Football’s First Defender

In recent years, Manchester United has actually invested a lot in the offensive line. For a long time, in terms of team building, Manchester United has to grasp both hands and be tough.

It is not only spending a high price to buy some existing players on the transfer market to improve the immediate combat effectiveness of their team.

He also focuses on promoting players who have grown out of his own youth training system, hoping to reproduce the glory of Class 92 through youth training.

However, the reality is that Manchester United's first-team players have come in and out in recent years, although they will always perform some wonderful offensive operations and play beautiful games in the game.

But compared with the "Red Devils" players in the Ferguson era, today's players have not been able to guarantee stable performance.

The team has always had huge problems with the state of the game.

The performance on the court is good and bad. It can be "upset" to beat the top teams, or it can be upset to lose to the underdogs.

In the previous game, he was able to play smoothly in the offense and beat his opponent by a big score, but in the latter game, he was also prevented from scoring a goal.

As a wealthy team, without stable performance as a guarantee, it will naturally not achieve better results in the league.

And everyone knows that the most stable point of Manchester United on the offensive end is not Depay, who occasionally explodes, nor Martial, who is known as the new Henry, but Fellaini, who is in charge of defense in the middle during regular time.

Manchester United, which does not have a high center forward, can use Fellaini's forward penetration to act as a high center forward. In the game, it can always produce very good results.

Now, when the lineup on the field and the offensive firepower are not strong, Van Gaal can only continue to choose to let Fellaini enter the penalty area to help the team compete for a high point.

At this time, it is the turn of Liverpool's defense to make a decision. For Manchester United's "double striker" combination with one high and one fast on the field, how to allocate defensive tasks between Fellaini, Rooney and Liverpool's double central defenders.

In the final allocation of players, Skrtel will focus on defending Rooney, and then Yang Feng will defend Fellaini.

After all, Fellaini's offensive methods in the penalty area are single. When passing the ball at non-high altitude, Yang Feng can still defend and complete the defense to create a greater threat to the opponent.

However, in the first half of today, Manchester United did not have many passers on the field, and in the threat created by the offense, there were not as many as imagined.

There are not many offensive players, and Manchester United's offensive advancement has been greatly affected by Liverpool's frantic press in the frontcourt.

How can Manchester United organize an effective offense and strive for goals if they can't even play the ball smoothly.

Affected by injuries in various positions, Manchester United can't even do a simple wing attack very well. There is no top breakthrough player. This also makes Manchester United forced to pass the ball through the center. The pressing in the frontcourt is very effective. Every time the ball is intercepted, it can directly create a lot of offensive opportunities.

Compared with Manchester United's offense, they can't even complete a threatening kick, but Liverpool can constantly use their counterattacks to create opportunities during the game.

In the 32nd minute of the game, Liverpool counterattacked in the frontcourt. This time, Manchester United obviously learned a lesson and began to focus on strengthening the protection of the backcourt. Liverpool's counterattack advances from its own half through ground passes.

After Klein received the ball from the right side of the half, he forcibly chose to break through to the bottom.

Relying on his speed to barely pass the defensive player for half a body, Klein chose to cross the ball into the penalty area in the middle.

The Manchester United players who returned to defense faced the ground ball that was suddenly passed to the middle, and they directly slid and shoveled the ball with double insurance to intercept the ball.

However, because the two grabbed a piece from the direction of the two, although one of them had obviously stopped their feet, the two still collided, the ball was shoveled and hit the other, and it still bounced out of the penalty area not far away.

The irregular bullets flew out, and the fight for the second landing point was entirely based on luck.

And Lallana happened to be near the second landing point, and his reaction speed was not slow. After grabbing the second landing point, he immediately reorganized the team's offense in the frontcourt.

After Lallana took control of the ball, he crossed directly to Henderson in front of the penalty area. After Henderson started, he ran obliquely to the front right to catch the ball. After attracting Manchester United's defensive attention, he did not Instead of stopping the ball, he tapped his heel lightly, and knocked the ball to Coutinho's feet 2 or 3 meters away on the left.

