Muzi watching the tiger fight | With the same defenders supporting the midfield, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp played differently

The same idea of supporting the midfield from the back line, the same impact center forward at the top of the front, and the same obvious defensive hole in the midfield.

In this Manchester City vs Liverpool match, both sides have too much in common.

Pep Guardiola touched the heights of the Champions League title with this idea, and Klopp brought Liverpool back to life with this idea, so it was an interesting contest but also similar in a way.

It's like the left hand hitting the right hand, and the right hand hitting the left hand, the difference is which hand is stronger.

Less than a minute into the game, Manchester City used Doku and Bernardo Silva to get into Alexander-Arnold's defence:

It shows how quickly Manchester City are in form as a home team.

In the first 10 minutes, Manchester City was extremely targeted, playing this place, playing Arnold's single defense ability, so even if the ball goes from the right side, Manchester City will try their best to send the ball to the left:

And in the 7th minute, Manchester City also broke through Liverpool's pressing line in midfield, Nunez and Szobosloy first leaked the line of Rodri and Akanji, and the latter was directly handed over to Bernardo Silva, who had already started from behind Salah and came to the side of the midfielder McAllister:

This speeds up.

This is actually the ultimate purpose of supporting the midfield from the back line, including the adduction of full-backs that are now common, and the premise of Pep Guardiola's central defenders:

Use the defender who comes to the midfield position to help the midfielder form a numerical advantage, cross the opponent's pressing line in the front, so as to form the effect of entering the two lines, so that the attack can be established.

Liverpool can do the same, but the first time they crossed City's pressing line, it was in Matip with the ball:

A minute later, this time, after a midfield scramble, he also hit Rodri's side:

And the way the opponent crosses the pressing line, they will also do each other, for example, through passing, Liverpool can also play between the two lines of Manchester City:

By dribbling the ball, City can also:

So, because these two teams used similar tactics, there are obvious similarities in their performance on the court, and against each other, the good ball you hit is my mistake, and the pressing line I crossed, that is, your pressing is not in place.

At best, there will be a difference in character, with City being more focused on possession, so you'll see that they don't easily deliver threatening passes until there's a clear space:

Liverpool, on the other hand, are more direct in this regard, focusing more on the impact of their opponents than on the ball:

In the first half, there was another big difference, but it didn't have much to do with the tactical thinking, that is, Manchester City caught Liverpool's mistake at the back:

In this ball, not only did he catch the mistake, but he also hit the defensive problem of Alexander-Arnold and the lateral movement problem of Van Dijk.

And in the face of Manchester City's mistake, Liverpool didn't catch it:

After the goal, the balance of the game began to change.

City have made some changes as a result, reclaiming their formation slightly, stretching their attacking distance and showing the speed of their players up front:

On top of that, Doku also has more room to pass and handle the last pass:

However, City were unable to extend their scores.

This is a hidden danger for the game, because although everyone has similar ideas and ideas on the tactical board, when it comes to the practical stage, or when some adjustments can be made, there will still be some differences between Guardiola and Klopp.

The difference is that in the 60-minute period, Guardiola has no idea of substitution at all. Of course, this also has to do with the fact that Guardiola did not have a big man available on the bench, but even on occasion, Guardiola played the whole game with a starting 11.

That's not the case with Jurgen Klopp. In the 50-minute zone, he was replaced by Luis Díaz and Hrafenberg, and in the 70-minute zone, he was replaced by Hakpo.

This shows the difference in what the two coaches value outside of the big picture.

Pep Guardiola is more focused on the unity of the players and will be inclined to worry that the quality of the connections formed by the starting 11 will decline due to differences in ability and form when the substitutes come on.

In a way, that's what worries him the most, even more than conceding goals and losing.

That's not the case with Jurgen Klopp. Although his team also supports the midfield area with the back line, he still pays more attention to both ends of the pitch, which is reflected in the fact that he did not bring in short defenders to improve the line, and also reflected in the fact that when he built the team, he piled up a large number of big attacking personnel in the front court, Nunez, Hakpo, Szobosloy, Hrafenberg, which was obviously due to the consideration of more value, quality and intensity of impact.

Therefore, he will pay more attention to both ends at this time of the game, supplementing the defensive end with fresh blood, and also supplementing the offensive end.

In Pep Guardiola's case, lines are the foundation of everything, while in Jurgen Klopp's line, they're just one factor in serving the impact.

It's hard to say which is right or wrong in an absolute sense between the two, because their considerations are both meaningful and come from their inner tactical thinking, but their focus is different.

But in specific competitions, there is still a difference between high and low.

In this game, although Liverpool played away from home, at least they remained behind by only one goal for a long time, which left some hope for them to bounce back at the end of the game, because as the Manchester City players are bound to get more tired as time goes on, but with some fresh blood, Liverpool will have more vitality on each single point.

In the 72nd minute, Liverpool's attack showed this:

After they crossed City's pressing line, Luis Dias retracted and Walker, who should have been restricted in front of him, was loosened, allowing Liverpool to find Mohamed Salah on the wing, and then Luis Dias went down the middle to divert some of Nunez's defensive attention and allow him to get on his feet.

In this attack, Luis Díaz's role was obviously very prominent, and that was what the substitutes could provide, so in the 80th minute, the attack that formed the goal was the same.

From front to back, it was Hrafenberg and Luis Díaz who relayed the assault to pin Rodri to this side:

After moving to the far end, the defensive task on the periphery of the defence was handed to Bernardo Silva and Alvarez, and here Hakpo took Bernardo Silva with a run, and Alexander-Arnold passed and got a step ahead of Alvarez:

The Argentine is a striker himself and there is bound to be a mistake in this part of the defence, but at the end of the day, City's goal conceded is due to the old problem at the edge of the defence.

Pep Guardiola has a very good defensive line, but defense is never something that can be solved by defenders alone, Rodri himself is a strong attacking and defensive weak type, because of physical characteristics and age, this will only become more obvious, but Guardiola obviously does not think about this from the back.

Because if the line is smooth and the ball is at his feet, Rodri doesn't have to defend and naturally won't expose the problem, but the problem is that you can't get 100% possession after all, and a strong opponent may only need half a chance to make a win in an instant.

Just like Liverpool today.

So looking back on this game, it was really a game with limited fun.

Because the two teams are too similar, the basic idea and logic are exactly the same, but in some details, because of the different characteristics of the players, some different content will be presented.

For example, the biggest weakness of Liverpool's side is the right-back area, and Manchester City is just the back area, and for example, Liverpool's defender's single defense ability is worse than Manchester City's, but Liverpool's impact ability at the overall level is slightly better than Manchester City, after all, Liverpool has more backhands on the offensive end, and Klopp has also made effective use of this.

Jurgen Klopp should have taken the away side to the source of a point in his second-half substitutions, while Pep Guardiola should lament that his side had plenty of chances in the second half but couldn't extend the scoreline.

After all, from an objective level, he really has nothing to change if he wants to.

However, at least in this game, the two teams still played their own advantageous content at different points in time because of the different emphasis of their respective coaches, and this content was not enough to completely kill the opponent and win the game.

From this point of view, the score of 1-1 is indeed fair.