Football’s First Defender

After winning 6 consecutive victories, Liverpool still has an advantage in the standings, but this advantage is quite inconspicuous.

Liverpool, who had one round less, had accumulated 70 points before the start of the 32nd round, ranking the top of the league leader.

But behind it, Chelsea's 69 points and Manchester City's 66 points, which had two games less, all posed a huge threat to Liverpool.

That's right, this wave of Liverpool's winning streak did not open up a big gap for the team, it just left Arsenal, which had fallen behind, further and further away.

In terms of scoring efficiency, in the games after the New Year, Manchester City won all games except for one draw and one loss. It was one game less than Liverpool, but the points scored by Liverpool were the same.

This season's Premier League, the final championship competition is much stronger than any previous season.

After the start of the new year, the three giants teams have shown considerable competitiveness.

Although the depth of the Liverpool team's player reserves is not as good as that of its opponents, Liverpool does not actually have too many disadvantages in terms of physical fitness by virtue of their voluntary abandonment of many competitions.

Although Manchester City was also eliminated by Barcelona in the first round of the Champions League knockout round, they won the Carabao Cup final and the FA Cup also reached the semi-finals. It can be said that Manchester City has invested more in domestic cup competitions than Liverpool. energetic.

As for Chelsea, the underdog Galatasaray will be drawn first in the Champions League. After reaching the top 8, they will meet the same non-traditional giants Paris Saint-Germain. There is no problem in reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League without accident.

At that time, Mu Niao has the hope of competing for the Champions League title. It is self-evident how to choose whether to concentrate on the Champions League, or to expect Liverpool and Manchester City to make mistakes at the same time, reverse the two giants and win the Premier League title.

But in any case, the entire Premier League championship competition must become extremely entertaining in the last few rounds.

However, in the early game of the 32nd round, Chelsea, who had a Champions League mission in the middle of the week, showed a considerable sense of giving up the league.

In the away game against Crystal Palace, which is still under relegation pressure, Chelsea lost the game 0-1 as a guest. With Liverpool and Manchester City's recent frantic grabbing points, Chelsea's loss in this game has almost declared that the team has withdrawn from the championship. At least it is at an absolute disadvantage.

On the second day of Manchester City's game, they drew 1-1 with Arsenal in this round, two rounds less, and the points came to 67 points.

The draw of this strong duel only slightly affected Manchester City's rhythm of grabbing points.

As far as the subsequent schedule is concerned, even if there are two rounds of make-up matches, it will have a huge impact on Manchester City's physical fitness.

However, after Manchester City played against Arsenal, except for the direct duel with Liverpool, basically, there is no too strong opponent, and they can easily score points to the greatest extent.

Liverpool's schedule is relatively difficult.

This round faces Tottenham, one of the six giants, and next week's make-up match will be a double red meeting where no one knows the result.

In the next two games, there will be a championship match with Manchester City and a direct match with Chelsea.

The four strong dialogues are very likely to cause Liverpool to lose more points. If Manchester City seizes the opportunity to fight directly, it may not be possible to complete a big comeback.

However, among the four giants standing in the way, Tottenham, who played first, was beaten as hello kitty directly at Anfield.

This season, if you traded a king for a bunch of "6, 7, 8" Tottenham, the abuse is okay, but it's a terrible loss for a strong dialogue.

At White Hart Lane before, they were beaten badly by Liverpool. This time when they come back to Anfield, Tottenham still want to struggle with their defensive formation.

However, for Tottenham players, a failed season and the last few rounds of the league without goals have been unable to mobilize their full attention.

Facing Liverpool, which is so imposing and still sits at home, Tottenham's rout speed is no different from other mid-lower teams.

Less than two minutes into the game, Sterling took the ball on the right side of the court and faced Glenn Johnson who was on the edge. Sterling made a diagonal through ball, which gave Glenn Johnson enough room to accelerate.

The latter didn't stop the ball, and passed the ball directly into the penalty area before going out of the baseline.

In the face of the pressure of Suarez and Sturridge forming a double ghost to hit the goal, Tottenham central defender Kaboul was in front of the goal and accidentally scored an own goal.

Tottenham deserves to be the team that has conceded the most goals due to its own mistakes among the Premier League teams this season. It gave Liverpool an early gift at the beginning.

Tottenham, which fell behind at the start, was even more lacking in energy.

The defense of the two wings can always be easily penetrated by a through ball from the Liverpool midfielder.

Sturridge and Sterling had the opportunity to fully create threats on the wing.

Vertonghen's injury in the 20th minute of the game made Tottenham's defense even worse.

Dawson, who came off the bench, gave Liverpool another big gift as soon as he came on the field.

The mistake of returning the ball was keenly seized by Suarez at the front.

Intercepting Dawson's pass to Kabul, he directly accelerated and passed Kabul's defense. Facing the attacking Lori, Suarez shot low with his left foot from a small angle, extending the score to 2-0.

This goal is also Suarez's 29th Premier League goal this season.

The terrifying scoring efficiency also allowed Suarez to break Fowler's single-season Premier League scoring record.

Today Tottenham did not show a rich team's concentration on the game at all.

In the 40th minute of the game, Kabul made a mistake in stopping the ball on the left baseline and was intercepted by Sterling in the frontcourt.

Although the ball was already close to the bottom line, Liverpool still formed a 3-on-2 advantage in the frontcourt.

Sterling, who advanced a few steps along the bottom line, passed directly to the back point and found Suarez who was plugging in.

It's just a pity that Suarez's header was blocked by Lori, causing the ball to change direction. In the end, it just hit the crossbar and failed to score.

In the whole game, the most relaxing thing was probably the defense led by Yang Feng.

Not to mention Tottenham's organized offense, even the counterattack, Tottenham have not organized a few times.

In this game, Tottenham put on an appearance of letting you beat them, and the counterattack was really limited.

Considering that there is a double red meeting with Manchester United in the middle of the week.

Rogers still asked the team to continue to strengthen the offense during the intermission, and strive to resolve the battle before 70 minutes, and then let the team get a better rest.

The 52nd minute of the game.

Sterling and Coutinho played exquisitely together.

First, the through ball sent by Kuo Niao allowed Sterling to give full play to his speed and created a huge threat in the opponent's ribs.

Later, after Sterling stopped the ball, Kubird's lap shot in, and also under the guidance of Sterling's through ball, he used an oblique running opportunity without the ball to get a shot in the penalty area.

Facing the attacking goalkeeper Lloris, Coutinho directly crossed the ball to the penalty spot, followed by Henderson, and scored an empty goal. 3-0, Liverpool completely killed the suspense of the game.

Two minutes later, after Tottenham's rare build-up, Liverpool's counterattack followed.

Coutinho ran for dozens of meters with the ball alone. After the forward trident, scattered without the ball, put pressure on Tottenham's defense.

Coutinho, who dribbled the ball, took advantage of the defender's fear of the through ball he gave to his teammates, and directly obtained the space for kicking from the outside to hit the goal.

A cloud-piercing arrow hit the upper left corner of the goal, Lori was powerless, 4-0!

With less than 60 minutes into the game, Liverpool can call it a day and celebrate.

Liverpool, who had a stalemate against Manchester United in the middle of the week, kept "sharing" possession with Tottenham for more than 30 minutes, and everyone had no intention of fighting again.

In the end, Liverpool won a big victory at home. While achieving 7 consecutive victories in the league, they also passed the first hurdle of the devil's schedule.