Soon the next round of the league arrived.

Liverpool's opponent is Manchester City, after playing Manchester United against Manchester City, Liverpool's schedule is very interesting, and this game is also quite difficult to play, because it is an away game, and the game against Manchester United is at home.

Manchester City and Manchester United are both Manchester teams, and the two are absolute rivals.

In Manchester, Manchester City has more fans than Manchester United, and many people think that Manchester City is the team that can represent Manchester, and Manchester United is a 'world team' that does not belong to Manchester at all, so in Manchester, Manchester City is much more popular than Manchester United.

Naturally, Manchester has more media outlets that support Manchester City.

Of course, this is limited to Manchester, and there are too many media outlets supporting Manchester United in other regions, but it also shows the influence of Manchester City, the only team in the Manchester region that can compete with Manchester United.

Manchester City was founded before Manchester United was founded in 1880, although many names were used before it was officially named "Manchester City" in 1894. City won the FA Cup for the first time in 1904, but for the next 30 years they were in the thick of relegation.

In the 30s, City won a series of honours, including the FA Cup in 1934 and the league title for the first time in 1937, but incredibly, the year after winning the league title, City were relegated to the second division as the defending champions.

In 1956, Manchester City won their third FA Cup, ushering in a glorious era. They won the First Division in 1968, the FA Cup in 1969 and the European Cup Winners' Cup and League Cup in 1970.

However, from 1983 to 2002, Manchester City began to rise and fall again, and they changed divisions 10 times in those years. Year 2002. Under manager Keegan, Manchester City finally returned to the Premier League and moved from Maine Road to the new Manchester City Stadium in 2003.

Manchester City's table has been up and down over the past two seasons, with Keegan resigning late last season after struggling with relegation. New boss Pierce took over, and the famous left-back of the former England team had a pretty good run of results in the closing stages of last season, eventually establishing City eighth place in the league.

City have made impressive changes since manager Pierce took over in March, sweeping the slump of the Keegan era and sprinting through the final round of the league when Fowler's penalty was scored to qualify for the UEFA Cup, only to be missed.

This season, though. Many media believe that the departure of Wright-Phillips has a big impact on Manchester City, and Manchester City will need to work hard to reach the eighth place last season. But City have started off to a great start, with they now just one point behind West Ham United and the same finishing position last season as they finished eighth in the league.

Overall, Manchester City are a strong team in the Premier League.

Liverpool have had a better season and will be looking to battle Chelsea for the league title. Liverpool are at the top of Group 1, while Manchester City are at the bottom of the group. The difference in strength and state between the two is still not small.

However, many media outlets were optimistic about Manchester City before the game, because of the record of the two teams in recent years.

Manchester City are far from an easy team to play against.

Liverpool have yet to win a Premier League game at Manchester City's home stadium before this, and Liverpool have won just one of the last eight meetings between the two sides. It's really worth paying attention to.

There are two things to watch for Manchester City.

Their squad is relatively weak, but they have a versatile player on all fronts, the jack-of-all-trades player - Sun Jihai, which is the topic of many media before the game, Sun Jihai is a Chinese player. In many people's impressions, China will hardly produce football players, Zhang Tiehan is also Chinese, but he is a German nationality, more precisely, he is a German, just a descendant of Chinese, Sun Jihai is an authentic Chinese, he can get the main position in Manchester City, and he is favored by many media, it seems a little surprising.

Sun Jihai is the focal point for Manchester City and his versatility is seen as a favourable addition to the squad.

In addition to Sun Jihai, another player to watch is Andy Cole, whose goal rate in the new season can determine Manchester City's results from a certain point of view.

This is Manchester City.

When the Liverpool team arrived in Manchester, they realized that the aftermath of the last game against Manchester United was not over, and those Manchester City supporters held up signs and slogans to 'thank' Liverpool for their victory over Manchester United, but their words were not polite.

"Thank you for beating those 'foreigners', but you didn't beat Manchester, we are the team that can represent Manchester!"

"You're going to have a failure! Manchester City must win! ”

"We are the only ones who can represent Manchester football and we are the only ones who can beat the disgusting Liverpudlians!"

