On October 28, in the tenth round of the Premier League, Liverpool faced the challenge of Huddersfield, the newly promoted team, at Anfield Stadium.
Huddersfield is a football club located in West Yorkshire, England, like Leeds United. They also have a long history.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Huddersfield won the English First Division championship for three consecutive years. They were also the first team in the history of British football to win three consecutive championships. At that time, they were hailed as the strongest team in the UK and even the world.
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However, Huddersfield declined after World War II and has been wandering in the lower leagues for decades until it was promoted to the English Championship in 2012.
This season Huddersfield was promoted to the Premier League for the first time in history through the play-offs, which was their first breakthrough in the history of the team.
Although this is a newly promoted team whose tactics and even playing style are completely unfamiliar or unfamiliar, Klopp is still confident of winning this game.
Because Huddersfield coach Wagner is his old friend for more than 20 years.
He still has some understanding of this old guy's coaching philosophy.
Although he was confident, he did not dare to take it lightly.
Because since the start of the league this season, Huddersfield has a record of 3 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses, with 12 points, ranking eighth in the Premier League standings, only 4 points behind Chelsea, which is in sluggish form this season.
This is a very impressive result.
In the ninth round of the Premier League, the biggest upset was caused by Huddersfield.
They defeated the powerful Manchester United with a score of 2-1 at home, causing a huge upset and making Manchester United and Mourinho the laughing stock of the media.
Historically, the first season of a newly promoted team is not very bad, but this team that entered the Premier League through the play-offs is very surprising.
Many media and fans believe that this is because the Premier League teams are unfamiliar with their tactics and underestimate their opponents.
But Klopp doesn't think so.
He and the coaching staff have studied this team. The bench is very thick. Although most of the players are practical and functional players, the overall strength is not weak. It is not weaker than the relegation teams in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League standings.
Especially defensively, they have only conceded 8 goals in the past nine rounds of the league, while Arsenal and Chelsea have both conceded more than 10 goals.
This shows that Huddersfield is strong defensively and has the strength to gain a foothold in the Premier League.
And Klopp has always felt that most of the newly promoted teams that can break out of the special and intensive competition in the English Championship will not be mediocre.
Because the English Championship schedule cannot be described as "devil" enough to describe its cruelty.
They defeated Manchester United again in the last round, and now is the time when morale is high, so he thinks this game should be somewhat troublesome.
The media in this game learned the lessons from the first two rounds, and no media predicted the outcome in advance.
Because most of the media in England were beaten by Crystal Palace and Huddersfield in the eighth and ninth rounds until their faces were swollen.
In the eighth round of the Premier League, they predicted that Chelsea would easily win Crystal Palace, which is currently last in the league. As a result, Chelsea was beaten 2-1. If Kante hadn't pulled a goal back in overtime, Chelsea would have been embarrassed.
As a result, in the ninth round, they predicted that Manchester United and Huddersfield would continue to be beaten in the face.
As a result of the match between Liverpool and Hudson, the media collectively gave up.
In their eyes, the traditional giants in the Premier League this season are all a bit out of their minds, and they are just a bunch of deceitful people.
Although Liverpool's form in recent rounds seems to be normal, who knows if they will continue to show signs of nervousness.
The last game against Tottenham was a typical performance of nerves. Although Liverpool won in the end, it was entirely a reflection of Mo Yang's strong personal ability. It cannot be said that Liverpool won Tottenham with its overall strength.
Considering that four days later there will be a home match against Maribor in the fourth round of the Champions League, Klopp did not start Mo Yang in this game, but planned to let him play in the second half to get a feel for it.
But once the game started, Klopp frowned.
Because he found himself being tricked by his old friend Wagner.
Huddersfield did not play the familiar 4-2-3-1 formation they are best at.
Instead, they played a 451 formation uncharacteristically. Huashen coach Wagner accumulated a large number of troops in the middle of the backcourt. It was clear that the premise was to stabilize the defense and not concede the ball, and then consider the offense.
On the field, Huddersfield's two tight defense lines in the back and midfield directly blocked Liverpool's central attack.
This forced Liverpool to put their offensive lines on both wings many times.
Once the ball reaches the wing, the two defensive formations of Huddersfield's defense and midfield immediately compress the space in front of Mane and Shaqiri.
Many times when you get the ball, you will encounter a zone defense of two or three players from the opponent.
This makes it difficult for Mane and Shaqiri to get space to break through outside the penalty area.
Even if you are lucky enough to break through, you will be surrounded by the defense and midfielders, and you will be unable to move the ball. Most of the time, you can only make a hasty pass, or else you will pass it back to reorganize the attack.
Moreover, Huddersfield pressed very hard in the area thirty meters outside the penalty area, and could get the ball from time to time to counterattack.
Fortunately, this newly promoted team is not strong offensively, otherwise Liverpool might have conceded the goal first.
Although Liverpool has the advantage in possession of the ball, facing a dense defense, there are not many opportunities to threaten Huddersfield's goal.
Therefore, the first half of the game was so boring that the Red Army fans in the stands on all sides of Anfield actually started to play the human wave game out of boredom.
After the start of the second half, Klopp made substitutions in the 55th minute of the game.
He replaced Ibrahimovic, but the effect was still not great.
After Ibrahimovic came on, although Liverpool had a fulcrum in Huddersfield's penalty area when attacking, the success rate in passing the ball was not high.
Huddersfield's several central defenders and midfielders have very strong air defense capabilities, and they often double-team Ibrahimovic.
In the 65th minute of the game, seeing that the team was unable to open up the situation, Klopp directly called Mo Yang, who had returned from warm-up, to explain the tactics.
When the Red Army fans saw Mo Yang on the field, they immediately stopped playing and started singing instead.
The loud Liverpool anthem sounded, like the clarion call for the Red Army's attack.
After Mo Yang came on the field, he actually only did one thing, which was to increase his ball-holding time in the Huddersfield half.
After attracting the attention of multiple defensive players, he then used his vision to play the ball.
This is the task assigned to him by Klopp, to use his ball-handling ability to disrupt the opponent's defensive formation and then attack the weak points.
In the 85th minute of the game, Klopp's substitutions finally paid off.
Mo Yang advanced with the ball in the middle, and after a series of passes with Lallana and the retreating Ibrahimovic, Mo Yang came to the penalty arc and directly hooked a Huddersfield center back.
Then, while Mo Yang turned his back to the penalty area, he formed a wonderful tacit understanding with Ibrahimovic who was passing by. He stepped on the ball with his heel, and the ball bounced up, and he knocked it into the Huddersfield penalty area with his heel.
, just landed at Ibrahimovic’s feet.
Ibrahimovic leaned against the Hades center back in the penalty area and forced a kick to hit the goal. The ball bounced off the goalkeeper's thigh, allowing Salah, who came on as a substitute, to make a supplementary shot, rewriting the score to 1-0.
This goal was also the only goal in the game.
This game also made countless people understand why Hardes' team is ranked so high and what they relied on to defeat Manchester United.
The answer is that Huddersfield have strong defense, physical running, tenacious willpower and integrated team spirit.