Coutinho kicked the ball, and before Manchester United's supplementary defense came, the ball was accurately passed to Firmino, who was retreating from Manchester United's goal.

Firmino's back is facing the goal, and there is no good way at this time. He can directly complete a quick shot in the penalty area after receiving the ball.

Feeling the defensive pressure of the Manchester United players, and having a premonition that he would be surrounded immediately after stopping the ball, and there was no room to hit the goal, Firmino still made an instant decision and passed the ball.

It was also a kick out of the ball. Before stopping the ball, he flicked his ankle and moved the ball directly to the small penalty area on the right. In that small open position, Henderson has been accelerating forward and running to the right. area after the point.

The ball arrives, and Henderson has completed his self-adjustment during the running process, and directly shoots angrily, blasting towards the small left corner of the goal from a small angle.

only……

"De Gea! Once again became the last insurmountable wall in Manchester United's defense! A magical save saved Manchester United once again."

De Gea once again saved the team with his godly reaction on the defensive end. When he saw Firmino's sudden pass and Henderson quickly plugged in, De Gea was already on guard.

De Gea, who had been watching Henderson all the time, felt that Henderson was about to finish hitting the goal when he saw Henderson step out with his last kick.

In the blink of an eye, De Gea chose to take a risk and fell to the ground first, using his two legs to block the way of hitting the door on the ground.

And his hands are waving to his heart's content to interfere in the middle department.

If Henderson can still hit the goal with an explosive shot aiming up the road while chasing the ball so quickly and at a small angle, then De Gea will recognize it.

With this ball, De Gea tried his best to complete the splits with his legs to increase his defensive area.

Fortunately, De Gea's defensive choice, he chose to sit on the ground and split in advance. Henderson's low and flat ball hit the goal with sufficient strength and a tricky angle. He made a contribution, blocked the route of the goal, and let Henderson hit the goal with a very threatening kick. Liverpool's wonderful consecutive passes in the frontcourt this time were all in vain.

The situation in the final stage of the entire first half was very obvious. Manchester United wanted to play their own cross from the side, and the striker tried to complete the goal.

But in fact, most of the offenses were destroyed by Liverpool's defensive players before they reached the final step.

And even if he forcibly obtained the space for the cross from the side, or the cross reached the goal, Fellaini could not take advantage of Yang Feng's defense at all.

Manchester United had very few offensive opportunities and could not play a threatening offense against Liverpool at all.

And Liverpool's defense in front of the goal has achieved a very good defensive interception. While not giving Manchester United a chance to hit the goal in the penalty area, it also greatly increased the number of Liverpool's frontcourt counterattacks.

Van Gaal's change of formation was to try to perform some offensive performances in the second half of the first half, but it backfired. Instead, it was Liverpool's defensive counterattack that played vigorously.

In the 39th minute of the game, Liverpool once again played an exquisite counterattack.

In addition to organizing the attack in the frontcourt, Manchester United was forced by the precise guidance of long passes from Yang Feng, Henderson and others in the backcourt.

After each attack was completed or was intercepted by Liverpool, all the players who stayed in their own half quickly retreated to the core area in front of the team's penalty area and reorganized their defense.

Such a quick return to defense regardless of the situation did limit Liverpool's counterattack long pass in the first place, but it also gave Liverpool more ground space to counterattack in the midfield.

One of Liverpool's counterattack strategies is quite practical. If your defense gives, then I will seize what.

Since Manchester United chose to retreat in an all-round way and limit Liverpool's long pass counterattack, then after controlling the ball and patiently advancing on the ground, Liverpool can also play a good counterattack effect.

Although such a counterattack may be much different in terms of counterattack time than a pass directly to the penalty area, the degree of threat will definitely not be smaller than the previous long pass counterattack mode.

After Manchester United forced Damian to send a long pass from the right to the penalty area at 45 degrees, Yang Feng took the lead in the confrontation with Fellaini after judging the placement.

For Fellaini, as a midfielder, he can always play a miraculous role as a high center forward, relying on his excellent ability to compete in the penalty area.

Among them, there are naturally advantages in height, jumping and confrontational strength, but there are also reasons for Fellaini's first-rate judgment on landing points.

