Football’s First Defender

Manchester City's flanks posed a great threat from the very beginning. However, Liverpool's existing staffing on the field is doomed that even if they know that Manchester City's flank attack is threatening, they can only let it go.

This involves the team's overall offense and defense. At least, in this game, although Rogers chose to avoid the edge of Liverpool, it is definitely not for Liverpool to stick to a draw.

Will not fight against Manchester City, but it does not mean that Liverpool will give up the counterattack. As far as the choice of positions on the field is concerned, Liverpool still invested a few players in the midfield line to defend. These players can all counterattack. When the opportunity arises, give Manchester City a fatal blow.

Liverpool does not want to change the integrity of their lineup to slightly increase the defensive strength of the wing.

On the other hand, Manchester City has a lot of crossing opportunities on the wing, but since Negredo is only one contact point in the penalty area, they did not convert this suppression into a large number of shots.

Also for the balance of the team's formation, Manchester City's players still have certain concerns about getting in and grabbing points.

This also means that although Manchester City played a certain suppression effect at the beginning of the game, in fact, the only goal threat they got was the diving of Navas in the opening game. Occupying a huge offensive threat, in other cases, did not create enough threatening chances to hit the goal.

And Liverpool is gradually adapting to Manchester City's wing attack rhythm, making Liverpool's defense no longer as embarrassing as it was at the beginning.

In particular, Yang Feng and Skrtel's central defense line did an excellent job of defending Negredo and other Manchester City players penetrating into the penalty area, allowing the game to gradually calm down.

The Liverpool team itself, while completing a good defense, has been waiting for an opportunity to counterattack.

This kind of stalemate with Manchester City's slight advantage has been maintained until the 18th minute, when Liverpool showed the team's strong offensive ability on the counter-attack end for the first time.

Manchester City's midfield builds up the attack and makes a mistake under the sudden pressing of Liverpool players.

Yaya Toure picks up a pass to Fernandinho, and "Fei Bird" makes a mistake in stopping the ball, resulting in a loss of possession of the ball. Henderson takes a step up, kicks the ball, and directly passes it short to Joe Allen nearby.

Joe Allen sent a long-distance direct pass to find Suarez near the center circle.

Liverpool's counterattack started immediately.

Suarez accelerates forward with the ball himself, and there is enough open space in front of him.

And at the forefront, Sterling and Coutinho are the ones compressing Manchester City's three-man defense in the backcourt. The 3-on-3 situation is an excellent opportunity for Liverpool.

Suarez quickly dribbled the ball forward in the middle, forcing Kompany to come out and block Siarez's advance. Even if he got a yellow card for a foul, he had to solve Liverpool's counterattack threat this time.

And Suarez, before Kompany grabbed the spot, faced the space behind Kompany's departure and sent a precise through ball.

When Sterling was running on the right, he consciously moved forward obliquely, just in time to speed up and get rid of Korolav's defense. Hart.

Just when Sterling used his flexibility to get rid of the goalkeeper and push the empty goal, the whistle blew to stop the game.

Go in! However, the linesman has already raised the flag for offside!

The ecstasy of the Liverpool players for this counterattack goal was extinguished by the referee before celebrating.

Suarez, who passed the ball, and Sterling, who received the ball to complete the goal, were protesting to the referee that this ball should be a good ball.

Especially Sterling, he was the most excited to protest this penalty. When he ran obliquely to the left, he kept paying attention to Kororav's position. Otherwise, at his speed, if he ignored the impact of offside, he would be able to get rid of it faster.

It was seeing Suarez pass the ball that Sterling stepped on the accelerator to the bottom, sprinted at full speed, and instantly got rid of Kororav.

However, the referee only indicated that there was no problem with the ball and maintained the offside penalty, then avoided the Liverpool players' questioning and signaled Manchester City to kick off quickly.

An offensive threat in the slightest, perhaps for this offside penalty, the players, fans, and referees on the scene cannot have sufficient determination of what happened in an instant.

In the face of the fait accompli, they can only re-enter the game.

However, the TV broadcast can be replayed from various angles, especially after the offside line is drawn by the technical department of the broadcaster, it can be seen immediately that when passing the ball, Korolav was still half behind. A strike, the linesman made a misjudgment.

The Liverpool fans in front of the TV were angry, and the Liverpool fans who watched the live broadcast on the Internet were also angry. Some Liverpool fans who watched the game live, but still chatted and showed off on their mobile phones were belatedly aware and angry.

Rogers on the sidelines was even more angry when he got the feedback from the logistics staff.

A goal that Liverpool might have taken the lead was just blown away, and a wonderful goal was just disturbed by human factors.

Although Rogers will not immediately inform the players of the news and affect the players' performance in this game, but Rogers will not cover up his dissatisfaction with the referee.

Every controversial penalty after the referee will be protested by Rogers' dissatisfaction. Rogers used exaggerated protests to show his dissatisfaction.

The referee did not give Rogers any penalty measures. After all, from the referee's own perspective at the time, Sterling's ball just now seemed not to be offside, but the line referee whistled for offside, and he could only listen to the "professional" It's just the penalty of the professional. The referee himself also wants to watch the video during the halftime break to see how the ball was played, and then decide the scale of his call in the second half...

Fortunately, the Liverpool players were so focused on the game that they could only think that they were offside in that attack.

Now that it's offside, it's good to recreate the opportunity.

In the 23rd minute, Liverpool's offensive made a comeback.

Henderson and Coutinho made multiple consecutive passes in Manchester City's half, tearing up Manchester City's midfield defense. In the end, Henderson made a straight pass and gave the ball back to the outside of the penalty area. Suarez should.

Suarez came out to catch the ball, turned his back to the defender, turned sideways and stretched his foot, and passed the ball into the penalty area.

Sterling knew how to cross from the right side before, speeding up into the penalty area to get the ball, which is similar to the last "offside ball".

This time, the linesman looked at it, hesitated, and chose not to blow the whistle.

Sterling strode the ball directly to avoid Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart's attack. Although Sterling slammed the ball a bit too far, it still slid to the left baseline area, causing the angle of the goal to be further reduced.

But Sterling is not alone. This shooting area is difficult for Sterling who is not good at shooting, but it is not for Coutinho.

Coutinho has been accelerating forward on the left side, just in time to meet Sterling's big ball, and directly pushes the goal with his left foot from a small angle, and the shot is successful.

1 to 0, a late goal, still let Liverpool take the lead in the away game.