Football’s First Defender

Against West Bromwich Albion at home, for Liverpool, which has been unbeaten in the league for three rounds, the previous league ranking has dropped to 14th, even lower than today's opponents.

Even though he had already played the Champions League in the middle of the week, the pressure of the league results also made Rogers afraid to make too much lineup rotation in the league.

In this game at Anfield, Rodgers can no longer tolerate losing points. Liverpool must use a victory to stop the decline in the past month.

No one thought that Rodgers would make considerable changes to the striker in Liverpool's starting roster before the game.

Sturridge and Balotelli were all on the bench for this game, and Rodgers sent him to start the game. The lone striker turned out to be the veteran Lambert who had just transferred over in the summer.

451 Liverpool's usual formation this season, Henderson and Gerrard are still the team's double midfielders.

In the current situation where the team's offense is weak, even though Lucas has returned from injury, Rogers still wants to use this pair of double midfielders who can attack forward. There is a greater opportunity to further enhance Liverpool's offensive threat.

Adam Lallana also started today.

This young player who played an outstanding season in Southampton last season, this game is also a change that Rodgers hopes can change the team's situation. He will be separated from the left and right. Together with Tring, they launched an impact on West Bromwich Albion's defense.

The visiting team West Bromwich Albion itself looks at the composition of the team, almost all of them are English and Scottish players. You can know that this is a veritable "British" team.

Simple offensive tactics and a defense based on physical confrontation.

West Brom wanted to learn from Everton's defensive tactics. However, due to the technical strength of the players, it was too rough. If they wanted to really restrict Liverpool players, they were always avoided by Liverpool's attacking players more flexibly. .

From the beginning of the game, Liverpool had an absolute advantage on the scene.

The fulcrum role of Lambert, the center, has been perfectly played.

Not only can it serve as a fulcrum for Liverpool's small-scale cooperation in the frontcourt, but it can also use the restraint of teammates to complete a very threatening offensive finish.

Gerrard and Lambert directly completed the long pass connection at the beginning.

Lambert, who received a pass from Gerrard on the right side of the penalty area, volleyed directly after stopping the ball. If it weren't for the amazing save of visiting team goalkeeper Ben Foster, he could have opened the scoring for Liverpool early.

Liverpool then carried out a long-term offensive suppression against West Bromwich Albion. In order to enhance the team's offensive suppression, the defense led by Yang Feng began to put more pressure on the front.

Throughout Liverpool, in order to cater to Rogers' adjustments to offensive tactics, the positions of the overall lineup are very advanced.

This leaves huge gaps in the backcourt, leaving it to West Bromwich Albion, but the visiting team just can't see it.

Yang Feng's defense, even though the position is earlier than usual, can still effectively limit the opponent's counterattack.

Especially regarding the use of space, Yang Feng has reached the extreme that he can do.

In the middle of the first half, after Lallana's ball into the penalty area was blocked, the visiting team had a chance to counterattack.

He didn't blindly make a long pass, and continued to collect defensive interception data for Yang Feng.

The visiting full-back Donaldson patiently pushed forward from the ground, dodged the Liverpool players' local pressing, and then distributed the ball to Brent on the left near the midfield.

Facing Liverpool's vast space in the backcourt, Brent directly sent a through ball diagonally to the middle of the backcourt.

I look forward to being able to penetrate Liverpool's defense and give striker Darrens a chance to "sprint 100 meters".

"Beep beep!"

Just after Brent's through ball was sent, Darrens ran away and directly crossed Yang Feng, Liverpool's last defensive barrier. After forming a single goal, the referee blew his whistle!

"Offside?"

Darrens and Brent ran to the referee at the same time to express their dissatisfaction, but the referee and the linesman both made it very clear that this was an offside ball.

Because the visiting team retreated to defend, at the beginning, Darrens was still in his own half, behind the center line, and there was no offside effect involved.

On the other hand, Yang Feng has been stepping near the midfield line, and his teammates are all in the opponent's half except for Mignolet.

This time in the counterattack, Yang Feng has been staring at Darrens's running position, and made a gesture to face his own goal's running position and go back.

However, at the moment Darrens quickly ran across the half-court line, Yang Feng suddenly chose the premise and ran towards the opponent's half-court area.

Brent's pass selection was still a bit slow. When the pass was completed, Yang Feng had already created an offside trap.

An excellent defensive choice, allowing the opponent's pass to be directly offside, and solved the threat this time.

Yang Feng is the biggest treasure of Liverpool's defense line, allowing Liverpool to devote all their efforts to attack without having to worry too much about the biggest reliance on defense.

An excellent offside trap constantly destroyed the opponent's long pass. Yang Feng relied on defense and did not release a threatening attack to the visiting team.

And Yang Feng's role is not only in defense.

As the game progressed, when Liverpool's frontcourt was suppressed but still unable to break the stalemate, sometimes Yang Feng would even hold the ball by himself and attack forward with the ball without defensive pressure. After leading the snake out of the hole and attracting the visiting team's defensive players, Yang Fengfeng used his steady pass to find his offensive teammate in front of him to try to break the visiting team's dense defense.

Liverpool, which has been attacking, finally broke the deadlock in the first half.

The starting point of the attack was still Yang Feng!

West Bromwich Albion had a rare chance to counterattack. Before advancing to Liverpool's defensive hinterland, Yang Feng shot out from a diagonal stab and completed the supplementary defense. Just snatch it away.

Afterwards, without any pause, Yang Feng directly passed forward with his big foot and accurately passed the ball into the penalty area of ​​the visiting team.

Lambert played the role that Rodgers put him on.

After running to the penalty area, Lambert used his physical advantage to fight Yang Feng's long pass with his chest in the jumping competition with the opponent's central defender, and directly continued to the left.

The follow-up Coutinho is Liverpool's real killing move.

The attention of the defensive players is on Lambert, so that there is no defensive player beside Coutinho who is plugged in.

Facing the goalkeeper and hitting a close-range shot from a close angle, Liverpool opened the scoring first.

1 to 0!

Liverpool finally took the lead.

After that, the second half of the game was very easy.

After taking the lead, Liverpool can finally fight back with peace of mind.

Liverpool's current offensive line may not be so destructive when attacking in position, but when it comes to defensive counterattacks, Sterling's strong point will give West Bromwich Albion a headache, let alone Coutinho, Lallana is also an absolute weapon for counterattacks.

West Bromwich Albion took the initiative in the second half of the game, allowing Liverpool to have more space to counterattack.

Sterling and Coutinho counterattacked successfully, and Liverpool expanded the score to 3-0 in just 10 minutes, completely sealing the victory.

After a long period of downturn, Liverpool finally used a 3-goal victory and scored three points, barely stopping the recent decline.