Football’s First Defender

Liverpool, leading by two goals, and sitting at home in the game, did not give Manchester City any chance to counterattack in the following games.

In the second half of the game, when Liverpool gave priority to the team's defense, they have been seeking to control the ball and complete the control of the rhythm of the game.

Manchester City really wanted to use their strong offense in the second half to complete the counterattack, and even changed the offensive personnel early to strengthen the team's offensive.

However, today's Yang Feng is definitely in excellent condition. Not only in the game, he accomplished the task of restricting Manchester City's sharp knife Aguero, and even has spare energy, occasionally helping other teammates to complete the defense.

Yang Feng completed a lot of defensive performances in the second half, fully demonstrating his comprehensive and stable defensive skills.

In the end, Manchester City's offense lost its previous magic at Anfield, and Liverpool also maintained a 2-0 score until the end.

After defeating Manchester City and passing the biggest hurdle, Liverpool continued to lag behind Chelsea by one point, maintaining the pressure on the leader Chelsea.

After defeating Manchester City in the league, before the second round of the Champions League, Liverpool still need a double match in a week, facing Burnley at home.

Burnley, which is within the relegation zone, urgently needs points to complete relegation, but facing Liverpool and still playing away at Anfield, for Burnley, it is doomed to be bad luck.

Especially the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League team like Burnley, the team's own team style is mainly traditional "British and rough", completely retaining the British Championship team, and signings are very limited.

The offensive situation is single, and the defensive end can only rely on physical confrontation, putting pressure on offensive players.

A team of this style, if they play well, may lose ten points at a time, and rely on a brute force to crush all opponents in front of them.

However, in most cases, Burnley faces the top of the standings and has a certain pass and control skills. When the players are very capable at the feet of the team, they must be pressed to the ground more often.

At Anfield, the Liverpool players were concentrating on preparing for the game, and the Burnley players obviously couldn't make any waves.

In this game, Liverpool played with all their main players. With such fierce competition in the league, Liverpool must ensure that every three points are firmly in their arms.

In the Rogers era, the transmission and control system focused on building, when facing Burnley's "rough" defense, finally has a stage that can be displayed to the extreme.

Even for Burnley, quite interestingly at the beginning of the game, they honestly defended with 5 defenders, and all of them retreated to defend their own half.

However, Liverpool's offense can still use the players' excellent running ability and a lot of flexibility compared to Burnley players to create offensive opportunities very easily during the game.

Moreover, against an opponent like Burnley, Yang Feng can give full play to his defensive strength when defending the opponent's counterattack.

At the beginning, Yang Feng was the father of the entire middle and lower reaches of the Premier League. When Dalglish was in charge, the easiest way for Liverpool to improve their results quickly was to devote almost the entire team to the offense and fully utilize the backcourt. Leave it to Yang Feng to defend.

At that time, Yang Feng was able to deal with the forwards of this kind of mid-lower team, and on the defensive end, with the cooperation of one person, he could easily control Liverpool's entire second half to limit the opponent's counterattack.

At the beginning, Dalglish, without the support of very good offensive tactics, was able to lead Liverpool into the Champions League because of his unreasonable and crazy scoring of points when facing mid-lower teams.

Now, on the offensive end, Liverpool rarely use two full-backs as full-backs throughout the game like in the Dalglish era.

It's okay to use it once in a while to enhance the offense, but it won't be used all the time again.

This is also the reason why the Premier League has gradually entered its heyday.

The relatively fair broadcast share allows every team to get a considerable amount of money every season.

This also makes it possible for even some middle- and lower-level teams to be able to buy some powerful players in the European transfer market, and even some young talented players who have not yet played out and need to be leveled.

In recent years, almost all the money in the hands of teams in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League has been used to invest in their own team's offensive line.

As the Premier League has introduced more players from outside England, the tactical style, although still self-contained, is definitely not the simple and rough offensive style of traditional English football.

More South American players and offensive players from other European leagues are flooding the front line of the Premier League team. Although there is not enough support for the overall strength of the team, it is impossible to use the team's offensive tactics to make many mid-lower teams Reborn.

However, in the counterattack, the small-scale offensive cooperation can fully reflect the counterattack ability of these players.

The strikers of every team in the Premier League today almost have the kind of offensive players who are fast enough or have strong technical skills to speed up the team's counterattack rhythm.

This also makes it more and more difficult for Yang Feng to defend the opponent's counterattack, and he needs more helpers to help him control the vast half of his own side.

Burnley, on the other hand, maintains an absolute "British rough" tradition. Even most of the players on the team are local players from England or the British Isles, with pure British blood.

And this tactical style, in this game, gave Yang Feng absolute freedom to play.

In this game, the familiar Yang Feng was back again, supporting the entire team's defense alone, really alone.

Burnley's few opportunities to counterattack are when the ball is passed to Liverpool's half, and then Burnley's players, before they can catch up to the spot, Yang Feng gets the ball first.

Or Burnley's pass found its own forward fulcrum, but facing Yang Feng's defense and Yang Feng's excellent blocking, the visiting team's forward had no possibility of fighting for a spot except for fouls.

Yang Feng successfully intercepted 6 times, with a 100% success rate in the top fight. The entire Burnley team was so defended that they did not complete a single kick in the first half.

As for Liverpool, even though Burnley chose the iron barrel formation under the pressure of all members, Liverpool players still easily completed the task of breaking the deadlock.

In the first half of the game, Liverpool scored 3 goals in a row with two full-backs pushing forward.

Coutinho's iconic long-range shot, Sturridge's strong shot in the penalty area, and Skrtel's corner kick tactics, Yang Feng pulled the header out of the space and scored for Liverpool 3-0 at halftime leading edge.

In the second half, the two teams were more like grinding foreign labor. The running distance of both sides has dropped significantly compared to the first half.

Both teams retain valuable physical energy, not wasting it in this game with a certain result, and are ready to deal with the subsequent schedule.

And Liverpool won easily with 3 goals, temporarily leading Chelsea and returning to the leading position...