Returning to England, Liverpool sat at home on December 19 and faced the challenge of Manchester City in the English League Cup quarter-finals.
Although the two sides are now rivals in the league and this game requires direct dialogue, Manchester City still lined up to welcome Liverpool to the stadium before the game started as a sign of respect for the first seven-time champion team in the history of the five major leagues.
This won the favor of all the Reds in the Anfield stands, and the atmosphere of the game became less tense.
What's more, both sides gave up on this game and only sent substitutes and youth team players to deal with the problem. Both sides wanted to focus on the league and did not care much about the EFL Cup. It didn't matter whether they won or lost.
However, Liverpool still has the monster Willard with full physical fitness to start, so they can't lose even if they want to.
Willard can penetrate Manchester City's defense on his own.
Therefore, the score after the game was 2-0. Willard scored twice alone, helping Liverpool beat Manchester City with two goals and advance to the semi-finals of the English League Cup.
Although Klopp has always wanted to give up the English League Cup, Velarde is too ambitious and almost always carries Liverpool forward alone. After advancing to the semi-finals, it is impossible to give up again.
No matter how low the gold content is, it is still a championship honor. What if we win another four crowns this season?
Then the Red Army will become the first team in history to successfully defend the Triple Crown/Quadruple Crown.
Two days later, the draw ceremony for the top 16 of the Champions League was held at UEFA headquarters. Liverpool drew the second place in Group G, Porto from Portugal. Meeting Porto in the 1/8 finals for the second consecutive season, Liverpool was lucky.
Last season, Liverpool beat Porto 6-0 in two rounds, kept a clean sheet, and advanced to the quarterfinals. This season, Willard is stronger and is expected to win more easily.
Relatively speaking, if Porto encounters Liverpool for two consecutive seasons, even if Porto is unlucky, the probability of performing a miracle and eliminating Liverpool is almost zero.
The other 1/8 finals that have attracted more attention are Real Madrid VS Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea VS Barcelona. Everyone is waiting for the official start of the knockout rounds next year and is ready to watch these powerful dialogues.
On December 22, Liverpool, which had delayed two games due to the Club World Cup, ushered in the 19th round of the Premier League's away challenge to Arsenal.
In this game, Arsenal, playing at home, showed a certain amount of fighting power and scored twice against Liverpool's goal amid the cheers of the home Gunners fans.
Unfortunately, their own defense failed to hold on and was penetrated by Liverpool four times. Velarde scored another hat-trick. Among the only two free kick opportunities in better positions, Velarde hit both of them and scored twice from free kicks.
Willard's free kick has become a big killer for himself and Liverpool, seriously curbing the opponent's defensive performance, indirectly protecting the Red Army players from being easily injured, and the offense is also much smoother: because the opponent does not dare to foul easily .
After defeating Arsenal 4-2, the Premier League schedule is halfway through. Although Liverpool missed two rounds of the Club World Cup midway, and those two rounds were postponed to next year, it is still halfway through the schedule.
At the end of the 19th round of the Premier League, Manchester City topped the list with an astonishing unbeaten record of 18 wins, one draw and zero losses and accumulated 55 points, winning the half-time Premier League championship. Liverpool still ranks second with 48 points despite playing two fewer games, Manchester United ranks third with 42 points, and Chelsea ranks fourth with 39 points.
If Manchester City can still achieve an astonishing unbeaten score of 55 points in the first half of the season in the second half of the season, it will reach a terrifying score of 110 points.
But everyone knows that the giants fight on multiple fronts in the second half of the season, and their ability to score points in the second half of the season is generally not as good as in the first half of the season. Manchester City's main goal is to beat Liverpool to win the championship. As for whether they can break 100 points and break Liverpool's 105-point championship record set last season, it depends on luck.
Although the schedule is already halfway through, and Christmas and New Year's Day are about to begin, when other leagues are on holiday and winter break, the Premier League superstars have to continue playing and take advantage of the winter break when other leagues are suspended. , attracting fans from all over the world to pay attention to the Premier League and increase the influence of the Premier League.
Although everyone knows the benefits of doing so, none of the players who are actually playing hard on the court feels happy.
The part-time worker and the boss are always at odds.
On December 26, just after Christmas, Liverpool faced the challenge of Swansea in the 20th round of the Premier League at home.
In this game, both sides played weakly. In addition to the impact of the intensive schedule, it was naturally the impact of the holidays.
However, Liverpool's overall strength is still too strong. Even with both sides in poor condition, Liverpool finally won a big victory with the help of Willard's superb performance.
5-0.
The Red Army bloodbathed Swansea at home, and Willard scored four more goals. One of them was a wonderful overhead kick, which attracted continuous applause and screams from the Red Army fans in the stands.
Unfortunately, City continued to win without making any mistakes.
Four days later, on December 30, Liverpool continued to sit at home and faced Leicester City, their opponent in the 21st round of the Premier League.
Leicester City is currently ranked 8th, which is much better than when the two sides met in the first half of the season, but they still cannot stop Liverpool's attack.
In particular, Willard's physique, skills, and awareness are at their peak. In this game, Leicester City paid special attention to fouls and did not give Willard a chance to score with a free kick. However, the result was that Willard still penetrated him three times in sports battles. The goal was scored by Salah.
In the end, Liverpool defeated Leicester City 4-0 at home and won the last game of 2017.
Willard's total goal record in 2017 also reached an astonishing 177 goals, not even far from the 200-goal mark.
For these 177 goals, Willard spent a total of 72 games, averaging 2.46 goals per game. If Willard can reach the level of averaging hat tricks per game, then it is really not a dream to exceed the 200-goal mark in total goals in the year.
A total of 177 goals in the year, seven championships in the year, the best player and top scorer in all competitions, etc., an unprecedented explosive performance. Even though football is a more team-oriented sport, Willard booked 2018 in advance. There is basically no suspense about the Laureus World Sports Award.
If this kind of performance can't win the Lawrence Award, then I don't know what kind of performance is needed to win the Lawrence Award.
What makes Liverpool fans even more happy is that in the other two games of this round later, the Manchester City duo was also affected by the devil's schedule on Christmas and New Year's Day, and both were tied by their opponents.
Manchester City finally suffered their second draw of the season and only scored one point in this round.
The points gap between Liverpool and Manchester City has narrowed from 7 points to 5 points. If Liverpool can win all two games postponed due to the Club World Cup, then Liverpool will complete the points lead and reverse the lead by one point. Rank up and get to the top of the standings.
This made everyone in Liverpool, who was already very tired physically and mentally, suddenly refreshed and became full of expectations for the game on the first day of New Year's Day instead of full of resentment.
