Back at home, Liverpool sat at Anfield Stadium at home on September 24 and ushered in the challenge of Hull City in the sixth round of the Premier League.
Hull City is also a newly promoted team, but Liverpool lost to newly promoted Burnley 0-2 in the second round. Therefore, even if the opponent is a newly promoted team, the Red Army does not dare to be careless now, and the main force is still used in this game.
The only surprise may be the goalkeeper. Klopp allowed Karius to continue to start this Premier League game because of his performance in keeping Derby County clean in the previous game.
In fact, Klopp is overthinking. The Burnley game was an accident, and Willard was participating in the Olympics at the time and was unable to return to the club to compete. It was still an away game.
Today's game is Liverpool's home court, and Willard is also in the lineup. Of course, there is no chance of another accident happening to the Red Army.
Although Hull City sent out a defensive lineup of 451, a large number of defensive players were piled up in the midfield and backfield to defend. At Anfield, even a 0-0 draw is a victory for a newly promoted team like them.
But in fact, Hull City's defense only lasted 17 minutes before it fell.
It was Alan Willard who broke the deadlock again.
Coutinho dribbled the ball through the left wing and then cut in and made a pass. Velarde faced center back Curtis Davis's attack on the penalty area line and received, pulled, turned and shot in one go. Toying with the applause of Curtis Davis, he kicked the ball into the lower right corner of the goal with a powerful shot.
"The ball is in!"
"Easy."
"Villade received the ball and turned around to shoot, knocking Hull City's center back Curtis Davies behind him. Before he could react, Villard had already completed the shot."
"Liverpool leads 1-0 at home."
"Willard is in good form and the Red Army's overall performance is also very good. We should be able to win this game easily."
As the commentator said, the entire Liverpool team was on the line in this game. Hull City had almost no offensive opportunities. They had been passively defending in the backcourt and were bombarded indiscriminately by Liverpool around their penalty area.
In the 30th minute, Willard once again dribbled the ball into Longtan alone. He first passed the defensive midfielder Huddlestone with a swipe of the cow's tail, and then used a Marseille spin to break through the attacking central defender Livermore. Directly into the penalty area.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the full-back Elmohamadi moved in and defended in the middle. In desperation, he made a flying tackle, trying to remove the ball from Velarde's feet.
As a result, Velarde reacted before him and pushed the ball away first. Then, Elmuhamady's flying tackle knocked Willard down in the penalty area.
Willard let out a "scream" and fell "hardly" into the penalty area.
"beep……"
Referee Marriner's whistle sounded, and Elmohamadi was not only awarded a penalty kick but also directly shown a red card for a tackle foul in the penalty area.
This time, the entire Hull City team was stunned. It’s understandable that a card or a penalty kick was given, but why was he given a red card directly?
According to Marriner's explanation, if it weren't for Elmohamadi's flying tackle, Velarde would have been able to shoot. In the penalty area, Willard's shooting threat is very great.
Elmuhammadi's flying tackle actually destroyed Liverpool's scoring opportunity.
But Hull City found it difficult to accept, because they still had a goalkeeper in front of the goal, and another central defender, Curtis Davis, could also move to block the hole of the gun. How could it destroy an obvious scoring opportunity?
But no matter how Hull City pleaded for mercy, it was of no use. Referee Marriner insisted on his penalty.
Among them, there may not be the factor of the Red Army playing at home, and the referee will deliberately favor the home team.
However, this is extremely uncomfortable for the visiting team Hull City. Not only will they be awarded a penalty kick, and there is a high probability of conceding the ball, but they also have one less person to fight, which makes it even more impossible to reverse the comeback.
The penalty kick was taken by Willard himself.
There was no surprise. Velarde, whose shooting skills had reached 99, directly volleyed the ball into the lower right corner. Although goalkeeper Marshall judged the right direction, the ball was too powerful, too fast, and the angle was too tricky. He still couldn't reach it. He could only watch the ball fly past his eyes and fly into the goal against the turf.
In the 30th minute, Willard made a penalty kick and took it personally. He scored twice and helped Liverpool expand the score to 2-0.
Hull City had no choice but to remove a midfielder, replace it with a defender, and then began to fight with ten men.
With insufficient strength in itself, and one less person to fight, it will be even more difficult to resist Liverpool's attack. Not to mention counterattack, even defense is too busy.
Less than ten minutes had passed since Willard's penalty kick. In the 38th minute, Liverpool played another good team attack.
After Willard attracted a lot of Hull City's defensive attention with the ball in the middle, he passed the ball to the wing-back Wijnaldum who inserted in the back row.
Wijnaldum cut inside and passed the ball in an inverted triangle. Mane received the ball in the penalty area and shot with a powerful shot, sending the ball into the goal guarded by Marshall.
Liverpool expanded the score to 3-0, completely killing the suspense of the game.
Under normal circumstances, even if a team is three goals behind, they will still try their best to counterattack to see if they can perform a miracle.
But for Hull City, their strength is far inferior to that of Liverpool. Now it is an away game. They have also received a red card and only ten people responded.
Therefore, in the rest of the first half, Hull City did not press for a counterattack, even if Liverpool shrank its offensive formation, it was useless.
Hull City has given up attacking. They just want to lose less and prevent the loss from turning into a tragedy.
Under such circumstances, Hull City managed to hold on to the 0-3 score until the end of the first half, and did not concede any more goals in the rest of the first half.
Moreover, Hull City also made substitutions during the halftime break, replacing another midfielder with a central defender and continued to defend.
Seeing this, Klopp also began to make substitutions one after another, replacing Firmino, Henderson, Klein and others one after another to rest.
But even so, Liverpool continues to expand its lead.
In the 64th minute of the second half, Liverpool got a free kick opportunity from a good position and angle.
Willard's direct free kick crossed the wall and drew a wonderful arc in the air, flying directly into Hull City's goal.
Willard scored a hat-trick to help Liverpool expand the score to 4-0.
That's it, it's not over yet.
In the 78th minute, Liverpool attacked again with a corner kick. Center back Klavan successfully fought for the top of the penalty area and headed Coutinho's corner kick into Hull City's goal.
This was also the last goal of the game. In the end, after the referee blew the final whistle, the score was fixed at 5-0.
Although Hull City defended with all their strength, they still could not avoid the fate of a disastrous defeat. Fortunately, the newly promoted team lost to Liverpool by 5 goals, which was still acceptable and did not reach the level of seven or eight goals.
After the sixth round, Manchester City continued to win and ranked first, followed by Liverpool with 15 points, followed by Tottenham, Arsenal, Everton, Manchester United and so on.
As some media and fans expected, Manchester City and Liverpool occupy the top two, and the battle for the Premier League title this season will most likely be decided between Blue Moon and the Red Army.
