Football’s First Defender

After a weekend of abuse, Liverpool has further consolidated its fourth position in the league standings.

The midweek make-up match is a good opportunity for them to further expand their advantage in the standings.

However, Everton, who also has no desires, is destined not to let the home team Liverpool pass the test easily.

Perhaps in the early days of English professional football, the match between Liverpool and Everton was called the "Friendship Derby". At that time in Liverpool, many families had both Liverpool fans and Everton fans.

However, with the progress of professional football, especially in the last ten years of League One, Liverpool and Everton competed against each other for the League One championship, and the "Heysel tragedy" at that time made the British Football Association ban British teams from participating in European competitions for 5 years. .

Everton, who won the league championship at that time, missed the European Champions Cup, which made many Everton fans vent their anger on Liverpool fans, further deepening the conflict between the two sides.

With the accumulation of hatred, in the past 30 years of competition, the same city derby between Liverpool and Everton has become more and more gunpowder.

Since the establishment of the Premier League, the Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton is the matchup with the most red cards in the game, with 19 red cards, 5 more than the second-ranked double red. Zhang is the hottest and most tragic team matchup in the Premier League.

In order to prepare for this make-up match, both teams carried out a small number of rotations in the last round of the league to ensure that the players can have the best game state to face this derby.

In the Merseyside derby, there is no holding back.

Even at Anfield, Everton coached by Moyes is a regular 442 lineup, not at all cowardly, and it comes up to play against Liverpool.

On Liverpool's side, Dalglish's players are also able to run and work hard.

Spilling, who has performed well in recent games, has once again won the trust of Dalglish. He starts the right midfielder, Downing is still the left midfielder, and Henderson is the midfielder. Gerrard, who has just returned from injury, is in front. .

In the last game, Gerrard entered the bench, but just to be on the safe side, and also to allow Gerrard to retain his strength, in the game against Sunderland, after leading, Dalglish did not let Gerrard De played.

In this game, Gerrard can play to his heart's content.

In other positions, Liverpool's regular main force has not changed. Both sides use their strongest formations to directly collide head-on.

"Merseyside is really hot!"

"Only 7 minutes into the game, Everton midfielder Pienaar shoveled Gerrard and got the first yellow card of the game."

fierce! It is what Everton wants to do in this game and what it wants to show. Only by being fierce and using excessive fouls, can the momentum of the Liverpool players be suppressed amidst the cheers of tens of thousands of Liverpool fans in the away game.

Under the foul action of the Everton players that set the tone of the game, the Liverpool players who were playing at home were even less timid, and returned the same big foul action.

Everton's chance to counterattack was directly blocked by a tackle from Spearing who came back to defend.

The referee thought for a while, but did not play a card, which directly caused the Everton players to "siege" the referee.

The Liverpool players on the side took a "righteous" shot to "protect" the referee from being hurt by the visiting team players.

This then led to a direct conflict between the players of the two teams.

In the fiery Merseyside Derby, there was a direct conflict between players from the two teams just 12 minutes into the game.

Of course, for the players of the two teams, fighting for their own rights and interests through quarreling and shoving is already familiar, and the players are just putting on a show, and they will not really fight unless there are special circumstances.

In this game, Yang Feng's defense mainly bears the threat of the opponent's continuous crosses from the side.

Moyes' creation of Everton's tactical system is very simple, and he does not follow the trend and perform too many complicated operations. For Everton, it is to try his best to explore the characteristics of his team.

Perhaps when facing some small and medium-sized teams, Everton will try to carry out more complex passing and receiving cooperation, and practice ball control.

But facing a powerful team like Liverpool, Moyes' countermeasures are very simple. Although the team will not completely retreat to defend, the team's offense mainly relies on two crosses from the wing, using simple offensive methods to come back. Ensure that the team will not suffer too many counterattack threats.

In addition to the players on the crossing side, there are also some contending players. The other Everton players can do a good job of the team's overall defensive task.

Although Everton specializes in crossing from the side and attacking in the center, facing Liverpool's defense, Everton's goal-scoring opportunities are really scarce.

Skrtel himself is a central defender who is good at defending high points and attacking forwards. With Yang Feng, who is known for his judgment and reaction ability, Everton's striker can't take advantage of it.

It's just that it is not so easy for Liverpool to counterattack. Under Moyes' strict tactical requirements, Everton's team has done an excellent job of protecting the backcourt.

The Everton players used more running to achieve the purpose of quickly returning to the defense, effectively limiting Liverpool's counterattack long pass threat.

Throughout the first half of the first half, although both sides used fouls to forcibly stop the opponent's attack, the rest of the time, the pace of the game between the two sides was actually very fast.

Players from both sides come and go, and both have invested a lot of manpower on the offensive end, but neither can immediately find the opponent's loopholes and create real offensive opportunities.

However, still in the away game, some Everton players who were suppressed by Liverpool consumed more energy.

This kind of consumption, in the process of continuous running, deepened the running speed of the team when they returned to defense in the final stage of the first half.

In the 33rd minute of the game, Everton had an offensive opportunity and took the ball from the right side directly into Liverpool's penalty area.

But Yang Feng did his part, chose the right position in advance, and completed the header clearance.

Since Yang Feng had enough time to prepare this time, he controlled the header well and directly hit Henderson's feet.

Henderson, who has been training with Yang Feng, focuses on strengthening the practice. After receiving Yang Feng's header, he immediately unloads the ball and makes a long pass to the opponent's core area.

As far as Henderson saw, Everton did a good job of protecting the two sides. The players returned to the defense quickly and there was not much space to pass the ball.

On the contrary, Everton's central defense line is guarded by only one central defender, and the space is relatively large.

Henderson didn't hesitate, he was in charge of passing the ball, he only needed to pass the ball to the open space in the middle, and his teammates would naturally run forward to catch the ball.

"Henderson, a long pass from the back!"

"Liverpool's counterattack, start quickly!"

"Suarez and Gerrard, one left and one right, kill the pass."

"Henderson's long pass was very accurate, and it happened to land in the middle area between the Everton defender and the goalkeeper. Both defenders were embarrassed and couldn't get the ball at the first time!"

"Suarez grabs the second spot and flicks the ball laterally to Gerrard who follows up."

"Gerrard! A lob shot directly to the goal!"

"Taking advantage of the opponent's goalkeeper standing forward, Gerrard made a lob shot over 30 meters!"

"GOAL!!!"

"Gerrard! Fantastic lob!"

"The ball drew a wonderful arc in the air, and flew directly into the goal in a parabola!"

"Liverpool lead 1-0!"