Chapter 477 In the League Cup final, Lin Quan wears the captain’s armband!

Even if Manchester City becomes the last hope of the Premier League, it does not mean that they will receive preferential treatment in the league.

After ending their away journey, Manchester City rushed to another away game non-stop to challenge Newcastle United.

In this game, Manchester City's main players were affected by the long journey and fatigue, and their condition was relatively average.

However, several substitutes in their team stepped up at the right time. In the 5th minute of the first half, Sane received a pass from De Bruyne and scored his first goal in Manchester City.

Although the opponent stubbornly equalized the game with a header in the 31st minute, this still failed to stop the madness of Manchester City's substitutes.

In the 52nd minute of the second half, Jesus moved smartly, successfully countered offside and scored with a single goal, rewriting the score to 2:1.

The performance of the two new signings, Sane and Jesus, made Manchester City fans' eyes light up.

The players introduced by the team during the winter break are of good quality!

Sane's personal strength is very strong. He is outstanding in dribbling, breakthrough and shooting. He is a strong scorer.

And Jesus plays as a team, working hard in the frontcourt and running desperately to find shooting space when attacking.

When defending, he is very active in returning to defense, and can even harass the opponent's ball carrier on the spot, slowing down the opponent's offensive rhythm.

Of course, this does not mean that these two people are completely without shortcomings.

Sane's shortcomings are obvious. He plays alone. Sometimes it is clear that his teammates are in a more advantageous position and passing the ball out is a more reasonable choice. However, he still chooses to go it alone and has no intention of handing over the ball. .

As for Jesus, he is not very tall and his stance ability is relatively weak, so he cannot fully play the role of a positive center.

But fortunately, Manchester City does not need that kind of traditional center, which makes Jesus' shortcomings in this area covered up.

Guardiola has observed the two of them for so long and has a very good understanding of their strength and playing style.

Therefore, he plans to train the two of them in a targeted manner in the future to get rid of Sane's "alone" habit and make him more team-oriented.

As for Jesus, it is good to strengthen his scoring ability and actively defend, but as a forward, he still has to do his job well.

Of course, putting Jesus in the forward position may not be the most appropriate. We need to continue to explore in the future to see where to put him in order to maximize his talents.

…

After winning the game against Newcastle, Manchester City still had no way to stop and rest.

They rushed to London non-stop, preparing to go to Wembley Stadium to participate in the League Cup final.

This League Cup game is much more difficult than the league, because their opponent is Liverpool, who have been recharging their energy, preparing for a long time, and are waiting for work.

Liverpool fans are very concerned about this championship, and head coach Klopp has stated that he will go all out to win this championship.

This season, Liverpool cannot advance further in the league for one reason or another, so cup competitions such as the League Cup have become their last resort.

This game is very close to the league that just ended, which is quite unfavorable for Manchester City.

Liverpool obviously knew this very well, so they tried to speed up the pace of the game after the start, in an attempt to consume the physical energy of the Manchester City players in this way.

After more than half a year of coaching, Klopp has stamped his own style on Liverpool.

After his transformation, this team's playing style and tactics are completely different from Liverpool in the Rodgers era.

Under his training, Liverpool were like a young guard, playing with enthusiasm and full impact, making it difficult to resist.

In the first half, Manchester City was suppressed by their opponents and was rarely at a disadvantage in terms of ball possession.

However, after fifteen minutes, Manchester City adapted to the opponent's rhythm. After adjusting, they began to gradually take the initiative in the game!

"This game feels exactly like the match between Liverpool and Manchester City in the league. Liverpool always suppressed Manchester City at the beginning and waited for Manchester City to adapt before regaining the initiative.

Then Manchester City will gradually exert their strength and establish a score advantage! "

In the commentary box, as soon as Martin Taylor finished speaking, Manchester City scored.

Surprisingly, it was neither Lin Quan nor strikers such as Son Heung-min or Jesus who scored the goal, but Kante, the defensive backbone of Manchester City's midfield!

Kante originally just saw that his opponent's defense was very tight and felt that there were no good opportunities, so he thought of taking a kick. Unexpectedly, this kick hit a world wave. The quality was very high. The opponent's goalkeeper had no choice but to Watch the ball hit the net.

