host must win

Chapter 88

As the well-deserved overlord of British football in the old League One era, Liverpool has become sluggish after entering the Premier League era.

On the contrary, the Premier League era has completely become the performance time of Manchester United. In the past 10 Premier League seasons, Manchester United has won 7 league titles and completely dominated the Premier League. 7 caught up to 18:14.

However, Liverpool fans are dismissive of this, because they not only have a 4-time advantage in the number of championships won in the top league, but also lead 4:2 in the number of championships won in the Champions League.

In the eyes of Liverpool fans, Manchester United is an upstart, while in the eyes of Manchester United people, Liverpool is a poor family whose ancestors were once rich.

This attitude is very similar to the attitude of the citizens of Liverpool and the citizens of Manchester towards each other.

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Because the distance between the two cities is only tens of kilometers, Manchester United did not go to Liverpool in advance, but took the bus to Liverpool's Anfield Stadium on the morning of the match day.

Along the way, many fans gathered at Anfield, including Red Devils fans who went away to cheer for Manchester United, and more Liverpool fans.

When Liverpool fans saw Manchester United's bus passing by, many of them showed ferocious expressions in this direction, cursing, as if trying to scare the Manchester United players.

Of course, this is nothing to the seasoned Manchester United players.

After about an hour's drive, Manchester United's bus arrived at Anfield around 11 am.A large number of Liverpool fans have gathered here, and the Liverpool team has just entered the stadium for warm-up exercises.

Outside the Anfield Stadium, a small number of Manchester United fans were scolding Liverpool fans. Between the two sides, there were security guards waiting in full force. They carefully separated the fans from both sides.

Seeing the arrival of Manchester United's bus, the Liverpool fans who were arguing with Manchester United fans stopped their scolding, and pointed the abuse at Manchester United's bus and the Manchester United players inside the bus.

When Yin Jun and his teammates got out of the car, they were greeted verbally by Liverpool fans, but he ignored them, followed the big team, quickly entered the stadium through the player tunnel, and went to the visiting team's locker room.

The visiting team's dressing room at Anfield is very simple and looks nothing like what a rich team's stadium should look like.

In fact, the situation of most Premier League teams is similar, and the conditions are very simple, which can be regarded as an off-the-chart trick.

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After entering the locker room, everyone quickly put on their equipment and went to the court for pre-match warm-up exercises.

It's very cold in the UK in December.Especially when the weather is bad, it is even very close to 12 degrees.

Liverpool and Manchester are not far apart, and the climate is similar. This season is cold and rainy.But today, when the Double Red Festival was held, it didn't rain, let alone snow.

However, the temperature is still not high.Although the game was held at noon, the weather forecast showed that the temperature was only about 7 degrees.The temperature is low, and it is very easy to get injured if you don't warm up enough.

The two teams warmed up on half the field, and there was little communication between them, even though many of them were teammates with the national team.

Today, everyone is an opponent and an enemy!

In the late warm-up period of the two sides, fans have already started to enter the stadium one after another.

Although the Anfield stadium is not big, it can only accommodate about 54000 fans, far inferior to Old Trafford, which can accommodate 68000 fans, but the atmosphere of this stadium is not inferior to that of Old Trafford. , is also a well-known devil's home stadium in European football.

No, when the Manchester United players were still warming up, they were greeted by many home team fans who had already entered the stadium.

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After the warm-up was over, the two sides returned to the locker room, and Ferguson and the coaching staff began to arrange the tactics for the game.

For the game against Liverpool, Manchester United did not need to mobilize at all.But in today's game, Ferguson still said a lot, with only one meaning, that is, in today's game, he will not accept any other results except victory.

Although Manchester United was the overlord of the league in the Premier League era, they did not take advantage of the game against Liverpool.Especially in the last two or three seasons, the Red Devils have lost five games in a row against Liverpool in the Premier League.And their last win at Anfield was also in March 3, nearly three years ago.

Manchester United is still facing a serious injury situation.Ferdinand, Beckham, Keane, Veron, Bart and other generals are still on the injured list and cannot play.

Liverpool's situation is much better, but without Cherrou, the French midfielder was injured in the UEFA Cup game on Thursday night.However, Liverpool also hid the main players such as Carragher and Harman in the UEFA Cup game on Thursday night. The stars are staying for the Double Red Club.

This season, Liverpool has performed very well since the beginning of the season, and has been in the top two of the standings for a long time.This allowed Liverpool to see the hope of winning the league, so they mainly used their energy in the league.This also led to their poor performance in the European competition. In the first group stage of the Champions League, they were even blocked from the top [-] by the Swiss team Basel.

The final starting lineup of both sides is 442 formation. For Manchester United, Butters sits in goal, Gary Neville, Wes Brown, O'Shea and Sylvester form the defense line, and the midfield four are Solskjaer. , Scholes, Yin Jun and Giggs, and the double striker is a combination of Forlan and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

In the middle, according to Ferguson's arrangement, Scholes was left behind and Yin Jun was in front, responsible for the team's offensive organization.Solskjaer is on the right, serving as a right midfielder.

For Liverpool, the goalkeeper is the Polish national goalkeeper Dudek, Carragher, Stephen Henkoz, Hyypia and the teenager Jimmy Traore form a back four, and Smicer, Gerrard, Hamann and Murphy are in the middle. On the field, Baros and Irving formed a striker duo.

The strength of this Liverpool team is still very strong, which is why they have been at the forefront of the standings since the beginning of this season, and even led for a time.

Unlike Manchester United's four-midfield diamond-shaped position, Liverpool's four-midfielder is a parallel position. Gerrard and Harman form a double midfielder, and Czech midfielders Smitchell and Murphy are separated on the left and right.

For Liverpool, although Gerrard is in the defensive midfielder, his attack from the back is also a great scoring weapon.

(End of this chapter)