Football’s First Defender

Liverpool's efficient offense directly smashed Manchester City's defense, which has performed well this season, to pieces in this game.

Indeed, there may still be various problems in Liverpool's offensive tactics, but with Gerrard's comeback, after Liverpool has an excellent goal point and personal attack point in the midfield, Liverpool's frontcourt Other offensive players also played alive.

Everyone twisted their hearts together and worked together to help Liverpool play offensive football like mercury in the home half.

After the fairly strong Liverpool team fell apart a few years ago, Liverpool fans have seen the team's sluggish offense and a defense line full of loopholes in the past two seasons. The ones are too rare.

The fans at the scene unreservedly dedicated their applause, shouts, and singing to the team fighting hard on the field.

Manchester City is under tremendous pressure in the away game. They are now 2 goals behind, and they have to play in such a noisy and noisy away game. It is definitely a huge test for the players.

For the lagging side, the most taboo is the so-called panic at this time. At this time, what the team needs is to stabilize the morale, stabilize the thinking, unite, and use the shortest time to find the overall goal for the next period of time.

Whether to launch an attack immediately, or to slow down the pace first, let the players adjust their mentality through defense, and then launch a strong attack after preparation.

On the sidelines, Mancini decided on the tactical play in the shortest time, defending first, and the team's defense first, and don't continue to attack aggressively.

Today's Liverpool is in the stage of overwhelming momentum. Manchester City must suppress Liverpool's momentum first, and then wait for the opportunity.

Mancini believes in the offensive strength of his players, and believes that the team has the ability to reverse the comeback when they return home, so they should do a good job of defense in the first half, put the focus of the game on the second half, put it on the next round, and decide the winner. It's not impossible.

Because Yaya Toure and David Silva, the two core ball-handling cores of the team, remained calm at this time, after receiving the instructions of the head coach Mancini, the two controlled the football at their feet, Gradually slow down the pace of the game.

Although Manchester City is conducting ball possession in the midfield area as usual, they no longer try to carry out risky passing operations, and offensive players no longer suddenly insert and create opportunities.

The midfielders, including the two full-backs and Yaya Toure, also stood firmly in their defensive positions, ensuring that they would not step forward to participate in the offense, and then leave Liverpool with a chance to counterattack quickly.

Liverpool did not respond well to Manchester City's possession of the ball in order to control the ball from the beginning, and they were afraid that Manchester City would fight back to lure the snake out of the hole.

Liverpool's defense line still maintained the posture of sticking to the 30-meter dangerous area, and did not immediately press up.

All of a sudden, the fierce game that had been played before turned to a dull one. Both sides tacitly controlled the ball and defended in their respective areas.

Dalglish, who was off the court, was also thinking about whether the players should come forward to press at this time. After all, the current momentum of the game is on Liverpool's side, and Liverpool can take advantage of this momentum to continue to attack Manchester City continuously. Then strive to further expand the lead. If the battle can be resolved in one round at home, then it will be great.

However, there is another objective reality that Dalglish needs to struggle with, that is, the physical strength of Liverpool players.

The reason why Liverpool performed very well on both offensive and defensive ends before is that the players ran more actively and desperately under the aura of revenge in this game. The Liverpool players used more running to establish their initial strength on the field. advantage.

Therefore, in the face of Manchester City's active possession and transmission of the ball in the midfield area, if Liverpool want to complete the steal, it is bound to pay more physical price and press and defend in the midfield. This is absolutely necessary for the physical fitness of Liverpool players. A huge test.

After thinking about it, Dalglish still signaled the team members to wait and see what happened, and just use this time to take a breath, save some energy, and prepare for the second half of the game.

Of course, although the rhythm of the two sides began to slow down, Manchester City also pursued the idea of ​​​​pursuing a smooth transition of possession for a period of time, but Manchester City's tentative offense did not stop for a moment.