This goal came at a very crucial time. The first half was about to end, and the entire Manchester City team was consumed by the opponent's tactics. After the second half began, as their physical fitness declined, they would sooner or later fall into passivity.

But if Manchester City takes the lead before the start of the second half, the situation will be completely different.

After taking the initiative, they can choose more tactics, and they can even take the initiative to retreat and engage in defensive counterattacks like before.

No matter how useless the League Cup champion is, it is still a champion. In order to win this championship trophy, it is absolutely fine to play defensive counterattacks in the half.

Klopp obviously thought of this, so after seeing Kanter score, his brows immediately wrinkled.

Being one goal behind may not seem like much, but since ancient times, it has been an unknown game in the finals, and it is very difficult to score on a stage like the finals.

However, Liverpool is not completely without a chance. They are not tied to the European war and do not have to travel as hard as Manchester City.

Therefore, Liverpool has an absolute advantage in terms of players' physical reserves.

In the last league game, they suffered a reversal from Manchester City. The main reason was that the players' physical exertion was too great and they couldn't run in the second half, so they were chased back by Manchester City.

But in this game, Manchester City will definitely not be in such good shape in the second half. Liverpool will probably always have the initiative in the second half!

Therefore, he asked the team to press forward and press and impact Manchester City even more crazily. He must take advantage of his physical strength and be more proactive and determined in his playing style.

I don’t know how Liverpool’s players understood the coach’s intentions. After the start of the second half, their pressing and running did become more active.

But the actions in offense and defense have also become bigger!

As a result, their number of fouls soared, and they received two yellow cards in the first few minutes of the second half.

Klopp's mouth twitched as he watched from the sidelines, these guys, did I ask you to play like this?

There was no way, both of the foul positions were critical, so he had to use the substitution quota, replace these people, and continue to strengthen the offense.

Klopp's main purpose of this move was to avoid the team's attrition. He was worried that these players who had received cards would be impatient and behave irrationally, resulting in receiving a second yellow card.

However, his early substitution before the 60-minute mark of the game further strengthened Liverpool's offensive threat and amplified Manchester City's defensive pressure.

After these two new players came on the court, they were extremely active on the court. The Manchester City players, who were already lacking in physical fitness, were very uncomfortable being disturbed by them. They even made several mistakes, which almost caused a disaster.

Upon seeing this, Guardiola immediately played the substitution card and brought in two new players to replace Zabaleta and Kroos, who were close to their physical bottleneck.

The appearance of Sagna and Fernandinho temporarily stabilized Manchester City's back line, and the opponent's offense could no longer threaten their goal in a short period of time.

However, the defensive counterattack effect that Manchester City wanted to achieve was not achieved.

The opponent's pressing was too crazy, and after spending most of the game, Son Heung-min and Jesus could no longer run.

The only person with sufficient physical strength in the frontcourt is Lin Quan himself!

Thanks to Lin Quan's involvement in the frontcourt, the opponent did not dare to devote all his troops to the attack. Otherwise, Manchester City might have been crushed by Liverpool's wave of attacks in the second half.

In the first half, the two sides had similar ball possession rates, with Manchester City slightly ahead.

But after the second half, especially after fifty-five minutes, there was a very obvious change in the ball possession rate.

Manchester City's ball possession rate dropped rapidly, and Liverpool's ball possession rate increased rapidly.

Manchester City's offense can't go out, and they don't dare to pass too many passes in their own backcourt under the opponent's crazy pressing. Such a pass can cause catastrophe if not careful.

So it is completely normal for their ball possession rate to lag behind!

However, this result is still shocking. You must know that Guardiola has always paid attention to possession of the ball since his Barcelona days.

The teams he coaches have lost a lot of games, but they have lost very little in terms of ball possession.

This shows how suppressive Liverpool was in this game.

The fans of the Red Army were excited when they saw their team completely suppressing their opponents on the field. They sang the team song "Never Walk Alone" while looking forward to the arrival of Liverpool's goal.

To bring back the League Cup trophy, Liverpool still need two goals.

