Football’s First Defender

For Liverpool, in the knockout round of the Champions League, one person was sent off, 10 against 11, and after being bombarded by opponents at home, they finally managed to maintain a 0-0 score. enough.

In the second round, although Liverpool will go to Madrid to challenge Atletico Madrid's devil's home court, they will inevitably bear tremendous pressure from Atletico Madrid's home court.

But as long as Liverpool can remain unbeaten away and look for an away goal, then they can directly enter the Champions League quarterfinals.

Of course, the time interval between one-eighth of the Champions League games is still very long. Liverpool needs to return the team's focus to the domestic league in the past two weeks.

Fortunately, because Everton, Liverpool's rival in the same city, has a domestic cup to play, so this Merseyside Derby, which was supposed to be played on the weekend after the first round of the Champions League knockout round, will be postponed to April. This allowed Liverpool, who had spent a lot of time fighting against Atletico Madrid in the European competition, to get a lot of rest time during this period.

After more than a week of rest, the physical energy consumed by the fierce battle with Atletico Madrid has been replenished, and Liverpool's opponent has been replaced by Manchester City.

Manchester City, since entering February, has shown some signs of collapse in the league competition.

Originally, the team fought on four fronts. Although they were making great strides, the physical fitness of the players was still greatly affected.

Regarding the situation of four-line combat, Manchester City has also recently fallen behind after playing double matches a week or even three matches a week.

Or the players couldn't keep up with their physical fitness, and they couldn't show their best form in the game, which made Manchester City's game finally reduced to two and a half lines.

The first to go out is the FA Cup.

Before the start of the Champions League knockout round, Manchester City, who had been fighting on multiple fronts, encountered Chelsea in the FA Cup draw. After the start of the new year, they gradually regained some of their game status.

Chelsea sits at home and did not give Manchester City any face at all. They beat Manchester City 5-1 at home. Judging from the team's outstanding performance, there is no such thing as falling to the brink of relegation in the first half.

It can only be said that this is the strength of Chelsea players.

As long as Mourinho dismisses get out of get out of class, the team will immediately recover spontaneously, from a relegation team before the New Year to a powerful team with good strength.

Therefore, Mourinho's dismissal is not so much a poor record, but a too rigid relationship with the players, making the players unable to do their best for him on the court.

Manchester City was completely eliminated in the FA Cup. In the Premier League, it also lost two consecutive games in February.

Leicester City, which is at the top of the list, has come to a gap of 10 points. It can be said that there is no hope of winning the championship.

Therefore, of course Manchester City wants to put all their attention on the Carabao Cup and the Champions League, trying their best to compete for the highest honor.

In the Premier League schedule, this match against Liverpool is a compelling duel, and it is also a key battle concerning whether the two teams can achieve their goals in the Premier League.

For Liverpool, at this time, they need victory and more game victories to catch up with the top-ranked Leicester City. For the honor of three consecutive Premier League titles, Klopp and Liverpool's management still value it very much.

As far as Manchester City is concerned, with a gap of 10 points from the top of the list, they no longer have any illusions about the championship this season, but this year's Premier League competition for the four teams is quite fierce.

Today's Manchester City, after two consecutive losses and one round less, has dropped to fifth and fell out of the Champions League.

They are only 3 points away from fourth-ranked Arsenal, and only 2 points away from Manchester United and West Ham behind them.

It can be said that it is not impossible for Manchester City to shift their focus to the cup competition, especially the long-awaited Champions League championship, but first of all, you must be in the league to ensure a place in the Champions League next season.

After all, the broadcast income of Champions League games is very important for a team like Manchester City that needs to smooth out its financial statements and prove that it has not violated the fairness act.

Manchester City may not value the tens of millions of euros in the Champions League broadcast, but they value such book "income" to ensure that Manchester City will not be punished by UEFA for financial problems.

In this red-blue battle, before the game, many media supported Liverpool to win at home.

After all, compared to Manchester City, which has a frequent schedule and turbulent team recently, Liverpool's team lineup is more orderly, and the players' physical fitness is also in good shape.

Manchester City has just finished playing the Carabao Cup final. Although they won the championship, they were forced into a desperate situation by Everton. It can only be said that they have contributed a lot. It is not easy to have at least one champion to let the head coach leave decently.

That's right, Manchester City's management's coquettish operations have indeed "surprised" European football, and also caused some of their own teams to fall into turmoil.

In February, Manchester City unilaterally announced that the team will sign with Bayern coach Pep Guardiola, who has already announced that he will not renew his contract with Bayern, this summer. manchester.

But such an official announcement is somewhat unfair to the current coach Pellegrini.

You know, Pellegrini's contract expires in 2017, so Manchester City's operation is equivalent to explaining that I will let you lead the team for half a year, and then after the season, no matter what your performance is, even if you have won 4 championships Wang, I want to "fire you" too.

When the official news was announced, Manchester City was fighting on the fourth line, and even the fourth line might compete for the championship.

As a result, it was an official announcement from the Manchester City management that completely put Pellegrini into an embarrassing position, and the players were also emotional. Manchester City's performance instantly became turbulent, and there was a tendency to collapse.

Especially in the next two key league championship games, Manchester City played two consecutive home games against Tottenham and Leicester City.

The result was Manchester City, which was obviously underperforming. They were defeated by Leicester City 1-3 at home, and then by Tottenham 1-2.

Then it was a 5-1 loss to Chelsea.

The direct defeat against the giants in three consecutive scenes made Pellegrini's haggard performance appear directly on the headlines of major sports newspapers.

During his tenure, he was officially announced as a successor. Manchester City fans want to see what Pellegrini can do in his last shift.

Fortunately, at least I just won a Europa League championship. Even if I faced Everton and kicked the game into a penalty shootout, it was a championship anyway.

The difficult February has passed, and Manchester City fans also hope that the team can get back to form, and when facing Liverpool, they can play energetically in the away game.

This red-blue battle is another time for Manchester City to face a giant team. They lost all the previous 3 games. This time, Manchester City needs to use their good performance to justify their name.

Pellegrini's starting list for Manchester City in this away game against Liverpool has not changed much from before.

Although Manchester City has sufficient personnel reserves, for Pellegrini, the use of the starting list will not change much except for injury factors.

Manchester City continues their 451 formation, single striker, of course, is the most stable scorer Aguero in Manchester City's lineup.

And Fernando, Fernandinho, and David Silva are the three midfielders of the team, responsible for the defense and offensive organization of the midfield.

Keylor Navas and Sterling continue to be separated on the left and right sides. Both of them are speedy wide players. When they play at the same time, it means that Manchester City's wing attack will be extremely aggressive.

The four-back Sabarata and Clichy are Manchester City's two full-backs, and Otamendi is the double-back combination of partner captain Kompany.

The goalkeeper position is still Joe Hart.

In fact, except for David Silva, a fellow Guardiola, everyone else, especially the midfielders, have a great sense of crisis about Guardiola's arrival.

Everyone knows the pass control system of Barcelona and Bayern, so is he a "dish" of Guardiola? Nobody knows.

After all, Manchester City's treatment is really good. If possible, everyone wants to stay in such a cheap team.

Now the most rumored outside is Manchester City's Joe Hart, the Manchester City and England national team's double goal is to leave the team, because Guardiola has already said that he wants a goalkeeper who can pass the ball, and Joe Hart is very interested in passing the ball. , can really inherit the unique roughness of English players.

This also makes Joe Hart, in addition to wanting to use his own saves to prove his strength in the game, occasionally make a long pass on purpose to show his passing training results...