The last time the two teams went head-to-head, Liverpool and Salah used a tough performance to win over Manchester City and Haaland.
Unfortunately, Liverpool did not learn from the experience gained in that game for a long time, Salah played in the centre, but was only used by Klopp as a special solution to Manchester City.
On City's side, the strength of the beginning of the season has gradually been worn off, but compared to then, Guardiola can avoid a problem that he has not solved well this season: Haaland.
So this battle again, Klopp is bound to copy his own homework in the first half, but Guardiola can apply his own more convenient formula.
The reason why Klopp copied his homework is mainly because Salah is playing center again.
After the opening, Liverpool will show a completely different way of thinking without the ball, Salah and Hakmbo appear in the middle, sometimes left and right, sometimes one front and one back.
Other changes are that Jota plays in the left midfielder position and Elliott appears in the right-winger position:
The only difference compared to the first leg is Firmino's position and responsibilities, which were handed over to Harquepo today.
Firmino plays the front waist, the good thing is that the technique is outstanding, the movement is flexible, so the quality and strength of the connection with the front and back left and right directions will be better, and Hakebo plays the front back, he needs more space to play his physical advantage, these three assaults in the first half is his biggest role:
However, this is Manchester City's home stadium and it will take more effort to get City's yellow card.
Although there are differences in single points, in terms of overall tactics, Liverpool in this game are the same as in the first leg, giving up the ball while trying to capture the space behind Manchester City's defense:
In the 16th minute of the first half, Liverpool scored in a similar way to the first leg:
According to the plot of the first leg, Liverpool, who led the first goal, will enter a more tactically determined and comfortable track, and this game Núñez still plays from the bench, with hard cards in the backhand, it is possible to play better and better.
However, compared with the first leg, Liverpool's core area in the central midfield has changed a lot, and the central defender combination has changed from Gomez + Van Dijk to Konate + Van Dijk, especially on the back line, a big and a small Fabinho + Thiago has become a slow and stiff Fabinho + Henderson.
In the opening period, Fabinho suffered consecutive losses on Grealish's body and almost ate the card:
This is still Fabinho, and it is even more unbearable for others.
Therefore, once there is something in the core area where Liverpool's double backs and double central defenders are, it is difficult to cover each other, especially Fabinho, Henderson and Van Dijk, and it is not necessary to think about wiping the asses of teammates when they are difficult to protect themselves.
On this basis, Guardiola is not available to Haaland today, more flexible and can make better use of the space on the side of Liverpool players Alvarez to substitute, but let Manchester City have an extra help in the core area.
The key question is, when will Manchester City realise that the advantage is in the area, but the opportunity will be on both sides?
In the opening stages, Manchester City are still trying from two wings according to the original routine:
In the 13th minute, Manchester City exposed their previous problems, not using space enough. On the final pass, all attacking players were confined to a narrow range:
In the 22nd minute, Manchester City hit Liverpool's weakness for the first time, completed the lateral transfer of the ball through the players in the core area, and played a threatening attack:
Just five minutes later, Manchester City used the same routine, once again taking advantage of Liverpool's emptiness behind the back and in front of the defenders, and the ball on the left sent a cross, Alvarez equalised:
Gundogan is always undefended, and the defender is under great pressure in front:
How embarrassing Liverpool are in this area, as evidenced by Mahrez's easy exit from it in the 30th minute:
At this stage, the personnel is already like this, so in the local area, Liverpool can not solve this problem, what can be done is to implement the pressing, play an attack, form the effect of encircling Wei and saving Zhao, so as to relieve the pressure in the backfield.
However, Liverpool stepping forward is essentially exhaustive, because the efficiency of pressing up front also depends on whether Fabinho and Henderson dare to keep up with the players in the front court, and even if they dare to keep up, it will consume their physical strength, thus affecting the defensive quality of the subsequent game.
And to be honest, even in the second half of the first half, the problems between Liverpool's two lines were already very serious, and Alvarez, De Bruyne and Gundogan were already in this area:
Coming back in the second half, Liverpool, who have finally accumulated a wave of physical energy, will definitely do the same job as in the first half, so during this time, it is precisely when Liverpool's backfield is relatively empty.
It was at this time that Manchester City scored a goal to overtake the scoreline:
The whole process is similar to the first goal, Liverpool's full-back stepped forward to press and failed, resulting in the central defender needing to pull the side, in the case of Manchester City's dominance in the middle, the lateral space was immediately opened, poor Robertson was still thinking about making De Bruyne offside, but he didn't know that the mantis catches the cicada, and the yellow finch is behind:
As soon as the goal was scored, Liverpool's momentum was gone, and the only hope was to hurry up to Núñez, but by the time Klopp hesitated, problems in the core area had completely exploded.
In the 53rd minute, Alvarez and his teammates formed a continuous cooperation in the right half, Henderson, Fabinho and Van Dijk were almost dead, and finally under the combo, Liverpool conceded the third goal:
In fact, from 52:57 of the goal to 52:11 of Stones' shift to the right, Liverpool never touched the ball in the right half of the full 46 seconds.
The score became 3-1, the problems at the back were so obvious that Nunez could not recover from the game, so in the 74th minute, Manchester City scored the fourth goal and the game ended:
Throughout the game, it is said that Manchester City and Liverpool are not on the same level.
In the entire 90-minute timeline, Liverpool's high intensity can only last about 45 minutes, which is still the result of the first and second halves, once the intensity falls, the problem of maintaining the distance between the two lines of Liverpool's midfield will gradually be exposed.
That's probably what they are at this stage, and it's not a problem that Klopp can solve by copying his homework, but the performances of Fabinho, Henderson and Van Dijk should provide a more adequate stage for the Manchester City players.
So on the Manchester City side, this game did not gain much in terms of tactical arrangement, but in terms of personnel selection, Alvarez can provide a very different role on the pitch than Haaland, which should not be overlooked.
As a striker, Alvarez's impact is certainly not as good as Haaland, but Haaland can't do Alvarez's moves:
Therefore, in the sprint stage of the league and European competitions, Guardiola needs to use Haaland and Alvarez more accurately due to the snobbery, in order to hope to form a surpass on the last big issue.
Liverpool are ready for the season this season, but City still have hopes of competing for the throne.