Manchester City Stadium, located on the eastern outskirts of the city, has a capacity of 47,620 people.

The stadium was originally intended to be built to host the 2002 Olympic Games, but the bid for the 2002 Commonwealth Games was lost to Sydney, Australia.

After 2002, the stadium was leased to Manchester City at a fraction of the price to compensate for the demolition of the city's old home stadium, Maine Road, before the city remodeled the new stadium to become one of the most advanced stadiums in the Premier League.

After Thaksin bought Manchester City, he once proposed to expand the city stadium to make it the best home stadium in the Premier League, but then it did not work out for various reasons, and now, with the Abu Dhabi consortium taking over, Manchester City's plans to rebuild the stadium have resurfaced.

The deep-pocketed Abu Dhabi consortium has not only brought Manchester City a new stadium expansion, but also a host of stars such as Robinho, Elano, Zabaleta, Wright Phillips, Vincent Kompany and Jo......

And the head coach has also changed from the original Swede Eriksen to the British native Mark Hughes, whose coaching results at Blackburn Rovers have made him a rising local coach in the United Kingdom, and he is highly favored.

So far this season, Manchester City have played six league games, winning three and losing three.

The 4-2 defeat at Aston Villa in the first round was no surprise, with Villa Park being the home of the Premier League's famous Devils and City having just regrouped, followed by a 3-0 home win over West Ham United and a 3-0 away win at Sunderland.

Two successive wins left Mark Hughes' side in a bit of a misplaced position to try to force Chelsea at home, and in fact they did, leading for a full hour, only to be beaten 3-1 by Chelsea by three goals in a row.

Soon, though, City beat Portsmouth 6-0 at home to wash away the depression of the previous round, and the last round was a 2-1 defeat away to Wigan Athletic.

Looking at the first six games of Manchester City this season, it is not difficult to see that with the addition of Robinho and other strong reinforcements, the overall strength of Mark Hughes's team has been greatly improved, full of competitiveness, and even faintly strong team.

But in the real test of the strong dialogue, this team is not a cohesive whole.

Mark Hughes's tactical characteristics are still the same as those of his previous Blackburn Rovers, brutal and ferocious, aggressively scrambling, doing his best to suppress the opponent from the start of the game, limiting the opponent's play, and then creating an attacking threat through the individual ability of the midfielder.

I have to say that this style of play is still very effective in the Premier League, especially against teams that are not tight enough to defend and have weak ability to hold the ball, so Manchester City is the second team in the Premier League this season in terms of offensive ability after Liverpool.

But once you encounter a team that is well-defended or does not make mistakes easily, this style of play will expose very serious problems.

After the team came to Manchester to challenge Manchester City away, Benitez and the coaching staff have a comprehensive understanding of Manchester City's overall tactical play, and have repeatedly reminded the players to pay attention, especially under the opponent's fierce pressing, to try to avoid mistakes, but Manchester City's pressing is too fierce.

Against Liverpool, Manchester City were clearly pushing harder than the other teams.

……

Overall, Liverpool's defensive formation is no problem.

The key factor in conceding both goals was the player's on-the-spot mistakes, which no manager can avoid, no tactic, because people make mistakes.

The first time came in the 19th minute, Wright Phillips crossed from the right, if he won the ball in the box, Xavi Alonso decisively shoveled the ball out, but the ball was still on the right side of the box, Wright Phillips crossed again.

But this time, Arbeloa made a mistake when clearing the ball and did not clear it directly, resulting in the ball being grabbed by Manchester City player Elland and hitting the goal directly.

Arbeloa's mistake had a personal element, but it was also the pressure of Manchester City's full-court pressing, which made Liverpool uncomfortable, and it was soon followed by another mistake just before the end of the first half.

Gareth Bale fouled Wright Phillips on the edge of the box on a return attempt, giving City a well-placed free-kick up front, and Garrido calmly converted it to extend the lead.

In fact, this foul by the Welsh player was not necessary, because Liverpool had already completed the transition between attack and defense at that time, and even if Manchester City were allowed to score, it would not be an easy threat.

But sometimes, when a player is pressed by an opponent on the field, under high pressure, it is inevitable that there will be misjudgments.

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Coming back from the pitch to the dressing room from 2-0 down, Liverpool's players all looked a little depressed.

So far this season, they've had a smooth run and while they've fallen behind, it's the first time they've been led by two goals in less than half like tonight.

In the first six rounds, Liverpool only conceded two goals in total, but I didn't expect to concede two in the first half today, which made many players feel uncomfortable, and even a little panicked in their hearts.

