Football’s First Defender

The focus of Saturday's battle is judging from the starting lists of both sides announced by the FA in advance.

Mourinho's rotation is quite thorough.

The core of the team's offense this season, Hazard, Oscar and others, are all on the sidelines,

Even goalkeeper Petr Cech, captain Terry and others on the defensive line got a chance to rest in this game.

However, even if it is a rotation, Chelsea has sufficient personnel reserves, and most of the substitute players sent to the field are still familiar to many fans.

Especially the midfielders sent by Mourinho, although they are not the main players of this season, but Mikel, Matic, such defensive midfielders are placed on the field, and Chelsea's counterattack appearance is also the same. The tactics that best fit Mourinho's coaching style.

It's just that Mourinho is not willing to part with his main players and wastes his energy in this insignificant Premier League game. There is not a single main player on the front line, which may affect the quality of Chelsea's own counterattack.

The striker combination of Demba Ba, Salah, and Schurrle not only has to find a way to create a threat in the counterattack, but also bears a huge defensive responsibility.

Regarding Mourinho's defensive attitude, even the well-known Schurrle has no way to make conditions, let alone the little-known Salah and Demba Ba.

The entire Chelsea striker, after the start of the game, spent a lot of physical energy on the frontcourt pressing and the backcourt returning to defense.

Although Chelsea has no chance of attacking, it has to be admitted that such an all-round iron barrel formation is placed in front of Liverpool. In a short period of time, Liverpool has nothing to do.

Taking into account the possible iron barrel formation that Chelsea may have, and that Sturridge has not returned to his best form, Rogers continued to place Coutinho on the left.

Rodgers still relies heavily on Coutinho's personal attack with the ball, hoping to use Coutinho's personal ability to tear apart Chelsea's defense from point to point, and then bring a breakthrough to Liverpool's overall attack.

In the midfield, Henderson still hasn't recovered after a week, and Rodgers can only send out a midfield combination of Joe Allen, Lucas and Gerrard.

Compared with Henderson, although Joe Allen is better at scheduling passes, he lacks Henderson's running ability, and he is not as defensive as Henderson in the team's defense in the midfield.

Yang Feng and Skrtel just need to do what they usually do.

Defend the space left by the team after attacking well, and then use the height advantage when setting the ball to form a powerful supplement to the team's offensive system.

After the start of the game, Liverpool launched its own offensive play as always.

At Anfield, no team can say that they can withstand Liverpool's offense when Liverpool are doing their best defense.

There is one thing Mourinho is really right. For this league game, Mourinho does not value it so much. The entire Chelsea coaching staff focuses all their energy on the study of Atletico Madrid. For a game, Mourinho just determined the starting list, and then let the players play and perform by themselves.

Mourinho just poured a wave of chicken soup for these players who usually don't have much playing time, so that the Chelsea players ignited a strong fighting spirit, hoping to prove themselves by sending Liverpool their first defeat of the season away.

For these Chelsea fringe players who urgently need to show themselves in front of the coach and other teams, what better way to prove it than defeating the mighty Liverpool?

Chelsea's starting players in this game all have a considerable willingness to perform. Even if their personal strength and teamwork are not at the top level in the world, they have certain differences with Liverpool players and their own team's starting players. The gap may be different, but when Chelsea use the team's retracted defense to show their determination to stick to it, they can minimize this disadvantage in strength as much as possible.

The situation of the game is indeed the same. From the beginning, Liverpool has absolute possession of the ball and launched a comprehensive siege against Chelsea.

This absolute lead in possession of the ball allowed Liverpool to try to attack in the midfield and get a lot of opportunities.

However, Chelsea's solid defense in the middle made it impossible for Liverpool to play the penetrating style of play they wanted.

The ball is divided into two wings, and the attack will not be blocked too much. Chelsea's restrictions on Liverpool's kicking from the wing are not that great.

However, when Liverpool want to penetrate the ball into the middle, they will find that it is extremely difficult.

Chelsea's defensive line, with layers of fortifications, did not allow Liverpool the opportunity to pass the ball to the hinterland of the center.

Coutinho took the ball himself, and tried to pass the ball directly to Suarez. However, Chelsea did a good job of restricting the space in the middle.

Mikel and Matic's defensive coverage ability is already very good, coupled with Lampard's rich experience.

Throughout the middle, Chelsea's defensive trio did not leave any room for Liverpool to attack.

The penetrating pass to the center was all intercepted by three people. Liverpool's most commonly used Suarez retreat to catch the ball. In this field, Ivanovic, who played as a central defender, followed Suarez, and the Chelsea midfielder With his excellent defense, he couldn't play at all.

The biting incident between Suarez and Ivan last season was still one of the gimmicks of this game before the game. The referee paid more attention to the two, for fear that the two would cause trouble for him on the field.

Fortunately, Yang Feng has a good relationship with Suarez, and also has a romantic relationship with Ivanovic, so taking into account Yang Feng's face, the two are just fighting normally, and they seldom talk trash.

Who said that foreigners don't understand the ways of the world anymore, it's just that sometimes they can't be tactful to anyone, and when it's time to save face, foreigners will also know how to do it.

Suarez was severely restricted by Chelsea's defensive tactics. Under such circumstances, Liverpool's offense was driven by Chelsea's defensive pressure and came to the wing.

It's just that there is indeed room for passing the ball on the wing, which can make Liverpool's offense smoother. However, in the case of Chelsea, with a large number of defensive players in the center, Liverpool's wing kicks, but lacks enough intermediate support points.

Coutinho, Sterling, even Joe Allen, and Gerrard can insert into the penalty area at any time to act as a support point, but facing Chelsea, who are tall and burly, they can still control all landing areas Players, Liverpool's wing crosses can be passed, but it is impossible for offensive players in the midfield who do not have too strong physical confrontation ability to create shooting opportunities.

Occasionally Suarez can barely get one or two header opportunities, but it is also impossible to complete a high-quality header with enough defensive interference from the opponent.

Most of the time in the first half passed, Liverpool did not cause even a single threatening attack, the cross was not very useful, and the long-range shot from the outside, in the case of Chelsea's tight defense in the middle, did not have many chances, and it was finally shot. The long-range shots were almost all blocked by the Chelsea players, and the Liverpool players were not given a chance to threaten the goalkeeper.

In this game, Chelsea's defense was quite tenacious.