There are about 30 minutes left in the second half and it might be a little difficult to score two goals.

But it doesn't matter, they just need to score first, tie the score, and then let the game drag into overtime.

The physical fitness of Manchester City players has seriously declined. They can't sustain it during regular time. If they are really dragged into overtime, wouldn't they be left to Liverpool's control?

Liverpool's players obviously know this, so even if they are behind, their morale is still very high. Those who don't know may think they are ahead!

However, unexpectedly, in the face of Liverpool's crazy attack, Manchester City's defense was very tenacious and did not completely overwhelm the opponent.

In the 70th minute of the game, the score was still 1:0, and Liverpool still failed to score.

In the 80th minute, the score remained unchanged. Even though Liverpool formed a siege on Manchester City's goal during this period, they still failed again and again.

Although the opponent's attack was defended, Manchester City was obviously very uncomfortable.

Their players began to suffer from cramps frequently, and captain Kompany was also injured in a fight.

Guardiola was forced to use up his last substitution, replacing Kompany with veteran Demichelis.

When Kompany came off the field, he handed the captain's armband to Lin Quan:

"Lin, I must win this championship, I'm begging you!"

"Don't worry, Captain, I won't let anyone else take it away!"

Lin Quan nodded heavily to Kompany and then put the captain's armband on his arm.

In this game, he was wildly targeted by Liverpool. As soon as he got the ball, the opponent immediately sent many people to double-team him. Once the double-team failed, the opponent would foul decisively and would never speed up Lin Quan. Opportunity.

Klein, Moreno, Emre, Lallana and even Coutinho were all booked for tactical fouls against him.

In other words, in this game, Lin Quan alone received 5 yellow cards!

This is just a card foul, there are countless fouls without a card!

In order to stop him, Liverpool did not hesitate to adopt this destructive foul tactic and tried to stop him even if the whole team was booked. It is obvious that Klopp or the whole of Liverpool is afraid of Lin Quan!

However, under the crazy attacks of his opponents, Lin Quan was like an invincible Xiaoqiang. He was knocked down time and time again, but he stood up again and again, and he immediately jumped into the game without lingering!

This kind of invincible spirit makes even Liverpool fans have to admire it!

"Why can't I defeat this guy?"

"So damn tenacious. To be honest, I kind of admire him!"

"This guy, why isn't he from Liverpool? It would be great if he could come to Anfield?"

Liverpool fans appreciate and even admire Lin Quan's unbeatable spirit, and this temperament is very much in line with Liverpool's style.

It's a pity that it may be difficult for the opponent to put on Liverpool's red jersey and fight for the Red Army!

Although Lin Quan is the only one in Manchester City's frontcourt who can pose a threat to Liverpool, even if there is only Lin Quan, Liverpool still has trouble sleeping and eating.

And this is one of the reasons why they have been unable to score goals.

The game had exceeded 80 minutes at this time, and time was slowly passing away, but the team still failed to score a goal.

Liverpool fans, who were originally in a happy mood while eating hot pot and singing songs, couldn't help but start to panic.

Although their idea is good, the prerequisite is that they want to score goals!

They haven't scored a goal yet, let alone the championship or overtime, they will lose the final if it continues!

"One in!"

"One in!"

Liverpool fans who couldn't help but feel anxious began to chant in unison, calling for a hero to stand up and help the team get out of the desperate situation.

Coutinho heard the call of the fans and was eager to stand up and be the hero!

He dribbled the ball past the exhausted De Bruyne, and then played a very exciting wall-to-wall coordination with his teammates, successfully receiving the ball near the penalty area line.

However, just when he was about to shoot, a foot suddenly flew from the side, and with a sliding tackle, the ball was scooped away from his feet!

Coutinho was shocked and subconsciously looked at the tackler, only to see that the jersey number on the opponent's back was the same as his own, No. 10!

It's Lin Quan!

Coutinho was shocked. Isn't this guy in the frontcourt?

Why did you get back to the penalty area line?

Is this what a striker should do?

The exclamations of the fans at the scene interrupted Coutinho's thinking. He saw the blue figure rushing in the opposite direction with the ball.

And that direction is exactly where Liverpool's goal is!