Many people raised their heads, looked around the locker room, and sighed in their hearts.

Yang Yang is not here!

I don't know when it started, Yang Yang's role in the current Liverpool team is becoming more and more obvious, and everyone's dependence on him is also increasing, so that when the team can't open the situation, or is at a disadvantage, they will think of him.

There are thousands of people in the locker room, before this game, the team played very well, there will definitely be many people who didn't say anything on the surface, but in their hearts they secretly slandered themselves, thinking that the coaching staff and the locker room gave Yang Yang too much power.

For example, his right to fire freely, for example, he can not put pressure on his opponent and so on.

Who wouldn't want to be a player on the same team and get that privilege?

But why is it Yang Yang?

But now, they are all beginning to realize that in the past period of time, the team was able to play so smoothly, and Yang Yang's role was so great.

In this game, Liverpool is still out in four, three, three, three, goalkeeper Reina, Aurelio, Skrtel, Carragher and Arbeloa in the backline, Mascherano and Xavi Alonso in the midfield, Gerrard is in front, and Crouch and Kuyt in the front trident are all there.

It was to replace Yang Yang on the left winger with Gareth Bale.

However, it was this change that made Liverpool look very passive on the pitch, and even Gareth Bale made a mistake and gave the opponent a chance to take a direct free-kick, resulting in a second goal.

……

The Welshman hung his head and sat there silent.

At the end of the first half, Yang Yang specially walked to the sidelines to comfort him and encourage him to continue in the second half, but when he walked into the players' tunnel, he saw head coach Benitez and assistant coach Yesterdam talking to Yang Yang over there.

The two coaches have not returned to the locker room until now, and I don't know if they are telling Yang Yang anything.

Gareth Bale looked up and glanced at the locker room door, he was worried that he would see the two coaches walk in with Yang Yang pushing open the door.

It wasn't a surprise at all, because he knew exactly how bad he was in the first half.

Zabaleta played very well in La Liga, and there was a Mika Richards next to him, Gareth Bale did not expect that he would be forced to be so embarrassed in the face of these two opponents, not only failed to play effectively on the offensive end, but also made a mistake when he took the initiative to retreat to defend, resulting in the second goal conceded.

He was guilty, terrified, and uneasy.

Everyone in the dressing room knows how he is feeling at the moment, and many people are even unhappy with his performance in the first half, because Liverpool would have been in a much better position if they hadn't conceded the second goal.

So, apart from Big Brother Gerard and Carragher and others, no one stepped forward to comfort him.

……

Just as the locker room fell silent, the door to the locker room was pushed open from the outside.

Gareth Bale looked up to see Paco Jesterdam and head coach Rafael Benitez walking in one after another.

The door opened and closed, but the Welshman kept an eye on it.

Finally, it didn't open again.

This made Gareth Bell suddenly breathe a sigh of relief.

Yang Yang didn't come!

But it doesn't make sense, from the performance in the first half, and the situation when the two coaches talked to him at halftime, it was like arranging for him to be replaced at halftime, why didn't he come in?

Rafael Benitez and Jesterdam summed up the team's performance in the first half, and he was pleased with the team's overall defence, while also expressing understanding for the mistakes of the players, hoping that everyone would pick themselves up and continue to work on the second half.

The team's tactics in the second half were mainly focused on two points, one was the attack on the wings.

Rafa Benitez believes that the team's wing attack in the first half did not play with character, especially on the left side of the traditional attacking advantage.

'Wright Phillips is pressing our full-backs on this side, Zabaleta, Kompany and Maika Richards are all on this side, which does put more pressure on our attack on the left, but I believe we should play more aggressively and aggressively.

The Spanish coach also mentioned Manchester City's fitness, believing that Manchester City fought fiercely in the first half, which will inevitably lead to their fitness problems in the second half, so Liverpool should make a fuss about this.

'We should play more aggressively and aggressively, there will definitely be problems with City's fitness, and that's our chance to attack, on the left, on the right, and even in the middle.

'There's no doubt that Manchester City's overall quality in midfield is really good after bringing in a number of strong reinforcements, but their backline is still very weak, Kompany is not suitable for playing in the back, and the centre-back combination of Mika Richards and Dunn is not solid, these are our opportunities."

Subsequently, the coaching staff reassigned the tasks to everyone.

Once that's done, it's almost time to get back on the pitch.

Before leaving the door, Jesterdam walked over and encouraged Gareth Bale with a smile, hoping that he would continue to cheer.

"Yang Yang told us that he still believes in your strength and performed well in the second half."

When Gareth Bell heard this, it dawned on him.