But when facing Yang Feng's defense, Fellaini felt restrained everywhere.

In terms of judging the landing point, Fellaini felt that his ability to judge the landing point was good enough, but when Fellaini quickly judged the area of ​​the landing point, he always found that Yang Feng, who was defending him, was already standing on the landing point. Near the point area, or in the position of rushing to the landing point area, it is already in the leading position.

It was judged that the speed of the landing point could not keep up with Yang Feng, and in the subsequent physical confrontation, when the position was stuck, Fellaini Tongan could not interfere with Yang Feng.

After these years of hard training, Yang Feng has already reached the first-class level in football in terms of physical confrontation. It is not so easy for Fellaini to squeeze Yang Feng's position.

Damian's pass, still being defended by Yang Feng, overwhelmed Fellaini and successfully completed a header clearance.

Due to the limited interference given by Fellaini this time, Yang Feng can even control the location of the clearance to a limited extent, making the location of the ball closer to the defensive players outside the penalty area, so that Liverpool can counterattack more quickly.

Milner controlled the landing point of the ball, and immediately found Henderson not far away with a direct pass.

Henderson strides forward with the ball himself.

Due to Manchester United's defense line, the overall priority is to build a defense line before returning to the penalty area, making the midfield area, for Liverpool, have a huge gap to use.

Henderson dribbled the ball forward and advanced past half-time before meeting the first United defender in midfield.

A simple diagonal short pass, Henderson and Lallana directly played a two-for-one cooperation, making Manchester United's midfield defense useless.

And when Manchester United's defense line fell into the defensive area as a whole, it turned its head and prepared to face Liverpool's counterattack head-on.

But it didn't have much effect.

Manchester United has an empty line of defense, but in a static state, facing Liverpool's overall counterattack line that has already rushed to the speed, it is naturally not easy to restrict Liverpool by relying on their own defense.

In the process of telling the forward, Lallana made a straight forward pass to find Coutinho, and Coutinho sent the ball again, diagonally giving Lallana, who continued to advance forward, an advance. Manchester United's defense is completely in the palm of their hands.

After Lallana received the ball again, seeing the time was ripe, he kicked a through ball diagonally to the right, passed between the two Manchester United defenders, and passed directly into Manchester United's penalty area.

And it was Firmino who moved forward quickly on the right.

Firmino moved forward quickly, followed by Martial who was desperately chasing back.

"I don't want to miss this good opportunity."

"This is another chance to score twice. I must seize it and continue to show my offensive ability."

For Firmino, with the recent games, he has become more and more adapted to the forward position and the offensive tasks assigned to him by Klopp. Now, he quickly adapts to the Premier League and the team. Firmino, who quickly completed the advancement of his personal performance, seems to have become the new darling of Liverpool's striker.

He scored twice in the last game. In this game, Firmino also scored the first goal, but this will not affect Firmino's determination to pursue goals.

There is never too little scoring twice, and there is never too much hat-trick.

Firmino has begun to like the feeling of scoring goals, and he also wants to quickly complete the attack for the team this season.

Stop the ball, take a deep breath and relax, adjust your steps, look at De Gea's position in front of the goal, and prepare to hit a tricky shot to expand the score for the team.

Although the preparation work was a little too much and the speed was also slowed down for adjustments, Firmino was confident that he could finish the shot before Martial chased him from behind.

After all, the inertial speed is there, and these times, completed within one or two seconds, are fast enough.

only……

"Firmino, this kick is not finished!"

Martial on the side and rear, although he was unable to rush to Firmino in the process of quickly returning to defense, completed the defensive interception.

However, there was a powerful collision with increased speed from the side and rear, which directly knocked Firmino, who was about to hit the goal, in the penalty area and fell to the ground.

"Will a penalty be given?"

The ball was already under no one's control, and when Firmino fell to the ground, it touched the bottom line by the way.

The broadcast footage is all focused on the referee, to see how the referee will judge.

"Hands across!"

"The referee Clattenburg signaled that there was no problem with the ball and there was no penalty!"

"A brilliant counterattack from Liverpool, stopped short."