All kinds of slogans are here to show the Liverpool players, obviously these Manchester City fans are happy to see Manchester United lose, as a bitter rival in the city, they wish Manchester United lost a few more games, and finally relegated to the Champions League, of course, the latter is a bit unrealistic, but they still hope that the team can one day surpass Manchester United.

Now is the opportunity.

Manchester United lost to Liverpool, so as long as Manchester City can win against Liverpool, doesn't it prove that Manchester City is better than Manchester United?

Of course, this logic doesn't make sense in football, but the idea of the fans is so simple, they don't need to really prove anything, they just need to overwhelm the opponent's excuses, that's all, so Liverpool is naturally unpopular.

Fortunately, there is actually no contradiction between the two clubs, although the contradictions between Liverpool and Manchester United are very deep, but in the football world, it is mostly the contradiction between Manchester United and Liverpool, and the two teams of Everton and Manchester City have nothing to do with it, which is also related to the fact that the history of these two teams is not outstanding, and the fans of the two cities have not pinned their hopes on them, and the supporters of the two teams have no 'righteousness' status, and the two clubs naturally have nothing to do with each other's city teams.

Before the game, the interviews between the two teams appeared calm.

Soon the competition officially began.

Manchester City coach Pierce made some fine arrangements for the defense, which can be easily seen at the beginning of the game, especially Zhang Tiehan who was in it, he was blocked by many Manchester City players, whenever he reached the front position, there would be two players coming to defend closely, and he was a little annoyed at the beginning of the game.

The two players are Sylvain Distin and Sun Jihai.

Sylvain Distin is 1.91 meters tall and is a very strong French central defender, his strong body gives him the ability to limit Zhang Tiehan, and his rich defensive experience can also make him have a lot of impact on Zhang Tiehan.

One tall and one short, one is the front, and the other is sideways, which is also the choice made by many teams for Zhang Tiehan's defense.

This kind of defense is really effective.

Even if Sylvain Distin and Sun Jihai are actually a lot worse than Manchester United's Rio Rio Ferdinand and O'Shea's combination in terms of defense, they can still create a lot of trouble for him.

Bootspace is the biggest issue.

At the front end of the penalty area, the players are too dense to find too many gaps, and many times, Zhang Tiehan has a good ball, but he can't start at all, and being unable to start means that he can't rely on speed and explosiveness to break through the defense, which brings him a lot of restrictions.

Without the ability to break through, Zhang Tiehan can only rely on his personal ability to grab points and run positions.

But he is partnered with Cisse, he has to cooperate more with his teammates after pulling, the team's coordination of the attack is still good, he, Gerrard, Alonso three, the three cores continue to pass and receive the ball, so that Manchester City is difficult to block, it is easy to break through the opponent's defense, for Zhang Tiehan, the shortcomings of this offensive routine are also obvious, that is, many times, football will not be at his feet, because he is very tightly defended, and the final ball will generally be at the feet of Gerrard, Alonso, or directly hanging crosses, or distributed to the side to find opportunities.

That's how Liverpool's attack played.

In Liverpool's tactics now, Benitez obviously attaches more importance to the tactical role, although Zhang Tiehan has scored a lot of goals, but he is in the team, the tactical role is more important than scoring goals, he is a sharp retreat with a high striker, the ability to attract defense is very strong, and he can always play a threat in Liverpool's attack.

But it wasn't easy to turn a threat into a goal, and Cisse didn't have the goalscoring efficiency of Zhang Tiehan.

The end result is that Liverpool have had a lot of chances for a long time, but there are just no goals, which is also a headache for Benitez for the team.

This is related to Zhang Tiehan's position.

Zhang Tiehan is in front, the scoring efficiency will be improved, but Liverpool's chances will be reduced, he is behind, Liverpool's attack is very threatening, the chances will increase, but the goal efficiency cannot be guaranteed.

In short, there are pros and cons.

Benitez has been looking for new routines to get the team out of this situation and make the attack more threatening, but in this game, Zhang Tiehan partnered with Cisse, which was not a very good choice, Cisse is a standard center forward, and his cooperation with the midfielder is difficult to play.

A first half just passed.

In the second half, Benitez couldn't stand the goal efficiency of the strikers, and the result was the same as in the last game, Cisse was substituted, Morientes was on top, and Zhang Tiehan returned to the high striker position.

The pressure on City's defence has become very high. (To be continued......)