定拥趸，在穆一期的第一年，穆里尼奥曾经打出11次1:0，比分胜负在1球以内的更是高达22场。

Even when Mourinho coached Real Madrid and Mourinho's second period at Chelsea, traces of his 1:0 doctrine can still be clearly seen. Even in the three seasons he coached Real Madrid, the Galacticos scored more than goals in each season.

But after he took charge of Old Trafford, he began to try to change. Although he still attached great importance to defense, he no longer adhered to the 1:0 doctrine, and Manchester United no longer began to shrink after leading by one goal. defensive team. As long as the conditions are met, Mourinho does not force the players to retreat on defense when they are leading, but gives the players a lot of freedom to attack with all their strength when the time is right.

This also means that after Manchester United played 17 league rounds, the score was 1:0 in only one game, and there were only 1 games in which the victory or defeat was within 5 goal, which was less than one third.

In the eyes of fans, this kind of football is very beautiful, eye-catching and full of passion.

But in the eyes of professionals like Moyes, this is a very risky move. If Manchester United faces a team with a sharper defensive counterattack, then Manchester United will lose. Even if they face Sunderland, Sunderland may not have no chance.

So Moyes asked the team to continue to defend and counterattack after losing the ball. He firmly believed that his team would definitely be able to find opportunities as Manchester United continued to attack.

As a veteran team, Sunderland does not want to admit defeat easily.

………………

The subsequent game was just as Moyes expected. Manchester United did not start to shrink and play defense just because they were ahead by one goal. They continued to press for assists, and the two full-backs Valencia and Blind took turns to intervene, constantly attacking. Sunderland's defence.

During this time, all the Sunderland players retreated and defended the goal. They know that Manchester United has just scored a goal and their morale is high. They must hold on at this time. As long as they can hold on, they can dampen their edge.

After attacking wildly for a while, Bruno discovered that Sunderland was determined to defend. The harder he attacked, the tighter the opponent would shrink. This would be unfavorable to his attack, so Bruno decided for a change of pace.

On the court, Mourinho gave Bruno a lot of freedom. This is partly because Bruno has a good overall view and knows when to attack and when to retreat. On the other hand, after several months of adjustments, Mourinho found that Manchester United's defense had become stable. Especially the presence of Kanter makes Manchester United's defense as if there is an extra person. As long as Kanter is on the court, Bruno can focus more on offense.

So when he saw Sunderland recycle, he no longer passed the ball forward blindly, but suddenly changed to a back pass.

………………

Bruno passed the ball to center back Phil Jones.

Phil Jones was stunned for a moment, and then wanted to pass the football back to Bruno. Unexpectedly, Bruno waved his hand and refused, and asked him to pass the ball to goalkeeper De Gea.

Phil Jones was a little confused.

Bruno saw him hesitating and looked back. The Sunderland players hadn't pressed forward yet. So he waved again and repeated his request: pass the ball back to goalkeeper De Gea.

Phil Jones thought for a while, anyway, Mourinho had a request, and he would listen to Bruno when he got on the court. Since he wanted to pass the ball back by himself, then he should pass it back by himself.

So he turned around and passed the ball back to De Gea.

De Gea habitually wanted to kick forward and saw Bruno waving to him. He was familiar with this gesture. Whenever he was about to take a goal kick, Bruno would do it, signaling him to pass the football. He basically did it every time, because Mourinho told him that Bruno was like a head coach on the court and tried to listen to him.

This time De Gea did the same.

After Bruno received the ball, he looked back and found that Sunderland forward Defoe was trying to run up.

In that case, keep fishing. So he passed the football to Phil Jones and asked Phil Jones not to pass it to him, but to another central defender Rojo next to him.

Then Bruno waved to the front, indicating that everyone should move back a little bit and not press everyone so high, so that the front and rear courts would be completely disconnected.

Two full-backs rushed forward like full midfielders, how could they kick the ball?
………………

Although the Manchester United players were not very used to it, they still followed Bruno's request and recycled it.

The most positive person among them is Ibrahimovic, because he is the only one who understands what Bruno is doing.

Bruno successfully allowed his teammates to recover, but he did not rush to pass forward because he found that Sunderland did not follow up and he had to wait patiently.

Sunderland were determined to fight back, but how were they going to score if they didn't move forward? Therefore Bruno is not worried at all that Sunderland will not take the bait.

Sunderland didn't come forward, so Bruno was happy to play behind. If Sunderland doesn't come out, Manchester United will naturally pull them out. Unless Sunderland are determined not to come out from behind, they will have to be fished out like fish.

Of course, it is impossible for Sunderland to really sit back and show off. They are staying back to defend and counterattack, but if Manchester United does not attack, what will they defend and how will they counterattack?

So when the ball spun all over the feet of Manchester United's four defenders plus Bruno, Sunderland finally made a save.

Starting from the forward, all the way to the midfielder, Bruno fished them all.

However, Sunderland still remembered to guard against Manchester United's attack, so none of the four defenders moved, and they all stayed on the back line of defense.

The opponent is coming up, which may cause Bruno to be more tightly defended when he gets the ball, but this is a good thing for Manchester United as a whole, because there are more spaces behind them.

(End of this chapter)