It's just that Manchester City's offensive number is very small, which ensures that even if Liverpool cut off the pass and complete the conversion of the ball, they will not be able to play any effective counterattack.

Manchester City's offense mainly relies on Silva's pass planning, as well as the long-range shots of the two tireless "perpetual motion machines" Milner and Barry.

Silva passed the ball into Liverpool's tightly guarded penalty area, using Dzeko's ability to grab points to see if Aguero could create a chance.

It's just that it's good for Scott to do defensive work like staring at the high center forward. Although he can't guarantee that he can limit Dzeko every time, he can also guarantee that Dzeko will be given enough body to resist interference and let him Unable to comfortably jump for points.

Such a simple cooperation is destined to fail to achieve results within Liverpool's penalty area.

Even though Dzeko was able to barely head the ball towards Aguero's area once, Yang Feng still played his excellent judgment ability as Liverpool's defensive gate. The ball is cleared directly.

For Yang Feng, now that the team has achieved a two-goal lead and his teammates on the offensive end have shown their excellent offensive state, now is the time for the Liverpool defense led by him to prove himself.

We must hold on to our lead, and we must show our hard work on the defensive end.

After a period of smooth transition, as the Manchester City players calmed down, under the signal of Mancini, in the last period of the first half, Manchester City finally began to show their fangs.

Thanks to Mancini's command arrangement off the field, Manchester City's offensive end is to focus on one wing. The full-back on one side will attack to enhance the team's offensive ability on the side. The full-back on the other side will withdraw. Go near the halfway line and make sure there is a speedy player who can deal with Liverpool's counterattacks.

"Don't be afraid of fouls, don't be afraid of taking cards, when necessary, you would rather foul than stop your opponent's counterattack!"

Mancini's anti-reverse strategy was passed to Manchester City's midfielders through Silva immediately.

On the offensive end, Manchester City launched a siege to Liverpool under the duo of Silva and Yaya Toure!

"David Silva's wide breakthrough! After shaking Glenn Johnson, he chose to cross into the penalty area."

"Yang Feng! Take the lead, jump high, accurately complete the header in the air, and make a clearance."

…………

"Richards made a rare attack. This time Manchester City suddenly launched an attack from the right and caught Liverpool by surprise."

"In the process of going down, Richards suddenly chose to stop and smash the ball, swaying Jose Enrique, and then chose to pass back to the penalty area when Liverpool's defense was pressed back into the penalty area."

"Yaya Toure! At the top of the penalty area, catch the ball and hit the goal directly!"

"But Henderson bravely stood up and blocked the flight path of the ball by himself, blocking Yaya Toure's heavy bombardment. Gerrard who was nearby quickly scored two points to clear the siege. Hender Sen still fell to the ground in pain..."

…………

"Manchester City showed their strength on the offensive end in the final stage of the first half, while Liverpool's counterattack was disrupted by Manchester City's foul tactics."

"Richards, Milner, and Yaya Toure all received yellow cards in just ten minutes. The Manchester City players will be careful about foul trouble in the next game."

"Silva used the change of rhythm, suddenly chose to cut in, and used his personal ability to create an offensive opportunity."

"When everyone else in Liverpool rushed over to encircle him, Silva made a light pass, picked the ball out of the encirclement, and passed it deep into the Liverpool penalty area!"

"beep--"

"Offside, the referee signaled that Aguero was offside!"

"Yang Feng and his teammates, at the critical moment when Silva passed the ball, made a very wonderful collective move, and Aguero, who was rushing towards the small penalty area, fell directly into an offside trap."

"I have to say that Liverpool's defense has become more organized after Yang Feng's comeback!"

With Yang Feng's command, everyone also took Yang Feng as the backbone. After this period of training, the entire defense line was finally able to tacitly use Yang Feng as the benchmark to carry out some "offside traps" in the game.

With the whistle of the referee, the first half is over, and Liverpool, with a two-goal lead, can walk back to the home team lounge with laughter!