Football’s First Defender
Chapter 502: Dominate
In the 34th round of the Premier League, the whole world focused its attention on the focal battle between Liverpool and Manchester City.
Manchester City, which has one less round, is 4 points behind Liverpool and temporarily ranks second in the Premier League.
As far as the schedule is concerned, Liverpool still has a strong matchup with Chelsea to play after, and Manchester City counts the five games of the make-up match, but they are all against the underdog.
Under the current circumstances, whoever can win this game can firmly hold the initiative to win the championship in their own hands.
And if Liverpool sit at home and only get a draw, although they still occupy the lead, there is no room for mistakes against Chelsea.
This direct duel between the top and the second place, the final result, will be very likely to determine the final Premier League champion.
The focus of this game, Liverpool at home, still stick to the team's currently honed starting lineup.
Although there is no defensive midfielder like Lucas, it is a weakening of Liverpool's midfield defense, but Rogers believes in the offensive strength of his team and also believes that Yang Feng can lead the Liverpool defense and block most of Manchester City's attacks.
Unlike Liverpool, which is fighting at home, insisting on its own offensive football, the previous successive defeats of Tottenham and Manchester United have made Manchester City not too much pursue their own offense for this away game.
Manchester City do not want to play against Liverpool, it just allows Liverpool to play their offensive advantage more recklessly.
In this game, Manchester City's main defensive counterattack tactics, and Aguero with some minor injuries was directly placed on the bench.
Zheke started and played as a single forward.
Manchester City's 451 formation, compared to the first leg against Liverpool, replaced the poor performance of Korolav and Lescott.
It is still Navas Nasri separated in two, midfielder Silva, Yaya Toure and Fernandinho's midfield combination.
On the back line, Kompany partnered with Demichelis, and the full back was Sabaletta and Clichy.
Manchester City is relying on sufficient personnel reserves to achieve a record that is even better than Liverpool in the second half of the league.
And Manchester City, who started on the defensive at the beginning, also knew that it was not easy to be a guest, so it would be nice to try to get out of the way.
However, in the face of Liverpool's strong offensive, Manchester City, a team that is already known for offense, still overestimated its defensive ability.
Just 5 minutes after the start, Liverpool scored another lightning goal.
Coutinho's cross pass in the middle, Suarez continued to compete with Demichelis and Clichy, who came back to the defense, and still controlled the football at his feet.
After that, he made a straight kick and passed directly to the Manchester City penalty area line.
Sterling came to the middle, dashed forward, received a pass from his teammate, and faced Joe Hart with a single-handed lead.
Although Kompany's defense came over, but compared to Sterling's speed, Kompany's defense could not completely keep up, unable to block all angles.
Faced with Joe Hart in a semi-attack state, and Kompany who tried to make up for it.
Sterling did not rush out to hit the goal, but made a sudden stop, chose to dial the ball to the left, and play the far corner on the left.
Kompany stopped and changed direction, and Joe Hart also leaned to his right side.
Then Sterling dunked the ball back to the right and immediately went out to hit the goal.
Both Kompany and Joe Hart were deceived by Sterling's previous false move to the left.
When Sterling buckled to the right to hit the goal, Kompany and Joe Hart could no longer make further defensive moves.
Sterling, in such a critical game, such a calm choice of fake moves, also scored the first goal for the team.
In front of the KOP stands, scored such a wonderful goal, the teenager Sterling, enjoyed the huge cheers from the Liverpool fans.
Liverpool, which took the lead, still did not look to weaken the offensive.
Playing at home, Liverpool fully demonstrated the team's current strong offensive ability.
Since Manchester City wants to stabilize first and defend to counterattack, Liverpool must use a strong offense to thoroughly penetrate their defense.
The strong matchup is about the suddenness of the offense. In an instant, the ability of offensive players to seize opportunities.
In this situation, most of the time, the offensive may not have too many dangerous offenses.
But as long as a certain loophole of the defender is caught, it may create a very good offensive opportunity and only impose the greatest threat to the opponent's goal.
In the 11th minute of the game, Yang Feng sent a long pass from the backcourt.
The ball landed on the right wing, after landing and rebounding, it passed directly over the heads of Krish and Nasri and continued forward.
Sterling started completely on the right, ditched the defensive player, and made a breakthrough on the right.
After receiving the ball, Sterling immediately expanded his speed to attack the opponent's hinterland.
In the face of Fei Bird, who came to the defense, Sterling sent a half-high pass from the right.
Sterling's hard work in private, continuously fed back into the game, showing the rapid growth of his technical ability.
The arc of the pass just passed the two Manchester City defenders, and Joe Hart couldn't get it. After that, the ball moved back in an arc, and Sturridge, who plugged in, just had a space to hit the goal. .
A foot shot on the move.
In order to avoid the defensive range of Joe Hart in front of the goal ~ lightnovelpub.net ~ Sturridge chose the left foot pad to shoot in the far corner.
Goalkeeper Joe Hart was incompetent in the face of this kick, but it was a pity that Sturridge's kick during the fast marching process did not shoot in the right place.
The general direction of the ball is correct, but the control accuracy is still a bit worse. The ball slipped out, and the fans at Anfield Stadium lamented.
But Liverpool's offense continues.
Constant offensive impact, not only got many opportunities to hit the goal in sports games, but also created many opportunities for positioning the ball.
In the 21st minute of the game, Liverpool took a corner kick from the right. In the penalty area, Yang Feng and Skrtel put too much pressure on Manchester City's air defense, and there was a marking of other Liverpool players.
It is rare for Gerrard to enter the penalty area and participate in the header work during the game.
This time I did it on purpose and suddenly, and achieved quite good results.
Gerrard used the running position and the pull of his teammates to get an unmarked space in the middle.
And Coutinho's pass was the perfect requirement for this special tactic, and he went straight to Gerrard, who took off and shook his head to attack the goal.
However, Joe Hart's skills on the goal line are absolutely world-class, God reacted to the side to jump, single palm up the football, just gave Liverpool a corner kick.
The corner kick on the left was taken by Gerrard.
A corner kick without too many complicated tactics is to go directly to the high point players in the Liverpool penalty area.
Yang Feng!
Give full play to his advantage of being good at top penalty kicks, while running, point forward diagonally, facing Gerrard's pass, heading towards the near corner.
Faced with a header that flew to the dead corner, Joe Hart couldn't make a save. 2-0, Liverpool continued to expand the score...