On March 13, in the 30th round of the Premier League, Liverpool faced Chelsea at home.
In continuous high-intensity battles, Sakho and Henderson were injured and had to take a truce. Liverpool's current injury list still has 7 people.
In this round, the center back was started by Kolo Toure and Lovren partnered, and Henderson was replaced by Milner in the right midfielder. The others remained unchanged.
Liverpool need to win at home against Chelsea to keep up their pursuit of Leicester City at the top of the table.
Chelsea encountered great difficulties at the beginning of the season. Mourinho had many conflicts with team doctors, players, and club executives. The Blues were once ranked last, leading to Mourinho's dismissal midway.
After Hiddink took over midway, Chelsea's performance has improved. They are currently ranked 10th and in the middle of the pack. However, there are still 9 rounds in the league including this one, and it is still possible to qualify for the European War.
In addition, Liverpool's recent schedule is tight, and they have added Sakho, Henderson and other injured players. In the next round of the game, they will challenge their arch-rival Manchester United away in the second leg of the Europa League 1/8 finals, so even if this game It was challenging Liverpool at Anfield, and Chelsea still wanted to score points and even win.
After the game started, the two sides got used to it for a while. Chelsea, who mainly played the 4231 defensive counterattack formation, and Liverpool, who played the 433 formation, started a fierce battle in the midfield.
Liverpool has indeed been affected by the intensive schedule and the injury of many players. Even if the players on the field want to work hard, they are unable to do so. Except for Willard, other players will be at a disadvantage most of the time in their confrontation with Chelsea.
In the 17th minute, when Milner was competing for a half-and-half ball with Fabregas, he was knocked away by Fabregas and the ball was snatched away by Fabregas.
You know, Fabregas is not the physically strong type, but Milner didn't win. Fortunately, when Fabregas got the ball and was pressed by Emre Can, he made a hasty pass and failed to help Chelsea form an effective offensive.
In the 22nd minute, when Hazard faced the interception of full-back Klein with the ball, he changed direction and passed the ball past Klein, and then passed down the bottom, almost posing a threat. Fortunately, Villa in the middle Germany returned to defense in time and got the ball out of the penalty area before center Bertrand Traore.
Gradually, everyone discovered that in addition to Liverpool's Willard, who is very stable and can perform well in every game, Chelsea's Hazard was also quite active in this game. I don't know if he was stimulated by Velarde, but Hazard's performance in this game was quite amazing. In terms of condition, he may be better than Velarde, thus making up for the gap between him and Velarde in attributes.
In the 27th minute, Hazard even broke through Velarde face to face with a fake move of flicking the cow's tail. If Velarde hadn't turned around in time and bumped into Hazard, causing him to lose his center of gravity and stagger, he would not be able to catch up in time. The ball was grabbed and destroyed by Kolo Toure. Maybe Hazard would be able to break through from the center.
Seeing this, Velarde, who is a free man himself, began to strengthen his marking of Hazard. Once Hazard has a tendency to take the ball, Velarde will immediately form a defense against him.
In the 32nd minute, Velarde saw Hazard running out of space and possibly receiving a pass from Fabregas to shoot, and immediately accelerated and rushed over.
Sure enough, in the next second, Fabregas passed the ball to Hazard, and Hazard did not stop the ball and chose to shoot directly outside the penalty area about 23 meters away from the goal.
This shot was powerful and heavy, and it went straight towards the goal without kicking. If it really passes through the restricted area, it might really pose a huge threat.
Fortunately, Willard reacted quickly and immediately rushed over with a flying dive to clear the ball, and blocked Hazard's shot with a header in the penalty area.
The commentators sighed one after another:
"Willard's reaction was really quick."
"Hazard didn't even stop the ball and shot directly, but Velard rushed over from the side and made a flying header to clear the ball. He pushed the ball out of the penalty area and cleared the ball."
"Hazard missed a chance to score."
"However, Hazard is in such good shape in this game. It's hard to say whether Willard can block his shot next time."
Just when everyone was surprised by Hazard's state, Liverpool scored the first goal.
In the 38th minute, Willard got the ball in the backcourt and saw Coutinho in the frontcourt in a huge gap. He made a decisive long pass and successfully sent the ball to Coutinho's feet.
Although after Coutinho unloaded the ball, Chelsea defender Cesar Azpilicueta had already blocked his way, but Sturridge, Firmino, Milner and others in the center fired multiple arrows. , coordinated cooperation, still allowed Liverpool's offense to break through the Blues' blockade. In the end, Sturridge received the ball with his back in the penalty area and made an inverted triangle. Firmino, who inserted from the side, fired without stopping the ball. , successfully kicked the ball into Chelsea's goal.
Liverpool opened the scoring and led Chelsea 1-0.
The Liverpool fans in the stands jumped to their feet, clapped happily, and cheered for Firmino's goal.
"Haha, we should score first."
"We are pretty stable during this period."
"Yeah, since Velard joined, we rarely lose, and we don't even draw many."
"Hazard was a bit fierce in this game, but with Velard watching, I don't think he can score."
"yes!"
After seeing Liverpool score the first goal, Chelsea was indeed a little anxious.
They lost too many points in the first half of the season, and they have to work hard to chase points in the second half of the season, otherwise they won't even be able to qualify for the Europa League.
Hazard also changed his strategy. Before, relying on his good form in this game, he often challenged Willard to a duel, and he succeeded once or twice.
But in the end, it failed to form a shot and threat, and many opportunities were wasted.
Now that his opponent has scored first, Hazard does not dare to waste any more opportunities. Since I am in good condition and have successfully contained Velarde, why not pass more passes to my teammates and create opportunities for them?
With this in mind, after the game restarted, Hazard began to increase the frequency of his passing organization. Especially after taking the ball and attracting Willard's defense, and then passing the ball out, his teammates don't have to face Willard's defense to see if this can lead to a shot.
However, it turns out that other Chelsea teammates are not in as good a condition as Hazard, and even if they get good opportunities, they cannot seize them.
Before the end of the first half, in the 44th minute, Hazard took the ball and broke through Milner's interception, and indeed attracted Willard's supplementary defense. Then, without waiting for Velarde to get close, Hazard passed the ball to Cesc Fabregas in the middle.
Fabregas dribbled two more steps, attracted the defense of Emre Can and Lovren, and passed the ball diagonally to William who was in the gap in the right corner of the penalty area.
William received a pass from Cesc Fabregas, stopped and evaded center back Kolo Toure's attack, and hit the goal with his kick.
The ball was hit with considerable force and looked a bit threatening, but in the end it missed the post and hit the side netting.
Chelsea missed the chance to equalize the score, and the two sides entered the halftime break with a score of 1-0. Liverpool, who played at home, temporarily took the lead with Firmino's goal in the 38th minute.
