Football’s First Defender

Although there are no underdogs in the Premier League, the difference between the strength of the rich teams and the ordinary teams is still there.

Not to mention, the Premier League teams are generally stronger at home. After all, with such a hot home atmosphere of Premier League fans, no matter who the visiting team is, their mentality will actually be affected to a certain extent, which will lead to the inability to play their full strength. strength.

Liverpool's big victory against Norwich, the goal difference is indeed surprising, but everyone thinks that Liverpool has improved by 3 points. The excessive point difference shows Liverpool's strength, but how good is Liverpool's strength? Need a strong team to test.

It just so happened that Liverpool's devilish schedule for the second half of the season arrived as scheduled. In the next two consecutive away games, Liverpool will continue to challenge their rivals Arsenal and Manchester City for the Champions League qualification.

Although Arsenal's recent record is not outstanding, they have only scored 37 points so far this season, which is not as good as Liverpool, but at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal's combat power is still very impressive.

The current position has a record of 6 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. This is definitely not an easy stadium to capture.

And everyone knows that Arsenal sells star players every season, and then buys "semi-finished products" and continues to process them into "finished" stars. Therefore, the team's tacit cooperation at the beginning of the season is definitely not enough. , It was the time when Arsenal began to explode with stronger strength, so Liverpool was fully prepared for the possible difficulties in this game.

However, not long after the start, Liverpool, who played away, made a fantastic start.

In the 5th minute of the game, amidst the fast-paced offense and defense of the two teams, Henderson was catching the ball and sent a wonderful through ball to the deep left of Arsenal's penalty area.

As the center forward, Sturridge, after receiving the ball diagonally from the center to the left, took advantage of his speed and did not procrastinate at all. Before reaching the bottom, he chose to cross the ball with his left foot to the center. The ball was so powerful that Sturridge lost his balance and fell to the ground after passing the ball.

Suarez, who responded in the middle, was marked by Vermaelen, but he feinted and missed the ball to the back point.

Tang Ning, who came in diagonally from the right, hit the goal with a non-stop kick. Although Szczesny saved it immediately, the rebounded ball finally landed in Suarez's control area. With such a supplementary shot opportunity, Suarez happily accepted the gift with a smile, and shot from the far corner with one kick, giving Liverpool the lead.

In this game, the offensive systems of both teams are inclined to pass and control play.

However, compared to Professor Wenger's work at Arsenal for so many years, Rogers' transmission and control system is still a little immature.

The system is dead, but people are alive.

In terms of using "living people", Wenger's experience and accuracy in seeing people are beyond the reach of Rogers.

Logically speaking, this game should have been a situation in which the style of play was similar and the skilled would win, and Arsenal was still fighting at home, but no one expected that Arsenal would suffer a blow before finishing their three axes in the opening stage. Conceded blow.

Liverpool's goal this time, Sturridge is definitely a well-deserved first effort. When facing Mertesacker, Sturridge played out his speed advantage perfectly. Relying on his absolute speed, Sturridge completely surpassed Mertesacker before he crossed the baseline, and had a greater advantage. Passing angles are undisturbed.

And the power of this pass is also great, making the ball extremely fast, allowing Suarez to deceive the defensive players through a fake move according to the situation, so that the ball can pass through the Arsenal defense line in the middle.

Although Tang Ning did not directly score the goal after the point, Tang Ning exerted enough force to hit the goal again and again, and the ball was completely suppressed, so that Szczesny could only save the ball, but Suarez made a mistake. opportunity.

Sturridge's passing was the biggest contribution to this offense.

Liverpool took the lead in the away game, which naturally aroused the boos of the Arsenal fans at the scene. However, when the home team Arsenal wanted to rely on offense to recover the score, they found that it was still so difficult to surpass the mountain of Yang Feng.

Liverpool's formation and players have not changed much from the previous game. With the assistance of Lucas on the defensive end and Henderson who retreated to the midfield defense, Liverpool's "waist" can rarely be hardened.

And offensive players like Sturridge and Suarez were given defensive tasks by Rogers, which shows how united Liverpool's defense is.

Since Liverpool's players defended in their own half, the space was actually compressed very tightly, which was not conducive to Arsenal's frontal advancement and cooperation.

In this case, using through balls, lobs, and trying to get the ball into the penalty area is the most effective way for Arsenal.

Moreover, Arsenal has not only "British" offensive players like Giroud, but also Walcott's fast horse players, who directly hit the pass in the penalty area, whether it is a through ball or a high ball, for Arsenal. In other words, there is a certain probability that they can create excellent offensive opportunities.

However, most of the passes Arsenal completed through simple cooperation did not cause any waves.

Yang Feng's defense is really excellent, and the defensive tacit understanding with Skrtel is also increasing day by day. The defensive line formed by the two, under the leadership of Yang Feng, can provide a stable midfield defense by his teammates first, and pass Arsenal's pass. The ball breaks again and again.

Giroud is at the forefront. Under Skrtel's confrontation and marking, there is no good positioning and offensive opportunities.

On the other hand, Yang Feng can give full play to his greatest advantage without marking people. In the game, he is more like a "scavenger". .

Wilshere's pick pass, to no avail.

Walcott made a sweeping pass in front of the goal after the breakthrough, and Yang Feng, who was completely blocked from passing the ball, directly cleared and went out of bounds.

That is to say, Cazorla's flickering in the frontcourt still creates a certain offensive threat, so when Cazorla breaks through and completes the goal, Yang Feng sometimes cannot complete a good block according to the situation.

However, Cazorla alone wanted to support the offense of Arsenal's entire team. It was still a bit of a joke. Under Liverpool's strict defense, Arsenal's offensive counterattack was not very smooth.

On the contrary, Liverpool can rely on simple and efficient counterattacks to continuously pose a threat to Arsenal.

It's just that at the end of the first half, the score remained at 1-0. For the two teams, when the players cheered up and paid attention to defense, they could both achieve good defensive results.